The Whimsy Witch Who Wasn't (Tales of Xest Book 1) Read online

  I opened them again.

  Yeah, still in the back room. I looked around, wondering where they kept the towels.

  9

  I made my way downstairs in the least hideous outfit I’d found in the bag, red polka dot pants and a white sweater, with only a few moth holes. Either Belinda had really bad taste or she hated anyone from Rest. Either way, it was all I had, so I tried to wear it proudly, bringing along the candle that wouldn’t go out no matter what I did. Even the wax seemed to keep regenerating. Not that it made much of a difference. There had been little to no sleep going on last night anyway. I skimmed half of the books on magic, but none of them talked about jumping puddles.

  I was still looking at only one way out of this place, and I had to deliver in order to get that ticket back to Salem. If I couldn’t do what Hawk needed from me, couldn’t hold up my end of the bargain, forget getting Rabbit out of the factory. I might be back there with her. When Marvin had told Hawk he didn’t take refunds, I’d been insulted. Now it was the only thing offering me any peace. Hawk was stuck with me. Or at least it wouldn’t be that easy to unload me, I hoped.

  I walked into the main room of the shop that hadn’t opened its doors for business yet. There were two other people with Zab, an older man with a gruff look and a scraggly beard, and a woman who was maybe late twenties, with the most glorious head of red hair I’d ever seen, and a body that rivaled it.

  Zab nodded to the man. “Tippi, this is Musso.”

  Musso nodded in my direction. Not quite as enthusiastic as Zab, but he didn’t seem the type to waste emotion for no good reason.

  “And that’s Belinda,” Zab said, waving toward the redhead.

  “Thanks for the clothes,” I said, smiling, but also taking in the nice jeans she was wearing with the pretty, fuzzy sweater. So taste wasn’t the problem. It was me for some reason.

  “Of course.” She smiled back, but hers dropped the temperature in the office a few degrees.

  Zab was looking at my outfit when I turned back to him. I pretended there was nothing amiss as I held the candle out to him.

  “I can’t seem to blow this thing out,” I said softly, hoping not to draw Belinda’s attention. She already didn’t like me. She didn’t need to know I was an idiot to boot. I had to survive with these people for a while.

  “It’s all right to reabsorb small amounts of other people’s magic. It won’t hurt you. Just don’t do large amounts. That’s when it’s a problem,” Zab explained, obviously not realizing quite how clueless I was.

  I hadn’t known any of it was a problem to begin with, but decided that didn’t need to be shared either. How the hell did I reabsorb magic?

  Musso walked over. “Zab, she’s not afraid to suck in the magic. She doesn’t know how.”

  Well, there you go. At least one of them realized the extent of my ignorance.

  Zab gaped but shut his mouth quick enough.

  Belinda was watching. She didn’t have to say anything. Her expression called me a thousand kinds of idiot, and her soft giggle rubbed salt into the wound.

  “Don’t feel bad. I don’t know lots of things.” Zab hooked his thumb at Musso. “He, on the other hand, never has the problem of not knowing something.”

  Musso raised a hand toward Zab, like he’d like to smack him, but neither of them seemed to be serious.

  Musso pointed to the candle. “Touch it and imagine your finger is a straw, sucking up a warm drink on a cold day.”

  I placed my finger on it and imagined the straw. Nothing happened. I moved my finger closer to the flame and tried again.

  All three of us stared at the candle, Zab and Musso seeming as stumped as I was.

  “How old are you?” Musso asked.

  “Nineteen.”

  “And you’ve never done magic before?” Musso asked.

  “Just at the factory.”

  “She’s probably just too full. She’s got to unload some magic. It’s like eating too much. A few days with Hawk should fix that.” Musso waved his hand in the air, seeming to call the matter solved, and went back to his desk.

  “Or not,” Belinda said, as she raised her eyebrows and flipped through a magazine on her desk. “Maybe you won’t be the savant Hawk thinks, but I’m sure he’ll let you stay on as a maid or something. Always garbage to be emptied and floors to be mopped, after all.”

