To Spell & Back Read online

  “Just trying to keep the lines of communication open. They’re going to find out anyway, might as well bring them in early, save me a headache later, and keep the faerie freakouts to a minimum. I can’t tell you how nice it has been to come home and not step into the seventh level of hell. I thought a dinosaur was the worst they could do until I came home and found a dragon burning down the backyard.”

  “The party planning is going well, then?”

  “So far.” Prone to taking out their aggressions in both magical and epic ways, the four faeries made a no-fighting pact when they started their party planning business. I still wasn’t sure if the agreement only covered business related issues, but since they’d sealed the deal with an enchanted vow, it seemed to be working for petty grievances as well. Or maybe they were just too busy to argue. Either way, I wasn’t dumb enough to look a gift unicorn in the mouth. Well, not a second time, anyway. Unicorns absolutely hate having their dental hygiene called into question, and their hooves are pointy when they kick.

  “We’re going to have to do something about her, you know.” Flix and I lingered in the entryway, speaking in low tones while Carl and Kin took seats in the parlor.

  “Based on what I learned that day in the Fringe, all she wants is to be with Jett. She’s willing to co-opt her faerie godmother to make it happen. That’s crazy in my book.” My living arrangements notwithstanding, trying to coerce a Fae was right up there with jumping off the Empire State Building and expecting to land on your feet.

  Never going to happen.

  “She wants to be with Jett so badly; I’ve got no problem sending her to the Faelands.” I heard her doom in his voice and didn’t want to be a party to the disappearance of another person, even if getting Serena out of the way would be a huge relief and one more thing off my plate.

  Jett’s chances for survival were double hers based on his parentage and truth be told; I would not have opted to send him there, either, had I been given a choice. Serena’s demise, though it figured in my more creative fantasies at times, was not something I wanted to bring about on purpose. Even if she wouldn’t thank me for the consideration.

  “Tempting, but no. I’ll deal with her in my own time. At least we know what she wants, not that it was ever a burning question. But why go after Kin and Carl? Neither of them have magic, so how would they know how to get Jett back?”

  “You’re seriously asking me to parse the intentions of the stupidest person I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet? For all we know, her intentions could have been for something entirely different to happen. She’s not exactly gifted when it comes to spellcasting.”

  “Or choosing boyfriends,” I said ruefully. “I think Jett only kept her around because she was biddable. You could tell he was the one calling the shots. How sad is that, though, when he’s the brains of the operation? Makes me that much more thankful we’ve both found ourselves amazing men. I mean, considering the secrets that could have come to light today, I think Carl’s appreciation of Kin’s butt is pretty far down the list of things to be concerned with.”

  I couldn’t help the little smile that often came when I thought of Kin and all he meant to me. The long list of husbands on the genealogical page of the Grimoire combined with knowing the mothers and grandmothers had enjoyed a longer lifespan, led me to dismiss the men in my history as less important than they probably were. In the meantime, I was in this relationship—all the way in—and if Serena thought she could get away with taking aim at my man, she had a nasty surprise coming her way.

  With the faerie invasion imminent and two men trading truths like baseball cards, my grandmother’s ring sparking back to life seemed like impossibly bad timing. Or, in other words, par for the course.

  Chapter Eight

  THIS TIME I VOWED TO be better prepared—my second trip to the past would not be clothing optional. To make sure I didn’t take any more accidental journeys, I left the ring on a shelf along with the compass and the Stone of Blood pendant I’d been wearing since the day my mother gave it to me. Without the constant weight of the two symbols I carried, my neck felt strangely barren as I added a generous amount of lavender oil to the bathtub—more than was needed for a ritual cleansing but enough, I hoped, to soothe the jumpy places inside me.

  There hadn’t been time to get nervous before the first time leap, but this one was different. Fixing the Bow of Destiny depended on the outcome and I wanted to give myself every chance to succeed. A lot was riding on my success—if I had known exactly how much at the time, I don’t think all the warm water and lavender oil in the world could have calmed me.

