Page 5 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

5

Prospero

“Are you trying to kill me?” Prospero asked Ellie in a barely there whisper once she had dragged her safely into her arms. “Is that what your throwing yourself into danger at every turn is designed to do? Simply press me into panic until my heart stops?”

Ellie paused, as if weighing the question. That stung. Hell, everything about Ellie stung today. This falling-in-love business was terrible. “You say that as if there were other dangerous acts.…”

I should have known better. I cannot let these feelings continue. The last woman Prospero had loved was murdered because Prospero had loved her. I don’t deserve Ellie, either.

“Come on.” Prospero jerked Ellie into her arms and teleported them home. Maybe she held her tighter than she strictly needed. Maybe she buried her face in Ellie’s hair. Prospero was weak where Ellie was concerned.

Ellie slipped her arms around Prospero like she had no intention of letting go. “Perhaps you ought to let me live in our house if you’re going to overreact every time I talk to a w—”

“She’s not simply ‘a witch,’ Elleanor, and you know that.” Prospero tried to step back, but Ellie held on to her waist. “She would take you from me, from Crenshaw. Doom all of us to—”

“ Doom you?” Ellie smiled as if there were a joke to be made in devastation. “Surely, nothing quite so dire?”

Prospero sighed, forcibly pulling away this time. “Actually, exactly that dire. You know there was a prophecy.”

Ellie stepped around her and put the kettle on the stove. “You need tea. You’re all…” She gestured at her. “ Emotional. ”

“She can evoke things, Ellie. If she holds your gaze, she’ll pull up fears—”

“Yes, I figured that out what with the terror and trembling.” Ellie’s voice quavered briefly, and Prospero realized that she was not as calm as she was appearing.

“Are you… well?” Prospero stared at her, taking in her blanched expression and cupping the edge of her face gently. Whatever memory Agnes had started summoning was a raw one. “She’s not to use her magic outside of the Congress.”

“And we all know that witches are great at rule-following,” Ellie muttered. “Except you. You are inordinately good at it.”

“You might be surprised,” Prospero confessed.

Ellie lifted her chin, gaze falling to Prospero’s lips. “What are you hiding from me, Prospero?”

Everything, Prospero answered in her mind silently. Aloud she only said, “You have a habit of endangering yourself.”

“Interesting. I don’t recall that.” Ellie frowned. “I remember you in my library at home. A car accident. Snakes of asphalt. Classes. Seeing you naked… and then being here.”

“Yes. Fine, but—”

“Things are missing.” Ellie crossed her arms. “You… fucked around in my head. That’s it. That’s why you are withholding affection. You feel guilty, don’t you?”

“That’s not the topic at hand. Your rash actions—”

“I am not a child, Prospero. Do not speak to me as if I am.” Ellie moved closer. “Stop lying to me. Stop pushing me away.”

“Could we argue another time? All I am asking is that you avoid danger. That’s not a huge request.” Prospero stepped around her because if not, she was in danger of doing something foolish. She wasn’t sure whether that foolishness was kissing Ellie or confessing. Either was a bad idea. In her chilliest, most rational voice, Prospero said, “I would prefer you stay safely at the castle where you are protected and out of potential peril.”

“What I want doesn’t matter?” Ellie’s voice was seething now. “I understand that you are… older, but I am your equal here. As your wife. As a head of house. You do not tell me where I may go. You do not make the rules for my body or my life. Am I clear?”

Prospero pivoted and took her hand. “Things are complicated, and—”

“I. Don’t. Care.” Ellie stared at her, holding her gaze brazenly.

No one did that. Most witches acted as if prolonged eye contact was a dare to her to slip into their minds and alter things. Of course, Ellie thought Prospero was unable to do so. Maybe it was just her directness.

“Perhaps I could… talk to the chief witch? Ask if I could answer a few questions.”

“You can, or I will.” Ellie was brazen in her temper, and the thought of letting her too close to Walt made Prospero almost as tense as seeing her with Agnes. “Either way, I will know what you have done to my mind. I will find out my answers, and I think you are underestimating my temper if you expect that to go easily for him or you if I don’t like the answers.”

“I will talk to him.”

“Hestia is moving home, by the way. Tell him that, too.” Ellie gave her a tight smile. “I should get some of my wishes heard.”

Prospero blinked at her. “I thought you wanted Hestia to live here.”

“I do, but she wants to go home.” Ellie gave Prospero a pointed look. “People respect the wishes of those they love. If she wants to go home, that’s her choice. Just like if for some mad reason I wanted to go back…” She paused and frowned, and Prospero wondered if she was remembering something. Then Ellie continued, “If I wanted to go back to Ligonier, you would respect that.”

“I hear you.” Prospero added the tea and hot water to the teapot. She could not let Ellie leave, but only one of them knew that.

She wants to leave me. Prospero flinched at the thought. Even after I erased her escape from memory, she still thinks to leave me.

Ellie shook her head. “I am not interested in playing games like some child. I want to be with you, and you are mine. So either admit you want me or tell me you don’t. Life’s too short for games.”

“Life’s rather long for witches,” Prospero said, trying to avoid the question.

She silently poured the tea.

“I know you’re hiding things, but you cannot pretend that I am simply a remedial witch trying to find my place.” Ellie put her hand on Prospero’s. “I know where I belong.”

“Well, it’s not in the woods confronting my enemies.”

“All the more reason to keep me close, then.” Ellie gave her a smug smile. “She was afraid of me. Not as much as she was of you, but she didn’t want me to dislike her or dismiss her.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Prospero admitted.

