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

  The bribes had been sealed with magical agreements. Teresa and Pitt had each bound the other to perfect silence by way of arcane oaths, sworn over copper rings. Those copper rings had then been literally pressed into service as grommets, binding the Charters of each institution.

  David stepped away as soon as I had the image of the complete transactions. He whirled back to the map, no longer restraining his eagerness. He plucked a contract from a pin in Minneapolis. After hovering over the wall for a moment, his fingers twitched, landing on papers in Dallas. He used his arcane senses to double-check the connection, then stacked the documents on his desk before diving back into the mess.

  I watched as he collected the materials. Now that he knew what he was looking for, the process was finally easy. Some of the threads he followed were invisible to me; others were clearly stretched string between pins on the map. In the end, there were dozens of stacks on the desk, neat groupings of contracts and receipts. Grommets and ribbons glinted through the piles, mute testimony to the crimes that bound them.

  “There,” he said as he collected the last pair. The word seemed too loud in the office, too strong after so long a stretch of silence.

  “What do you do now?”

  He sighed. “Pitt intercepted my documents about his expense account.” The papers that David had forged. The lies that he had created years ago to catch the Clerk. “And he’s far stronger now. We need to get the proof directly to the Court. But that’s the entire reason they built the Clerk’s office, to avoid direct contact with warders and witches.”

  “Not all direct contact,” I said. “They’ll attend my Major Working.”

  “So will Pitt. We can’t just walk in with stolen documents and say, ‘Your Head Clerk is a liar.’ He has millions of dollars at stake here. An entire career. And insurance against me, in any case.” Those lies, again. The false documents David had created out of desperation.

  I stared at the papers. Teresa Alison Sidney’s photograph peeked out from the bottom of the closest stack.

  When I’d joined the Washington Coven, I had hoped to find a magical home that would last me a lifetime. I’d brought a gift the first time I met the Coven Mother, a magical volume I’d bound with a prize citron from my collection. The present had been keyed for Teresa Alison Sidney alone; I had fashioned it so only she could open my offering.

  “The Illustrated History of Witches,” I said.

  David understood immediately. After all, he was the one who had told me I was expected to reach out to the Coven Mother that way. “You can bind the documents in an offering.”

  “I’ll seal it for the Court alone. Pitt said there would be eight Watchers for the Working.”

  “We can’t do it there. These accusations will derail everything. You won’t be able to complete the Working by Mabon.”

  “Accusations or no, my students and I will complete the ritual.” I smiled ruefully. “If the Watchers choose not to observe, we can always file an appeal.”

  I could tell he wanted to forbid me. He wanted to protect the magicarium. But more than that, he wanted to make the rest of this right, to remove Pitt’s threat forever. I pushed a little harder. “I’ll require eight strands of magic to open the offering. We can place everything in the Allen Cask.”

  “You can’t!” The alabaster Allen Cask was an ancient treasure, one of the most valuable artifacts in the Osgood collection.

  “The Court has to be intrigued enough to open the gift then and there. They can’t give Pitt a chance to escape.”

  David frowned, even as he nodded. “The Cask will certainly do that.”

  “Get it for me. Let’s bind it now.”

  He scarcely hesitated before striding out the office door. Spot whined until David returned, his arms stiff with the weight of Cask. Its stone sides were a creamy white, translucent beneath the overhead lights. The hinges were fashioned of gilded iron. The box was deceptively simple—six planes of unadorned alabaster.

  The power of the Cask came from the magical treasures it had held through the centuries. Witches from Asia, from Europe, from the colonies of the United States before they were free—each had passed the box from generation to generation. Every time a precious wand was stored in the container, or a book of great power, or a necklace of strength, a little of its energy seeped into the stone.

  “Go ahead,” I said to David. “Write up your explanation while I prepare the papers.”

  He wasted no time, collecting parchment from his desk. As this was the most formal of correspondence with the Court, he used a quill pen, dipping it in the crimson ink that marked a warder’s priority communications. His hand flew from inkwell to scroll, and he formed his letters clearly, steadily, without a single hesitation.

  As he wrote, I layered our findings in the box. Now that I understood what we had found, I felt the power in each clutch of documents. It shimmered from the grommets. It rippled through ribbons. It was echoed in metallic ink, special blends that Pitt had used to bind his earliest victims.

  David finished his writing just as I completed filling the box. He read over the document carefully, then sanded it to dry the last of the ink. He placed it on top of the evidence, and we closed the Cask together.

  I worked my own magic then, gathering together strands of energy and weaving them into an intricate cloth. I complemented the magic of the Allen Cask, tailoring my creation to the specific container. I anchored the arcane fabric with double bonds of earth and air, fire and water. I tinted those eight strands with lessons from the heart of my magicarium, illustrating them with wild swirls that echoed the wild beauty of communal magic. The Court would have no doubt the Cask and its contents came from me.

  David’s warder magic surged against my own as I lowered my arms and stepped back from the Cask, an arcane brush of approval and gratitude and pride. “It’s perfect,” he said.

  I studied him seriously. “Are you sure you want to do this? Pitt will fight back. He’ll have to. He’ll release the documents he’s held over you for all these years.”

