Page 29 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
“I don’t know your dad, mom, you, your life, or your personal chauffeur that stunt driver-ed us out of harm’s way a few hours ago,” she says, still chewing. “But I know guilt and lies, and your dad’s full of shit. And there was magic all over your house.”
“What?” Mateo, Topher, and Quincy all say.
“There’s protection spells on that whole place,” She abandons her crust on the table between them. “Weird ones. Like … nonstandard. Daddy Dearest came home before I could really study them, but even if I’d kept looking, I’m not sure I’d getanything more than that. Custom but nothing like your mom’s.” The last part is said to Mateo.
Which probably means they aren’t super evil. But it’s also the most buck-wild thing Ophelia could say. A warded house that didn’t reject Mateo shouldn’t be a thing.Don’t let demons inis a pretty standard thing practitioners want. Could imply the wards are shit, but that’s not what Ophelia said.
Focusing on Topher, who’s blanched so completely that the blue of his blood is visible through his skin, Mateo says, “Has your curse ever popped off at home?”
Topher starts. “No. Nothing’s ever happened there.”
“Okay. So. Maybe the wards are keeping you safe at home,” Mateo muses, looking back to Ophelia. “Do the wards feel like the same magic as the office?”
“Totallydifferent,” Ophelia says with feeling. Meaning the wards on the house aren’t blood magic.
“There was magic at the office?” Topher whispers in dismay.
Mateo digs around in his pocket and unearths the little lady figure he’d found under Topher’s mattress. Balanced on his palm, she’s barely an inch tall.
“That’s magic as all hell,” Ophelia says.
“It was under Topher’s mattress.”
“Is it the focus? For the curse?” Topher leans in close to examine the cute, simplified features. She’s little more than the suggestion of a woman with long, straight hair.
Ophelia takes it carefully between fingers, looking between it and Topher for a bit. “It’s the same energy as the wards on the house. And similar, but not the same, as what’s coming off of Topher, but …” Her eyes drift partially closed, the out-of-place blue of her irises fading. Dread ices Mateo’s veins as he readies himself to jump forward and catch her if she slips away.
A tense moment and she blinks slowly. “It’s—” She draws in a breath, frowning minutely. “It is a focus, but not for a curse. There’s nothing negative about it.” Her hand unconsciously comes up to rub an eye, like she can scrub away whatever she’s seeing.
Taking the figure back, Mateo says, “It’s a focus for a god then.”
“God?” Topher parrots in alarm.
“Lowercase g.” Mateo runs a thumb over the smooth face of the little wooden woman. “These are usually on altars. The idea of higher magic is: Light the right candles, incense, perfume—whatever that entity likes; recite the right words, which can be a spell, intention, dance, song, or power word; and then you can briefly connect to one of these entities. It’s for channeling powers or communication. This is a specific entity, but I don’t know who.”
A lot of blinking as Topher tries to absorb this. “But why was it under my bed?”
Mateo shares a look with Ophelia, both hoping the other’s figured it out, but no dice. “I would guess it’s trying to protect you too. If it matches the magic of the wards on the house it might be an amplifier for those. But then, what the hell is going on with this curse? Why would someone go through all the trouble of cursing Topher but then protect the real estate?”
“I have no idea, but I think we’re dealing with multiple casters,” Ophelia says.
“One protecting and one cursing?” Mateo asks.
“That’s not the distinction,” Ophelia says, ticking them off on her hand. “Protection wards on the house, lady figure, and Topher’s curse look similar. They’re all the same kind of magic. I don’t know what the blood ward at the office was going to do, but the curse on Topher looks completely different than it—not the same type, skill level, or intensity of intention. At least two different magics at play means at least two casters.”
“How is that possible?” Mateo starts to pace the length of the living room. “Do multiple people have vendettas against Christopher? Is that what this is? No. That doesn’t explain his guilty-as-all-fuck reaction back there. Now I’m not sure if the blood ward at the office has anything to do with Topher at all. But then, it has to. It can’t have been cast becausewewalked in the door. We’re total strangers to all this and warded up the ass. No one would have a reason to target us.”
“One or both of his parents has to be a witch,” Ophelia says.
They all look at Topher but he shakes his head mutely.
Reaching for the figure, Ophelia says, “Let’s just ask whoever this is what’s going on.”
Mateo closes his fingers over it with a sharp, “No. Not you.” There’s no world where he lets her get into contact with some unknown, possibly hostile thing. It’s not just demons capable of possession, and Ophelia’s hold on her body is tenuous, at best. “I can try to contact it.”
“No, you can’t,” she counters because he obviously shouldn’t be using magic willy-nilly after the tarot thing and the near-freak-out in Christopher’s house. “I’d be better with it.”
“You don’t know that,” he snaps.
