Hi!

The real quesiton in this chapter is: What is the Raven planning? Is Anna making a big mistake in this one? What do you think?

Lara

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Chapter 4

I stared at the cuff incredulously. My cuff. Stored and packed with power I'd meticulously siphoned off the elements ever since-

I swallowed. Ever since my godmother Giuliana taught me. Another painful reminder I had to stuff in the concrete box I carried inside myself. Storing magic was something Giuliana taught me during my stay in Italy, and I'd been practicing ever since.

Not only that Medici took the cuff from me, he was trying to use it!

Trying. Emphasis on trying, I added mentally.

Yeah, that was right. Medici was a rogue witch. He might have shitloads of power at his disposal, could summon enough power to raze a quarter of the city whenever he liked, but he couldn't use elemental magic anymore. All that was left of the witch he once was was the ability to call Ravens to his side. Even though I still hadn't figured out how he did it, I was pretty sure that was all he could do with earth magic. Everything had a price. For the rogues it was a life of dark magic. Exclusively.

Medici let his right hand – the one not holding my cuff, something that was mine, dammit – fall and turned. His eyes were on me. They had the vacant, icy look I'd caught a glimpse of before.

"Your turn, Anna Johnson. Show us what you're made of," he said, holding up the cuff slowly.

I stared at the cuff. I wanted to get my hands on it, as fast as possible, but I wasn't going to walk into a catastrophe blindly.

I raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do you expect me to do?"

He straightened in one move. "There's a magical artifact we need to retrieve. It's here, concealed and spelled, right behind that wall. You will dismantle the ward protecting it and get it for us. Circumstances, as they are, leave us no other choice. Thanks to you, we're a little short on allies within the witch community that can and will use elemental magic for us."

I watched him for a moment. The artifact was there and Medici knew about its exact location. Logic told me someone had put it in there and spelled it for Medici with elemental magic. A real-life, non-rogue witch. I knew Medici had allies among the witch community before. No big news there.

Either Medici was telling the truth and he'd lost non-rogue allies ever since I outed his mole, or he didn't want me to know who they were. I was betting on the latter. No way in hell was Travis Holmes the only iron in Medici's fire. The former Circle witch might have been essential when it came to retrieving inside information from within the Circle headquarters, but the Raven was too clever to stake everything on one elemental witch alone. I'm sure he had a few more aces in the hole I knew nothing about.

That begged the question why he'd go to all the trouble and use me? Why risk it? To truly make me one of them?

"Whether you realize it or not, the night you walked with me into that portal, willingly, you agreed to become one of us. Show us that you mean it," Medici said.

Either Medici was an avid mind reader, or something must have shown on my face. I needed a better poker face, dammit.

Become one of us. The words echoed in my mind, a perpetual dying whisper.

I couldn't lose my head. Not now. Medici knew too much already. He had to believe that at least a part of me wanted to be one of them for reasons that were valid to him. I stared him in the eyes, willing him to see that I was telling the truth.

"You know that I haven't used elemental magic ever since I joined you. How do you know I can still use it?"

He smiled. "It won't be a problem. You've used multiple elements. You still have a choice. The rest of us catch a glimpse of the dark magic. It's like a certain kind of music, as much seductive as it is addictive. No matter how hard we try, we can't resist it. Not that we want to. You, however, can. Resist. Use your element, call it, and it will come. That's why they call people like you Pentagrams."

The word failed to bring the gut-punch-reaction it used to. I stared at him.

"Let's assume for one second I can still use my element. There are two things you didn't put into the equation. Not only that I can't see the artifact, I suck at dismantling wards."

He walked up to me slowly. Again that vacant look in his eyes I learned to be wary of.

"You're a clever one, aren't you?" He grabbed my arm, squeezing hard. "Can't dismantle a ward? Poor Anna Johnson."

He drew closer. "But that's why you got me. You'll get a crash course in dismantling and get the artifact for us, or die trying. How about that?"

He smiled. Not the kind that promised sunshine and roses. It was the kind you saw in nightmares right before the cold-sweated jerk into consciousness. The kind that promised violence and pain.

This was more than just a grab and retrieve mission. This was another test. One I couldn't afford to fail. Medici was taking a kill-two-ravens-with-one-stone-approach. He wanted to test my compliance.

Someone who'd really and truthfully committed herself to the Inri-Brotherhood's cause, would do what he asked without thinking twice. If I declined, Medici was going to kill me. If I tried and failed, who knew what the magical backlash would do to me? Nope, I didn't want to think about that outcome.

"What's it going to be, Anna Johnson? Fight or flight?"

I held the Raven's stare, eyes going over that deep shadow, that awry gaze reminiscent of a mind tainted with instability. But within it all, there was still the sharp sense of a cold-blooded strategist.

"Show me the damned spell," I said.

Another smile. "Wise choice."

* * *

Being half dragged, half steered to a place without it looking like forceful coercion is an art in itself. Medici had mastered it. He placed me in front of the wall with the grace of a stage director. I stared at the concrete, feeling his breath on the top of my head.

Dismantling wards was dangerous, for more than one reason. Touch one layer the wrong way, and the thing blows up into your face.

