Single Witch's Survival Guide (The Jane Madison Academy Series) Read online

  She blushed the shade of an English rose. “Rick,” she said. “Rick Hanson.”

  “You two seemed to get along well.”

  She settled herself very primly on the edge of her chair. “I’m not the type to kiss and tell.”

  Despite myself, I laughed. “Fine,” I said. “Caleb was okay with him?”

  “Caleb was fine.”

  So Emma was safe. Parkersville’s fastest-moving fireman wasn’t a threat.

  And that knowledge was going to have to be enough on this off-kilter Friday. It wasn’t enough, of course. I still didn’t know where David was. I couldn’t begin to explain whatever relationship had been forged between Neko and Tony. I was no closer to figuring out the magicarium’s Major Working, to restoring my original concept for the Academy’s classes, to righting all the wrongs of the past couple of weeks.

  But I had to move forward. And a good first step would be clearing the piles of dishes around us. “Ugh. These aren’t going to wash themselves, are they?”

  As I pushed myself to my feet, I experienced a wicked flash of déjà vu. I had stood in front of this sink before. I had stared at these dishes. And I had used magic to clean everything up.

  I shook my head. That wasn’t déjà vu. It was memory. Three years ago, when I first realized I had witchy powers, I’d tried to use my magic to dispose of an entire sink full of dishes. Alas, most of the water had ended up on me, and I still had to do the dishes by hand. But I’d learned a lot since then. I gestured toward the sink and asked, “Want to try something new?”

  Emma’s eyes gleamed. “What do you have in mind?”

  I waved her over to stand beside me. “Pick your poison—water or plates?”

  She shrugged. “Water.”

  “Let’s try this.” We caught each other’s gaze. I brushed my fingertips against my forehead, my throat, and my heart, then watched as she completed her own offering. She matched the first deep breath I took. Another. A third.

  I reached out to sense her power. It was there, just as it had been when we’d tried to work with Raven, that first day. Her energy was deep and mysterious, and when I closed my eyes, I could sense molten silver, drawing me closer, luring me deeper.

  No. “Lure” implied that evil was involved, that Emma was somehow preying on me. This sensation was the opposite of prey. She was offering herself, opening her powers to mine.

  In a heartbeat, I understood what Clara must have seen in this witch, out in Sedona. Emma was a natural for a community like the one I wanted to build. Her powers were expansive, reaching out for others. Her energy glowed like a candle flame, as if her entire magical being was a wick that took in arcane oxygen and gave off brilliant supernatural light.

  Laughing, I spun out a few tendrils of my own. My energy manifested as golden glints, amber ribbons that dipped into the pool of Emma’s silvery potential. The resulting arcane swell made me take a step back in surprise. Suddenly, impossibly, our joint magic defied the laws of earthly science. Our combined force was greater than its component parts.

  Emma must have felt it, too, because she laughed and peeled back another layer of protection. I could access more of her strength, dive deeper into her reserve. I tossed in more streamers of my own energy and was rewarded with a rolling, rotating wall of force.

  It was all well and good to discover a sympathetic energy. The true test, though, was whether we could apply it in a constructive manner.

  Slowly, waiting for Emma to match my physical motions, I turned back to the sink. I watched her gather the physical water, train it with a dollop of the power we shared. Almost immediately, steam curled from the surface, clean and inviting. Emma nudged the soap dispenser with a thought, and the hot water filled with a mountain of tiny bubbles. Within my heightened senses, they tickled like champagne, and I fought to keep from giggling.

  My turn was next. I mentally lifted a mustard-smeared knife and dragged it through the sink. The gold of my power intersected with the silver of Emma’s; the utensil glowed like electrum. Together, we thought away the mustard. We banished a clinging crumb of bread along the edge of the blade, and then Emma added a flourish to erase a palimpsest of fingerprints. The knife emerged from the water bone-dry, sparkling as if it had just been forged. I flicked a thought toward the appropriate drawer, and it returned home amid a sparkle of gold and silver energy.

