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I’ve no doubts he’ll more likely vex and irritate Vayla, but the idea of stealing a few moments alone with Allie is too good to pass up. Standing on bones that creak and muscles that ache from sitting so long and so still on my throne, Felix arches a brow as I stretch a bit, flex my wings behind me.

“Feeling your age, majesty?”

I grunt my dissatisfaction as we walk side-by-side from the room. I don’t intend to humor his remark with a response.

“And how old is your bride? For a human, she looks quite young. Perhaps she’ll lend a little of her youth to you in your old age.”

“Enough, Felix,” I tell him, aiming for a curt tone that lands somewhat off-target.

No, I can’t help the corners of my mouth from turning up. I can’t help the smile that wants to break through the pall of my concerns at just the thought of her.

Rolling my shoulders and striding from the hall, I head off to find my witch.

Chapter 20

Allie

The language is a beast. Just when I think I’ve started to make heads or tails of the basics and attempt to translate a section of the text, I come across a series of characters that make absolutely no sense and send me back to square one.

I spend the rest of the morning and a large part of the early afternoon hunched over a desk in the workroom, books spread around me and papers strewn over the wooden surface. Vayla works on some concoction, and other than her shooting me dark looks when I grumble or curse over another failed attempt at unlocking even a small part of the language, we leave each other well enough alone.

It’s a strangely comfortable atmosphere, even with her critical attitude and our weirdly adversarial relationship.

I’ve never worked alongside another witch like this. Or, at least not since I was fourteen and my mother decided to send me to non-magick high school instead of letting me take up one of the coven’s coveted spots for advanced tutelage and mentorship. Magickal boarding school, basically, reserved for each year’s batch of witches who the coven elders deemed to show the greatest power and promise.

It will look like nepotism,my mother had said when she explained why I wasn’t given a spot.It will harm the coven’s confidence in me.

It was easy enough to hear the part she didn’t say.

You’re not powerful enough. Even having a High Priestess for a mother isn’t enough to justify your place with the other witches.

I don’t begrudge her for that, at least not now with the benefit of years and hindsight. If I had been given a spot, there would have been no doubt it was only because of her. It would have taken the opportunity away from a witch who deserved it more. Still, just because I can understand that now doesn’t completely erase the memory of the hurt.

Instead of joining the other witches in their training, I waited outside our house each morning—built on a little plot of land next to the coven’s headquarters—and watched the other girls head in for their studies. I watched my mother join them as I climbed on the bus for the hour-long ride to the high school, and each day I did it chipped at me a little bit more. It was a constant reminder that I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t talented enough to earn myself a place in that world.

I’d made friends at the high school. I’d still had Joan, whose magick of tea and kindness and gentle intuition hadn’t earned her a spot, either. Together, we’d made the best of it. After graduating, I’d gone to regular college for my library sciences degree, moved to a new town to start my career, and after a while it hadn’t stung so much. Hundreds of cups of tea in Joan’s tea shop, learning to put myself out there and make friends outside the coven, coming to terms with the fact of who I was and learning to accept the magick I’d been born with—all of it had slowly let me build a little life I was proud of.

A life Iamproud of, even if all it took was one night, one command from the Goddess, and one very handsome demon to see it all come tumbling down.

No. Not tumbling down. More like tumbling sideways into some other reality I can’t quite grasp yet. The life I had and the one I’ve stepped into feel like oil and water, and with no way to reconcile or combine them, I guess all I can do is keep moving forward. Starting with this language.

After a while, I stop trying to find any similarities between this language and any that I’m used to, and just start trying to piece through patterns in the symbols.

Each letter—or glyph, I’m still not really certain—is beautiful.

Elegant lines and graceful arcs, the symbols flow like water across the page. There’s a strange prickling in the back of my mind as I study book after book, a sensation not unlike the irritating awareness that you’ve forgotten something you ought to remember. It stays with me throughout the morning, and even when I try to close my eyes and chase it down to the far corners of my mind, it eludes me. All pursuing it does is give me the beginnings of a wicked headache.

Even so, some part of me is undeniably thrilled to be putting my magick to use. It sets me into an almost trance-like focus. I don’t let my hands linger long enough on the pages to pull me back in, but the soft tug of magick whispers over my skin each time I skim the corner of a page to turn it. As much as I want to let myself back in, dive deep into whatever strange space the first book showed me, I don’t yet dare.

Touching the book and sending myself into that abyss is a neat trick, but with no idea how to translate what I’m seeing and no certainty I’d be able to pull myself safely back out of whatever I stumble into, it’s probably better to play it safe.

Even if denying that tantalizing pull of power doesn’t make my day any easier.

It hovers there all throughout the morning and afternoon. A faint whisper of magick reaching over to curl around the edges of my mind, tug at my fingers with phantom tendrils. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Frustrated, stressed, irritated at my lack of progress, I completely miss the sound of the workroom door opening and closing softly behind me.

A pair of large, warm hands settle on my shoulders, making me jump and let out a little yelp. Losing my balance and almost falling off the stool I’m perched on, I’m pulled back into Eren’s embrace. His low chuckle in my ear reverberates up and down my spine.

“Careful, wife,” he says, low and laughing. He moves the cup of tea I’d been sipping away from me. “You wouldn’t want to spill this and ruin all your work.”