Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Magic in my wake, now you must break.
“Dammit!” I opened my eyes again, smoke rising from my hands as they trembled and bleed.
“How is that force working out for you?” Arsiein asked, the corner of his lip turning up.
“Are you laughing at me?” I snapped at him.
“You have to admit it is a little funny seeing you try to fight yourself and lose,” Atarah replied. “What is the score now?”
“Spellbound seventy-eight. Druella zero,” Arsiein answered.
“You both are not helpful!”
They shrugged.
“We are…” Arsien’s voice trailed off as his gaze went to the woman in the bed. We all heard it, the change in her heartbeat.
I turned from them to her, taking a seat on the bed as her eyes shifted under her eyelids. A few seconds later, they opened slowly.
“Ah, so loud.” She groaned at her wounds and looked around the room.
“Adelaide?”
When I called her name, she sat up quickly, her eyes wide, the faint scent of fear coming off her as she backed up against the headboard of the bed, touching her neck and quickly checking for a pulse.
“Relax, witch. You are still a witch,” Arsiein said, his voice much colder as he spoke to her now.
She glanced at him and Atarah, taking deep breaths and holding the sheets tightly before her eyes fell back onto me. “Shadow, are you here?”
Appearing out of thin air, the cat was in her lap. Adelaide deeply exhaled as she petted the cat on the head, holding it to her chest. I glanced to Arsiein and Atarah, and while they were calm, I could tell they couldn’t see it, either.
“What happened to me?” she finally managed to speak to me.
“You collapsed from your injuries,” I told her. “After you tried to attack me.”
She frowned. “I was trying to get my magic.”
“Really? It felt like you were trying to burn me with whatever poison is on you.”
“It’s a protection spell,” she replied, peeking carefully at Arsiein and Atarah again. “You can never be too careful with vampires.”
“Yet you came to us,” Atarah reminded her.
“I came for Druella,” she replied, petting her cat more now. “I remember before I fainted, you said you weren’t running. So why haven’t you undone the spell.”
“Maybe because I don’t know how, and you fainted before you could tell me.”
“Why would I know how to undo your spell? If I knew how to do that, I wouldn’t be here or need you,” she snapped at me.
“Well, that sucks for both of us, then, because I don’t know shit about magic or spell casting or spell breaking.”
She stared at me as if I were crazy. “I felt magic, deep and strong, being done here. Someone opened the door of the dead here.”
One of the Wiccans of the Vyara had said that same thing. “What does that mean? Open the door to the dead?”
“How do you not know this?” She tilted her head and looked me over. “Wasn’t it you who did it?”
“Witch, she was not—”
“My name is Adelaide,” she snapped at Arsiein. “Adelaide Proctor.”
I paused. I’d read of that name. I could remember the drawing it had been under in one of my textbooks. “Proctor as in John Proctor of the Salem witch trials? Are you related to them?”
“You connected that fast for someone who is pretending not to know about magic or witches.” She rubbed the neck of her cat, and it purred in her arms.
“I remember stuff when it is connected to art,” I said back in the same tone she had. “And I am not pretending. I truly know almost nothing about magic or witches.”
“But you are doing high-level magic?” she scoffed as she shook her head. “I don’t believe you. It’s impossible. Why did you open the door of the dead then? Did you call for someone?”
“No, it was a cursed ghost in a painting—”
“To put a cursed ghost to rest requires knowledge of the higher magics. Cursed ghosts are temperamental and often confused as well as enraged. They will fight you with dark magic, so you must counter it with dark magic, then use white magic to calm their spirit, balancing both the dark and light to open the door. All of that is higher magic. Something a coven or strong circle must do together with a series of spells.”
“Dark magic, white magic, higher magic. Purple magic. I don’t know what that means! It’s gibberish to me. All I did was scream and fight with her until she listened to me. After that, I said whatever came to mind, and she was gone.” I shrugged, remembering the wounded spirit that was Elisa-Maria Götze’s ghost.
“You’re not making any sense!” Adelaide huffed, dropping her cat, which disappeared, and crossing her arms angrily. “That is not possible. You can’t just make up spells like that.”
“I don’t care if you think it’s not possible. That’s how it happened,” I snapped back angrily. “And sorry to break it to you, but that’s all I’ve been doing, making shit up as I go.”