Page 35 of Practically Witches

“So, everyone at the Institute is in danger.”

I nod. “I guess so.” There’s no consolation there. The next paragraph doesn’t make me feel better, either. “A syphoner can also store or save magic in an object to protect the syphoner from magic madness.”

“What is magic madness?”

I shrug and flip a couple pages to see if there is mention. “Magic madness is an incurable illness suffered when a syphoner, a priestess, a warlock, or a vampire drains the magic of two or more witches with opposite signatures and attempts to join the magic to form a greater power source.” That sounds heavy.

He continues reading where I left off. “It is also stated that the nine first families will form an alliance and dedicate their power signatures to the Institute for the Arts and Sciences of Magic. The nine first familiesmust each have a signature which opposes the others so all nine facets of magic are represented.”

Oh great. “So we could be dealing with a syphoner who’s going mad because of the mixed magic that she’s stolen.”

I continue to read down the page. “To keep the balance of magic in the world, a syphoner will be born into one of the nine first families of every generation to ensure thatno magical alliance is overcome by power or the thirst for it. The powers will bind to the dedication but remain separate and distinctive to each of the firsts. A syphoner can be killed only by another syphoner who is holding the weapon of power of the firsts.”

I have no idea what that means, but it makes me wonder who the syphoner is of our generation. I make a note to figure out who has siblings because it has to be someone in Zane’s crew of friends.

Zane walks to one of the bookshelves. “I think we need to know the magical signatures and what facets of magic they are each representing.”

“Why?” It doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but I’m curious as to why he thinks it’s important.

He tilts his head and the light from one of the chandelier lights overhead casts a halo on the top of his head. Fuck. How’s a girl supposed to keep her mind on magical signatures and facets of… whatever when she’s locked in a little room with a guy who looks like Zane Bradbury?

“I don’t know, but we might need it later.”

I nod. “Okay.”

He brings another book back and flips it open.This one is already in English so neither of us has to cast a translation spell to figure out what it says.

He starts by reading silently then looks at me. “Did you know that Ariya Glover was accepted by the academy before she was ever born?” He points to a passage on the page and I read it, uncertain why that matters. “It must mean something, since the rest of us had to go through extensive testing.”

If I’m honest, I didn’t have to go through anything, but Aimee did. So I nod.

I go back to reading my book while he continues reading his.

“This says the first families created Magic of the Scepter.” There are pictures of nine different small wands and one large scepter that appears to be all nine wands put together to form the jeweled base. “That has to be the weapon of power, right?” I tap the page with my fingernail as I hold it up for him.

He takes out his phone and snaps a picture of the pages and the silly girl part of me thinks he’s taking the picture of me. I flush with heat for a second then realize he’s taking the picture of the scepter.

“Weapon of power?”

When he glances at me, I read the passage to him about killing the syphoner.

He nods. “I would think so.” At best, we’re guessing, but there isn’t really anyone we can ask.

“Does your book say what those powers are?”

And now I know why they’re important. When we figure out who the syphoner is in our generation—as soon as we make sure that person isn’t the one robbing others of magic—we’re going to have to get the scepter to them. The legends we’d heard before weren’t complete. No one mentioned the scepter anyway, so we can’t count on that being the total of the information.

He is flipping through his book while I look at pictures of the wands. The Hadley family wand has a blue sapphire protected by twisted wire that extends from the slender silver-and-ivory handle to where they meet a couple inches over the stone. The Illusion Stone.

I tap his shoulder and the touch is electric, zinging up my arm. I don’t know what it all means, but it’s damned pleasant, probably the most pleasant thing I’ve ever felt in my life. More so than it had been in the car.

He turns and smiles. “Yeah?”

I want to be flirty, tell him that I only wanted to touch him, but that isn’t wholly true. I have an actual reason and remind myself that as soon as we get through this, we’ll have plenty of time for flirting.

“I think I found what we’re looking for.” I point at the page.

“I can’t wait for everything to be back to normal.” His voice is low, almost husky and I ache to hear more, but instead I hand him the book. “The facets of magic are connected to the wands.”

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