Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(43)
“Gareth and I were unsure how the responsibilities of the elders to the Victor are governed by the Grimoire, Mother,” I said, the height of (deceptive) decorum. “I thought you might be magically obligated in some way, as with the Arbiter’s Mantle. Bound to honesty.”
Igraine and Lyonesse snorted in tandem. “As if Caelia would ever have agreed to such overreaching terms,” Igraine scoffed, rapping her long pearly nails on the table’s polished mahogany. “Standing as she did for blood above all else. And do you not remember our family’s creed?”
When both their blue gazes turned sharply expectant, Gareth and I realized this was supposed to be a call-and-response moment that we were about to fumble.
“By wit or by might, we take what is ours,” we both recited, in clumsy duet. I hated the motto, always had, and suspected that deep down at least, my older brother felt more or less the same. It made us sound like awful playground bullies by edict, stomping around wrenching candy out of other children’s hands. Maybe Morty hadn’t been far off at all, to feel so personally offended that we’d had our eye on his property.
Maybe everyone in this whole damn town wasn’t that far off about us.
“And a silver lining worth noting,” Lyonesse said, interlacing her hands and sliding them onto the table. “Unlike the manifestation at Castle Camelot, the Victor doesn’t appear to have detected this fluctuation on our grounds. If she had, we’d have received her summons by now, and nothing’s come from Harlow House. I suspect it was because the Cell’s wards shielded most of the flare before they collapsed in such spectacular fashion. So she has no reason to know this even happened, or that we—or rather, you, Nineve—might be in the thick of it again.”
I expelled an involuntary sigh, grateful that I at least hadn’t mucked up an even worse mess for us.
“That being the case,” she continued smoothly, “Igraine and I agree that you and Gareth should continue investigating this casting. Discover exactly what is happening, why it’s focused on you.”
“And of course,” Igraine interjected, a crafty look sparking in her hooded eyes. “How it might be turned into something very much to our family’s benefit. Once you know what manner of working this is, Nineve, you should be able to learn how to control it, to make it your own. And what could be better for us, more welcome, than an infusion of a sudden new strength like this? The appearance of an unparalleled Blackmoore sorceress, like an echo of Morgan le Fay herself?”
A bone-rattling chill blew down my spine like an icy wind breathed down my collar, because this—this, I hadn’t even remotely foreseen. The possibility that my family could look at this affliction, this unwanted surplus of power, and see it as a blessing, an indication that we’d somehow been chosen for some dubious greatness. And yet how could I not have immediately jumped to that possibility, knowing them the way I did?
“Just consider, Nineve,” Lyonesse said, fixing her pale blue gaze on mine. “That this goddess might have chosen you for a reason, to usher in a new era for our family—a new epoch for Thistle Grove itself. Not just a return to grace for us, but an elevation to unprecedented heights.”
“And in the meantime,” Igraine added, steel girding her voice, “until you have a better understanding of what transpires here . . . by no means should you let a single word of this slip to anyone else. Particularly not to the Victor herself.”
For a single furious moment, I wanted to stand up, argue, shriek “NO!” directly into my grandmother’s insufferable, complacent face. No, I would not go traipsing off to become some kind of demented conquering sorceress, a new Blackmoore queen rising to wrest Thistle Grove away from Emmy Harlow, or whatever it was she and my mother were conspiring to do.
No, if I managed to break this spell, Gareth and I would never even let them know how it had been done.
And above all, no, I would not keep this from Emmy for a second longer.
No, no, no.
“Understood,” I said instead, biting down on the inside of my cheek until I nearly tasted metal—because this was what Blackmoores did, when our elders ordered it. We came to heel, and did as we were told. “Thank you for your counsel, Grandmother.”
15
Sometimes You Have to Roll the Hard Six
Gareth and I spent the rest of the week immersed in our mundane work; ours weren’t the kinds of jobs you could just neglect for days on end while you embarked on a magical wild-goose chase or hero’s journey, whichever one this even turned out to be. I had the usual stack of vendor and employee contracts and legal HR issues to review, while he had our ever-shifting portfolio to oversee.
And even if that hadn’t been the case, both of us were still smarting from our encounter with our mother and grandmother. We needed time to lick our wounds separately, grapple with the usual muddle of conflicting emotions, before we went out and just did Lyonesse and Igraine’s bidding, like we always did in the end.
When Saturday finally rolled around, I went to see Morty instead.
I’d barely restrained myself from reaching out to him all week; even muffled by the shielding, the witch bond tugged at me almost painfully, like a fine line of fishing wire attached just behind my solar plexus, drawing me inexorably toward him. The night before, I’d asked him to meet me at the Thistle Grove cemetery for his first magical lesson this morning. No matter what happened with the Goddess Spell, I had no idea if the gift of magic granted by the witch bond was a permanent one for him. He had to learn how to navigate it, at least for his own safety if nothing else. As long as I kept my wits—and my temper—about me while he practiced casting, I assumed that teaching him some basics should be safe enough for both of us.