  We lost no time tackling the rest of the mess—silverware, plates, even the bacon-slick frying pan. When my powers were combined with Emma’s, I didn’t need to worry about the size of an item, about its weight. Washing the dishes took so little of our combined energy that nothing was a challenge. Best of all, every feat we completed together recharged the well of our mutual strength, and we ended up with more force than when we began.

  As the last bowl found its way to the cupboard, I flicked a thought toward Emma, a flash of gratitude combined with a smile of victory. Slowly, reluctantly, I pulled my magical awareness back into myself.

  I shivered as I separated from my fellow witch, a shudder that worked its way from the base of my skull to my toes. For one long moment, my lungs were frozen, and my entire body felt as if it were buried in a snowbank. Then a comforting rush of heat chased away the cold, and I closed my eyes to take the deepest breath I could manage. Only then did I became aware of the sound of clapping.

  When I looked up, Caleb stood in the kitchen doorway, bringing his massive hands together. Kopek and Neko were behind him, craning their necks for a better view of the kitchen.

  Emma took a moment longer to recover from our separation. She staggered back a few steps, until she leaned against the counter. I started to reach for her, but Caleb and Kopek were there before I could do anything. The warder took his witch’s arm despite her protestation that she was fine. Kopek leaned in close to her side, obviously pouring magical strength into her.

  At least, that’s what Neko would have done for me, if I had needed his assistance. To the contrary, my working with Emma had left me completely invigorated. My only concern was that I had somehow harmed my student. “Are you all right?” I sounded like I was shouting in the silent kitchen.

  “I’m grand,” Emma said, smiling tightly.

  I knew that smile. I’d offered it dozens of times, when I’d pressed myself beyond the comfortable limits of my strength. Emma was putting on a brave front, but she would pay for our working. Fatigue was the price of learning new magic.

  But she would grow as a witch. That was why she’d come to my magicarium, after all. All in all, it was a fair trade-off.

  Neko piped up from the doorway. “If I’d known someone else would do the dishes, I would have left more on the counter.”

  “You created more than enough mess last night.” I said. Neko inclined his head, gracefully accepting my accusation. Right on schedule, Emma swayed on her feet. “Caleb?” I said. “Could you help Emma upstairs?”

  “I’m perfectly fit,” she insisted. But her hands were shaking as she tried to push her warder away.

  He accepted her objection with the same equanimity David would have shown, half-guiding and half-carrying her up the stairs. Kopek followed silently, his flat face shadowed with worry.

  Neko slouched against the doorframe. “You know, these things would be a lot easier if you witches let your familiars help you with spells.”

  “I wasn’t quite sure where I could find my familiar today.”

  He looked abashed for about a heartbeat before he started to examine his fingernails as if they held all the secrets of the universe.

  “You can do whatever you want in your personal life, Neko. But I can’t have you upsetting the magicarium.”

  “Nothing’s upset,” he said to his hands.

  “Where’s Tony?”

  A quick grin before he met my eyes. “Asleep. In my apartment.”

  I sighed. Neko could do whatever he wanted in his personal life. And Tony, too. But I couldn’t deny that things would be a lot simpler if neither of them wanted to
do anything with the other. “How did you know?” I asked, honestly wondering.

  “That Tony wouldn’t be able to resist my animal magnetism and grace?” Oh my, Neko was pleased with himself this morning. I didn’t bother answering. He shrugged and said with perfect seriousness, “High-frequency brain waves that are only visible on the gay spectrum.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is his hand okay?”

  “Just bruised. I made him keep it on ice.”

  “Has he spoken to Raven?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Have you talked to Jacques?”

  That finally broke his composure. He glanced out the window. At the refrigerator. At the stairs that led to the basement.

  “Neko?”

