However, the effort gave me a headache. It would have cost me less if I used the wand, but I didn’t want a repeat of the dryad incident, where he smelled black witch and fought when I attempted to touch him.
“He’s a goblin.” Asa stared up at the house. “They’re naturally more resistant to magic.”
“True.” I waited until I held his attention. “Do you think he’s our guy?”
“No.” He waited a beat. “I dislike him, intensely, but he lacks the...”
“…stink of a black arts practitioner?” I huffed out a laugh. “You can say it.”
Asa said no such thing.
“He doesn’t have the juice.” Clay came to his partner’s rescue. “He barely gave me the tingles.”
As a creature animated by magic, Clay sensed power in others. From experience, he had a decent gauge.
To practice the black arts, you didn’t have to be a witch, only magically gifted. But we excelled at it.
Our killer, copycat or not, was skilled in a way that left me certain he was witchborn.
“Then we move on.” I pulled up the next address. “Looks like it’s about fifteen minutes from here.”
On the drive over, Colby texted me proof of life, a photo of her stuffing her face with pollen granules. An orange sports bottle rested on the desk beside her, a kiddie cup verging on doll sized, full of sugar water. And I, to avoid making her feel babied, didn’t mention I had spied on her while she slept. Like an overprotective creeper.
I showed the guys, who both smiled at their first glimpse of her rig, as she called her gaming station.
“Your familiar bond with Colby…” Asa juggled his words more carefully. “Is it functional?”
“It’s set, or she wouldn’t be here.”
“Can you draw power from her?” He kept his tone light and accusation free. “Can she draw from you?”
“I’ve never tried, and to my knowledge, neither has she.”
“You can ever only bond to one familiar.”
“I’m aware.”
“Yet you refuse to use yours for her intended purpose.”
“And?”
“I wonder how you bear it,” he said softly. “The constant temptation to take what you want.”
“It almost sounds like you’re asking if I saved Colby to punish myself.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Maybe you’re right.” His question echoed thoughts I’d had myself, years after the fact. “Maybe she was the motivation I needed to finally screw up the courage to change. Maybe I didn’t feel I deserved a fresh start, but I knew she did.” I wet my lips. “Colby saved me every bit as much as I saved her. Except I had it easy. I killed the Silver Stag for what he did to her and the other girls. Colby, she had to save me from myself.”
“Curiosity is the curse of my heritage,” he said quietly. “Half my heritage, in any case.”
Since he dug around in my past, I felt entitled to his. “How do you identify?”
“As dae.” He smiled a bit. “There are a lot of us.” He glanced at me. “Enough to form our own subrace.”
“Dae.” I mulled it over. “I like it.”
Though he kept quiet, I sensed Clay thinking hard at me, and they weren’t happy thoughts.
He and I had covered old ground too, but it had taken months of partnership, not days of acquaintance.
But Asa had Clay to vouch for him, and a fraction of my trust of Clay extended to Asa on that basis.
I wasn’t jumping in with both feet with Asa. More like dipping my toes in the water.
No matter what Clay thought, or how loud he thought it.