Origin of Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Protector #3)(3)

“It’ll cost you.” Aerdeca rubbed her fingers together.

“No problem.” There were no friendly discounts with Mordaca and Aerdeca.

They nodded and stood, starting toward the crowd. People parted like the red sea. We followed them into the workshop at the back. Aerdeca ran her fingertip around the doorframe, igniting a flare of magic.

Protection charm, now disabled.

She entered and flipped on the light. The long table in the middle of the room held only a spray of dried flowers, but the shelves against the wall were packed with jars and bottles and boxes. I didn’t know the full extent of what they did back here, just that their magic involved blood and treaded the line between light and dark. Hence their names, Blood Sorceresses. They’d helped us a number of times in the past, and hopefully they’d come through this time too.

Aerdeca and Mordaca walked toward the table, then took up a space behind it, as if it were their desk.

“Let’s see what’s in that box.” Mordaca eyed it.

“I hope it’s not a head,” Aerdeca said.

“I hope it is one.” Mordaca sounded a hell of a lot like Wednesday Addams.

“No head.” I slipped the strap over my shoulders and put the box on the table. It took a second to fish the key out of my pocket, but by the time I’d popped open the lock and pried the lid off the box, Aerdeca and Mordaca were leaning forward, interest gleaming in their eyes.

“Dang.” Disappointment shadowed Mordaca’s voice.

“Not at all.” Interest lit Aerdeca’s eyes. “Anything that ugly has to have some serious magic in it.”

“It’s not ugly.” Ire warmed my belly. Sure, the vase was made of rough clay, with simple incised decoration, but it wasn’t ugly. And it was thousands of years old, crafted by an ancient culture that had lived in Northern England before the advent of writing. “It’s special. Very special. But how do you know it has serious magic?”

“Why else would you be interested in it? You can’t display it on your mantle. Not looking like that.” Aerdeca gestured with white-tipped fingernails.

“I couldn’t display it because it’s illegal to take artifacts,” I said. Except that this one couldn’t remain in its tomb—not with the mob boss after it. “But that’s not the point. The point is that we want to know what kind of magic it contains.”

A self-satisfied smile curved Aerdeca’s lips.

“Yeah, yeah. You were right.” I grinned at her. “It has serious magic. Now tell us what you know. We’re desperate.”

“Who else have you asked for help?” Mordaca asked.

“Everyone.” Which was why we were here. I didn’t like blood magic, but this was the end of our line. We’d spent the day hunting answers but come up short. Normally, our friend Dr. Garriso at the Museum for Magical History was able to help us with things like this. But he’d come up empty, too.

“No one could give us a clue,” Del said.

“We were hoping you could do a spell to see what kind of magic it once contained.”

Aerdeca nodded. “We can try, at least.”

Mordaca reached out and hovered her hand over the beaker, her face intense. Aerdeca joined her. They looked like they were trying to feel for a signature. Eventually, Mordaca touched the beaker with her fingertip.

She gasped. “Evil.”

Aerdeca touched her white-tipped nail to the clay. Her eyes flared wide. “It was owned by pure evil.”

“But the vase itself is not dark,” Mordaca said. “Just the stain that the previous owner left upon it.”

I glanced at Del. “Do you think that could be the mob boss?”

She nodded. “Likely.”

“Is the stain recent?” I asked.

“It is. And the spell that this vase contains… It feels like it has been used recently. The magic—it wavers.”

“Do you know what the spell is?” I’d been trying to determine what the enchantment was ever since Cass had brought it back from the tomb in the Yorkshire Dales.

“We can try,” Aerdeca said. “But we’ll need a donation.”

Mordaca raised her wrist to indicate.

I grimaced. “Of course.”

“Let me get my tools.” Aerdeca turned and bustled around the room, collecting objects while Mordaca retrieved a slender knife from the counter behind her.

Aerdeca returned and laid a shiny slab of black rock on the big table, along with two vials of red and orange potion.

Mordaca raised the knife. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” I stuck my wrist out.

Mordaca gestured with the knife. “Hold your wrist over the slab.”

I shifted. Mordaca raised the blade and made a thin slice through my flesh at my wrist. Pain flared and I winced as the blood welled to the surface. This was the unfortunate part of blood sorcery. The key ingredient was painful to get to.

I twisted my wrist so that the blood dripped onto the shiny slab of rock. It pearled on the surface, gleaming dark in the light. Once a small puddle had formed, Aerdeca nodded. “That will be enough.”

I withdrew my hand, taking the cloth that Mordaca handed to me. I pressed it against the wound, watching as Aerdeca poured a few drops of the red potion onto the blood, followed by the orange potion.