The Joy of Hex Read online

  “Heal her,” Thatch said.

  “Do you want to hold your baby?” Queen Morgaine asked, holding the swaddling out to me. The softness of her voice was oddly incongruent with the malice in her eyes.

  I shook my head. That thing she held wasn’t a baby. I didn’t care what Thatch said about Witchkin babies not looking like human babies. This little monster had torn me apart from the inside. Maybe some of that had to do with the Raven Queen accelerating the gestation with a speedy birth, but from the way the thing appeared to be slurping on the organ it held, I was pretty sure I had just birthed a demon.

  “You did this,” Thatch said. “You destroyed her in order to deliver my firstborn. Now fix what you’ve done.”

  The queen ignored him. She shoved the baby into my arms. “What would you like to name her?”

  Her. It was a girl. I relaxed against Thatch and closed my eyes. The queen pinched my arm. “I am speaking with you. I do not give you permission to die. Name your child.”

  “That means you will save her?” Thatch asked, desperation in his voice.

  The world around me was growing dark despite the brightness of the morning sunlight. “I’ve always liked the name Aubrey. Like Aubrey Hepburn.”

  “I think you mean Audrey Hepburn,” Thatch said.

  I tried to focus on his voice. My vision was a tunnel, getting smaller. “No. It’s definitely Aubrey. Like Aubrey Tatou, that Fresh actress in Amelie.” I was lightheaded. It was growing harder to speak. “And Aubrey II in Little Shop of Horrors.”

  Thatch smoothed my hair from my face. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s a movie. And a play.” I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. “Aubrey II is the name of the plant that has to eat human blood to survive.”

  “I think you mean Audrey,” Thatch said.

  “Splendid!” The Raven Queen clapped her hands in delight. “So fitting. She might turn out to be a blood mage.”

  My arms were numb. The demon baby was heavy on my chest. The queen drew the baby back into her arms and stood.

  “Heal her. Please.” Thatch’s voice cracked.

  “She’s broken and of no use to me now.” The queen waved him off dismissively. “I shall depart.”

  Hot tears rolled down his cheeks and spilled onto my face. “No! I’ll give you anything. Save her.”

  The queen extended her wings. “I have what I’ve always wanted. Save her yourself if she’s that precious to you.” She strolled off out of my line of sight.

  Thatch didn’t have his wand or any potions. The majority of his magic had gone into fighting the aphrodisiac. Even with the strength he might have gained from our spiritual transcendence, I suspected turning into a dragon and flying off had drained him, or else he would have at least magicked me a blanket. Probably the act of creating life had used up some magic as well.

  He cradled me to his chest, crying. I was so tired and cold. I couldn’t stop shivering. The dark tunnel of light closed in on me.

  He shook me. “Don’t fall asleep.” His breath came out ragged.

  I opened my eyes with a jolt. I could see the magic trying to converge. A spark smoldered in his core before going dark.

  “I want to be buried next to her tree,” I said. “Even if it was burned down.”

  The tunnel grew. My vision became a narrow view of his face. His eyes were stormy gray. Tears clung to his spidery lashes. He was so beautiful.

  “I love you,” he said. “I would do anything to ensure your well-being.”

  I tried to make my mouth work, to ask what he meant, but I couldn’t make my lips move.

  The world went dark. I felt something tugged from around my neck before I slipped into a dreamless sleep.

  PART TWO

  Back to the Future

  CHAPTER NINE

  Guilty as Charged

  The overwhelming burden of memories came crashing in on me all at once. My brain struggled to understand the sequence of events in the Raven Queen’s castle: my mother’s transformation, almost losing Felix Thatch, trading him for my child, and finally my near-death experience.

  Felix Thatch held me as I remembered the past and what had happened to us at the Raven Court. Grief choked me. I didn’t like the person I had become in the process of trying to do good. I’d beaten Odette to call the queen with pain magic. It was the kind of wicked thing Alouette Loraline would have done. Abigail Lawrence wouldn’t have approved.

