“Given the unsteady state of my stomach, neither. I’m making tea—you want one?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She scooped up another mouthful of cake, and then said, “If this death had nothing to do with the dark witch, then what the hell was the dark witch doing?”
I shrugged. “I guess we’ll know more once Ashworth and the heretic hunter deconstruct that protective circle and the spell inside.”
“The fact that it’s still live bothers me. Magic doesn’t generally last past the death of its creator.”
“Black magic might be a different, though. It’s not like either of us know much about it.”
“No. But Gran has a book on it.”
“Your gran had a book on everything.” I glanced at the one on her knee. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, and it’s actually quite fascinating.”
I tossed some green and pear tea into a large teapot then poured hot—but not boiling—water on top of it. “In what way?”
“Well, did you know that it’s rare for a dark witch to take on an apprentice but, when they do, they’re often used as a quick and easy source of blood for certain rituals?”
“Ashworth mentioned something along those lines last night, but I bet the apprentices aren’t aware of it going in.” I picked up the teapot and mugs and carried them over.
“Except that they are. There’s some sort of spiritual contract agreed to and signed by both parties before the apprentice is taken on.”
I deposited the pot and mugs, then reached across and snagged some of her cake. My stomach might still be a little dicey, but I wasn’t about to ignore cake. “I can’t see a dark witch ever honoring such an agreement.”
“Except they have to, as it’s a binding agreement witnessed in blood and sworn to whatever dark entity the witch is dealing with. If either party breaks it, their soul is basically cactus.”
“Their souls are cactus anyway. They’re dark witches.” I licked the frosting from my fingers then picked up the teapot and filled our mugs.
“Well, true.” She wrinkled her nose. “Another interesting fact is that in order to become a master, the apprentice must first defeat his master.”
I slid the mug over to her and then picked up my own. “Does it say why?”
“Something about it being the only way to fully utilize the onset of power or some such crap.”
I snorted. “I bet it doesn’t actually say that.”
“And you would be wrong.” She flicked back a couple of pages and then raised the book. It did indeed say exactly that.
I snagged another piece of her cake. “I wish we’d had the chance to meet your gran.”
“Yeah.” Belle grimaced. “But for all her knowledge—for all the books she’d studied, collected, and made notes on—she was still caught unawares by a rogue spirit.”
“She wasn’t the only one, though.” That spirit had ended up killing five witches in all before it was taken down. Belle’s gran had been the only lower house witch killed, and there’d apparently been a lot of speculation as to why. Belle’s mom—Ava—was of the theory that it was going after the strongest witches, and while Nel certainly hadn’t been magically strong, her historical knowledge about spells and spellcraft had outstripped any in Canberra at the time.
“True.” Belle snapped the book closed and then swung her legs off the chair. “Anyway, I haven’t yet found anything that relates back to the sort of spell threads you described, but I’ll keep looking.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I take it from this sudden flurry of action that you’re going out tonight?”
“Zak called—”
“Full of apologies for his distance last night and once again willing to bend a knee before your magnificence?”
She slapped my arm. Tea slopped over the rim of the mug and splashed across the table. “Hey, watch the tea, woman.”
“He wants to talk.”
“Horizontally. After sex.”