  “Let him. This has gone on long enough.”

  This. The lies. The fear of discovery. The rancid secret I’d pried out of David on Independence Day.

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “No matter what happens.”

  “I know that.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve always known that.”

  And then his arms were around me. His mouth was hot on mine as his fingers tangled in my hair. There was a desperation in his touch, a plea, an apology.

  He’d held back these weeks, these months because he wanted to protect me. He’d focused on his warder’s duties so the Madison Academy would prevail. But the Academy was stronger than he’d thought. I was stronger. I’d faced my fears. Faced his madness.

  Together, we’d figured out the secret of the documents that had haunted him for so long. The Allen Cask proved we could be witch and warder, man and woman. Partners in every sense of the word.

  I laughed against the pulse point in his throat and fought to pull the shirttails from his slacks. The pearl buttons slipped under my fingers, and it took me three tries to work the top one. David leaned away from me then, laughing at my groan of frustration, but he only used the motion to pull the shirt over his head.

  Spot suddenly wanted in on the game. The dog wagged his tail and crouched in a classic “play” position, snatching at one of David’s sleeves. When he pinned the cotton between his teeth, David cursed and yielded the shirt. He took a precious moment to edge the victorious beast out of the office.

  As the door clicked shut, I was already paying serious attention to the buttons at his waist. There were times when a little magic went a long, long way.

  * * *

  David and I spent the rest of the weekend reclaiming our home. We ate meals at the small table in the kitchen. We sat at opposite ends of the living room couch and read. We found classic movies on the television and watched them, back to back to back. And we spent an inordinate number of ho
urs in bed.

  It was heaven to have the house to ourselves.

  And yet, I kept thinking of the others. Neko would have had a field day, snarking at my domestic bliss. I wondered if he was sleeping in the greenhouse with the familiars, or if he and Tony were bunking together in the barn. For all I knew, the guys could have gone away for the weekend. I could have checked, could have pulled on the astral thread that bound me to my familiar, but I had no cause. Neko deserved some time on his own.

  As David and I watched The 39 Steps, I wondered if Raven had ever filmed in black and white. David read to me from an entertaining New York Times article about the cost of supporting the British monarchy, and I imagined Emma’s spirited defense of the queen. The television announced a conflict between recording two of Caleb’s baseball games, and I deleted both, hoping he was catching them out in the barn. I tiptoed as I crossed the kitchen floor, until I remembered Kopek wasn’t trying to sleep in the basement.

  Over and over again, I made the little adjustments that had become second nature in the crowded house, fully aware of them now because of the contrasting peace and quiet.

  And by Monday morning, it was time to face the outside world. I had to push the Jane Madison Academy the last few steps toward its Major Working. And David was heading to Sedona. Again.

  “I’ve tried to talk to Clara,” I said as he finished knotting his tie. “The last time, she launched into a fifteen-minute discussion of how I needed to get in touch with my inner Aquarius.”

  He kissed away my pout. “Try again,” he said. “Or just accept that she’s not going to tell you what she’s working on. I’ll be back by Wednesday.”

  I might have resented his absence, if I hadn’t had so much work to complete. Everyone was waiting for me on the porch. It was eight o’clock, sharp.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  And it was a good morning. Everyone looked rested, if a little curious. We could take some time, talk about everything—my note on the refrigerator, how we’d regrouped over the weekend, whether we’d learned anything from living in such close proximity.

  But we had more important things to do.

  I looked from person to person as I said, “We’re going to take the next five days to practice our Mabon ritual. We’ll go from start to finish, combining all the individual parts we’ve practiced. Every time we get off track, we’ll do our best to make a correction, but we won’t stop. We’ll fight for a new balance and do our best, just as if we were in the middle of the real test.”

  I waited for questions, for complaints, but there were none. I asked Tony to ward us, and we began our Major Working.

  We practiced for five days. We worked and reworked the ritual until it was a ballet we could dance in our sleep. Each of use knew our roles; we all understood our parts.

  Alas, no matter how hard we tried, we never had enough power to complete the entire working. Sometimes, we only got to Protecting the Innocent. Usually, we Prepared the Earth. One day, late in the week, when the air was particularly oppressive and we were exhausted by our earlier attempts, we barely managed to summon the elementals.

  I’d tried everything I could think of to bolster our energy. I parceled it out stingily, skimping on the foundation of the working, only to have everything crash around our magical ears at the end. I poured energy into calling the quarters and lighting the candles, in fruitless hope that those building blocks would stabilize the final steps of our working.

  Perhaps I truly expected the impossible—no magicarium, anywhere, in the entire history of witchcraft could have accomplished what I desired. Not with so few students. Not with so little time to build true rapport. Not with communal magic, instead of the Rota.

  In the end, I was left with just one hope: Mabon itself was a gateway, a passage from summer to autumn. There was power in that transition. Maybe, just possibly, there was enough magical energy in the sabbat itself to boost us through the ritual we’d never mastered in our practice.

