Page 10 of Gray Dawn

When it didn’t punish him, just lay quiescent, he shut his eyes and cocked his head as if listening.

“I hear my magic calling to me, but it’s faint. I can’t understand what it’s trying to tell me.” A deep groove appeared between his brows. “There’s…a barrier.” He opened his eyes on Dad. “Your doing, Hiram?”

“Focus on the artifact.” Dad’s voice came out cold. “The rest doesn’t concern you.”

“They might be one and the same.” Proctor rubbed his thumb over the pendant. “There’s a connection.”

The Hunk had been feeding off me, so, yes. We were connected. Without my magic, though, it was inert.

“Explain this to me.” He didn’t take his eyes off the pendant. “I must know the ingredients.”

On the edge of my periphery, Dad nodded that I could tell him, but I had to work up to speaking about it to someone new. I was so used to hiding it, protecting it,avoidingthinking about it, I had trouble picking a place to start. One that wouldn’t give more than I got in return for sharing.

“The pendant was home to a djinn, but it’s been vacant for decades. I decided to store the grimoire in it. I was able to call it out and return it without a problem for a while.” I didn’t see a way around admitting I had added one final element. By accident. But still. “My grandmother-in-law knitted me a Tinkkit choker. Its gift was protection.” More or less. “The moment the choker touched the pendant’s chain, they fused. I couldn’t call the grimoire after that, and I couldn’t remove the pendant. Anyone who tried to remove it for me got zapped. Anyone whotried to hurt me, well, they got dead. Whether that was my intention or not.”

“I saw the aftermath of one such incident,” Dad told Proctor. “She vaporized a coven of black witches.”

“What a terrible waste of food.” Proctor did glance up then, to frown at me. “How many did you kill?”

The pendant did it. Not me. I’m not to blame.

That was what I wanted to say, but it was a cop-out.

“Enough,” I rasped, recalling the sense of helplessness in the aftermath of the slaughter.

The answer didn’t please him, but it did appear to amuse him. “You’re death averse for a black witch.”

I’m not a black witch. Not anymore. I’m a gray witch.

Yet another facet of my power I couldn’t risk explaining to him without endangering Colby.

No black witch had ever forged a familiar bond with aloinnir,as far as I could tell.

Most would rather eat theloinnirfor immediate gratification than bind their life to its ephemeral existence.

“I am my father’s daughter,” I assured him, letting him see in my face I had no problem killing to survive.

“You would have to be,” he mused, “to harness the power of your creation.”

Dad, who had shifted closer during the evaluation, demanded, “Can you help or not?”

“Are you sure you want to remove it?” Proctor aimed the question at me. “You could be magnificent.”

“I could be its puppet,” I corrected him. “The artifact wants to control me. It wants to absorb me too.”

That was the only word that fit how it had burrowed into the tender flesh between my breasts. I had no idea if or when it would have stopped if Dad hadn’t bound my magic to release its stranglehold on me.

“Fascinating.” His gaze went unfocused in a way that reminded me of how Dad spaced out to view spells and the threads that knotted them together. “I’m not sure if it’s a comfort,” he said moments later, “but the sentience is an extension of the book. The other objects are channeling its will.” He blinked away the blankness in his stare. “They have none of their own.” He shook his head. “The grimoire alone was a feat of mastery, but this? This is artistry. Does this configuration allow you to access the book’s pages? Does it whisper its secrets to you?”

“I see what it wants to show me.” I kept darting glances at Dad. “It has a mind of its own.”

“Let me think on it.” He lowered the pendant with reverence. “I would like it intact, if possible.”

“What about me?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He withdrew a few steps. “Come back to see me tomorrow.”

“We don’t have that kind of time,” I protested, as concern for Colby flared within me. “Can you do this or not?”

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