“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Besides, what’s the rush?” Tilda asked. Her grin turned sly. “I know you love it here.”
Beth rolled her eyes and leaned back on her hands. Truth be told, she did love it here. It felt like home now, the ice cave and the warm fires and the cozy, fur-draped rooms. There were certain things she found disturbing about the witches’ magic—the use of animal parts and the rituals for drawing energy that she still knew little about—but it was magic for goodness sake. She’d grown up in the human world, so of course she’d find this magic, and probably all other forms of magic, a little disturbing. And while some of the witches’ ingredients might be illegal, those stuck-up guardians she’d heard more about from Tilda in the past few weeks really needed to get with the times and change their silly laws.
So she put any disconcerting thoughts from her mind and focused on what she enjoyed: learning spells; cooking food more delicious than anything she’d tasted in her world; playing in the snow with Tilda; curling up beneath thick blankets with the glow of embers warming her closed eyelids. “It is nice here,” she murmured.
But Jack … He would always be her true home, wouldn’t he?
“We should test out your persuasive siren ways,” Tilda said, interrupting Beth’s thoughts. “See if you can turn them on and off.”
Beth straightened and looked around at Tilda. “On whom?”
Tilda raised an eyebrow. “Well, there is one male in the general vicinity.”
Beth laughed. “Thoren, you mean?”
“Of course. See if you can seduce him,” Tilda said with a giggle.
Guilt pricked at Beth’s conscience as she thought once more of Jack. But this would be in the name of training, wouldn’t it? It meant nothing to her. “You’ll have to convince him to remove his charm.”
Tilda climbed off the bed. “Something tells me that won’t be difficult.” As she headed for the door she added, “Put the smoke dress on. That’ll work well. Not that you need the help. You could probably wear a sack and still win over any man you please.”
“I’m only half a siren, remember?” Beth called after Tilda. She stood and crossed the room to the wardrobe. She pushed aside the normal dresses, coats and jackets Tilda had given her and found the smoky corset dress. She’d half expected the skirt part to disappear by now, but whatever enchantments Tilda had used kept the smoke drifting, swirling and curling without actually going anywhere.
She dressed quickly and used her magic to feel for the laces at the back of the dress. She closed her eyes and concentrated as she pulled them tight. She looked into the mirror and repeated the words she’d been saying daily to herself since the last time she wore this dress. “Independent, strong, powerful,” she murmured. “That’s what I am.” She might be all those things, but she was also a little chilly with her shoulders exposed like this. She pulled a shawl from the wardrobe and placed it around her shoulders, tying it loosely below her neck.
At the sound of a tap on her door, she looked up. “Come in,” she called. She twisted her hands together, feeling them grow sweaty inside her gloves.
“You owe me for this,” Thoren said to Tilda as he walked in. He slipped the leather bracelet off his hand and gave it to Tilda. He turned to face Beth with an awkward half-smile on his face. “Uh, hi. So … I’m the test subject for your Intro to Seduction class?”
A laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. Thoren grinned, but his dear Aunt Tilda, leaning in the doorway, groaned and pushed him forward. “Take this seriously, both of you.”
So Thoren pressed his lips together and waited while Beth tried to figure out how to be a seductress without giggling. “Well,” he said after a few moments, “I’m not feeling the urge to fall at your feet and profess my undying love for you, so … does that mean you need a little more practice?”
She wanted to groan and say that she would need a lot more practice to get this right, but Tilda had said to take it seriously and she was right. The only way Beth could ever return to her previous life was if she could master every part of her magic, and that included this part—no matter how silly it might feel.
She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. I am born to do this, she told herself. I am born to make men fall at my feet. As her eyes slid open, she locked her gaze on Thoren’s. With tendrils of smoke swishing around her legs, she moved slowly toward him. I want you to want me, she whispered within her mind. I am the only thing you see, the only thing you want, the only thing that matters. You would do anything for me.
“Thoren,” she said quietly, tilting her head down before looking up at him between her lashes. “Would you walk naked into the snow if I asked you to?”
“I …” He swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”
“If I asked you to leave your family and follow me, would you do it?”
“I would.”
“Would you throw yourself in front of an enemy to protect me?”
He nodded again. “I wouldn’t hesitate.”
It wasn’t right, she told herself, this manipulation magic. And yet … something about it was addictive. Something about knowing that he would do anything she asked filled her with giddying power. Never looking away from his eyes, she reached for the knot of the shawl and slowly untied it. She let the shawl slip off her shoulders and watched the way Thoren’s eyes moved down her neck and across her chest. His gaze roved back up over her throat, her lips, and settled on her eyes. “I didn’t see it before,” he whispered, “but I do now. You are the most exquisite creature I have ever beheld.”
He tilted his head closer to hers, his eyes on her mouth now, and she knew he wanted to kiss her. His pulse jumped at his neck, and her heart leaped to match its pace. Her eyes slid down to his lips, full and soft. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought of them before. Hadn’t wondered, in the warmth of her bed late at night as she fell in slow motion toward sleep, what it might be like to kiss him. Fantasies that teased at the edges of her sleep-drugged mind.
