Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County) (12 page)

Everything was shattered and bright, then dark, then nothing.

Logan

“Lily? Lily?”

Damn it. Come on.

Her head was on his lap, her heart-shaped face cupped in his hand. Her pulse was strong—she was just knocked out, he repeated over and over to himself. The blow to her head was tough. He shouldn’t have stopped the runaway car so suddenly, but he’d had no choice.

Never before in his life had he run as fast as he had down that dark tunnel, leaving the wounded kid and sprinting to stop Lily in this runaway car.

What had she been doing anyway?

Why hadn’t she just stayed put where she’d be safe?

“Lil? Come on, Lily.”

He tapped her cheeks, flushed from magic—her long eyelashes like fluffs of fairy hair, sparkling and full of all things mysterious. All things lovely.

Then they fluttered and opened. And those eyes. There they were.

And his mood flipped from worry to freak out mode. “What were you thinking chasing me in here? Lil, this is dangerous! Those kids had guns!”

Lily groaned, and for a split second, he reconsidered chastising her. What would a human boy do in a similar situation? Take her to the doctor? Bring her flowers? Write her a poem? Well, he wasn’t some human boy, so he kept talking.

“They were involved in a gang dispute. I didn’t get there in time to wrangle the gun away…”

“With your magic?” she said faintly.

“Any way I had to. He was already a bloody mess—they were all yelling and arguing about what to do and then I saw you, and how’s your head? I didn’t mean to stop it so fast—I thought you’d fly out the cave and into the ocean.” He finally stopped talking and scratched his hair. “I don’t know what I thought. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve never heard you talk that much at once.”

Logan's eyes softened. “I guess saving you and then thinking I
hadn’t
saved you makes me…talkative.”

“I like it.”

He scratched his ankle, bent over. “You okay? You aren’t bleeding? I looked—but we’ll need to get you home to check that head.”

He started helping her sit up, but she faded to pale, and her eyes got weird. “Too soon. Okay.”

She leaned back over and fell sort of into his lap.

He tensed. But then helped her head to rest.

He watched her dandelion hair fall out across his lap, the white a contrast against the dark of his jeans. Her head turned to the side, and he lifted his fingers and ever so gently ran them down her cheek, moving between the strands of her hair like the partings of ribbon.

“Is the boy okay?” she said softly.

“I don’t think so. He was bleeding quite a bit. I told them to get him to the hospital, but they were scared.”

“Put your hands on me, Logan.”

“Huh?”

“Your hands. Put them on both sides of my face. I need some of your magic if I’m going to save the boy.”

He sat up taller. “Does it work like that? I can just give you magic? I thought you’d have to take it from me.”

Her eyes landed square on his, full of a need for him to hear her.

He was listening.

“You can give anyone your magic, Logan. It’s just that you don’t choose to.”

“I honestly didn’t know that was an option.”

She looked at him sadly—like he was a kid who’d had secrets kept from him—which, of course, was exactly what he was.

“How do I do it?”

“Close your eyes. Cup my face and concentrate. The ways you work up a spell, or manipulate the elements. The way you did when you stopped my car just now. But instead of doing something, you just picture my face—my…well, anything about me—and the energy will transfer.”

“I don’t…want to…give you something I don’t mean to.”

“You mean dark energy?”

He dodged her eyes, said softly, “Yeah.”

“Then don’t. Don’t think about anything negative. Focus on only the positive—the good things in life. On how you feel. And don’t, well…try not to think of me in a negative way.”

He smiled. “Like I should picture you on Black Mountain instead of, say, on the Boardwalk mocking me for my love of flavored milkshakes, while planning to steal back your amulet?”

“I think that would be best,” she said weakly.