  The sound of that arrow striking my father’s flesh was still as clear in my mind as the first time I’d heard it. No one ever asked me if I wanted a job that involved aiming pointy things at people and, clearly, no one cared that my answer would have been no.

  I’d rather groom goats or scrape gum off the sidewalk, thank you very much.

  Not even my dislike of Joshua Owens was enough to make the idea of firing a weapon at him palatable.

  “Quit lollygagging in there,” Salem yelled through the doorway.

  “Come in here and say that.” I didn’t want him to, and I knew he wouldn’t. He knew I wasn’t above splashing him if he annoyed me.

  “What happens to your body when you leap? Does it stay or go?”

  I thought about it for a second and gave the snarky answer. “Yes.”

  “Helpful, Lexi. Real helpful. Hurry up; I'm dying to see what happens.”

  “You know I can’t guarantee anything will happen, don’t you? I’m not even sure exactly what I did the first time.”

  “Oh, come on, you turned the ring on your finger while thinking of where you wanted to go. It’s witch 101, even if it was an accident.”

  “Thanks for reminding me,” I yelled.

  There would be no more relaxing with him in this mood, so I got out of the tub, dried off, and dressed in the comfortable clothes I’d picked out. Jeans so well-worn they were soft as butter, a knit tank, and just in case it got cold, I tied a sweatshirt around my waist.

  I slipped the ring on my finger, and clasped the compass around my neck, then stood looking at the Stone of Blood. Its connection to my mother made it feel tainted with her betrayal. Before I could wear it again, it too would need a good cleansing, but for now, it could stay on the shelf.

  “Are you ready?” I’ve seen kids in a candy store less excited than Salem as he practically bounced from one foot to the other.

  “As I’ll ever be.” We made our way down to the room my grandmother would have called the front parlor, but in modern times was referred to as a living room, and I reached into the blue flame of the Balefire to pull the handle and enter my sanctuary behind the fireplace.

  I’d added a few personal touches to make the sanctum my own, including some comfy pillows and throws on the old sofa which was where I settled now. Just me and the pterodactyl-sized butterflies zipping around in my stomach. Salem would stay because it’s his job as my familiar to aid me in my magical endeavors. He calls them escapades, which I think is the equivalent of a familiar slur, but I can’t prove it.

  However, if he made that sniffing noise meant to hurry me along too many times, his butt—furry or not—would be out in the kitchen with the rest of them.

  “Think happy thoughts.”

  “I’m not Tinkerbell.”

  I took a deep breath, fixed my mind on the desire to find what I needed to repair the Bow of Destiny, and twisted the ring around on my finger. Once, twice, and at the third turn, I felt a pull behind my navel, and then the sensation of falling. Colors and shapes spun past in a haze of nauseating motion that lasted just long enough to send a scream bubbling up in my throat.

  My heart beat so hard and so fast that for a minute, I could hear nothing except the glug and thump of it—like a metronome keeping time. A deep breath filled my nose with the scent of pine pitch, its odor sharp and clean in air unpolluted by industry. I ope
ned my eyes to the sun and a wash of sky so blue it nearly hurt to look at it.

  Something about the horizon seemed both familiar and alien.

  There wasn’t time to ponder, though. I had come here for a reason. To find living gold and figure out how to use it to repair my father’s bow. I spun in a full circle to try and get my bearings and only succeeded in reawakening the clammy sickness in the pit of my stomach.

  “Easy, Lexi.” And now I was talking to myself out loud. “Get a grip.” I did it again.

  Somehow, I hadn’t expected to end up in the middle of a forest with no idea where to look. Nothing Lamiel had said during our short conversation led me to think there would be living gold just lying around loose on the ground no matter what period of history I’d been dumped in. If that were the case, there would have been a lot more items like the bow and compass.

  The compass.