  Zab leaned closer. “Don’t mind her. She thinks she owns the place because she sleeps with Hawk.”

  She looked like the type of girl a man like Hawk would date. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect nails. The works. While I stood here with hair that wouldn’t lie flat no matter how many irons I took to it. My wardrobe, which had never been good, had taken a nosedive, not that she’d had to pick out such horrendous clothes. No one would ever notice me standing beside Belinda. The only person who seemed to think there was a reason to feel threatened was her. Maybe she’d had to grow into her looks? Ugly-duckling syndrome or something? Didn’t matter. She’d soon realize we weren’t in competition and things would be fine.

  I looked about the place, eager to move on from the candle issue.

  “Is there anything for me to do? I’m supposed to help out.”

  “Yes,” Belinda said. “There’s a broom closet over there. After you’re done with that, the shelves need dusting.”

  I kept on smiling as I made my way to the closet and took out the broom. This was going to be a long few weeks.

  I was drinking tea in the back room, blissfully alone. It was the same place Hawk had brought me to test my magic with the gem. Now it would act as my sitting room while I was here. Zab had lit the fireplace for me before he left, and the place was quite cozy. Musso and, more importantly, Belinda had left shortly after him.

  I’d been alone here just long enough that I was beginning to think Hawk wouldn’t show up at all. I wasn’t certain if that was good or bad. If I didn’t get this thing that he needed done, I’d never be free of this place, and Rabbit’s fate was tied to mine. But boy was it nice to get a second alone where I could pretend things were still normal.

  Plus, I had some interesting reading: Advanced Spells Made Simple Enough for Even a Whimsy. Besides the title being insulting, it might be useful. If Hawk wasn’t going to show up and train me, there was some training I needed to do on my own.

  I scrolled through the list of spells: warts, bad luck, good luck, love, hate, greed, happiness. Still no puddle jumping. What was the problem with these books? I needed to puddle-jump. I continued to scroll and paused on “eavesdropping.” Now that might come in handy, considering my current predicament.

  I flipped to the page and read the spell. That was it? I could remember this. Maybe the title was fitting. This was pretty simple.

  The back door opened, and I slammed the book shut as Hawk stepped inside.

  The moment he walked in, he brought that energy with him. The kind that filled the room. It made sense why people avoided him. There was something altogether unsettling about it, almost as if it put you on the edge of your seat. For some reason I couldn’t begin to fathom, I sort of liked being there, hanging on to the edge, not knowing what would happen next but always feeling like something would. Maybe it was growing up with chaos? I’d thought I longed for peace. I’d made my life as calm as possible. But being near him, it was like taking a shot of adrenaline. Hawk called to something fundamental in me that needed to die for good.

  “You’re not going to find it in those books,” he said.

  “Find what?” I watched as he walked to the side of the room where the tea and coffee were, and I might have taken in the line of his back. Where was his coat? Had he taken it off before he came in? Had he not worn one? Maybe he’d been close by and forgotten it? It was frigid out there, but you’d never know from him. It was probably like living in Antarctica. Your blood got thick like molasses.

  He poured himself something from one of the pots. Something that steamed. See? He was normal. He’d just forgotten his
jacket and now wanted something warm, like normal people did. Nothing odd about it.

  “Puddle jumping.” He walked over, sipping a tea or coffee. “It’s not a spell. It’s innate. If it didn’t work the first time you tried, it’s not going to.”

  Shit. He was truly the only option to get out of here. I wanted to stomp up and down, cursing, instead of sitting there calmly.

  “I didn’t try,” I said, looking back down at the book because I could never keep the lie from my expression.

  “I guess the saltwater splatter on the rug must’ve been from Musso,” he said, and sipped his drink. The smell of coffee wafted over, along with a woody scent of his own.

  I dropped the book to the side. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

  “Learning how to control your magic. You’re no good to me otherwise. A witch who has no control is a danger to everyone around them.”