  “Jacques never understood us.” At my questioning glance, he clarified, “Witches. Familiars. The whole astral world. I explained it to him, over and over. He saw you work a thousand spells. He understood that your powers are real, that magic does exist. But he couldn’t accept that I had a role in it. That I had a commitment.”

  Those were a few dozen words more than I’d ever heard Neko use to describe a relationship. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It was time.” He sighed. “I just didn’t mean for it to happen that way.”

  I winced. “We usually don’t mean for things to ‘happen that way.’”

  And just like that, we were through talking about Tony and Jacques. “Jane,” Neko said in a voice so low I almost missed it. “Fix this.”

  I had no doubt he was talking about David. “Nothing’s broken!”

  He didn’t bother contradicting me. “The magicarium needs you and your warder on the same page.”

  “I know that!” I snapped. And then I realized a better answer was, “We are!” My lie was only partially weakened by my needing to ask, “Where is he?”

  Neko consulted whatever interior map was scrawled across his familiar’s mind. “In the barn.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine,” Neko agreed.

  I pushed past him and headed toward the back door. Then, I had a brainstorm and slapped my hand against my side, summoning Spot to come with me. The dog might be a necessary distraction in what promised to be a challenging conversation.

  I took my time walking the scant mile to the barn. I replayed every word David and I had exchanged the night before, trying to figure out when everything had leaped to DEFCON 1.

  I’d asked him for the truth three separate times before issuing my command. We were both more stubborn than toddlers; I’d had no reasonable expectation that he’d ever voluntarily tell me the truth.

  In fact, I wondered if I knew it, even now. My mind kept going back to the documents I’d seen in David’s office, the day I’d come back from brunch with Gran and Clara. He’d said they were copies. But the Court guarded all its materials jealously. They didn’t keep copies floating around. And I’d seen the grommets and ribbons—those had to be originals.

  I could understand what David was doing, even if I couldn’t condone it. If he could find proof of Pitt’s indiscretions in those smuggled documents, David could have the Head Clerk removed from office. His earlier crime, creating false documents, would become moot, laundered clean by Pitt’s proven multiple wrongdoings.

  Still, he should have told me. As his witch, I needed to be kept in the loop. As his girlfriend, I wanted to be his ally.

  But in the interest of moving forward, I could apologize for commanding David to speak. He could apologize for keeping secrets. We’d both admit we’d over-reacted, and then we’d get back to the serious business of running the Academy.

  By that point in my rumination, Spot and I were approaching the barn. It looked like a drawing out of a child’s picture book—red boards, peaked roof, a hayloft that opened above the main doors. Now, those sturdy double doors swung open, and David stepped outside, raising one hand to shield his eyes against the afternoon glare. He wore blue jeans and a plain white T-shirt. With a pencil shoved behind one ear, he looked like a carpenter, stopping to take a mid-day break.

  Spot took off like a racehorse, his body lean and low to the ground, his tail straight out behind. He pulled up just in time to shove his nose into David’s loose fist, searching for a treat. David fondled the Lab’s ears and patted his side with a cupped hand. Spot was in ecstasy.

  When I finally caught up, I could see a spray of fine wood shavings fanned across David’s chest. Sawdust was smeared on his right cheekbone, and I started to reach out to brush it away, but I stopped myself just in time. I opened and closed my fingers, as if I were working out a cramp, and I forced myself to meet his eyes as I stated the obvious. “You didn’t come home last night.”

  “I slept down here.”

  “You belong in your own house. In your own bed.”

  “I’m a warder. Warders sleep in the barn.”

  Not all warders. Tony didn’t sleep in the barn last night. But Tony was a distraction, a tangent I desperately wanted to follow so I didn’t have to continue this difficult conversation. I made myself push ahead. “It’s not that simple, and you know it.”

  “From where I’m standing, it’s very simple. You commanded me, witch to warder. I told you what I did to Pitt, and what I plan on doing. What else do you want from me, Jane?

  “I want you to treat me like your partner! I want you to trust me!”

