Fade Into Black - Shadows of the Night 5

Chapter 4

Hi!

The real quesiton in this chapter is: What is the Raven planning? Is Anna making a big mistake in this one? What do you think?

Lara

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Chapter 4

I stared at the cuff incredulously. My cuff. Stored and packed with power I'd meticulously siphoned off the elements ever since-

I swallowed. Ever since my godmother Giuliana taught me. Another painful reminder I had to stuff in the concrete box I carried inside myself. Storing magic was something Giuliana taught me during my stay in Italy, and I'd been practicing ever since.

Not only that Medici took the cuff from me, he was trying to use it!

Trying. Emphasis on trying, I added mentally.

Yeah, that was right. Medici was a rogue witch. He might have shitloads of power at his disposal, could summon enough power to raze a quarter of the city whenever he liked, but he couldn't use elemental magic anymore. All that was left of the witch he once was was the ability to call Ravens to his side. Even though I still hadn't figured out how he did it, I was pretty sure that was all he could do with earth magic. Everything had a price. For the rogues it was a life of dark magic. Exclusively.

Medici let his right hand – the one not holding my cuff, something that was mine, dammit – fall and turned. His eyes were on me. They had the vacant, icy look I'd caught a glimpse of before.

"Your turn, Anna Johnson. Show us what you're made of," he said, holding up the cuff slowly.

I stared at the cuff. I wanted to get my hands on it, as fast as possible, but I wasn't going to walk into a catastrophe blindly.

I raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do you expect me to do?"

He straightened in one move. "There's a magical artifact we need to retrieve. It's here, concealed and spelled, right behind that wall. You will dismantle the ward protecting it and get it for us. Circumstances, as they are, leave us no other choice. Thanks to you, we're a little short on allies within the witch community that can and will use elemental magic for us."

I watched him for a moment. The artifact was there and Medici knew about its exact location. Logic told me someone had put it in there and spelled it for Medici with elemental magic. A real-life, non-rogue witch. I knew Medici had allies among the witch community before. No big news there.

Either Medici was telling the truth and he'd lost non-rogue allies ever since I outed his mole, or he didn't want me to know who they were. I was betting on the latter. No way in hell was Travis Holmes the only iron in Medici's fire. The former Circle witch might have been essential when it came to retrieving inside information from within the Circle headquarters, but the Raven was too clever to stake everything on one elemental witch alone. I'm sure he had a few more aces in the hole I knew nothing about.

That begged the question why he'd go to all the trouble and use me? Why risk it? To truly make me one of them?

"Whether you realize it or not, the night you walked with me into that portal, willingly, you agreed to become one of us. Show us that you mean it," Medici said.

Either Medici was an avid mind reader, or something must have shown on my face. I needed a better poker face, dammit.

Become one of us. The words echoed in my mind, a perpetual dying whisper.