  I didn’t feel as though I could live without my mom. Of all the horrible places she had to be planted, why outside the Raven Queen’s castle, where I would never see her again?

  The strain of the memories was too much on my heart. I felt as if I were drowning as the tide of the past flooded into me. My chest seized up, and it felt as though I were experiencing the symptoms of a heart attack. Pain shot through my chest, and panic crushed me in its claws.

  “Clarissa, breathe,” my husband said.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Tears burned my eyes. I wanted to die.

  Thatch touched his lips to mine; I thought to kiss me. But as he pinched my nose and breathed air into my lungs, I realized he was attempting to resuscitate me. That meant I really wasn’t breathing. I considered resisting his exertions and slipping out of my body. I had found solace from pain in leaving my body once before. It would have been easy.

  “Clarissa, I love you,” Thatch said, the gray of his eyes like storm clouds flashing with a spark of lightning. “Do not leave me again. We will fight this together.”

  The love in him kept my soul tethered to my body.

  He was right. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t abandon him. I had too much unfinished business to pursue. One of those tasks was that I needed to ensure he didn’t slip away, deeper into the depression he’d been trying to hide from me. I had to keep on fighting. No matter how the Raven Queen had punished me for my boldness and courage at challenging her and trying to defeat her, I knew I had to try again.

  This time, I would need to be successful. Too many loved ones counted on me to right her wrongs. Imani needed me. I had to save my baby. I would rescue my fairy godmother.

  Thatch’s lips became a caress against mine. I opened my eyes.

  He smiled, bittersweet sorrow filling the gloomy gray of his eyes. I reached up and touched the streak of white threading through his midnight hair. How I missed the genuine smiles that had graced his lips before all this had happened. I wanted hope and love to fill his heart again.

  “I finally understand,” I said. “The demon that Alouette Loraline released in the school dungeon that destroyed the school—it wasn’t a demon. It was a dragon.”

  “Indeed.” He kissed my forehead.

  “Your true form?”

  “No. That dragon was her true form. That was how she escaped from the school. With you inside her.”

  “That was what drained her?” I asked. “Turning into a dragon and escaping?”

  “Most likely.”

  “That was what really drained you?”

  He looked away.

  “Don’t lie. Please.” I wanted that chasm between us to fill with truth and hope and love.

  “I used all my magic to protect you. It was Elric’s magic that healed you.” He dropped his head onto my shoulder. “I didn’t know what else to do other than use the amulet. I called him, knowing we both would owe him a debt. I’m sorry.”

  I held his face between my palms. “Don’t be sorry for saving my life.” He had done the only thing he could. And despite his weakened state, he had attempted to wake me multiple times from my coma, draining himself again in the process.

  Elric had waited patiently for me to fulfill my debt, his magic draining as I slept. I had been awake for over a month, and I still owed Elric a child, my secondborn child. Between the magical imbalance afflicting him, and being cut off from the Silver Court’s magic, Elric was weak because of me. He had sacrificed much. They bot
h had.

  I needed to settle my debts. It was time I fulfilled the prophecy and saved the world—or destroyed it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Love at Second Sight

  “I am indebted to Elric because you used the amulet to save me,” I said. “But I won’t be able to give Elric another heir if I don’t love him. And I can’t do that if you don’t release me from the oath we made so you could protect me from the Raven Queen.”

  Felix Thatch bit his lip hard enough that it looked like it hurt. “I did it so she couldn’t use you. She couldn’t force anyone else on you in the future.”

  I took his hand and squeezed it. “I know. But now I’m not in danger of her using me. I need you to free me from that contract so I can provide Elric with a child.” If I didn’t get pregnant soon, the Raven Queen could attack again while Elric was weak. I feared the magical imbalance caused by him not collecting his debts would only grow worse.

  Thatch pressed my hand to his cheek. “I’m not strong enough to undo our oath.”

  Neither of us were as strong as we used to be, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “People will die if we don’t fix this.”

