Page 21 of Big Little Spells

Still, he’s looking at me even as he speaks to Emerson.

“You will not send me away from my sister,” Emerson retorts, sounding as threatening to him as he did to her. Her hands shake a little, but she curls them into fists. Because Emerson will always fight for me, no matter the opponent.

It occurs to me that she doesn’t know I did the same for her.

No one knows, except Nicholas.

And really, does he even count as a person?

He definitely hears that, because the curve in his mouth deepens. I have to fight back a shiver.

“A true Diviner’s simplest and most basic act is that of scrying,” he intones, as if he’s decided to start lecturing us despite claiming he wouldn’t.

With a wave of his arm and a few muttered words, we’re suddenly inside. In a grand library so big it would make Belle weep. There are shelves packed with books straight up toward the domed ceiling. There is art everywhere, thick rugs tossed across a marble floor, and, oddly enough, what looks like a weasel in a Habitrail. It bares its teeth at us.

As I try to get my bearings without bursting into song about my provincial life or questioning Nicholas’s choice of pet, a table appears before us. It’s a high table, more like a counter. On top of it are all the typical tools for water scrying. Some fancy bowl, crystals—obsidian and quartz—and a wand. It looks older than Nicholas.

The wood of the wand is clearly ancient, but it gleams. The stone at its far end looks vaguely familiar, but for all my work with crystals I don’t recognize it offhand. I have the immediate sense that it fits this house like a glove, even though there’s no ornate carving all over it. Not like this library we’re in that features scrollwork and carving everywhere, much of it ancient signs and runes. The wand is simple in comparison. Straightforward.

And I decidedly do not want to touch it.

Nicholas does something dramatic with his hand, reaching up and then out, swiftly. A window slams open, making Emerson and me jump, and then we both frown at the knee-jerk response.

I assume the point was to make us jump. His expression is far too bland.

A ribbon of water floats in through the window, shimmering as it twists and turns. It curls into a tighter circle in the air above the bowl before Nicholas snaps and it splashes down into the receptacle.

Like he made an invisible pitcher and poured it out.

“Ask the river for its wisdom,” Nicholas suggests to me.

Not the way a teacher might assign a student a test. But the way some half-drunk, Revolutionary War–era fool might demand a duel. Except Nicholas is neither half-drunk nor a fool.

No matter how much I wish he was.

“Is this going to be on the real test?” Emerson demands, peering at the setup on the high table before us. She is probably taking mental notes just in case. I actually see her mouthing words, no doubt a spell to convert everything she sees into her teacher’s-pet-type notes without her having to physically write them down.

Nicholas sighs. “You know, I could turn you into the buzzing gnat you are determined to be. It would take the smallest spell.”

Emerson smiles as if that’s a compliment. “I would think anyone who’s been around as long as you, Nicholas, would know the squeaky wheel, or gnat, gets the grease.”

“In my experience gnats are crushed by the nearest boot.”

She shrugs. “I don’t crush easily.”

He makes a noise that is both dismissal and approval. Because somehow Emerson has managed to earn the immortal’s approval, no matter how he dresses it up in irritation. Doesn’t that just figure? All she has to do is show up.

Meanwhile, he’s taunting me with the river. And requiring a demonstration when he is actually the only person alive, besides me, who knows exactly what I can do.

I remind myself that it’s not my sister’s fault that he’s an immortal dick.

Emerson looks at me over the table. She smiles encouragingly. She doesn’t give me a thumbs-up, but I feel one emanating off her just the same.

Emerson believes in me. Emerson believes in everyone she loves.

I believe that what I would like to do is drown Nicholas Frost in the bowl he’s so thoughtfully laid out for me.

Many have tried, comes his laconic voice inside me. Most recently, and notably, in Salem. Behold their success.

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