Barely an inch separated them now as Thoren’s magic-induced desire tugged him closer to her.
Time to turn it off, she told herself. Turn it off before you hurt him.
But she didn’t want to turn it off. She wanted this, the kiss, him. This feeling—this heat that bloomed from her chest and radiated outward—had nothing to do with manipulation or magical influence.
It was real.
That awareness was enough to shock her to her senses. She stepped back, shutting down all feeling. Thoren blinked. He shook his head. He met Beth’s gaze with uncertainty in his eyes. “You’re … not doing it anymore, are you?”
“No.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Why, do you still feel something?”
“No, no, just checking.” He stumbled backward, almost knocking Tilda over in his haste to put some distance between himself and Beth. He took his leather bracelet from Tilda and pushed it back onto his wrist.
“That,” Tilda said as Thoren hastened from the room, “was magnificent.”
“Thanks.” Beth turned away and bent to retrieve her shawl, hoping to hide her warm cheeks and the heaving of her chest as her heart took its time returning to a normal pace. She must have simply been caught up in the moment. She didn’t truly feel that way about Thoren. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Not when she still had Jack.
Jack! Argh! The guilt chewed at her insides, making her feel nauseous.
“This is wonderful.” Tilda clapped her hands. “You can easily turn this power on and off. I declare we should have a celebratory snowball fight out on the mountainside.”
Tilda was right: it was wonderful. And the fluttering in her chest was almost completely gone, so it most likely meant nothing. Pushing thoughts of both Jack and Thoren from her mind, Beth turned back to face Tilda. “I second that idea.” With a mischievous smile, she added, “I would very much like to throw a snowball at that perfect blonde head of yours.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The i
cy air helped to clear Beth’s head. She and Tilda skated across the frozen lake and raced each other up the snowy slope on the other side. They conjured snowballs and miniature blizzards and spinning tornadoes of snow dust. When they were well and truly exhausted, and the last rays of daylight were vanishing behind the tall peaks, they collapsed onto the snow. Beth removed her scarf and held it in her hands while stretching, pulling, and tugging at her magic, urging the scarf to grow bigger and bigger until it was as large as a blanket.
“Impressive,” Tilda said. “You’ve come a long way.”
“I don’t think siren magic is supposed to be able to do this,” Beth said, thinking of everything she’d read in the book Tilda had found, “but I’m not really a siren. I think I should embrace my halfling label and all the unpredictability it brings with it.” They sat on the edge of the blanket and pulled the rest of it around them, huddling together as the pinky purple of sunset shifted toward ink blue. “That’s the first snowball fight I’ve had that was actually fun,” Beth commented as they stared across the wintry landscape.
“But all snowball fights are supposed to be fun.”
Beth chuckled. “Clearly you’ve never been to school.”
“I went to school as a child. It wasn’t so bad.”
“Okay, clearly you’ve never been subjected to the bullying that takes place in schoolyards.”
Tilda hesitated, then asked, “What happened?”
“Just … kids being mean. Throwing snow in my face and pushing me down. Those terrifying few moments where my face was pressed into the frozen ground and I couldn’t breathe, and then forcing myself up, gasping for air, and finding everyone laughing at me because it was all a joke to them.”
“Cowards,” Tilda growled. “If only they could see you now. You’d whip that snow into a frenzy, into a blinding storm. They’d never know what hit them.”
Beth nodded. “It’s strange thinking of it now. Back then I felt so utterly powerless against children like them. I wanted to rage against them, to scream, to hit, to hurt them like they’d hurt me. But now I know that all it would take is a simple touch. One touch and they’d be on the ground, as powerless as I once was.”
“Powerless is something you will never again be,” Tilda murmured.
Quiet descended over them as they watched the night sky, a dark expanse scattered with more stars than Beth could ever have imagined existed. In the distance, above the mountain peaks, a faint green light, little more than a smudge, began to flicker. Beth leaned forward slightly, paying more attention as the light grew. Green tinged with pink and purple, climbing across the sky, bending and looping lazily as it continued to flicker.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Tilda said.
“Mesmerizing,” Beth whispered. The celestial light show was more captivating and beautiful than any magic she’d seen since arriving in this world. “I sometimes feel,” she murmured, “that I could happily live here for the rest of my days.”
Tilda leaned her head on Beth’s shoulder. “Perhaps you should. Nothing is stopping you from doing just that.”
Beth sighed. “But I have to go back to Holtyn. I have to explain to Jack what happened. And Zoe. She was my best friend, and I vanished with no explanation.” She looked down and found Tilda’s eyes closed, a peaceful smile on her lips. “Don’t you think I owe them that much?”
“Mmm,” Tilda said sleepily. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think you owe anyone anything. You are the master of your own destiny, Scarlett.” She raised her head, pointing her face to the sky as if to soak in the colorful night lights. “You can go anywhere you choose, or you can stay right here. You can wander the fae realm for the rest of your years, beguiling men with your siren powers, or you can live out your days in the human world as if magic had never touched you. Or you can stay right here in this frozen wonderland. You could even go through the Change like I’m about to do. Become a witch, fierce and powerful and perfectly in tune with the elements. Your life is your own, Scarlett, and no one else will ever have the right to tell you what to do with it.”