"Who did it? Who spelled it for you?" I said in a low voice.

"No can tell," he said. "Now, focus."

I stared. Concrete. Nothing else. Not a twitch of magic, nothing to nudge or scrape at my awareness.

"I can't even see it. How am I supposed to dismantle the thing?"

"Words infuse intent, the basic structure a spell is made of," he said. "To reverse the spell, you have to make it visible first. Since I know what we're looking for, I can bring you to that point. I can get you through the rest."

Another deep breath, another attempt at slowing my heart rate, and I still wasn't sure I was going to do this for real.

"If I do this, you'll answer my questions truthfully, at a time and place of my own choosing. Quid pro quo. I'm willing to die for your cause, Raphael. I want something out of it."

"Don't get cocky." He squeezed my shoulder, a subtle reminder of who had the upper hand in the game. Undoubtedly it was Medici.

"Undoing the spell might kill me," I said softly.

The hand on my shoulder loosened. "Do this and I'll answer one. No matter which," Medici said softly.

I stilled. I was a breath away from actually committing a crime. Coercion or not, this time there were no excuses. If I did this there was no way back. This time, I wasn't going to practice black magic behind closed doors, all under the guidance of the Raven.

No, this time I'd overstep and break boundaries I once whole-heartedly believed in, do things I vowed never to do. If I did this, I would go against everything the Circle stood for. Thing was, at this point in time I wasn't sure anymore what exactly that was.

I stared him straight in the eye. "You'll answer one question at a time of my choosing and you'll tell me all about the magical artifact we're stealing and why we're stealing it."

He smiled, stared at me with a hint of appreciation I wasn't sure I wanted to have. "One question. Retrieve the artifact for me, and I'll tell you what it is."

I nodded, felt the weight of it settle, and squared my shoulders. I was going to carry it, no matter what.

"Good girl," Medici said softly, stepping away from me. "Now, go into second sight. Go as far as you can."

Ignoring the sound of rustling cloth, – rogues bringing themselves to safety and away from the spell that might explode and wreak havoc if I messed things up – I did as he said. Reality unfolded, multi-layered and complicated like a real-life 4D kaleidoscope that affected me and messed with my mind. Deep red auras with multi-facetted blotches of darkness in between. The nature of the rogue witches, ready and there for me to dissect and pick apart.

"Forget what you see on the surface. Concentrate on the wall," Medici said from somewhere behind. He was closer than the rest of the rogues, but had put enough distance between us for a quick get-away, should things go downhill.

My vision was dismembered, distorted by a complex of many layers. Reality and magic combined and clashed, a clusterfuck of auras behind and the absence of magic in front of me. Disturbed particles that carried the faint scent of magic and power. Nothing but translucency where Medici wanted me to see a spell of some sort.

"What do you see?" His voice came to me like a faint whisper. I was too far gone, absorbed in the depth of realities, working with the single-mindedness of a religious zealot.

I stared at the wall, shaking my head. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

"And that's it," Medici said. "Nothing is without energy or magic. Whether animate or not, every object, every system, possesses a certain amount of energy. Every element has a certain potency – what we witches harness and shape into magic. Focus on the absence of magic, Anna Johnson, and you will detect the spell. He used an interwoven spell. Old Latin, but pretty much basic stuff. I take it you're familiar with some of it."

I didn't comment on that but addressed the question that mattered. "Who did it? Who spelled the wall?"

Hesitation, small, but I could sense it. "A water user. That's all you need to know," he said.

A water user. I bet that Travis Holmes hid that particular artifact for the Inri Brotherhood. Maybe Medici didn't lie about that one. Now that his mole – someone easily available to him – was in custody, undoing the spell was a problem, or maybe witches were simply a hot commodity for the rogues right now. Fact was dismantling a ward done by someone else required a witch highly skilled in the arts of spelling.

I felt for my magic, my element, warily; afraid that it would not come. What was I going to do if it didn't come? That would leave me stranded with the rogues for good, with a dark-red, smudged aura and no way out. The planes of reality shifted, that inner switch that let me see, do, what no human could. Air particles danced in front of me, soft, sweet. Real.

Relief made me reach out, wanting to revel in the feel of my own element. The ward was dancing in front of us, a humongous conundrum of magic. Damned complicated.

"Don't touch it, just focus," Medici said. "Say the words. Peel the spell back, layer for layer, word for word."

I repeated the words, felt them fall from my lips on their own. The layers trembled and shifted, a complicated construct that could break and implode on itself if I so much as breathed wrong. Translucent stillness changed and turned red, drops of color emulsified in water, dissolving.

"Easy, don't rush it. Don't use too much power."

A tangle of knots, a thin, red thread with crisscross patterns that made no sense.

I exhaled. Frustrated. "I can't see."

"Look at them, return them to how they were."

I licked my lips, worked the spell, dragging the layers apart. One came undone. Then the next.

A small sound in my head. Gears clicking into place, connecting, and the whole thing came undone. I held my breath, waiting for it to explode and take me, maybe even the Inri Brotherhood and a greater half of the warehouse with it. Cold sweat on the back of my neck. Then nothing but silence.