Page 61 of Destiny of the Witch

My mum was talking to David at the door to the Coven Council, with Oscar hovering protectively around her. She smiled when she saw me. ‘Amber!’ As was my habit now, I searched her eyes. They were clear and fixed onme; since the destruction of the harkan, she hadn’t once slipped back to her dementia-ridden days.

Lucille chittered a greeting at me as she gambolled around Mum’s feet. I knelt down and stroked her, happy to see her energy was back after she had been so close to death’s door. She really had given virtually everything to keep Mum present, and it had nearly cost her life.

‘How are you?’ I asked anxiously. Mum had been checked over by a number of healers, me included, but no one had found any lingering ill-effects from the blast of red magic the harkan had shot at her.

‘I’m okay,’ she said easily. ‘Charlize has been teaching me about partial shifting today.’

‘Any signs of any … urges?’

Mum shook her head. ‘None.’

She had quickly acclimatised to the idea of being a griffin, especially when it transpired that she still had all of her witch magic. She could still rune with the best of them. So far, the griffins’ urge to kill didn’t seem to have been passed on to her. Glimmer’s gifts are always a little odd. When Jinx’s friend Hester was turned into a vampyr using Glimmer, she didn’t have any urge to drink blood; similarly, Mum seemed to have no griffinish urge to kill.

‘That’s good.’ I waited a beat before asking, ‘And what exactly are you doing here?’

‘Trying to eavesdrop,’ she replied guilelessly. ‘But David here wouldn’t let me get close enough to paint any runes.’

‘I should hope not,’ I said, amused. ‘Why are you trying to eavesdrop?’

‘I’m bored,’ she admitted. ‘It was actually easier when I only had half my faculties and I was happy painting all day. Now I’m all me, I don’t have the attention span for oil paintings. I have no coven to run, and nothing to do.’

I grinned. ‘I have it on good authority that some positions on the Council are coming up.’

Mum brightened. ‘Now there’s an idea!’ She turned to Oscar. ‘What do you think Oz?’

Oscar smiled. ‘You can do anything you put your mind to.’

She grinned. ‘Damn right I can.’ She linked her arm through his. ‘I want to put my mind to…’ She lowered her head to whisper to Oscar.

Next to me, Bastion reddened. I raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. I’ll try and expunge the images she just conjured into my mind. I didnotneed to know that about my future in-laws.’

I felt my own face redden as my seventy-year-old mum giggled coquettishly. ‘Maybe we could get our minds cleared,’ I suggested.

‘You always have the best ideas.’ Bastion grinned. ‘Now come on, we only have an hour before the meet with Voltaire.’

Chapter 55

We met Voltaire in Greenwoods café; he was already sitting at a table when we entered. I ordered a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin before joining him. To my surprise, he stood as I approached and gavebothBastion and I a respectful bow. ‘Crone,’ he greeted me. ‘Bastion.’

‘Voltaire.’ I kept my voice level, like his greeting hadn’t wrongfooted me. Whoever had heard of a Red Guard being friendly with a witch? I remembered his comment about Abigay; maybe it wasn’t me he respected but my mantle. My whole job now was to weed out evil witches and his role was much the same. I supposed that once again our interests were aligning.

I surreptitiously painted a couple of runes onto the table to prevent our conversation from being overheard.

‘Thank you for meeting with me,’ he started, when the runes were complete. All this respect coming out of his mouth felt plainwrong, like any second he was going to pull out a camera and reveal it was all a big prank. I resisted the urge to look around for cameras.

‘Of course,’ I said brusquely. ‘What can I assist you with?’

‘I am grateful for the phone call that alerted us to the events that transpired at the manor. I understand a significant blow has been dealt to the evil Coven.’

I nodded, keeping my face blank. ‘Indeed.’ If he was here to ferret out further information from me, that made a little more sense. He needed to play nice.

‘I also understand that a necromancer was recently discovered within your own Coven.’

That was technically incorrect because there were actually two necromancers: Jeb and my father. Ria had been an apprentice of sorts. She hadn’t yet attained the skills to call herself a necromancer, though her confessions under Annabelle’s guidance had shown she was well on her way to doing so.

‘Indeed.’

‘And that they were dealt with appropriately?’

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