Page 309 of Sigils & Spells

Like he could solve my problems.

Sunlight filtered in through the blinds and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Shit.

My hair was looking muted. A dull auburn as opposed to the fiery mane I’d had when I returned to Westwood last semester.

Fact was, I was losing control of my talents. No, I did not tell anyone.

How could they help even if they were inclined?

Fire witches were feared by most in the magical world. I did not expect anyone to care about my problems. Just like I didn’t care about the raging hormones of the twenty-somethings at Westwood.

No. They could keep to their affairs, and I would keep to mine. Jade and Rio were wrong about me. I had bigger problems than trying to get laid.

CHAPTER1

I hadmy head buried in my tablet, trying not to let it bother me that Westwood made all the students register their electronics with them. They claimed it was so they could “protect the magic secret” from the human world, but I was not buying it. They wanted to track us, like animals with electronic collars.

I typically used mine for schoolwork only, but this morning I was scrolling through theCouncil of Covens Daily Newspassing time as I waited for Jubilee to prepare my breakfast. She was a pink-skinned sprite who Rio befriended when she first came to Westwood; that water witch had stirred things up, doing things no one ever thought to before, like befriending a school employee.

Jubilee was pretty awesome, though, and I had to hand it to the sprite, she really knew her stuff. She had the most amazing talent, a sort of mind-reading shtick that made it possible for her to pull memories right out of your head. More specifically, memories of food she could then recreate to perfection.

Right now, she was making me a bowl of steel-cut oats the way my Gran used to when she was alive, with a dash of cinnamon, a drizzle of wildflower honey, and a tablespoon of toasted nuts. I come from hearty Irish stock, and this was the breakfast Gran had insisted on when she’d come to help Da raise me after my mother had died.

But that was enough of my sob story. I lost my mom, true, but I had a good childhood with a Da who loved me and a Grandmother who taught me what I needed to know about my gifts. Being a fire witch came with its ups and downs, for sure.

One significant down was being shit at relationships.

It was hard to open up when one simple argument could turn into Armageddon. Navigating the new friendships in my life was proving difficult already. It was taking its toll and the more I sought to control my magic, the more I felt it slipping away.

I’d been raised with a very clear understanding of what I was supposed to do in life. Learn to control my talents. Get drafted by the Incendo Coven. Go after the witches responsible for killing both my mother and her mother.

Crazy?

Maybe.

But the lust for vengeance was what fueled me.

I’d been robbed of one parent, and my magic hungered for the screams of those responsible.

It was probably unhealthy, but what could I say?

Fire witches were not known for their mental or emotional stability. Two reasons the other elementals tended to give us a wide berth here at Westwood.

The facts were simple. My maternal grandmother had been killed in the Second Witch Wars. Whoever was responsible for her death hunted my mother down not long after I was born.

Though everyone had signed a treaty when the war was finished, but Grandma Florence Newton had enemies, and those enemies held their grudges for a very long time. I’d spent hours researching my family history, but it was hard to pinpoint the likely culprit.

Ancient gripes festered when left unaddressed, and there had been numerous run-ins with the Connors ever since my ancestor, the first Florence Newton, was accused of witchcraft by a jealous rival wizard, John Pyne, whose coven leader condemned her to death while impersonating an inquisitor. The gory goings-ons of the early seventeenth century were rife with such occurrences.

All I knew was that cowards had killed my mother and made it look like an accident. I knew this because my father had spent the last eighteen years piecing together a detailed timeline of the last month of her life. Irene Duncan McKenna was a beautiful fire witch, a devoted wife, and a wonderful mother.

I remember how she always smelled like candle wax and oil from the scented candles she used to make and sell online. She was not a warrior. Had never been trained to fight. She practiced herbalism, holistic healing, and only used her fire magic to temper potions, elixirs, and salves.

My mother was a gentle, kind, and patient woman. She did not deserve to die at all, much less in a gas station explosion that had supposedly occurred because of a careless truck driver. Authorities, human and magical, concluded the poor bastard had tossed his cigarette butt too close to where a fuel truck was filling the underground tanks.

But I knew better.

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