Page 75 of Crossroads Magic
“There’s news,” Hirom said dryly. “Who hasn’t he upset over the years?” He moved down the counter, and pulled out from the counter beneath a thick, well-thumbed book with lots of paper strips inserted between pages.
Benedict touched my arm. “You can’t take in anything Juda says, not when he’s in one of his moods.”
I looked up at him. “He…knows things. He spoke about my father as if he’d talked with him.”
Benedict nodded. “He reads people.Toowell, at times. He’s very good at figuring out how your personal history has made you want what you really desire.”
I realized I was watching his mouth move. The curve of his lips.
I straightened, and brought my gaze up to his eyes, where it should be. That was a mistake, too, because I saw awareness there. He knew what I had been thinking.
Get a grip, Anna. He’s with Harper.
I drew in a breath. “Hirom,” I called. “Pass the coffee flask up, please.”
Hirom reached blindly under the counter, his gaze on the book in his hand, picked up the coffee flask and set it on the counter. Then he shoved it, so it skidded closer to me.
I bent over the counter and hooked out a mug, then poured myself coffee.
Benedict waved toward the table. “Come and join us. See that Juda is harmless.”
“Now he’s warm?” I asked. “Just for a minute,” I added. “I have something to ask all of you, anyway.” I headed for the table.
“Where we all were on the solstice?” Benedict asked, keeping up with me.
I glanced at him, startled.
He smiled back.
When we got to the table, Benedict picked up one of the chairs from a nearby table.
“Everyone, close ranks,” he said to the table’s occupants. “One more to fit in.”
Wim, Broch, Juda and Trevalyan all picked up their chairs and brought them closer together. Benedict fitted the sixth chair beside his empty one and waved me toward it.
The table wasn’t big enough for six chairs, so we were all sitting out from the edge in order to all fit around it.
“Anna has a question for us,” Benedict told the group, sitting down.
Everyone looked at me. Even Juda. His expression was polite but his eyes were steady upon me, not distant the way they had been out on the sidewalk.
“I found something in my mother’s journal. She was looking for a summoning token—”
“Harper’s?” Benedict said, his tone sharp.
I paused, taken aback. But of course Benedict would know what Harper owned, and that something had been stolen. “Harper asked her if she could find it,” I told him and the table. “Mom was looking for a seeking spell because she didn’t have one of her own. She said that if she found the token, she would use it before giving it back.”
“Use it for what?” Trevalyan asked, leaning forward.
“She wanted to bury it in the center of the crossroad, with the proper spells. She called it an inversion.”
“Inverting the summoning token…” Wim said, his tone thoughtful. He looked at Trevalyan.
Trevalyan was watching me, though. “She wanted to ward off demons?”
“She didn’t say. But she spoke about this after you expelled one.”
Silence held the table for a long while. Everyone seemed to be caught in their own thoughts.
