Wildfire Witch (The Cursed Coven of Spells Hollow)

6. Nix

NIX

“So, let me get something out of the way. I’m cursed,” I said.

He nodded, looking completely unsurprised. “Trust me, I know. Cer and I have had plenty of conversations about it.”

I sucked on the inside of my cheek, eyeing him. “Why?” It was unlike the fae to bring someone else into our business. Seth knew too much about me.

He didn’t quite meet my eye, his lips taking an embarrassed slant. “I’ve got something to show you once we’re done eating. It’s in my room. You can use my shower too, if you want,” he offered.

“Okay.” I was just about done, anyway.

“So, I told you I’m a Moortide. My dad is a contractor for supernatural cover-ups. There’s good money in it,” he said.

I raised a brow. “And?” Here he was as an EMT, while having the same “touch of the fae” that helped regular humans forget what they’d seen of supernatural blunders.

“My parents paid for an extra fancy augury reading when I was born. You know the ones?”

I shook my head no.

“Well, they got the works from a specialized agency, with a star chart and a peek at where life would take me. It led me here. To this point in my life.” He pointed his fork toward the floor.

I raised a brow, skeptical immediately. “While that is not outside of the realm of belief, magic based in augury is notably flawed. Often, results can only be produced a single time.” Terrible for proper testing and research. “Some say that such things become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once they’re foretold, you’re doomed to live it because you’re aware of it and unconsciously steering your life that way. It’s like…” I searched my mind for the proper term and produced a modern one. “Like a placebo effect.”

He shrugged with a carefree smile. “Maybe, but it’s led me to Cer, and thus, both of us to you. Going well so far, I’d say.”

“The augury magic informed you of me in some way?” I asked. Well, future sight allows for some coincidences…and we had experienced a big one yesterday.

“Yeah. Don’t you want to know what I learned before you dismiss it as a placebo effect?” he offered in a teasing tone.

I eyed what was left on my plate before nudging it aside. “Show me,” I said.

He stood and gestured for me to follow him. “Before you freak out at what you’re about to see, please give me the benefit of the doubt. I can explain everything,” he said.

That wasn’t the most comforting preface, but now I had to know what it could possibly be that would cause a “freak out.” I’d seen so much in my lives that I doubted he could shock me. Yet, as we entered his room, I realized I was wrong.

I stopped dead a pace into the threshold. Seth’s room wasn’t exactly huge, but a full half of it, above and around his computer desk, was a maze of pegboards, old newspaper cutouts, and aged photographs and pictures.

Images of my face.

Dozens of my different incarnations stared back at me, from an ancient hand-drawn portrait to black and white photography. There was even one from the time where I’d had to hold quite still and maintain a neutral expression, otherwise the image would smudge.

My breath quickened as my gaze met each set of eyes. The same person, but different styles of hair and dress. I rarely smiled in any of them; my eyes haunted whether they were shaded gray in old photography or amber brown like they truly were.

Seth was trying to say something, but I could only hear flames roaring in my ears as my hands formed fists at my sides. What was this, a shrine? Was Seth truly as obsessed as Ceridor was? I burned with mounting internal heat. Aodhnait was quiet, a too-hot presence in my chest, expanding and crackling…

His hand landed on my shoulder. A sensation like the ripples of cool water lapping against my skin spread from the contact, reducing my dangerous internal heat. Aodhnait calmed, pulsing with softer warmth to the same beat as my heart. I looked up at him, surprised that a simple touch was so soothing during the onset of another episode.

Obviously, there was more to his shrine than I thought. He was someone I needed, so I also had to give him a chance to tell me what was really going on. “Start explaining,” I invited, clearing my throat of the phantom feeling of smoke.

He gestured to a blown-up image he’d printed to the side. An oddly intricate star chart, with several overlapping lines of different colors. “Like I was saying, the augur my parents worked with had a difficult time interpreting my star chart. She saw I was destined to meet and grow attached to someone with a pattern of constellations on top of one another.” He layered his hands to emphasize what I was looking at.

“It took her months, but she figured it out and told my parents that I was the anam cara to a witch of wildfire, cursed with rebirth. She told us your name was Verity Carmine, but that name got us literally nowhere.”

Anam cara, I repeated to myself. Witches sought their anam cara intensely if they could. Only an anam cara, or soul friend, could complete their lives. Despite the implication of a soul friend , an anam cara could be a close confidante or a perfect spouse and lover. Over time, if we were truly soul friends, Seth and I would form that kind of connection.

“That explains why I liked him immediately,” I commented to Aodhnait.

She hummed, but only in my head this time. “He does sense right. A good balance to your symmetry,” she agreed.

