Page 24 of A Lost Light

I could feel a bit of my aura, stretched out and wrapped into the weaving, glimmering through the slowly spinning concentric rings of power and null that surrounded our group.

I whooped when I stood in the middle of the circle, holding my hands over the top and bottom of the floating artifact orbs, and watched Aahil set a patch of grass on fire frominsidethe nullified zone. We would have to test just how thorough the nullified zone was with some help from someone else, since everyone here was connected to me and the nullifier wouldn't work on them right now. But I could feel it there with my magical senses. I knew that zone of magical nothing was working.

We were all laughing like maniacs and performing little feats of magic from inside our doughnut hole of chaos, when a portal opened up a few feet away.

I immediately tensed up, and everyone went on high alert, sure we had been discovered. But it wasn't the SA or the zealots. Just my sister.

Bella stumbled through the portal, shoved her hair back from her face and gave me a fierce look, the fading remnants of a black eye visible on her fair skin from whatever trouble she'd gotten up to since I last saw her.

“What the fuck is that?” she demanded. She looked down at her hands as she stepped into the nullified zone and lost all of her lovely Lovell magic. Her aura visibly shrank, and she shuddered. “Goddess fucking fuck,” she yelped, leaping backward and out of the dead zone, where her aura slowly equalized again.

Well, I guess that answered the question of whether the nullification was working. Bella was a very strong witch. If it had sapped her, it would work on pretty much everyone else.

I opened my mouth to explain, but she waved me away. “Never mind,” she bit out. “I need you. Come on.”

I carefully started tucking away the massive amounts of energy I was using to power the spells on the artifacts, spooling my magic away for later rather than fully releasing it back to the earth the way I normally would. Bella sounded frantic. Which probably meant I'd need that magic sooner rather than later. “What's going on?” I asked, my head aching as the last of the spells faded.

Dyre took the nullifier from me, and Zhong grabbed the amplifier. They both quickly tucked the artifacts away into their storage cases, shutting off their effects. The lack of eddying magic made me feel slightly unbalanced, and I had to force myself to focus.

Bella paced closer and grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward the portal. “Come on, we'll talk at the mansion while you grab whatever you need.”

I dug my heels in and resisted. I was not going to be literally pulled into her stupid war games. “Bella. I'm not playing soldier today. We've been over this. Whatever it is, I'm sure you and your little group of rebel creatures can handle it.”

She rounded on me and her eyes, so familiar, yet so strange in the sister that I hardly knew, flashed with irritation. “Look. The SA is about to execute an innocent for some trumped up charges they are using to make themselves seem like the heroes. We need to stop them. I don't care what your stance is on anything else, but we need to do this. And you and your people stand the most chance of getting in and out quickly and making a statement.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I know we don't know each other, Andy. Not really. But I know enough about you to know that you won't just stand by and let the SA commit murder when you can stop it. With your help we can storm the SA headquarters, get the poor guy out,andhopefully send a message that not everyone is going to quietly stand by and watch as the corruption spirals out of control.”

I groaned. But she was right. No matter how I might feel aboutanyof this, I sure as hell wasn't going to be able to sit back on my ass and let the dank assholes at the SA murder someone just to earn them some public support in their weird power struggle with the witch supremacists.

Sighing, I followed my stupid sister through the portal.

Chapter 13

Andy

It was strange having an outsider in my pocket world. I didn't like it. The wards allowed Bella in, but I could sense this sort of… alertness to the magic around us. This pocket world had been created, and all of the things inside it relocated, using a combination of my own will, my deep magical well,andthe magic I borrowed from all of my companions. The place was literally made from little pieces of us. And anyone not in that circle registered as foreign.

I worked fast so we could get away from that low, un-scratchable itch of warning. Bella was Lovell blood and an ally. But she wasn'tone of us,and that bothered me more than I had realized. Especially with all of her rebel tendencies. Ithoughther heart was in the right place. But she was a Lovell. As much as I hated being judged for that particular trait myself, even I had to admit there was a reason the magical world was incredibly wary of our name.

“Okay,” I said as I hurried around the workroom grabbing any spell ingredients I thought might possibly be needed. It wasn't much, honestly. We were going to try out our new magic trick. Ifthat failed, we probably wouldn't have time for spell ingredients or casting. We'd be too busy being dead. “Tell me what's going on and why we suddenly care so much about the SA and their hitlist. Are you sure this person is really innocent? How do you know they aren't secretly a cultist or a fucking O'Leary? They seem to pop up like cockroaches everywhere we go these days.”

Bella ran her finger over the spines of the grimoires on a nearby bookshelf, her expression gone distant. Then she seemed to shake herself out of whatever memory or melancholy the setting had provoked and focused back on me. “His name is River. And he's not a cultistoran O'Leary. He's a librarian. He went to work for the SA when he realized what kind of trouble was brewing with the supremacists. He's a shapeshifter. The cult sees his kind as right up there with centaurs or fauns—animals to be used. He certainly isn't working with them.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, our sources say he came across some information that he shouldn't have, and now the SA is going on about how he's a servant of the cultists and simply refuses to tattle on his masters. Poor guy. He couldn't give them information even if he wanted to, since heisn'tone of those assholes. But the SA doesn't care.” She glared, her hands fisted on her hips and righteous fury radiating from every pore.

I shook my head. It wouldn't be the first time that the SA made shit up to make themselves look good. “So what, they think that if they execute this guy for stealing secrets, they'll look like they are one step ahead of the cult and their games? That seems like a really weak reason.”

She huffed. “Since when has the SA's corrupt leadership ever needed a good reason to do anything. The last sensible thing they did was execute our family. It's been downhill ever since then.” She shook her head. “Though this kind of public scene is an escalation for them. I think it's meant to be a warning to the cult, and to the rebels as well—that they aren't afraid to uselethal and public punishment against those that challenge them. They're throwing down the gauntlet. It doesn’t matter that the guy is innocent. They need a scapegoat so they can prove their might to the public, and their ruthlessness to their enemies. They don't really care who their victim is. He is just the most convenient target.”

I rubbed my head. This kind of shit always gave me a headache. “This is all so fucking dumb.”

She nodded. “I agree. Which is why you're going to help stop it. With your overpowered crew and the artifacts, you can do this with far less risk of casualties. If I tried to take the rebels in there, it would be a full out battle, and we’d most likely lose people.” Her hand landed on my shoulder, and her eyes met mine, full of intensity. “You can do this, Andy. It's what you werebredfor, you know? To be the strongest of us and overthrow our enemies.” Then she quirked a wry smile, softening those chilling words. “It's just that our ancestors thought you'd be fighting for the other side. Thank fuck you grew up to disappoint them.”

I huffed and stuffed one last pouch of herbs into my back pocket. A mixture that had been blended and spelled to stop bleeding. “If that was supposed to make me feel better, it was a complete failure of a peptalk,” I informed my insane sibling.

Though I silently thanked the goddess thatBellawas on the right side of this too. If she was that passionate about supporting the only-witches-should-live faction, we'd be in serious trouble. I could definitely see some of my mother's fanaticism in her. Lucky us it was turned toward good. Or so I liked to believe.

We met the others downstairs in the entryway. Everyone looked rightfully grim. As far as plans went, ours was practically non-existent. Activate the artifact doughnut trick, step through the SA's portal, bulldoze our way to the cells, and grab the prisoner.

Bella and Junaid would be causing a distraction a block away in the hopes of drawing out as many SA agents as they could, so we'd have less SA people to fend off. But really, there was no finesse in this. It was a show of pure strength.

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