  I’d completely forgotten I had it with me—the trip here must have scrambled my brains. Yanking it out from under my shirt, I held the shining instrument in my palm. The same polished golden hue as the bow itself, the compass had guided me to its counterpart when the bow was still hidden inside Shadow Hold. About the size of a silver dollar and attached to an intricately-woven chain, with a rendering of the Bow of Destiny engraved on the back side, it felt warm to the touch and full of energy.

  The needle swung wildly, and my heart sank. I’d placed a lot of hope on the compass being attracted to the material from which both it and the bow had been worked. A logical assumption on my part, but you know what they say about making assumptions.

  Please, I sent up a plea to whatever deity might be listening. Please.

  I felt a vibration and then a click when the compass homed in and my prayer was answered. Turning in a half circle, I began to walk in the direction the needle pointed—and promptly measured my length on a bed of crisp, autumn leaves. The next few minutes I spent getting my breath back and hopping up and down on my uninjured foot.

  Give me a break, I’m a city girl and don’t spend a lot of time in the woods where tripping hazards like rocks and branches hide away under colorful blankets of leaves. Vowing to pay more attention to my feet, I missed the next ground-level obstacle and instead commenced the there’s-a-spider-in-my-hair dance after making contact with a nice, sticky webs.

  Yeah, I know I’m a witch, and we’re not supposed to be thrown by contact with creepy crawlies, but I don’t care. A spider in my hand is not the same as one in my hair or on my clothes. At least I didn’t strip naked and shake those out.

  I did wonder what twist of irony let the environment affect me, while leaving me a powerless observer of the fight during my last visit to the past. Then again, it was probably for the best. Time travel stories where people make tiny changes in the past and then are stuck with the repercussions when they return to their lives make for great cautionary tales. It was probably for the best I not have the option to make any paradoxical choices.

  While all that was running through my mind, I spared just enough attention to the compass to follow it into a small clearing split by a worn track. Blue smoke trailed skyward from the chimney of a stone hearth I would have recognized anywhere.

  According to my admittedly vague memory of the Balefire history, my great-grandfather had built the section of the house encasing the fireplace in 1782—a few months before my grandmother was born. Given the stacks of rough-hewn lumber and the unmistakable sounds of hammering coming from the back of the house, I’d landed here at the beginning of the building project and unless I was totally off on my calculations, was about to get a glimpse of Tempest, my great-grandmother.

  If I haven’t mentioned it before, my life seems to be taking several turns for the surreal. I’ve gone from knowing almost nothing about my family history to seeing some of it play out right in front of me. I’ve learned things that shocked me and things that saddened me with not a lot in between. Maybe today would be different.

  With my luck? Probably not.

  Standing in the front yard pondering the existential ramifications of time travel wasn’t getting me any closer to the reason I’d come here, so I forced myself to walk around the back.

  Tink, tink, tink. Not the sound of a hammer on nails as I’d thought, but of one striking metal on an anvil. The muscles in the blacksmith’s arms corded and bunched with each blow, though from the back, he looked to be young, almost too young for the work, and slight enough that the power needed must have been hard to muster.

  Call me dumb, but I didn’t catch on that the smith was female until she quenched a curved length of iron, tossed it onto a pile of others like it, and pulled off her cap to let cool air blow through locks of hair the same color as my own.

  Great-grandmother was ripped.

  It came as no huge surprise when she turned, and the face that went with that hair was also a match for mine. We Balefire women share more than the witch blood that runs through our veins.

  Tempest wore men’s trousers—scandalous in her time—under a sleeveless shirt, also a man’s by the look of it, and managed to look gloriously female in both. When she lifted her arm to rotate her shoulder, the Stone of Blood pendant stood out against the homespun ecru-colored material.

  My hand went to my chest where the pendant normally hung and only found the compass which hummed and bucked in my hand. Perhaps I’d been too quick to shun the family heirloom. Sylvana hadn’t been the only one to don it, and now I felt like a traitor for not realizing how my maternal figure’s shortcomings weren’t necessarily a sign of the entire Balefire clan’s proclivities.

