Page 20 of Witch of My Heart

The witch room shrank when Duke left. For the first time, I was alone with just Blithe and wasn’t sure what to do with him. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do with him either.

“Just lick him,”my cat chimed into my thoughts.

“What’s your favorite sort of magic to study or do?” Blithe asked, as if reading my thoughts as he pushed one of the open to-go plates toward me. “Soda or beer?”

“Soda, please,” I said and watched him crack open the can before handing it off to me.

“I can get used to this. Magic questions. Food served to me. Cans opened for me,”my cat prattled on inside my thoughts.

“It depends, I think,” I said, picking up my fork. “If my cat had to answer it would be shadow magic. He can entertain himself for hours with it. I think it’s probably more just the cat version of shadow magic.”

“Manipulating the shadows is what you’re talking about, right?” Blithe asked.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“I’ve played with it a bit. It’s in a lot of the vampyric books. Some scholars theorize we have it for the same reasons felines do.”

“To hunt prey?” I offered up.

“Yeah. I don’t think that’s quite true with vampires. I don’t know why we can do it, but I’ve lived as a vampire for my whole life, but it’s my wolf who wants to hunt.”

“Some of you guys don’t like the sun very much or you sleep for a long time. Maybe it’s to hide you while you sleep or because you just want to be left alone,” I offered up.

“I like that theory. I always figured that for us shadow magic was the remnants of some other magic we used before but forgot about as time went on and vampires either went into hiding or went crazy. Not that shifters fared much better under human governments.”

“It all makes my head hurt,” I scrunched up my nose. “I know it’s important and magic evolved to deal with that stuff, but---” I ended my sentence by letting out a long breath.

“Okay, let’s talk about something else then.”

“No more magic?” I furrowed my brows.

“Plenty of magic. No more human politics or history for now,” Blithe said. “Magic. It’s almost impossible not to talk about it, isn’t it? I mean, it’s everywhere.”

“That’s why---” I started but stopped.

This wasn’t the time to talk about the war or my sire. This wasn’t the time to bring up how I was orphaned or any of it. Blithe would ask eventually if no one had told him yet, but right now, I didn’t want to talk about that any more than I wanted to speak of the humans driving us all underground.

“The war was dumb?” Blithe offered up. “I mean, on the hate group’s side anyway.”

“Yep. We know. I think they knew too. Well, maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“It seems we’ve drifted back into politics,” Blithe said. “Why don’t you pick what we talk about?”

“I was telling my ---” I paused not wanting to say therapist. “I was telling my friend the other day that it seems everything goes back to that anymore. It’s like I can’t escape it.”

“That’s because they call the right to live and eke out a living politics,” Blithe said, leaning back against the sofa.

“What other sorts of magic do you do?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject. “Is there something you can’t do and hope the coven down south can help?”

There. I’d given him two topics that had nothing to do with the war.

“I dabble in a bit of everything. A lot of sigils and runes. I make my own a lot of the time. Sometimes it’s combining others together or just making new ones to fit the purpose. I have one that keeps a cup of tea or coffee warm if you put it on the bottom of a coaster. I thought it was fucking brilliant until my neighbor informed me that I basically went an extra step and should’ve bought a thermal mug.”

“But that would have other uses. You could use it as a hand warmer or lay on top of it. You could rub your cheek on it or put it in a box or……. You’ve really excited my cat with that. Does it work on other things? I know it’s just a heating pad with an extra step now, but it doesn’t need crystals or to be plugged in. How long does it work for?”

“So far they’ve kept working unless the coasters got wet,” Blithe grinned. “And I think I can put it on other things. It’s just the number of dots around it that sets the temperature. You can make it hot or cold as you like.”

“Wait here. I’ll be back. Don’t think I’m weird. Please. I’m a cat, but don’t think I’m weird,” I said, pushing myself upright and sprinting down the hall to my bedroom.

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