Page 65 of The Deathless One
Jessamine’s entire body went cold. So Leon had made good on his threat. He really was bringing more infected into her kingdom, making it a dumping ground for all the bodies. Eventually, there would be more infected than healthy people. No one would be able to live here.
“This won’t do,” she muttered, getting to her knees and reaching into her bag.
She shrugged off the rags that she’d piled on to camouflage herself while she slept. Some ragged scraps still clung to her form as she yanked out a black candle and the other components she needed.
She could hear Sybil’s warning in her ear.Don’t practice magic where anyone can see you, girl.
She glanced up at the woman’s window—too many early risers in this alley. She needed to find a darker, more secluded corner to put some of these spells to good use. After slipping silently from her hiding spot, she darted down the main road until she saw a hidden location, barely an alley, more like an awkward crevice between two listing buildings.
She slunk into the dark, then dug through the bag and racked her mind for her best option. A summoning spell to a patron, that was all she could think of. She needed him here because it seemed everything was worse than they had expected.
How long had Leon been dumping the infected here? How long did she have before some of them set upon her?
“Earth, air, wind, fire,” she muttered as she placed small brass bowls around the candle, then struck the match and lit the oil within one bowl, blew on another for air, tossed dirt into the third, and dripped water out of her container into the last. And then she lit the black candle. “Deathless One, I seek an audience.”
Nothing. Just the sound of the wind in her ears, like Elric was ignoring her.
But he couldn’t do that, could he? The spell was used specifically to speak with a patron, and maybe she didn’t necessarily worship him, but her plea had to mean something. He couldn’t deny a frantic request from someone who needed his help, could he?
“Elric,” she tried again, staring into the flame of the candle, which was supposed to move. “Elric, answer me!”
Was it because of the kiss?
“You are a thousand years old,” she hissed. “You should be able to face someone after you kiss them. This is important.”
And still, there was no response. In fact, the candle guttered out, extinguished either by the wind or by a pouting god angry because she’d stopped a divine kiss.
“Oh, you brat!”
After pinching the end of the candle to make sure it was completely out, she doused the second fire in the small brass bowl that Sybil had given her. Apparently, bowls were rather important to witches. She said no spell was right without brass or copper, but Jessamine was so frazzled she couldn’t remember why.
Boots stopped right next to her hands. Dirty boots, covered in soot, and certainly larger than her own.
Glancing up, Jessamine froze as she stared into the gaze of a very large man who stood over her. His grizzled features were hidden mostly by a beard, but bright green eyes stared down at her with no small measure of hatred.
“What are you doing?” he growled.
“I was making sure my bowls were clean so that I could use them to get f-food,” she stammered. Hopefully, that sounded at least a little convincing.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes. Why?” Jessamine stuffed the offending metal into her bag.
“Because it sure looks like you’re practicing witchcraft.” He crouchednext to her, massive thighs bracing his hands as he glared. “And you don’t want to know what we do to witches in the Factory District, little girl.”
She opened her mouth, ready to tell him that punishing witches without the explicit permission of the royal family had been outlawed years ago. But then that would reveal far too much. What street rat would know that?
So instead, she closed her mouth and nodded.
“There are no warnings here. You hear me? We see you practicing magic, and someone will off you right on the street. No one will even pick up your body. The rats will eat you down to your bones.”
“Understood,” she said through gritted teeth.
The man stood and spat on the ground next to her feet before walking away. Her bowls clanked together as she threw the bag on her back. Perhaps that interaction should have scared her into making sure that she was less easy to spot, but all it had done was ignite a flame in her chest.
She wanted to cast spells publicly now. She wanted to shout out that maybe she was a witch, and anyone who tried to touch her would burn for it. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Jessamine barely even knew how to light a candle with her magic. But she suddenly wished she could wield it like a weapon.
Maybe the Deathless One had been right. She did want to hurt people, and now she needed to learn how.
