Page 22 of Spellbound

It was like an energy field or a blueprint of that energy, where the physical body is formed and maintained.

It was essential to life and drawn from the environment and distributed through energy channels.

Witches were able to tap into it, with varying degrees of success, depending on how much power they had.

All the rest—the words, the wands, the candles, and the other trappings of Craft were just window dressing, really, and used to put a person in the right frame of mind.

The power came from within. Folk witches like Rosalyn could usually produce a somewhat good result because of good intent.

Words always mattered in spells, but intent mattered more.

Practice and experience didn’t hurt either, but folk witches weren’t able to access the etheric flow the way I could.

It was a dynamic, vital force, but it only truly responded to more powerful practitioner.

Using all white candles, I would let the flames burn down to ash to release whatever negative energy was in the air.

That would disperse it into the ether. That was the plan, anyway.

The use of candles wasn’t high magic, but I thought they wouldn’t hurt, and I needed the focus.

Besides, burning through it had a nice symbolism to it.

I wasn’t sure how long this would take, but I locked the front door, just in case anyone decided to drop by.

I needed Asher lying flat on his back for this, though I hoped I wouldn’t have to manhandle him again to get him there.

He sure as hell was not in a mood earlier to cooperate with me in any kind of way, though he seemed quieter now.

I had to do something soon, because of the threat to him.

And I could sense now that he was awake.

He had been sleeping when I left him. He looked curiously at me as I walked back in with my supplies and started looking alarmed again, easily breaking through the spell I had on him, so I made another quick motion with my hand to calm him.

I had a feeling he was almost as strong as I was, though not any stronger, thankfully.

The moment he realized I was trying to get him to lie down, it was like I was trying to wrestle a wildcat. In fact, if he’d been some kind of cat, he'd have been spitting and hissing at me now.

I just needed to get this over with as quickly as I could. I decided the easiest thing to do would be to make him go to sleep again while I got everything ready. I didn’t know the words to the little spells Rosalyn used, so I kept it simple. I put a hand on his head and said, “Vanistay.”

His eyes started blinking furiously as he fought sleep off as long as he could, but within ten seconds or less, his head dropped to his chest. I pushed him down on his back, grabbed a pillow for his head and stretched out his legs, trying to make him comfortable.

I may have practiced high magic, but I knew all about candle spells.

It would have been hard to practically grow up in Rosalyn’s house and not gain some knowledge of them.

She’d once been a magistrate, so she used to have a lot of power, but like I said, it had waned a bit with age, and then the radiation burned out most of the rest. She still had a lot of supplies for spell casting, though.

She had a Book of Shadows at home, as we called them, or a personal grimoire containing her handwritten spells and rituals.

I had no access to that and wouldn’t look at it because it was intensely private.

She also had candles, crystals, a chalice, herbs, spices, and all kinds of ingredients for her spells, and even a cauldron and a wand.

She kept it all in a locked closet in her house, and she even had a small altar inside there.

She had the only key. The things in the closet here in this guest cottage was just the overflow and they were all I needed.

I didn’t have any of that stuff, except for my own Book of Shadows, which I had begun compiling when I was a young teenager and first coming into my power.

It was a carefully collected book of spells, both original and ones I had found useful, as well as helpful notes that I had taken from various practitioners over the years.

A great deal of my father’s advice was in those notes.

I also had a crooked, old wand made of rowan wood that had been passed down to my father and then on to me.

Rowan made good wands that were supposed to be protective of their owners.

But then again, my great-grandfather had died with it in his hand, fighting elemental spirits, so that idea might be a bit debatable.

I never used the wand anyway but kept it as a reminder of him.

I didn’t feel I needed it, to be honest. Maybe one day, if my power started to wane, I would, but I was young and just coming into the highest point of my magic.

It didn’t take too long to prepare the candles, placing them beside the couch at the four cardinal points of the compass around it—north, south, east, and west. Then came four more at the ordinal directions, northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest. I put them in the little glass holders I found in the kitchen closet, so they wouldn’t drip on the refinished floors.

I noticed Asher’s eyes were half-open again by the time I got it all set up, and they were full of curiosity, and a bit of apprehension, though he was drooping against the pillows and he still looked groggy.

It was impressive that he had fought off sleep so quickly again, and I thought that was probably because he was scared of what was happening to him.

He was probably afraid to relax completely, and I didn’t blame him for that.

I wasn’t sure what would happen either, though I’d keep him safe from any harm, and I’d stop this if anything started to go wrong.

I carefully lit each candle, the flames all bending in a counter-clockwise direction around the bed, as if held in a strong breeze, yet not flickering, before they straightened up again.

It was hard to know what I should do going forward without knowing what he had done back when all this started, when he’d been a child, and I still had no idea.

I still needed to know if he’d known the true significance of what he had done to his mother.

If he told me the truth, or if he had good reason to protect himself from her and thus had a reason for killing her—to prevent extreme physical or mental abuse, for example—then I’d probably unbind his powers.

I’d even oversee his training, because anyone with this much power needed some serious training.

If, on the other hand, he had killed her for some kind of gain, or for some other reason of his own…if even at that young age, there had been warlockry involved in his thinking in any way, there would need to be a trial.

At a trial, at least three Practitioners, all magistrates, would hear his testimony and decide what the sentence would be.

One of the primary duties of a magistrate was to prevent magical crime from affecting the public and ensure the guilty were punished.

His young age at the time was of vital importance at any rate.

I suspected that his powers would probably be bound permanently, though, if he were found to be at blame.

There were some who would call for worse.

But I knew I’d been kidding myself about truly seeing him harmed.

I wouldn’t. I’d insist that a binding was punishment enough, and if they disagreed and tried to hurt him, I’d run with him.

I thought his cousins would help me. I could bind him instead and perhaps leave him a small amount like his grandma’s.

A small amount would keep him from going insane, like some practitioners did when they lost their powers, and I could teach him how to properly use the smaller amount he had left.

I’d wipe his memory of what he’d once had and keep him with me always.

He was mine after all and had been since he the first time I’d seen him. I may as well admit that.

I had no idea what the other magistrates would have to say about all that, but from what I knew about most of them, they took matters in their own hands frequently, so they should understand if I did and keep out of my way.

I glanced at the grimoire but decided I didn’t need it after all. Instead, I placed my hand on his forehead and said a simple spell over him to shore up the binding, making it up on the fly.

“Peace for you, and rest for your mind.

I bind your magic,

Till this spell I unwind.”

I went to get the potion I’d brewed up. It was time to take the curse off him and see what he remembered then.

I poured myself a glass of it and drank it down. Then I waited fifteen minutes to see if I would have any bad effects. When nothing happened, I poured another glass and took it in for Asher.

“Drink this,” I told him, as I released him.

“No, I don’t want it.”

I took a sip to show him it wasn’t poisoned. “Now will you drink it?”

He took it and held it to his lips, with a long look at me from under those ridiculously long eyelashes.

“I would never hurt you.”

He drank it down, making a little face and I bent to kiss him because I couldn’t help it. “Thank you, baby,” I told him.

It felt like I was spellbound myself, but the potion I’d taken said otherwise.

I couldn’t, for the life of me, seem to keep my hands or lips off him, despite my best intentions.

When I kissed him, the world seemed to fall away, and I could have spent hours just mapping out every inch of his beautiful body.