  Because if we failed? I wasn’t sure what would happen next. I couldn’t say what would become of Emma and Rick, if their romance would survive her departure from a disbanded Madison Academy. I assumed Raven and Emma would return to Sedona, that they’d try to nurse their powers in the shadow of the coven that had already rejected them. Perhaps they’d lose their bonds to their familiars. Their warders could even be recalled by the Court.

  The Allen Cask sat ready in the basement. The Osgood collection rested in the balance. And there was nothing more I could do to preserve the Madison Academy.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE ARCANE WORLD might be marking the occurrence of Mabon, but the natural world made no concession to the autumn sabbat. Sunday dawned hazy, hot, and humid, like every day for the preceding four months. The air conditioner wheezed like a two-pack-a-day smoker.

  Mindful of our working that evening, David and I both avoided the spotless kitchen. Instead, I carried a pitcher of cool water up to the bedroom, pouring myself glass after lemon-steeped glass as I reviewed our working for the night. David kept to himself, giving me the psychic and physical space I needed.

  I knew this ritual. I could recite its stages in my sleep. I could close my eyes and picture my students going through their paces, and I could feel the energy we would raise. The imagined scent of beeswax tickled my nose as I saw us lighting our column candles, and my toes twitched at the thought of walking on moist sand, scoping out the sacred circle of our working.

  Nevertheless, a sponge of uncertainty filled inside my chest. What if we couldn’t complete the ceremony? What if our assembled power spun out of control, like the weather working that had destroyed the ospreys’ nest? What if we didn’t have enough strength to finish? What if the Court never let us attempt the Major Working, shutting us down completely after I offered up the Allen Cask?

  Taking a soothing sip of water, I ordered myself not to dwell on things that were well beyond my ability to fix at this late date. Instead, I prepared myself, body and mind, for the ritual I was about to lead. And when the sun started to dip to the horizon, I stepped onto the front porch and greeted the full complement of the Madison Academy.

  I wore a formal gown, one that Neko had found for me sometime the previous year. Its gold-shot russet silk was smooth against my legs as I paused on the marble centerstone.

  Raven and Emma stood together, close enough to clasp hands. Emma wore a deep burgundy gown, the shade of crimson leaves just before they faded to winter brown. The color was a classic choice for Mabon, but it only underscored her delicate complexion. As if to counter her twin’s fragility, Raven wore a tight-sashed robe of black. She clearly intended to work our ritual skyclad.

  That was her right. In fact, our ritual might be stronger for Raven’s nakedness—she would be true to herself, true to her powers. The Madison Academy was all about witches’ journeys of self-discovery, and I had to trust that energy, had to have faith in Raven’s determination. That knowledge was part of the gift that Gran had given me, by insisting I live with my witches. Raven and I might never be friends, but I understood her in a way I hadn’t when she appeared on this same porch, back in June.

  Similarly, I had learned to trust my students’ entourages, their warders and familiars. I scarcely recognized Caleb and Tony. They’d set aside the robes of our abortive Lughnasadh working, choosing formal attire instead. Caleb had shaved, transforming himself from a shaggy bear back to the bluff, good-natured giant I had instinctively trusted upon his arrival to the farm.

  Tony seemed to have taken a page out of Neko’s fashion guidebook—I could swear he had product in his hair. His fists clenched and unclenched in a steady rhythm next to the satin stripe on his tuxedo pants, and his eyes darted about the porch as if he suspected attackers behind every post. I appreciated the aura of constant watchfulness.

  Hani stood beside Raven, his freckled face tilted toward her like a Gerbera daisy to the sun. Kopek held himself at a bit of a distance, closer to Emma than anyone else.
His shoulders slumped, highlighting his eternal appearance of dejection, but his eyes were clear and focused.

  Neko glided over to me. “Nice hair,” he whispered, cupping his hand against my elbow as if to steady me as I stepped from the inset marble to the wooden porch. I resisted the urge to raise my fingertips to my scarcely tamed curls. I’d twisted them off my neck, and pinned them into place with a single wand of ash. I waited for some sarcastic follow-up, but for once my familiar seemed truly to approve of my appearance. I allowed myself a fortifying breath, drawing from his store of reflexive power.

  “All right,” I said to everyone. “David’s waiting for us at the beach.”

  We walked together through the woods. I clutched at my full-length skirt, pulling it high enough above my sandals that I didn’t need to worry about tripping, about snagging the cloth on any of the desiccated vines that ran beside the forest path.

  Our group flowed easily. Emma and Raven started out beside each other, but soon split up to walk with their familiars. Tony led the way, aggressively taking point, while Caleb watched from the rear. Neko ranged from the vanguard to my side. Although no one spoke a word, there was comfort in our community. We were bonded together, already working toward our common goal, even though we had yet to frame our first spell.

  As we approached the lakeside edge of the woods, I paused and everyone gathered close around me. This was it. The moment I’d waited for, since Raven and Emma appeared on the farmhouse steps. Whatever we had created together, however I had taught my students, now was the moment we’d all be tested.

  My fingertips automatically ran to the pendant I wore on a narrow gold chain—a perfect globe of polished amber. The fossilized resin added strength to other magic, enhancing all types of arcane workings. Taking a fortifying breath, I threw back my shoulders, lifted my chin, and led my magicarium onto the beach.