Sometimes, especially with us, spells had a little more natural “juice.” No matter the limits we put into the spell, the effects were amped up as there was too much power to be channeled into such a tiny effect.
Spellforms were on the opposite end of the spectrum. They were the most basic words, covering powerful concepts that could cause immense destruction. A spellform for fire was the literal embodiment of fire—and could cause a sweeping firestorm that would destroy hundreds of acres or cause an explosion that would take out a small town.
In the aftermath of Moonset, the people who were taught spellforms were very strictly monitored. No one I’d ever met had known one, and teaching someone else without permission was a criminal act.
Quinn nodded slowly, and then began whipping the knife in front of him in a complicated pattern. One, two, three spells took shape before I even had them all counted. They hovered in the air, glowing blue symbols. “If this was a fight, what’d I just do? And how would you counteract it?”
The first was a version of cor, which was a base form for spells dealing with communication.
The tip of it bled to the right, tying into the first stroke of the symbol, eresh, which had something to do with spirits, or illusions. “It’s some kind of telephone spell? Like holograms?”
“Not quite,” Quinn said, passing the knife over the top of the third symbol. “The third ties them all together.” I knew this one— Geonous, it dealt with travel. Once the spell was complete, the blue turned incandescent, like the filament of a light bulb.
“And that’s helpful how?” But I looked a little closer, and then I saw it—saw the way the spell’s words worked together, they way they tangled up in each other, a machine of many parts. Astral projection. You could use it to spy on people without anyone knowing—and all the while your body is safe at home. Even worse, the people you spied on would never know.
“Do you—have you been using this on us?” I asked, the momentary thrill of breaking the rules snuffed out by an overwhelming, poisonous terror. He knew. He knew all along. It was a test and I failed and he brought me back here knowing what I did. He’d seen the book, he knew it had belonged to Sherrod, and rather than confront me, he was playing it casual. Hiding condemnation underneath a lesson.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Relax,” Quinn said soothingly, hands raised like a white flag. “It’s not like that.” There was something in his dark eyes I didn’t like, though. Speculation. Awareness. “No one’s spying on you. That’s not it at all.”
“Then what is it?” Panic was making me reckless, speaking and acting without thinking. “Why are you showing this to me?”
“Just because I can’t teach you to fight,” he said, “doesn’t mean I can’t show you how to keep yourselves safe.”
“How is spying going to keep me safe?”
“Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘work smarter, not harder?’” Quinn dropped the knife, and the phosphorescent image of the spell started to fade. “You may not know as much as you could, and you definitely don’t know everything you should. But like it or not, the five of you are a coven, and you’re stronger together.”
“What are you talking about?” Quinn wasn’t even making sense anymore. How did a spying spell have anything to do with what we did or didn’t know?
He raised the athame again, and, quicker this time, slashed three symbols into the air. None were exactly the same, they were reversed, and the middle one was more elevated. Geonous was the only one that was still identical, while cor was more elaborate this time. But all three featured sharp, block-like lines at their edges, creating something like a border at the edges of the spell.
This isn’t another projection spell, I realized. It’s a ward. Finally, I started to understand. I crept closer to the spell as it shifted from blue to white, trying to memorize the flow of the lines.
My hand itched, wanting to trace my own version of the spell and see it flare into existence.
“No one’s spying on us,” I said slowly. “But they could. Or they’re going to start.” Quinn wasn’t showing me how to spy on someone else; he was trying to show me how to protect ourselves. How to keep other Witchers, or maybe even the Congress, from taking even our small semblances of privacy away from us.
“That’s crazy talk,” Quinn replied, but his flat tone suggested otherwise. “Either way, this was just a hypothetical situation, and it’s moot anyway. You don’t have your own athame.”
I tried not to smile. “Lucky you have some spares.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He dropped his hand again and the spell disappeared. “I’ve got some work to finish, so I’m going to put this away.” He hefted the athame. “I can’t tell you where the spares are hidden, but stay out of the hope chest in my room, all right?”
My forehead knitted up in confusion. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m certainly not violating about a dozen specific warnings and straddling a couple of laws concerning treason. Teaching you spells that haven’t been approved and arming you with an athame—if something happened, it would be political suicide.”
He left the room, and this time I didn’t follow. I couldn’t get a read on Quinn. Half the time he seemed like he wanted to help, and the rest of the time he seemed like he was only making the situation worse. But if he was telling the truth, and it was illegal to be helping us, then why had he done it?
I thought of the spellbook in the garage and felt even worse. I have to get rid of it, I decided suddenly. As soon as he leaves the next time, I’ll take it and throw it in a fireplace or a trash can or something.
The air still felt warm where Quinn’s spell hung. I stayed close to it, trying to ward off the chill.
I changed my mind. Quinn was such an asshole.
Just before dinner, he came downstairs with a trio of very old, very dusty books.
“Tomorrow’s project—I want a thousand-word essay on the Coven Wars at the turn of the last century and how that impacted modern coven policies.”
“You’re kidding.” I stared at him, and the books he dropped down onto the table, with nothing short of shock. I sneezed, then kept on sneezing. Homework … while I was home? This was absurd.
“Definitely not kidding,” he said.
“I don’t even know anything about the Coven Wars,” I argued, already knowing how this was going to end.
He flashed a smile. “Lucky for you I’ve got all these books. They’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
“What is it you expect me to write about?”
“There’s a wealth of information,” Quinn said. “Talk about how women weren’t allowed to lead a coven for two hundred years. How magical law grew around the coven bond and took it into consideration. How due process was affected by coven-on-coven violence. The Coven
Wars are a fascinating part of our history.”
I looked at just how much history was dusted over the covers of the books. “Obviously.”
Quinn left the room as Jenna appeared, looking from the stack of books to the pasta I was cooking on the stove. “How’s it feel to be incarcerated at such a young age?” she asked.
“Thinking about getting a prison tat? Maybe a butterfly on your shoulder?”
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I said, for about the thousandth time.