Page 13 of Kiss of Magic

Tala looked away, ashamed she was asking him to do something she herself couldn’t.

“I know you will. Though at this point it’s academic. She’s in the wind again, she could be anywhere.”

“I know exactly where she is.”

Tala shot him a startled glance.

“I thought she ditched you?”

“Do you not know me at all, Blondie?” His tone was reproachful. “I tagged her before she ran away. Radioactive marker on her skin.” He held up his phone. “I’m tracking her now.”

“You fuckingirradiatedthe girl?”

“Tiny amount. Harmless.” He gazed at his phone thoughtfully. “Trouble is, she knows who I am now. And every time I get close to her, she’ll just use her magic mojo. I’m only human, Blondie. I can’t protect myself against that.”

“Ah. Well, I may have an answer for that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But…”

“But what?”

“But you’re not going to like it.”

Six

Arjhan

The crack was hairline and barely an inch long, but it may as well have been a crevasse. Ren felt sick every time she looked at it.

Five witches stood in a circle, each one positioned at the point of the pentagram etched into the floor. The low murmur of their voices filled the little room, their chants keeping the magical sigils beneath their feet strong and functioning.

Every witch in the realm had been drafted into service. They rotated in groups of five, each group holding the line for three hours. Ren’s friend and royal dresser, Ruth, was on the current shift and Ren had come to make sure she was all right.

The green-haired wiccan caught her eye and gave a small nod, never letting up on the spell. She’d be done in a few minutes. Already the next five witches were taking up positions behind them, ready to walk into place and seamlessly take over the recitation.

It had been the ritual for ten days now, ever since the light from the protective runes embossed into the walls of the palace had flared briefly in one last burst of glory and then guttered out.

The ancient symbols had been glowing steadily brighter over the past few months – a warning that their power to keep the seal closed was weakening. But the angels who had put them there had long since vanished and no-one had realised the importance of the brightening until the oldest coven in history had made the connection.

The Angelus Seal was failing. The door to the demon prison was opening. And only a constant flow of magic would hold it shut. That’s all that stood between Nush’aldaam and annihilation – the soft incantations being spoken every minute, everysecondof every day.

It wasn’t a permanent solution. Only relocking the seal would keep the demons at bay indefinitely. Until then, the witches were Nush’aldaam’s last line of defence.

The Emperor entered the Seal Room and stood next to his wife.

“Everything okay?” he whispered.

“They’re about to change shift. But Kam, they’re exhausted. This is difficult magic for them. They can’t keep going like this.”

“The more powerful covens are training up the weaker ones. We should have more capacity by the end of the week.”

“Any news on the key?”

“Tala is liaising with the human tracker. She says if anyone can find it, he can.”

“It’s not an ‘it’.” Ren’s tone was uncharacteristically sharp. “It’s a ‘she’. And given what’s going to happen to her when she’s found, the least we can do is acknowledge that.”

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