  He lifted his chin, a spark of defiance in his eyes as it often was when he spoke about Fae royalty. “Have you considered whether I want to dissolve our oath? It isn’t in your best interests. The Raven Queen might capture you again.”

  “We don’t need to dissolve the oath. We just need to amend it.” Surely that couldn’t be as difficult. “We are going to add a clause that I have the sovereignty to choose who I want to love and share physical intimacy with. Will you agree to that?”

  He stared into my eyes, the gray of his gloomy with resignation. “I will if that is your wish.”

  I kissed his forehead and inhaled his scent of starlight and arsenic. “It doesn’t mean I’ll love you any less.”

  “No, I suspect you have enough love in your heart to share that with the entire world. But you do realize if you have a child with Elric, life will be . . . complicated. Think about how difficult it will be for you—and the child. Will we raise this child? Or will Elric? Have you truly thought this through?”

  “Yes,” I lied. These details were inconsequential. Restoring my affinity and bearing Elric’s child were a matter of life and death. “I’m done thinking. It’s time for acting.”

  I drew away from him, ready to fetch his preferred instrument of torture—I didn’t want to use sex magic again and weaken him. “We can use pain magic to activate your affinity. What do you want? Fifty lashes or a new tattoo?”

  Felix Thatch chose paddling as his method of magic. I was careful not to use my affinity so that I wouldn’t weaken his.

  He was exhausted when I left him in his room in Elric’s cellar. So was I, a great burden carried on my shoulders. I didn’t know how Atlas carried the world on his back without being pressed flat. Perhaps he could do it because he did it for his family, for the people he loved.

  That was what kept me awake and planning when I would have preferred to be resting. In order to beat the Raven Queen, I needed my full strength. Felix Thatch and Elric needed to regain the full extent of their magic. Part of me still resented them for keeping the truth from me.

  Yet, I would never succeed in my plan if I continued to hold it against them. We couldn’t wait to act. There was no room for grudges between us. I needed to start by paying my debts.

  I carried a candle to light my way, treading softly on the stairs so that I wouldn’t wake Elric’s household and send the guards flying from their posts. I navigated around sections of broken wall and piles of furnishings that couldn’t be salvaged after the Raven Court’s attack on the estate.

  I didn’t find Elric in his room. Instead, I found Captain Errol bandaged and sleeping in his master’s bed. I wondered whether there was something I didn’t know about Elric’s relationship with his servant. Maybe it was just another example of Elric’s generosity.

  Elric lay on the floor of the adjoining room. Four children were tucked into one side of Vega’s bed, three on the other. One of the older girls had a settee to herself. A little boy slept curled up next to Elric, crusty tears dried on his cheeks. It appeared Elric had turned Vega’s gothic room into a nursery, and he was serving as guardian and nursemaid.

  I didn’t know where Vega was, but I could guess. Her morbid preferences were no secret to anyone. Either she was in a coffin or the crypt.

  I kneeled beside Elric, careful not to drip wax from the candle and holder onto him or the child asleep next to him. His silver hair spilled across his pillow like threads of moonlight. Once I had thought he looked like Legolas with his pointed ears and long hair. Now he looked older, more like Lucius Malfoy after Voldemort had appropriated his wand. The glamour that sparkled around him was absent in his sleep. Dark crescents rested below his eyes. His cheekbones looked too thin, hollow and cadaverous. I had never noticed the deep lines around his mouth and eyes. Perhaps it was an illusion of the candlelight.

  Or perhaps a lack of magic had done this to him.

  Before I even touched Elric’s shoulder, his eyes fluttered open.

  He sat up. “Is everything all right? Are you hurt? Suffering in some way?” His gaze flitted to the door and then the window as if an evil harpy might break in at any moment.

  I kept my voice low, not wanting to wake any of the children. “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to startle you.” I squeezed his arm, trying to reassure him. “No one else is here. Besides the children, I mean.”