  If I’d been asked what magic lessons would be like a year ago, I would’ve envisioned something with more of a Loris flair—not a lecture.

  “You know, if you’re really concerned, you can always send me home now.”

  “Not likely.” He smiled, but without teeth or happiness included.

  “Yeah, I guess you want to make sure you get those fifteen coins’ worth out of me. Well, lay it on me. I’m a quick learner. I did the dandelions with no issue.” If I was doing this, I was doing it fast and efficiently. This was not getting dragged out for weeks or months.

  “We’ll see about that. I need a sprinter. Lighting up dandelions and clovers is the equivalent to magical crawling.” He grabbed the book that I’d placed on the table and pushed it even closer to me. “Let’s start simple. Push that off the table. Flick your wrist, like it’s in your hand and you’re tossing it.”

  That was it? I could do that. I imagined the book in my hand, down to the feel of the leather on my fingertips. I threw it. Nothing happened.

  He walked over to me, but instead of instructions, he grazed my neck with his fingers. I shivered slightly as he lifted the chain.

  “Your hands are cold.” I wasn’t usually a liar but couldn’t have him getting any weird ideas. This was a business relationship. Plus he had a girlfriend who already wanted to stab me with no provocation. If she caught a sniff of something, anything, she’d surely break out the meat cleaver.

  He took my chain and put it on the side table, by the tea and coffee pots.

  “Try it again.”

  I imagined the book in my hand again and then throwing it. Instead of the book flying, the couch I sat on bounced up, dumping me on my ass in front of it.

  Hawk walked over and looked down, not bothering to offer me a hand up. “I thought you were a quick learner?”

  I got off the floor, with no help from him, and brushed off my pants. “I was infusing dandelions with wishes and magic like I’d been doing it my entire life.”

  “Glad you know how to crawl well.” He walked back to the other side of the room, shaking his head, the vein in his neck twitching.

  “I will learn fast. You’ll see.”

  “You’d better, because I can’t afford to waste time.”

  “Why? What do you need, anyway? What kind of spell?” I asked, annoyed that I was working toward something he hadn’t bothered to disclose yet.

  “Nothing you’re capable of giving me at the moment.”

  Talking was getting me nothing but high blood pressure. I ignored him and his scowl and focused on the book again. I flicked my wrist, concentrating on knocking the book from the table. The book fell off the table. Everything fell off the table, because it flew across the room and landed a few feet short of where Hawk stood.

  We both stared at the table for a minute.

  “Maybe we should try something simpler. Come over here.” He put a hand close to the fire and the flames disappeared, and then even the burning embers went out.

  I got as close to the fireplace as I could. If things went wrong, I wanted to limit what I might burn, since this was currently my home.

  “Imagine heat building in your hand, your fingertips, as if your hand was on fire. Then fling it toward the logs.”

  Hand on fire. Boiling heat. Sweltering heat. I could feel it. I threw all that energy toward the logs. Ashes and dust flew up, blowing out and filling the room. My eyes burned and I coughed on ash. The only thing that happened to the logs was that they now sat in a clean fireplace.

  I looked at Hawk. He had ash all over his shirt and pants, but not quite as bad as I did.

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure how you can have this much magic and also be this bad. This is going to take longer than I imagined.”

  He walked out of the room. I knew practice was over when he didn’t come back. This night had gone to shit, and now worse—was I supposed to clean this all up on my own?

  10

  I’d swept, dusted, dusted again. Then swept again. Belinda was making the factory look good. Luckily, Zab kept taking pity on me and needed me for things, which were often tea breaks in the back. But then more clients would come in, and Belinda, not one to overlook idle hands, would send me to clean the windows for the third time.

  By the time Hawk showed up and was ready to torture me, I was already exhausted.

  I sat slumped in front of the fireplace, face covered in ashes, realizing that even failing at magic could take a lot out of you.