  Her eyes passed right over me on their way toward a man walking around the corner of the house. I felt a tingle of anticipation, but nothing more substantial until I turned around and my breath caught in my throat.

  My father walked—no, strutted would be a better word—toward Tempest as though his presence had been requested by engraved invitation. The look of distaste on her face said otherwise, while one hand moved down to rest on her abdomen protectively, and the other gripped the hammer more tightly than when she had been using it to pound iron. Was he that big a threat? Could I have come from someone who would coerce a woman?

  If he was carrying the Bow of Destiny on him anywhere, it had the ability to turn pocket-sized because I couldn’t see it.

  “What are you working on?” He cast a wide smile at Tempest, who appeared unmoved by the sunlight sparkling off his pearly whites. Then he leaned in and angled his body just a bit too close to peer into the Balefire-powered forge. "Impressive."

  Sparks flew between them. Literal sparks. Ones that had nothing to do with the forge or the Balefire, and even less to do with signaling attraction between the pair of them.

  Reading Tempest’s body language, I suspected they were an overflow of the tightly contained magic I felt simmering just below the surface of her attempt at a placid face. I’ve seen that feral look in a woman’s eyes before. In my line of work, you get to know the difference between a come-hither look and one that says touch me, and you’ll lose an appendage.

  A flick of her gaze told me exactly which dangly bit she’d have liked to relieve him of. Ouch.

  “What do you want?” More than a whiff of Irish accent threaded through her clenched teeth.

  “What I’ve always wanted. You.” Smooth. Okay, not really. My father, ladies and gentlemen, the inventor of the cheesy pickup line. I’m so proud.

  “Be off with you. I’m a married woman with no interest in the likes of you.” Tempest let go of the hammer to place a second hand over her belly. Cupid’s eyes widened, then narrowed and I could see he’d caught the meaning of the gesture. A flash of unabashed longing altered his expression, but only for a second before the tension left him and acceptance set in with a shrug of his shoulders. Could he have had more than a passing attraction for my great-grandmother?

  “So you are. For now, at least. I’d like to bless the babe, if you will allow it.” Voice so smooth you could spread it
on toast, Cupid did not wait for her consent. “May she grow to be as beautiful as her mother and twice as wise.” He turned to leave, then tossed a goodbye back over one shoulder.

  “Good riddance,” Tempest muttered to his back. “May the cat eat you, and the devil eat the cat.”

  Interesting mental image.

  “Come along, lass. Don’t be all day about it.” I heard the smile in his voice before I turned to see my great-grandfather making his way toward his wife. One look and I knew he was a perfect match for her. Fiery ginger hair made a startling contrast to the robin’s egg blue of his eyes. A tall man, his face reddened from the force of his labor, he moved toward her as though drawn, and enfolded his wife in a full body embrace that spoke volumes about his feelings for her, and she pulled his head down for a kiss.

  It went on long enough that I had to look away because watching felt too much like voyeurism.

  “I’ve just finished the last pieces of the circle.” All business now, Tempest pointed to the pile of arced iron. “Would you put them in place while I check the crucible?”

  “Aye, that I will.” Cheerfully, Kenneth lifted half the pile with one hand and carried it around behind the fireplace. I moved closer to watch him begin to lay the outline of the casting circle around the star shape already embedded in the flagstones. A tiny thrill shot through me as I watched the process. How many people get to see bits of their family history firsthand?

  At the forge, Tempest reached into a bucket of ore to pick out just the right piece. Curious, I angled around for a better look. Rooting through with deft fingers, she chose one and gently pulled out a palm-sized nugget that looked nothing like I expected. Dull, bronze in color, and otherwise dead plain, I decided I must be looking at some other metal. Maybe she used something else to blend with the gold.

  Way to go, Lexi. Only you could go looking for gold without bothering to do any research. Salem had been right about me shirking my studies.