  The tension from his shoulders released. He smiled, though fatigue hugged his frame.

  I had been resistant to opening my heart to him because I’d been fixed on the idea I could only love one man. I had married Felix Thatch because I loved him, and I hadn’t appreciated all the ways Elric had attempted to undermine that. He had said he wasn’t trying to thwart my relationship with my husband; he was only trying to heal me.

  I could see now that had been the truth. It had taken the knowledge of what he’d sacrificed and the return of my memories to help me see the bigger picture. Only now could I truly fathom how much Elric had given up. He hadn’t told me the price saving me had cost me—and him. He had tried to hide the sacrifice of what he’d done so I wouldn’t resent him.

  Not keeping me to my bargain to provide him with a child was making him weak and ill.

  I embraced him, tears filling my eyes.

  He patted my back. “Felix returned your memories to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I imagine you remember the . . . trauma you experienced at the Raven Queen’s hands.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry about your baby. I didn’t know.” He held me tighter. “It isn’t easy losing a child.”

  If anyone would know, he would. I wondered how many babies Quenylda had murdered, claiming it had been disease or blaming someone else. How many of his wives and mistresses had she killed?

  “You should have told me I needed to give you an heir,” I said.

  “You would have hated me.” He bit his lip. “As it is, I suspect you will come to hate me.”

  I started to argue, but the boy on the floor squirmed and rolled out from under the blankets. Elric tucked the child back under and carefully removed himself from the makeshift bed. He took my hand and led me out of the room.

  The striped wallpaper in the hallway had been slashed by talons. We passed by the open door of a room partially burned, furniture toppled over, and a broken window shuttered. His beautiful estate was now in shambles. The Raven Court had destroyed so much.

  He found an empty guest room that remained mostly intact.

  He sat me on the bed. “Can you forgive me for keeping the truth from you?” he asked.

  I still didn’t like the contract Thatch had made on my behalf, or what Elric had asked, but I resolved I would get past this. I only had enough time and energy to focus on what was necessary.

 
I placed a hand on Elric’s shoulder. “Yes, I can forgive you.”

  “He bested me, you realize,” Elric said. “The price of the amulet was meant for you, but he was the one who called me, therefore he owed me something as well. He granted me his blessing to collect my debt from you without interference.”

  “For conceiving a child with me?”

  “Indeed. He promised me not to interfere or undermine me, but he did so knowing the price from you was something I could never collect. Not after what he’d failed to tell me had happened to you at the Raven Court.”

  Was that why I hadn’t gotten pregnant? Because of the trauma to my body? Or the one to my soul? Surely my oath to Thatch while in the midst of sex magic wouldn’t have helped. I’d never transcended to that spiritual place of dragons in the stars and collected a dragon egg while with Elric.

  “Being the foolish knave that I am, I promised everything in return. I pledged that I would cherish you, and love you, and treat you as my equal. I agreed to protect you and keep you safe. I’m afraid I failed, and I suspect he knew I would.”

  I hugged an arm around him. “That’s not true. You have been very good to me, and I know you tried your best.”

  “A binding contract doesn’t work that way. Trying isn’t good enough. There already have been consequences for my failures. My magic has weakened to the point I can no longer protect you or those in my house.”

  I wasn’t so sure our magical bargain was all that ailed him. “Other Fae make contracts all the time. It doesn’t take the same toll on them as it has with you. The King of the Pacific had a claim on Maddy’s firstborn. He had to wait a few years. Was he weak and vulnerable the entire time? The Raven Queen must have waited for years for Felix’s and Odette’s firstborns—decades. Why didn’t it do this to her?”

  “Because those Fae were smarter than me!” He drew his hands up in exasperation. “They didn’t forsake their court. They haven’t made other bargains they didn’t collect on, which weakened them. Probably they worded their bargains precisely so that there were no time constraints to force them to collect—as my father had done when he created the necklace. I allowed sentiment and idealism to get in the way of making a logical business agreement.”