  He frowned, as if he were having trouble diagramming my sentence structure. “Partners don’t issue unilateral orders.”

  “And I’m sorry I did that. I’m sorry I blamed the Major Working on you. I’m sorry we ever went to Parkersville for the Fourth of July, that we ever had the entire stupid, screwed up conversation!”

  He waited politely before he asked, “Anything else?”

  “Anything—? Aren’t you going to respond to what I just said?”

  “I don’t have any possible response. I’m your warder until the day you release me from service. As my witch, you have an absolute right to command me. Without apology or regret.”

  No. I did regret. I’d figured this whole thing out on my walk to the barn: I apologized, he forgave, and we moved forward together. But he wasn’t reading the same script.

  My perfect solution had overlooked one massive problem: David Montrose was the proudest man I’d ever met. Sure, he was couching all of this in terms of our astral relationship: Witches, warders, who was allowed to do what. But the fact was, I’d battered his pride by issuing my command. And that wasn’t all. I’d cut him to the quick when I said my magicarium was suffering because of him.

  He lived for the Madison Academy. He lived for me. And because of that, I had nothing else I could say.

  “That’s it, then?” I asked. “We’re through?”

  At least he didn’t pretend to misunderstand me. He offered a half shrug. “We could call it a break.”

  “I don’t want to call it a break! I don’t want it to be a break.”

  He ignored my second sentence. “Then let’s not call it anything. Let’s focus on the magicarium for now. We’ll see where we stand after Samhain.”

  On one level, his proposal made perfect sense. My hands were full with the Academy—between Emma and Tony and Neko, there were more than enough complications. If David and I stripped our relationship to its simplest confines, the magicarium could only be better off.

  But I didn’t want simplicity. I wanted the give and take, the confusing tangle that was my full life with David.

  Which was all well and good, but he had to want it, too. And right now, smarting from my accusation and my witchy ultimatum, he didn’t. And there wasn’t a thing I could do to change that.

  I swallowed hard. “Do you need help moving your things out here?”

  “The guys’ll do it.”

  And that was all. I didn’t have any other questions. I couldn’t make any more apologies. I couldn’t change what had happened. So I called Spot to my side and began the long walk back to the farmhouse.

  CHAPTER 9<
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  OF COURSE, DAVID proved as good as his word. He moved out of our bedroom without my assistance, relying on Caleb and Tony to do the literal heavy lifting. I made a point of being out of the house while they worked, taking a walk under the leaden summer sky. While I told myself a stroll through the woods would help me focus on what was important, it only succeeded in making me see how dusty and dry everything had become.

  My long, unhappy ramblings gave me a chance to realize one important thing. The entire magicarium needed to buckle down if we were going to complete our Major Working by Samhain. No more trips into town for unnecessary diversions. No more ice cream socials. Nothing but work.

  I divided each day into morning and afternoon sessions, and come Monday, my students and I dug in with a vengeance. We alternated wildly between herbs and crystals, between casting spells and focusing on magical wards. I took inspiration from everything around us—a clump of wild blackberries required a full day to dissect their arcane significance. A glint of pink quartz on the path near the garage functioned as an entire encyclopedia on crystals. Every session demanded our utmost concentration, and I refused to accept any type of distraction as an excuse.

  My classes were like the Rota on steroids—all the single-minded concentration, and four times the subject matter.

  As a consequence, everyone started blowing off a lot of steam in their free time—what little of that there was. Raven announced that she was undertaking a seven-day cleanse. She swore off all meat, gluten, dairy, and sugar, along with anything that contained unpronounceable chemical compounds. She fully expected all of us to join her, and when we didn’t, she invested a lot of time and energy explaining how we were poisoning ourselves. When she wasn’t policing our food, she worked at her impromptu video editing studio in the living room, fiddling with film clips she’d created around the farm and in Parkersville. Hani waited on her, fetching her bowls of farro and toasted kale chips, offering advice on cinematic masterpieces.