Faerie Magic (17 page)

Needless to say, it wasn’t going well.

For one thing, Vance only needed to snap his fingers and the air would knock my feet out from underneath me. I’d told him to stop it with the cheap tricks, but he seemed to have an infinite supply.

Air smacked into the back of my head and knocked me onto my front. I landed on my elbows in the mud, wincing.

“You left the back of your shield open.”

“Damn you.” I lifted my head and pushed to my feet.

“Faeries aren’t past using trickery,” he said. “You know that.”

“I’m not an idiot.” I brushed grass from my jeans with my palms.

“I’m aware, but faeries won’t wait for you to prepare a plan before they hit you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Again.”

This time, I made sure to yank my shield into place, covering every inch of me. The air rippled and I jumped, rolling to the side. I circled him as he threw attack after attack at me, every dodge bringing me closer to breaking through his defences. Without my magic enhanced instincts, I moved slower and tired faster, but inch by inch, I gained on him. When he sent a particularly strong blast of magic at me, I knew he’d need a few seconds to recharge. I launched into a forward roll, now close enough to strike at him.

Unsurprisingly, he blocked my punch with his forearm. I tried another with my free hand, the magical shield shimmering around me. He watched me, figuring out I didn’t intend to use my enhanced speed, and I could see him ticking it over in his mind.

His slight hesitation was all I needed. I’d figured out his fighting style—knock the enemy down before they could slip through his defences. I’d done exactly that, and he usually didn’t expect an adversary to get within close range. Considering he could skewer people on the opposite side of a room, this came as no surprise.

With magic useless against my shield, he was too focused on blocking my hits to get in a strike of his own. A gleam entered his eye. He was
enjoying
this, damn him. It had probably been a while since he’d met his match.

The problem was, I’d tired myself out spending so long breaking through his defences, and without the magical boost, my stamina was fading fast. Eventually, Vance swept my legs out from underneath me. I rolled to my feet before he could pin me and smacked into a wall of solid air, falling flat on my back. I lay there, the breath knocked out of me.

“I thought you’d stopped using magic,” I managed to gasp out.

“I didn’t want you to tire yourself out,” he said.

I feebly lifted my head. “I’m fine.”

“Hmm. I’ve never seen you fight like that.”

I half-sat up and shrugged, my shoulder protesting at the movement. “I don’t want to rely on magic.”

His brow furrowed. “I thought you wanted to understand it.”

“I do.” I got to my feet and scrambled for my excuses list. “But in the arena yesterday, I realised my magic isn’t like other Winter faeries’. It’s from a Sidhe lord. If anyone there worked it out, I’d have to answer a bunch of questions.”

He arched an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t intend to speak to anyone. You’re not obliged to answer questions. Besides, it’s hardly unheard of for Sidhe lords to abandon their offspring in this realm.”

I froze. Abandon their offspring… had Avakis
left
Calder here? I hadn’t asked. Obviously.

Was Calder a changeling?

Vance watched me curiously. I stammered, “I guess not, but… Avakis. If any of them know who he is, they might recognise me using his magic.”

I didn’t blame Vance for giving me an incredulous look. “I doubt it,” he said. “Your own doubt isn’t helping matters. The magic is yours: own it.” He glanced at the manor. “I should probably check on Drake and my clients. I’ll send Wanda your way, if you’d still like to train with her.”

I nodded, and he walked away. Sitting on the grass, I rested my elbows on my knees and brought my head into my hands. Dammit. I’d been as subtle as an ogre rampaging through a glass door. Was I really stupid enough to think I could fool the Mage Lord?

I considered his words instead.
Your magic is yours: own it.
Exactly what I’d done when I’d faced down Velkas. It wasn’t just the death energy, the echo of the pain Avakis’s captives had left behind. The strength, in the end, had ultimately come from within me.

“Hey.” Wanda waved at me, walking down from the house. She wore workout clothes rather than her usual secretary getup, her long black hair tied back. We were around the same height, but she was rail-thin, while I had the kind of muscles you got when you spent ten years swinging a heavy sword around.

Behind her walked Drake, Vance’s second-in-command. The red-headed mage grinned at me, a flame dancing between his palms. “I’m here to watch the show, not participate, don’t worry.”

I returned his smile to hide my nerves. At this rate, everyone who came to the manor would know my magic wasn’t normal for a witch.

“Vance mentioned you wanted to duel with magic,” said Wanda.

I gave a sheepish shrug. “Yeah… long story short, my magic’s not exactly conventional. It’s similar to frost magic, so he thought we’d be a good match.”

“No problem.”

We stood apart and I let her make the first attack. Wanda raised a hand and snowflakes filled the air, pelting at my face. I quickly flung up my shield and they glanced off. This time, I let the magic rush over my skin, cool and familiar.
Of course it’s familiar. It’s
mine.

The magic seemed to hum in response, the shield becoming more solid. Now I needed to turn it from defensive to offensive… somewhat difficult while trying to stop a snowstorm from beating at my head. Wanda threw twin streams of snowflakes at me and I had to raise both hands to block them. I paced around her on quick feet, using the magic-enhanced speed to my advantage. To attack her, I needed to let my shield drop.

I jumped, reeling in the shield at the same time so her attack missed. Landing on both feet, I pulled the shield closer to me and willed it to dissolve into streams of energy. Like in the Grey Vale—and on half-blood territory, too.

An attack shot from both of my palms. Wanda wasn’t quite fast enough to turn and block it and the energy caught her in the back, sending her staggering.

“Whoa.” She blinked at me. “You’re fast. I didn’t see your attack.”

“It’s… kinda invisible.” At least, to people without the Sight.

