Page 81 of Wicked Deeds

“Fight?”Lianith asked.

“Just a disagreement. Everything is okay.”Hopefully.

“Tell big witch, trust.”Lianith nudged Gwen with her nose and Gwen patted her a little more calmly.“Keep Gwen safe. No tell secrets.”

I blinked at her. Apparently nixlings picked their own sides.

“Trust,”Lianith repeated firmly before closing her eyes and starting to purr, the noise loud but soothing.

Gwen didn’t look particularly soothed.

“It’s not personal,” I said, knowing damned well it must feel personal to her. “Cassandra and Damon, they have responsibilities to uphold. The kind of responsibility you and I can’t really understand. I don’t think anyone can, unless they’re in the same position. They have to follow the rules. And keep everyone safe.”

“Aren’t I part of everyone?” Gwen asked plaintively.

“One part. But in their jobs, sometimes the greater good beats the individual. Particularly for Cassandra. The Cestis keep the peace between witches and normals by doing what they do. We don’t want to go back to the bad old days. So the Cestis keep secrets. Actually,” I tilted my head at her. “I’m surprised Aubrey or someone didn’t give you some version of this speech already.”

“They did. The ‘no talking about demons or Fae to any normals’ part, at least. Even most witches. Not that I know how to tell who’s a witch.”

“You don’t?”

She squinted at me. “You do?”

Right. She’d only done magic in the realm. You didn’t have to look for the energies in there. You could just assume that everyone had magic and were using it to some degree most of the time. Or could do so as easily as breathing whenever they wanted to. “Witches can see other witches using magic. When we choose to look.”

That didn’t seem to help.

“Look at what?” Gwen asked.

“At the energy fields.”

Gwen still regarded me as though I was talking gibberish. Or maybe sprouted an extra head.

“Like an aura,” I added.

“Auras are real?”

Okay, so she’d been exhausted and medicated in the hospital. So maybe she hadn’t understood what Meredith meant when she said she wanted to check her aura. “Well, energy is real. And witches can see it. I’m not sure the old hippy version of an aura was ever true. Maybe there were people with very weak magic who caught glimpses of the energy field, but never knew what it was before the witches went public.”

“So you can see magic?” Blonde brows drew down. “Can you show me?”

“I think it would be better to wait until Cassandra gives the okay. I take it Fae don’t do the same thing?”

“I don’t know about out here, but in the realm it’s more a sensation. If you’re paying attention, you can sense the magic flowing to and from people. Unless they’re cloaking what they’redoing. That makes it tricky. You learn to recognize other signs. But youseethe magic? Like a color or something?”

“Yes. But I can also feel the energy sometimes. It’s different for different people. Yours is kind of a smoky blue. I think the smoky part is a Fae thing. Cerridwen and Callum have it, too.” I stopped for a moment. Her energy was blue. So was mine. Mine lacked the smoky tinge but it was blue. Another confirmation we were sisters.

“Huh.” She looked intrigued, despite herself. “Do you think Cassandra will show me how to see them?”

“I think she’ll insist on it, if it turns out Jack is our father. It’s part of controlling magic, learning to see the energy. At least for a witch. If not, well, I’m sure we could ask Callum if there’s someone who can teach you the Fae equivalent. Or one of the tanai, if that’s what you’d prefer.” If she wasn’t half-witch, Cassandra would be less concerned. We could leave it up to the tanai to explain to her what she might be able to do out here if she wanted to. Before Pinky had done her favor for Cerridwen and wound up being trained with me, she had lived quite happily not using her magic, so maybe it wasn’t a problem for them.

Gwen sighed, and reached for another cracker, this time taking a proper bite. She chewed, swallowed. “This is not what I intended when I came here. I thought it would make things simpler.”

“Well, you couldn’t have predicted exploding light bulbs or finding out you have a half sister.” I hesitated. “How do you feel about it? Be honest. You can say it’s weird if that’s how you feel, you won’t hurt my feelings.”

“Is that how you feel?”

I half shrugged. “It’s weird, but not bad weird. Does that make sense? I’d like to get to know you, if that’s what you want. But we don’t have to be in each other’s pockets, if it’s not. Maybe it’s like meeting a new friend…we have to see if we get along.”

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