Sitting up straight, he held his arms out, rubbing his hands together like he was trying to create fire, which he would, incidentally, if he kept at it. Tiny red sparks and willows of smoke appeared in the dark cave. Then he took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and bent over her. Before he cupped her face, he said, “Blow on my hands…I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her eyes were full and round when she let out the softest of sighs and then when the cold hit his palms he shivered all over. And then his hands were on her face and he did what she told him to do. He saw her asleep on the rock beside the cliff that overlooked the sea—sunset bathing her body in its rosy glow. He saw her open her luminous eyes, her smile bright as they walked together in the straw-colored grass. Even though she’d warned him not to, he saw her when she was critical, too—when her brow furrowed, when she threw her hands on her hips in frustration. The way her body curved away when she didn’t know quite how to respond to him; the way her eyes tried to look away from his, but kept coming back. He saw her in every moment they’d spent together. Every tiny one.

What Lily didn’t realize, what he’d barely admit to himself, was that
everything
he felt for her was positive. Even the bad was good. There wasn’t a single part of her that he didn’t admire—that he didn’t find charming, irresistible. That he didn’t find brilliant and brave. Effervescent.

“I sort of think you’re awesome too,” she said, her voice back to its confident, teasing tone. She locked her eyes on his and sat up, rubbing the back of her head.

He started, a bit flustered. Coming out of that Lily-trance wasn’t something he could do quickly. The video frames in his mind kept rolling, like a movie trailer of Lily. A collage of photos and extreme emotions stuttered like an old film reel running out at a nickelodeon when he tried to make them stop coming.

Logan gave himself a moment. He rubbed his head, feeling a bit embarrassed to be speaking to her now. Could she See what he just saw? Did she know how he felt about her?

No way he was going to come out and ask, so instead he said wryly, “Am I to assume the transfer worked?”

“And then some!” she said, her perky lilt back. “I feel great.” Lily bounced up and pulled him to his feet with surprising power, surprising him further by bouncing up on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. “Thank you.” Then she grabbed his hand and yanked him to her side. “I owe you. Seriously. Come on, let’s go save that kid.”

Lily

We ran through the artificial cave, sticking to the tracks. Alongside us, much like the grass on Black Mountain, the ride props sparked to life. Ghostly haunts groaned, faux flames sparked bright orange. Green goblins wobbled, cornstalks weaved, bats spun at an inhumane rate on the ends of electric wires.

Then, when we turned the corner, the lightness disappeared. A boy lay bleeding on the side of the tracks, a massive bloody wound on his thigh, a twisted expression of pain on his mouth.

His friends were yelling and carrying on—it was clear to me that they had no idea what they were doing and no natural leader to tell them what to do.

Logan spoke to them in Spanish and then moved back out of the way for us to approach.

“Hola,” I said to the boy.

“Hey,” he said.

“Oh, sorry.”

“No problem.” He said through a grimace.

“Look, I’m going to help you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You a doctor?”

“No. Well, sort of. Just trust me, okay?” I leaned in so only he could hear. “I’m going to fix you but you can’t tell anyone about it.”

“Girl, you think we’re going to tell someone about bringing a piece to the Boardwalk?” The friend in a red bandana said. I noticed he had gang symbols painted in ink splayed across his wrist. We weren’t really any different, this gang member and me. This boy and Logan.

And I wanted to help him.

I caught Logan’s eye and he read my message loud and clear. He moved over to the opposite side of the frantic and suspicious boys, willing their eyes to follow him, to look away from the boy I was about to heal.

One witness to my magic risked plenty.

“Close your eyes,” I said to the boy.

“Why? What you gonna do?”

“Just trust me. Please.”

His leg was trembling. Blood, so much blood was seeping through the bandana he was holding to his wound.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“John Smith.”

I smiled. “Yeah, and I’m Jenny Jones.”

“Nice ta meet ya Jenny Jones.”

“Likewise. Now close your eyes, Mr. Smith. Dream of…Pocahontas or something.”

A worried smile crossed over his face as I help my hands over his wound and closed my own eyes. His life, a series of photographs flowed through my hands—a single mom, a dad in jail, a little brother he loved more than life itself. His friends the ones he looked up to the most. A girl in tight jeans with a beautiful smile. His girlfriend? Saw his intensity, his apprehension upon coming into this cave to fight this rival gang member—how he promised to pick up his brother and take him on the Ferris wheel. After.

My magic roared to life. A feeling so intense washed over me as my healing flowed through my core, down my arms, through my tingling palms into this boy.

