house benefited from the magic Javier had laid down.
Her heart rate accelerated as she drew closer to the shop. Weres were leery of magic, and perhaps because she spent so much time around Were outcasts, she’d absorbed some of their beliefs and uneasiness, despite having gifts of her own.
Her nervousness increased as she reached the shop door and entered. The air was heavy with the scent of incense, cloying, enveloping—tempting and yet repugnant at the same time.
A man glanced up from something he was working on behind the counter. A clerk, she thought, though she didn’t discount him.
Pentagram jewelry, fetishes and candles, herbs, wands, cauldrons and athames—all were available and with plenty to choose from. But it was the books on magic and witchcraft that both awed and frightened her each time necessity brought her to the shop.
She moved deeper into the store, toward the place where the Wainwright witch would be. An entire wall contained a library of handwritten spell journals, individual shadow books no living witch would have willingly parted with. They were all that remained of entire families lost to plague and war, people who’d died long ago, so quickly they hadn’t been able to burn the books in order to keep them out of the hands of strangers.
Rebekka stopped next to a woman dressed in black. Not the Wainwright matriarch. Even with the streak of gray in her hair, this woman wasn’t old enough. But she was still powerful. Standing in the witch’s proximity made Rebekka feel as though magic crawled over her skin like a hundred tiny spiders.
She pulled her hand from her pocket and offered the pentacle. The woman gave a small shake of her head. “Keep it. You might need it to summon help. I’m Annalise. But it’s on behalf of the matriarch that I’m here. Tonight they run in the maze.”
Only the instinct for self-preservation finely honed from being around Weres kept Rebekka from stiffening with the mention of the maze. If Anton Barlowe or Farold had any idea she and Levi were doing what they could to interrupt the supply of captured hunters, planning for the day when they could somehow find a way inside and free those held . . .
Rebekka suppressed a shiver—but only barely. “They’re running convicts tonight,” she said, somehow managing to keep her words neutral, as befitted someone who called the red zone and the brothels home.
Annalise pulled a book from the shelf. It parted on a page showing a werelion in a partial form, the head and arms those of a beast while the body remained human.
“A woman will run tonight as well,” Annalise said. “It is beyond our control as to whether she will escape. But should she survive, she will be as important to you and the . . . man . . . who waits outside for you, as she is to us.”
Rebekka didn’t ask how the Wainwrights knew about the woman or Levi. It was possible they had spies who passed on information in the same way she gained it when the men and women who frequented the gaming clubs came to the brothel. But it was equally likely they’d gained the knowledge by other means, with a toss of bones or a reading of fire. There were whispers about the Wainwrights and their ancestors, tying them to black magic as well as white.
A tremor passed through Rebekka before she could stop it. The token she still held in her hand grew heavier. She understood the significance, understood if she acted on the witch’s information, obligations would arise between them because of it.
Her gaze flicked to the picture of the werelion. Sometimes it was hard to maintain hope that Levi’s brother could be freed or his sanity salvaged.
The destruction of the maze itself and the release of the animals and Weres held captive there seemed like an impossible dream. And yet it was one of hers. If the witches wanted the same thing, or might be persuaded to involve themselves . . .
Rebekka closed her hand around the pentacle and put it back in her pocket.
Her heart rate accelerated as she drew closer to the shop. Weres were leery of magic, and perhaps because she spent so much time around Were outcasts, she’d absorbed some of their beliefs and uneasiness, despite having gifts of her own.
Her nervousness increased as she reached the shop door and entered. The air was heavy with the scent of incense, cloying, enveloping—tempting and yet repugnant at the same time.
A man glanced up from something he was working on behind the counter. A clerk, she thought, though she didn’t discount him.
Pentagram jewelry, fetishes and candles, herbs, wands, cauldrons and athames—all were available and with plenty to choose from. But it was the books on magic and witchcraft that both awed and frightened her each time necessity brought her to the shop.
She moved deeper into the store, toward the place where the Wainwright witch would be. An entire wall contained a library of handwritten spell journals, individual shadow books no living witch would have willingly parted with. They were all that remained of entire families lost to plague and war, people who’d died long ago, so quickly they hadn’t been able to burn the books in order to keep them out of the hands of strangers.
Rebekka stopped next to a woman dressed in black. Not the Wainwright matriarch. Even with the streak of gray in her hair, this woman wasn’t old enough. But she was still powerful. Standing in the witch’s proximity made Rebekka feel as though magic crawled over her skin like a hundred tiny spiders.
She pulled her hand from her pocket and offered the pentacle. The woman gave a small shake of her head. “Keep it. You might need it to summon help. I’m Annalise. But it’s on behalf of the matriarch that I’m here. Tonight they run in the maze.”
Only the instinct for self-preservation finely honed from being around Weres kept Rebekka from stiffening with the mention of the maze. If Anton Barlowe or Farold had any idea she and Levi were doing what they could to interrupt the supply of captured hunters, planning for the day when they could somehow find a way inside and free those held . . .
Rebekka suppressed a shiver—but only barely. “They’re running convicts tonight,” she said, somehow managing to keep her words neutral, as befitted someone who called the red zone and the brothels home.
Annalise pulled a book from the shelf. It parted on a page showing a werelion in a partial form, the head and arms those of a beast while the body remained human.
“A woman will run tonight as well,” Annalise said. “It is beyond our control as to whether she will escape. But should she survive, she will be as important to you and the . . . man . . . who waits outside for you, as she is to us.”
Rebekka didn’t ask how the Wainwrights knew about the woman or Levi. It was possible they had spies who passed on information in the same way she gained it when the men and women who frequented the gaming clubs came to the brothel. But it was equally likely they’d gained the knowledge by other means, with a toss of bones or a reading of fire. There were whispers about the Wainwrights and their ancestors, tying them to black magic as well as white.
A tremor passed through Rebekka before she could stop it. The token she still held in her hand grew heavier. She understood the significance, understood if she acted on the witch’s information, obligations would arise between them because of it.
Her gaze flicked to the picture of the werelion. Sometimes it was hard to maintain hope that Levi’s brother could be freed or his sanity salvaged.
The destruction of the maze itself and the release of the animals and Weres held captive there seemed like an impossible dream. And yet it was one of hers. If the witches wanted the same thing, or might be persuaded to involve themselves . . .
Rebekka closed her hand around the pentacle and put it back in her pocket.