“I’ll use a spell.” I exhaled my frustration. “You can feed me a tiny bit of power to extend my range.”
“I can do that.” She blinked a few times. “I think.”
At the pond, she had acted on instinct. Fear for me had guided her. This was different. It required intent.
“Don’t sweat it.” I smiled at her. “You’ve already saved the day. I don’t mind pulling my own weight.”
The praise lit her up from the inside. Not literally this time. Thankfully. I needed to see what I was doing.
Eyes shut tight, I held my wand in a loose grip and chanted under my breath while turning a slow circle. I made one full rotation before nodding to Colby, who zipped over to land on top of my head. She gripped my hair with her hands and began to hum a little ditty.
No.
She wasn’t humming.
Her power was buzzing along her body and vibrating through mine in an audible harmonization.
Shutting my eyes again, I dowsed for signs of magic. A quiver shot down my arm, alerting me to residual energies. Taylor had concealed whatever spell he cast, but Colby’s light magnified its stain on the earth. I focused on Camber and Arden, their faces, their voices, their laughter, and swept my arm in a wider arc.
A pulse shot up my arm, straight to my heart, and I gasped as my eyes opened on a new direction.
“We just came from there.” Clay rubbed his nape. “Are you sure you’re not picking up on the fight?”
A lot of magic had been thrown around near the pond. It was a miasma of dark and light energies.
“Probably.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “Any word from the Kellies?”
“I’m sorry.” Colby snuggled against my scalp. “I thought I could help.”
“You did help.” I patted her. “Your magic is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I must be channeling it wrong.”
“We’ll figure it out.” She crept forward then leaned over my forehead. “We’re a team now, right?”
“Taylor held the girls captive for hours before he called,” Clay cut in, sparing me from explaining to Colby how tonight made it that much more dangerous for people to discover her existence. “What was he doing?”
“The magic here is faint.” I thought about how it felt. “He might have been meditating.”
Black witches tended to require time to come back to themselves after large expenditures of power.
That, or the darkness they unleashed within themselves turned them stark raving mad.
“What was he doing at the pond?” Clay glanced back the way we had come. “For eight hours?”
The better question was what had he done there to expend so much power he had to recenter himself.
“Nothing good,” the daemon rumbled. “Go back?”
“I’m going to dowse and walk.” I pointed to each of them. “Don’t let me smack into a tree.”
“Where’s the trust?” Clay laughed. “You know I won’t let you kiss bark.”
Allowing my eyes to close, I extended my arms and addressed Colby. “Ready?”
Wings aflutter, she yelled, “Ready.”
Careful not to burn her out, I modulated the flow of power from Colby into me, and we got to work.
Deep within my casting, I was aware of the occasional nudge or bump to prevent me from crashing, but I ignored the physical contact to focus on the destination. Until a wide palm wrapped around my arm and stopped my forward motion with gentle insistence that caused me to open my eyes.