One, two, three minutes passed before he opened his eyes and popped up, back straight.

“Whoa. What the...How’d you do that?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You a witch or something?”

“I…have a gift to heal people-—deserving of being healed.”

He was quiet as he met my eyes and then dodged them again. “How you know I’m deserving of being healed?”

“Because you love your brother. Because you take care of your mother. Because you need to give your girlfriend that toy ring you won for her up on the Boardwalk.”

He winced but didn’t look scared. “Holy hell.”

I shrugged. “Don’t tell, okay?”

“Your secret's safe with me, Jenny Jones.”

He held up his fist so I curled my fingers into one too—bumped knuckles to knuckles.

“Get out of here, John Smith. And tell your friends this was a warning—next time I find you guys with a bullet wound from being idiots, I might not be so generous.”

He nodded quickly, not wanting to show emotion. But I could tell he’d taken my words to heart.

His friends nodded at me with a mix of gratefulness and curiosity. One friend though, the boy with shark-eyes, glared at me, glancing down at my hands. “I wouldn’t start dishing out warnings to my friends, Witchgirl, unless you want a warning coming at you.”

Logan immediately stepped into his space.

“You aren’t threatening Ms. Jones, are you?”

“What if I was?”

Logan drilled his eyes into the boy’s until he reluctantly conceded, backing slowly away without another glance at me.

“
Gracias
,” John Smith said, a bounce to his step as he sprinted out of the cave.

Ten minutes later we were back on the Boardwalk, slumped against each other on a bench, gulping bottles of water.

It was an incredible feeling, letting the electrolytes refill themselves, Logan’s energy so close to mine, wishing the sun’s magic into my skin to make up for what I gave to the boy in the cave. I still felt lightheaded and dizzy, but not nearly as weak as I usually did after a healing. Logan’s magic was incredibly strong. Like nothing I’d experienced before.

And so I reached for him.

My fingers brushed down his damp shirt until they cupped the amulet in a full moon. “Wearing that? Here? Pretty risky.”

Logan’s hand rushed to cover it, but not fast enough. Light flashed through the cracks in his fingers, like it was desperate to escape. Heat radiated from his body, and I knew what was coming. Scanning down his arm—his black tank top didn’t hide much—his ink appeared, running down his biceps, his forearms.

I couldn’t decipher the pattern, but it was stunningly brilliant in design. More than art, more than language. More like a message. A code. My mind took a photograph I would research later.

Rubbing his arm, he noticed me noticing. Of course he noticed me noticing. There was no way not to notice. Me noticing. His sweat made the ink glisten. Then abruptly he untied the sweatshirt from around his waist and shrugged into it, pulling the black hood up and over his head.

“Well, we did have a lot of activity in that cave, Ms. Jones,” he said by way of explanation. Did he not want to admit I caused his ink to rise?

Then the windows closed; I’d reached in too far. Logan hopped off the bench, long strides crisscrossing in front of me with an old-fashioned almost cowboy-like swagger as he walked up to the wooden railing. Stared out at the sea.

I couldn’t let him go, though. Too much was at stake.

He would be tried before Congression if they found out he’d saved a human boy, that he'd intervened with humanity at all.

Witches vowed to help humans. Warlocks vowed to do everything but.

Still he risked it.

I studied his face; the side of his etched jaw. If he gave me the slightest hint that that would be okay, I’d do it. Throw caution to the wind, and go about this on my own; I’d find the mark and prove to my coven he was the Roghnaithe. He had the healing ability—he’d proved that, and now he was staring out at the sea like a tiger with a slab of raw meat dangling in front of him. I’d never seen someone else look out at the water like that. Someone other than me.

I rubbed my temples—full of life, full of Logan’s magic.

He waited until I was next to him, as if he knew I’d come.

Our forearms touching skin on skin, we both stared out at the sea.

Pulling his sleeve up higher, his eyes ran down his ink.

“It’s my amulet, isn’t it? All this talk about butterscotch and your actions in the cave? The amulet is making you want things you never allowed yourself to want before.”