A Darker Past (The Darker Agency #2)(52)

“I won’t go into specifics, but yeah, he’s out, and he’s pissed. We need to trap him again, but—”

“You can’t trap him.”

“I can’t,” I repeated, annoyed. “See, that’s not a word in my vocabulary. Why can’t I?”

“Because only true Belfair magic is strong enough to accomplish such a task, and that magic doesn’t exist anymore.”

Lukas took a step closer. “You’re in the body of a Belfair witch right now. How does it not exist?”

I nodded. “And as hard as it would be to get her to help us, the current coven leader Cassidy Belfair could do it if we knew how.”

Lorna flashed me Kendra’s best I-feel-sorry-for-you smirk. “The current coven leader has no real power. None of them do. The Belfair coven is nothing more than hat tricks and illusions.”

She was crazy. That was the only explanation. I’d seen Kendra do magic—albeit, bad magic—plenty of times. “What are you talking about?”

“The real magic is gone, dear girl. It has been for a long, long time.”

My stomach churned. “No… This isn’t possible. I’ve seen—”

“As I said, tricks and illusions. Minor casts. A shadow of what we once were.” She tilted her head again. “However, there may be a way to get it back. With the help of Belfair magic, you could retrap Gressil.”

Now we were talking. “I’m all ears.”

“I’ll require a token first.”

“Of course you will,” Lukas said with a sigh. “Typical witch.”

I smacked him and turned back to Lorna. Plastering on my most accommodating smile, I asked, “What do you need?”

“I wish to know what became of my beloved Sam.”

I looked from her to Lukas and shrugged. “Sam? Who was Sam?”

She leaned forward and with a grin that was all Kendra, said, “Samuel. Samuel Darker.”





Chapter Twenty-One


I bit down hard on my tongue and hoped to hell Lukas kept his mouth closed. A pound of fairy dust said Lorna didn’t want to hear that Samuel Darker was spending eternity in the river. “I know the name, but not much about him. I’m sorry.”

“You could find out. I know for certain that the Darkers keep their records detailed like the Belfairs.”

Obviously, she wasn’t understanding the gravity of my situation. “With all due respect, Lorna, we really don’t have time. I’ve got a particularly nasty demon—you may have heard of him, Lucifer?—breathing down my neck. I’ve only got a little time left to get this done, or it’s my head on the docket.”

“I want to know about Samuel. I want to—He—” She doubled over, gasping, and lost the battle with gravity, hitting the grass inside the circle with a soft thud. “Samuel—”

Lorna collapsed and fell still, Kendra’s hair falling across her face. It was only the slight flutter of several strands by her mouth that kicked my heart into motion again. Still breathing. Not dead.

I shot forward and toed the multicolored powder line until it broke. I didn’t know much about witch magic, but I knew never to cross an unbroken line. “Ken?”

It took a moment, but when she stirred and finally picked her head up, she looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks. “Did it work?” Her voice was hoarse, and the sun seemed to bother her eyes. One hand up to blot out the light, she used the other to push herself off the ground.

“You don’t remember anything?”

“I remember feeling really warm, then a little dizzy. Now this. What happened?”

I stood and sighed. “We have a problem…”

She rolled her eyes. “What, you mean another one?”

…

Didi’s was a small coffee place in the heart of Penance. With my favorite drink, their seasonal mint-spiked hot chocolate, in front of me, I leaned forward on the table and frowned. It was time to come clean with Kendra, and I was dreading it. She finally thought she had her magic under control, excited at the prospect of moving on to bigger spells, and I had to tell her it wouldn’t happen. First thing was first, though. “So apparently Lorna and Samuel, one of my ancestors, had a thing.”

Kendra choked on her latte. “A thing thing? Oh my God.”

“Right? Lorna was about to tell me how she locked up our guy, but she wanted to know what happened to him first.”

She set down the cup and frowned. “And you don’t know?”

“We do,” Lukas said, sipping his coffee. Hazelnut. Mom made a comment about how she didn’t want me drinking it, and how I hated the flavored stuff, so that’s what he drank. She was a horrible influence on him. “But it’s complicated.”

I took a swig of my hot chocolate. Mmm. Minty goodness. “Samuel Darker is in the Shadow Realm. Valefar has his soul.”

Lukas nodded. “Valefar rubbed Jessie’s nose in the fact.”

Oh my God. He had, hadn’t he? Or, had he? Val would never be classified in the helpful category, but he was a stickler for his deals. My service being one of them. If there was even the slightest chance he’d lose me, I was betting he’d bend and twist things to gain an advantage. “Maybe not.”