“I did wonder,” said Drake, who lounged against a nearby wall. “My turn next?”

Figuring I might as well get in practise while I could, I faced him. My magical shield hummed, back in place, the flood of energy still racing through me.
I finally did it.

Drake’s style was wilder than Wanda’s or even Vance’s. He threw streams of fire from both hands, which glanced off my shield and scorched the grass. I moved faster thanks to my enhanced instincts, but I had to throw myself to the ground every time he hurled a fireball. I was sure he’d reined in the heat so it wouldn’t burn me on contact.

We stopped when Drake set the hedge on fire.

“I’ll get it.” Wanda shot a handful of ice at it. The ice melted. “Oh…”

I smothered a laugh. Behind me, I felt Vance’s presence as he walked down the steps to the lawn, waving a hand. The burning section of the hedge disappeared.

“Where’d you send it?” I asked.

“An empty field somewhere.”

“You’re impossible.” I shook my head. “What if you set someone’s garden on fire?”

Drake snickered. “It’s been known to happen. Vance was in charge of mentoring me when we were teenagers. He was supposed to keep me from going off the rails. Both of us knew that was never gonna happen.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help swinging my gaze around to Vance, who stood not a metre away from me, wearing his smart suit again. “Been in another meeting?” I asked.

“Not yet.” He looked down at me. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Damn. Aware of the others’ stares, I followed him into the hallway.

“By ‘not yet’, do you mean you’re going away?” My heartbeat quickened.

“I’ll be back by this evening,” he said. “You weren’t joking when you said you intended to speak to this half-faerie who planned to win the fake faerie blood, were you?”

Oh.
I gave myself a mental slap for the conclusion I’d automatically jumped to. Why the hell would he want to discuss making out at a time like this? Of course he wanted to talk about the match tonight.

“No,” I answered. “I know it’s risky, but it’s all I’ve got. I’ll call you if I need help.”

“You have a knack for ending up in trouble if I’m not there.”

“Yeah, I might do something stupid like enter a magical tournament for half-faeries.” I rolled my eyes. “I get it. Danger is my line of work.”

“Take your sword. Sneak it under the illusion. Can Isabel put a disguise on it?”

“On
Irene?”
I blinked in disbelief. “Maybe, but it’s made of iron. Faeries can sense it. Even half-faeries. At best they’d kick me out if they found it.”

At worst, two hundred enraged half-faeries would trample me flat.

“This magical drug business sounds like the work of a collective, not an individual,” said Vance. “There’ll be more than one person involved, and if they all turn on you at once—”

“I’ll call you,” I cut in, tapping my shoulder underneath the mark. “Unless you want Isabel to put a shadow illusion on you, you’ll have to sit this one out.”

Frustration bubbled under the surface, both unwanted and irrational. I’d come closer to understanding my magic than ever, and while I understood why Vance didn’t want me meeting the drug dealing half-faeries alone, it didn’t mean I was happy to be condescended to.

A pause. “You ran away from me last night.”

Huh?
He chose
now
to bring that up, when I was already angry with him? “Can’t it wait, Vance? I’ve another fight in a few hours. I can’t think about anything else.”

“I know,” he said. “But you’re acting oddly, and if there’s anything that might impact your performance tonight, I need you to tell me. I don’t want you walking into the arena tonight if there’s a problem. I
especially
don’t want you tailing magical drug dealers.”

“There is no problem,” I ground out. “Thanks for your concern.”

I brushed past him and headed outside, determined to get more practise in before the next match.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The crowd roared.

Another bloodthirsty bout had just come to an end, and the evidence was strewn all over the arena. Several security guards carried the limp form of Sabre—imaginative name there—past the screaming front row of rowdy spectators. The victor, a horrifying mass of tentacles who’d spit slime all over the arena and nearly drowned its opponent, transformed back into the innocuous form of an eight-year-old girl.

I wasn’t entirely sure the last ten minutes hadn’t been a hallucination. Supposedly, ‘Lilac’ was a chimera faerie who could transform into whatever animal she felt like. So she’d picked a poisonous land-dwelling octopus and left the crew a hell of a mess to clean up.

One of the hobgoblin’s faerie guards moved in, waving a hand, and the slime disappeared.
Thank god for that.
Fighting on an ice rink would be preferable to fighting knee deep in slime. I’d been put up against a Summer half-faerie known as Raptor. I’d watched
Jurassic Park
as a kid and was pretty sure I knew what to expect.

The hobgoblin called the match, and I stood up at the same time as Lilac skipped past.

“Might see you in the next round,” she whispered to me as she passed. Creepy.

Raptor was a raven-haired male half-faerie who wore both armour and a bird-shaped mask. The armour would make it hard to land a hit on him. I’d need to use magic first.

I faced him across the arena, already tugging my magic into place. It seemed restless tonight, keeping up an ever-burning glow that would have drawn attention had it not been for all the other magic pouring off the crowd. They’d worked up into a frenzy, and as this was the last match of the night, the noise climbed to a fever pitch. Drunk on glamour and faerie cocktails passed amongst the crowd, they screeched and shouted after me, expecting a good show.

Raptor’s face was entirely hidden by the mask so I couldn’t see his expression. I studied the armour instead. It covered his body from shoulders to knees, leaving his arms exposed. I could work with that.

His hands flexed, and long claws sprouted from his fingers. Bird’s claws. Oh, shit.

He launched himself at me, and I spun around, ducking his outstretched hands. Since he hadn’t used magic, I risked dimming my shield down and turned it into offensive mode instead. Streams of blue energy rippled from my palms, forcing Raptor to dodge to the side. I’d practised earlier—a lot—but the last time my magic had been this unruly was in Faerie.