  “You’re. Not. Trying.” Hawk glared at me from the other side of the room like I wasn’t killing myself to light the logs on fire. As if I hadn’t already tried ten times since he’d called me back here.

  “Yes. I. Am.” My jaw barely unlocked as I spoke. “Do you think I’m trashing this room for shits and giggles?” I waved a hand about the place that was indeed a mess and, I was fairly certain, I’d be cleaning up alone. “That this is fun for me?”

  He shook his head. It seemed to be a trend with us. He’d tell me to try something. I’d fail. He’d shake his head and act like I was purposely frustrating him. Not that I wouldn’t at this point. If I could knock him upside his head, I’d do it. What did he expect? I was new at this, and clearly something was going wrong.

  “This, what you’ve been doing, is not trying. If you were trying, we’d be getting somewhere. I ask you to move the book, you knock over the bookcase. I ask you to light the fire, and you do everything but.” Hawk stepped closer. “Let me ask you something, Tippi. Are you even here by accident, or was this a setup?”

  Now he was going too far. Did he think I was some sort of spy? Here to read his books at night? I didn’t even know why I was here in the first place. A spell, he’d say, with no other explanation. Anger drove energy back into my limbs as I got to my feet.

  “A setup for what? To make your back room a mess? Beg you to send me home? I must be a genius spy.” I was barely under a yell. The only thing that stopped me were the people still in the office who might be listening.

  “I’m finding it hard to believe that you’re quite this bad. It’s not natural.” He was crowding me, standing so close that I could feel some sort of electricity that fizzed from him. He had an energy that somehow called to mine, made me want to reach out and touch him, just to see if that tingle would be there. But if I did touch him, there was a very high likelihood that I’d kill him, or attempt to, anyway.

  I looked up at him, wishing I was a foot taller. “Then why don’t you get rid of me and send me back to Salem?”

  “Because you’re bought and paid for, and damned if I’m not getting what I want.” His voice was deep and growly, nearly vibrating through the room.

  “Then you better figure out another way to teach me, because this isn’t all on me. You need to take some of the blame here. Maybe it’s you. Have you ever even taught anyone before? Because I hate to tell you, but you suck at it.”

  There was a flicker of light in his eyes, a sizzle of energy that notched up. If everyone here in Xest had magic, why did no one feel quite the same as he did when I neared them? There was so
mething wrong here. Or something different, at least.

  I lifted my hand, as if I were about to touch him, my curiosity getting the best of me. I caught myself in time and pointed instead.

  He finished the connection, wrapping his hand around mine. “You are going to do this.”

  Our flesh connected, and I barely paid attention to his words, my concentration on the feeling of where our skin touched. I felt a surge of power flood from him. I didn’t need to know magical scripture to know what I felt, and it was something immense. There was no more doubt.

  “You’re not a warlock. What are you?” I asked, pulling my hand back even as I could feel his magic surrounding me.

  And then the magic was pulled back, like it hadn’t been there. He took a step back, as if he’d caught himself.

  He’d slipped. Whatever he’d just shown me was an accident.

  “Hawk, are you ready?” Belinda asked from the doorway, her tone pure sugar instead of the acid I’d gotten all day.

  “Yes. We’re finished.”

  Hawk walked out.

  I surveyed the damage. I should just leave it. I was doing this for his purposes. One would think he’d offer to help straighten up with me. The first time he left, I’d thought it was an oversight. He’d been aggravated and hadn’t thought of it. But what about this time?

  I went to the corner, dumped ash out of a cup, wiped it with my shirt, and then made tea while I waited for the sounds of the office to quiet. It was one thing to be the maid all day, but tonight I preferred to do my cleaning without an audience.

  I took a seat on the ash-covered couch, waiting until the noises died down before I made my way to the turned-over bookcase. The thing must have been made out of some wood never heard of in Rest, because it weighed as much as a mountain of granite.

  “Hang on. Let me help you,” Zab said, walking in.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I thought everyone was gone.”