Page 17 of Big Little Spells

Emerson and I look at each other. For all the ways we were sisters, did spells together, spoke our own languages, and accepted our grandmother’s gifts, never has our magic twined like that before. We’re glowing—her eyes a bright, astonishing gold.

“Wow,” she says.

I can’t speak at all.

Then there’s a noise, and we both turn toward it.

6

NICHOLAS FROST STANDS THERE in his dramatic doorway with that ridiculous overcoat that flutters in his own wind like a cape made of weather.

Scowling, obviously.

It only makes him hotter. “Somehow I knew, no matter all I’ve done for you Wildes, that you’d keep turning up here to destroy my peace.”

I think, done for us Wildes or done to us?

“Both, witchling,” Nicholas says to me, out loud, though I know I didn’t actually speak aloud to him. “It will always be both.”

Emerson gives me a confused look, but I pretend I don’t see it.

Luckily, Emerson has bigger fish to fry. Doesn’t she always? “Good morning to you too. I’ll ask you to pardon us. I’m sure that after last night’s display you were tired and needed some rest,” she says soothingly.

I think, because you’re very, very old, and my reward is a twitch of one of his very dark, very acrobatic brows.

“But surely now that you’ve had some time to recuperate, to rest and regroup, you have to realize that the only reasonable thing for you to do is to tutor us. The Joywood certainly don’t have our best interests at heart.”

Nicholas’s eyebrows get a workout with every word Emerson says. Rest, recuperate, and regroup seem to cause him the most agitation.

I want to grin at Emerson, who, once, I would have assumed doesn’t know what she’s doing. But maybe I didn’t give her enough credit back then.

“And you think I do?” Nicholas asks.

Emerson studies him. “Yes. I do.”

“I don’t help, little Warrior. I’m an ancient, powerful creature, more myth than man. Obviously I have better things to do.”

But he’s standing here, having this conversation. Which is odd, as I know I wouldn’t be anywhere near this place or this conversation if I didn’t have my sister dragging me into it. What’s his excuse? He could easily stay locked up in his immortal mansion, surrounded by the glamours he likes best—like moats or castle walls or giant, hideous spiders if he’s feeling gothic—and never address us at all. He certainly has the power.

I have more power than you can possibly imagine, comes his voice in my head. And if voices have a taste, his makes me think of the sea. That immense. That all-encompassing.

That salty.

Surely, continues that voice, you should already know this.

“You have nothing better to do. I’m not sure you have anything to do at all.” Emerson is shaking her head as if that makes her sad, personally. “Or you wouldn’t be camped up here, year after year. Generation after generation.”

“On the contrary, Em,” I hear myself say, though I know I shouldn’t. Humans shouldn’t poke bears and witches shouldn’t poke immortals. Everyone knows better. Then again, shouldn’ts have never been my strength. “I think he likes watching it all burn.”

His mouth doesn’t curve, exactly. I’m not sure what it does to signal a certain kind of amusement.

In my head, that big voice sounds like silk as he asks, and you don’t?

Speaking of burns, that one hurts. And I walked right into it.

He doesn’t sound any different out loud. “And if I help you, what—pray tell—is in it for me?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Emerson says, because if my sister has a fatal weakness it is this. She can’t get her head around the idea that some people don’t want to do the right thing, even when it’s presented to them on a silver platter. Some people don’t care. Some people just want the platter so they can turn it for a profit.

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