Beth touched the inside of the blanket, releasing a trickle of heat and urging it to travel through the woven fibers, warming the two of them as she considered Tilda’s words. “Did you say I could go through the Change?” she asked quietly.
Tilda looked at her. “Yes.”
“Is that allowed? Would it even work? I have no witch blood.”
“Yes, it would work. Having witch blood simply means I am called to this life, just as having siren blood means you are called to the water. Our blood does not force us to walk a specific path, though. I could choose not to become a witch, and you could choose to stay away from the ocean.”
“So … you were being serious then?”
“Yes.” Tilda peered more intently at her. “Are you being serious?”
“I … I don’t know. I want to be with Jack again, but I want my life to include magic. I want to have the kind of life you’re going to have, but I want Jack to be in it. Is there a way I can have both?”
“Of course you can have both. You can have anything you want, Scarlett.”
Scarlett. Why was it that she hadn’t told Tilda her real name yet? She trusted Tilda now. The young almost-witch was her closest friend these days. She opened her mouth to say it—My name is Beth—but the words died on her tongue. Did it matter what her name used to be? Not really. Not when she had left behind that plain, shy girl who possessed no magic. Not when she had become so used to being Scarlett instead.
“So,” she said, “if I had everything I wanted, how would that work? Where would I live?”
“You could live right here with us. You’ve seen how easy it is to travel. One flash of candlelight and you’ll be with Jack. Or,” she added as she saw Beth’s frown, “you could do it the other way around. Live with Jack and work with us. The point is that you can come and go as you please.”
“So this could really work?”
“Yes. Oh, this is wonderful.” Tilda turned to face Beth fully, grasping her arms excitedly. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. You’re the perfect candidate. So many witch spells rely on the use of magical energy, and we have our own methods to draw that energy out of other beings, but you’ve got that ability built into you. You don’t need a complicated ritual when you can take energy with your bare hands.”
“True,” Beth mused.
“So do you want to do this? Really and truly?”
Beth bit her lip, thinking of Jack and her magic and this exquisite frozen world she never wanted to say goodbye to. She didn’t have to choose. She could have it all. “I do,” she said. “I want to be a witch.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What exciting news!” Malena exclaimed when Tilda and Beth returned to the kitchen and Tilda shared the news of Beth’s decision. Beth beamed as she hurried to the fireplace to warm her hands.
“I agree,” said Sorena, her gentle smile hiding her pointed teeth. “It’s perfect. We would so love to have you as one of us, Scarlett.”
“I got dinner,” Thoren announced as he walked into the kitchen. He met Beth’s gaze for a moment, but she looked away quickly, annoyed at the sudden rush of her pulse. Think of Jack, she told herself. Jack, whose smile she wasn’t forgetting. Whose eyes she could definitely remember the exact color of. She frowned at the flames, then startled when someone touched her arm.
“Can you help with dinner?” Malena asked. “It will be so much easier if you do it. I haven’t wanted to ask you before because I thought it might make you uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable?” Beth asked as she followed Malena to the table she always prepared food at. “Why is that?”
“Oh, just because I know that most humans don’t kill their own food. It would be good for them if they did, of course. Everyone should know where their food comes from.”
“I—uh—you’re right. I’ve never had to kill my own food.”
“No time like the present t
o get started then,” Malena said. “What have we got tonight, Thoren?” she asked her son as he approached the table carrying a wriggling sack. Instead of answering, he dumped the sack on the table, and out jumped—
A hare. Spotless white, its tiny black nose twitching and its body shivering. Malena’s hand came down upon it before it could move another inch.
“Why—um—why did you say it will be so much easier if I do it?” Beth asked.
“We have numerous ways of killing the animals we eat, both magical and non-magical, but some can be messy. You, however, need only touch it.”
Of course. Finally, a use for her special power that didn’t involve hurting other people. It would, unfortunately, hurt the poor hare, but it was necessary if she and her new witch family wanted to eat. She pushed down the urge to hug the creature to her chest and run her fingers through its soft white hair. Food, she told herself. This is food, not a pet.
“Well, come on,” Malena said, “or it’ll be midnight before we eat anything.”
“I’ll hold him down,” Thoren said. “You can get started with the vegetables, Mom.”
Malena moved to the mountain of vegetables at the other end of the table while Beth pulled one glove off. She hesitated for several moments, during which she reminded herself that she didn’t want to appear weak or squeamish. She would be a witch soon, and there was no place for either of those things in her future.
Do it. Just do it.
As she steeled herself and moved in, Thoren’s hand squeezed tighter around the hare. A muted flash of light pulsed from his hand, and the hare went limp. Thoren’s eyes flicked toward Malena, but she was busy chopping carrots. “My mother can be a little pushy,” Thoren said in a low voice. “She should have warned you earlier, given you a little more time to prepare yourself.” His eyes rose and found hers, his cool blue gaze sending a pleasant tingle down her spine. “You can do it next time.”