Ellie shrugged. “Maybe fear will make her rethink her actions.”

Prospero shook her head. “I doubt that. The New Economists want power. It’s a greed that is at odds with our way of life… and there’s no solution. We can’t just kill witches for their vices.”

“Have you suggested it?”

Prospero looked away. “In anger? Yes. It sets a dangerous precedent, though. If you are on the side of good, should you be the one to strike? Shouldn’t you try to appeal to their reason? To find an answer that isn’t as violent?”

“So you do nothing?”

Prospero’s inevitable answer felt weak, but she couldn’t sanction violence for something a witch might do. “We try to broker peace. We let them meet, and we hear their grievances in Congress.” Prospero sighed. She stared into her teacup as if there were solutions hidden in the tea leaves at the bottom. “I don’t have an answer.”

Ellie looked worried. “Would you like me to talk to the chief witch? Tell him about their gathering and talk to him about ideas?”

“No.” Prospero smiled. “But I would like you to remember that you were right. I was pushing you away, and that endangered you.”

Ellie nodded. “I could stay. We could have a bath and—”

“I need to speak to Walt. Right now.” Prospero stood and moved away from the table. “Urgently.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Coward.”

Prospero knew she wasn’t technically running away from Ellie, but it was a close thing. She paused outside the front door, collected her wits, and teleported to Walt’s house. His hob, Grish, whisked open the door before she could knock. “He was expecting you.”

And Prospero went into the chief witch’s home a little more confidently. She stood in the tiny kitchen. There was often something comforting about Walt’s home, but tonight it did little to ease Prospero’s worry.

Walt came out of the depths of his house with a grumbling noise. “If someone else had the stones to be chief witch, I’d be working on my knitting tonight.”

“They are plotting something,” Prospero announced without preamble.

“What, though?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her forehead as if she could rub the stress away. “Are we too patient? Too lenient? Should we strike them first?”

Maybe she just needed to hear the validation, or maybe she was doubting herself. She waited as Walt stared at her. After a moment, he said the very thing that made her certain he was the right choice for his current position. “War has no place in Crenshaw. You know that. We all agreed to that. We are few, and though we squabble—”

“This isn’t a squabble, Walt.”

“Did they hurt your woman?”

“No, but… I feel it. Something is coming. They’re meeting. They created the rift that poisons us. We all know that!” She paced the small space while she talked, wanting to be talked down or set loose. Maybe that was the crux of why anyone landed on her short list of friends and loved ones: they told her the rules. After a few centuries of meddling with people’s minds, Prospero sometimes doubted her own judgment.

Which is why that is my magic. Magic was based on a critical character trait; of that she was certain. And her ability to compartmentalize and hide her own memories, to question her recall or judgment, to ask confounding questions had manifested as mental magic.

“So we attack because we think they are going to do something else?” His voice was gentle, but it did the trick. Prospero felt herself relax. She lowered her shoulders from the tense position where they’d been raised.

“What if it’s worse than the rift?” she asked in a small voice.

“Then we deal with it. We can’t strike out against Agnes and her lot because of something they might do. You know that. Thoughts and talk are not crimes.” Walt gestured to the worn chair he always offered her. It was currently draped in a lemon-and-puce-colored knitted blanket.

“Even after your patches, the rift is killing witches. Our witches are dying while we try to reason with their greed and… I feel helpless,” Prospero confessed.

He nodded. “I know you do. I do, too.”

“I want to do something,” she added.

“That’s your youth talking.” Walt sank into his chair.

“I’m an old lady! A hundred plus isn’t young. ”

“Ha! Talk to me when you add another century to that.” Walt looked at her, meeting her eyes the way few people did. “What else had you rattled tonight?”

“Ellie has questions. She’s upset that I’m rejecting her and—”

“Why reject her? You like the chit.” Walt gave her an odd look.

“She thinks we’re married—”

“You had relations before that.” Walt leveled a confused gaze at her. “She’s only attractive when she’s not yours?”

Prospero sighed. “If she doesn’t remember, she can’t really say she wants to—”

“She is saying it, if I understand correctly.” Walt frowned. “You’re looking for trouble where it doesn’t need to be. You were both boneheads. Romance the girl. Leave the past in the past, and keep her safe. Why does it need to be complicated?”

“ Your age is showing.” Prospero shook her head. “I want to tell her the truth.”

He tugged his beard. “Which truth? The one where we all die if she’s not with you? The one where she got the best of you over there?”

“Walt—”

“No. Don’t try your wiles on me, woman. You broke the rules for her.” He shook a finger at her. “You can tell her you had a fight. You can tell her I ordered you to erase it. You can even tell her that she is all that stands between you and death. You will not tell her she fled Crenshaw. Do that, and we’re back to more damn trouble. Can you imagine if the girl joined Aggie?”

Prospero felt like she was deflating. “I think that was why Aggie talked to her tonight.”

“Well, there you go. Kiss your woman until she’s obedient, and keep her away from the enemy. Problem solved.”

Every so often, Prospero could see the truth of how different eras had mindsets that simply clung to them. Walt came from an era when women were objects to be controlled, and while he had evolved to a degree, she realized in such moments that he saw her as his equal, manlike in his mind, and his “wisdom” on dealing with Ellie was flawed.

Kiss Ellie to compliance? To obedience? The thought was laughable. Prospero would try to talk to her without breaking the chief witch’s rules, and she would hope that whatever was coming from the New Economists wasn’t as bad as she feared.

How bad could it be?