I gestured to his shrine. “You’ve clearly found me. Several versions of me,” I said aloud.

He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. Um, sorry. I know it’s weird, but I got a big boost from the internet to make this. You’re an urban legend, did you know that? A woman born in every era with the exact same face.”

“Because I’m always reborn as the same person,” I said.

“Right. So, I followed what the augur said and partnered up with Cer a couple of years ago to set up the chain of events that led to us meeting. I’m so excited to finally meet you, by the way, I’ve just tried to keep it to myself so I didn’t freak you out like Cer has. This…this moment right here, it’s the end of her foretelling of my life. She told me we were soul friends, and that I would be one of the people who helped you break your curse. But from here, I don’t know how that will happen.” He spread his palms apologetically.

There was something earnest about him, a hint of the emotions he’d quashed for my sake. Someone who’d known he would meet me his whole life still had a right to be thrilled now that we were face-to-face. I appreciated his calm presence and self-control.

“That’s all right,” I murmured. I took a few moments to look more closely at what he’d pinned to the wall. Other than the pictures, which were really creeping me out, there were articles chronicling acts of arson and the mysterious appearances of a crying baby abandoned in the ashes of burned-out buildings.

Shit, if this was online too, anyone could access it. Especially the fire bros.

“We need to get to Spells Hollow,” I blurted.

“Okay. I’ll start packing too,” he said without missing a beat. “You’re like, okay right? With me being your anam cara and…stuff?”

He was eyeing me uncertainly when I turned away from the wall. This was a lot to process…but I needed him. That fact was evident to me, and fate had placed him in my path at the exact right moment.

“Relax, cutie,” I said with my old confidence. “If you’re my anam cara, then consider yourself along for the ride. We’ll figure it all out. You’re still cool with me using your shower?”

He nodded again and I left the room, returning with my bag of toiletries and a change of clothes. I breezed by him, not even noticing that I’d flustered him with a pet name and the sway of my hips as I sauntered past and closed the door behind me.

Showered and comfortable in a change of clothes, I watched the two men pile up our bags for the trip. I was into my second mug of matcha, my hand busy with a pen and piece of paper. I drew arrays while they argued and occasionally referenced the internet on my phone to see if the supernatural side had any existing rituals I could borrow from.

“Spells Hollow is in New York. I can fly Nix there in a matter of days,” Ceridor said, eyeing the three bags Seth intended to take.

“I have to be there too, remember?” he replied.

“Someone has to take the car,” the fae said with icy haughtiness.

“All three of us are taking the car.”

“I refuse to be stuck in that human-created metal death trap more than I have to.”

I looked down at the array I’d doodled and scribbled it out in frustration. “It’s missing something,” I said to Aodhnait.

“The earth element,” she answered.

I halted my pen, looking over the circle one more time. “Unless you know where we can conjure up a man with a strong earth affinity, we have to make this work with what we have.”

There was no such thing as a flawless curse. Morfran had thought to cover up the weakness in mine because the process of death and rebirth would erase my extensive knowledge of magic and turn me into a hopeless shell. Now that I was restored, I attempted to ponder the intricacies of the balance of the elements…

But Seth and Ceridor kept getting louder. “Could you two shut up?” I snapped, clutching my forehead. “Why can’t we all fly if it’s such a problem?”

Both of them turned to look at me. “Fear of heights,” Seth answered.

I tapped the tip of my pen on the paper, spreading more ink over the chaotic scribbles I’d created. “And there’s only one car?” I asked.

The water witch shot a glare over at Ceridor. “Yeah, and it’s mine. I taught him how to drive and he’s nearly totaled it several times,” he said.

“Don’t make yourself out to be a victim.” The wind fae rolled his eyes. “I’ve supplied you with a place to live and money for your interests.”

“Because they’ve helped us find Nix,” Seth said.

“Regardless, they remain skills I’ve funded for you?—”

“Oh, so sorry. Mister ancient moneybags over here?—”

“Stop,” I repeated, massaging the headache forming behind my temples. “No matter how we get there, it’s going to be a wasted trip if I don’t figure this out.”

Since they’d stopped bickering like children, I got to work drawing a new array. Seth abandoned his bags and pulled up a seat next to me. “That looks complicated,” he commented.

Ceridor peeked over my shoulder. They both watched me as I inked in lines, alchemical symbols, and theoretical places for us all to stand.

“If we had an additional person with strong earth-based magic,” I said once it was mostly finished. “We could work a ritual to pull Aodhnait’s fire free of me. Her possession of my heart is resulting in a catastrophic imbalance of my symmetry, which is the primary effect of my curse.”

“Your symmetry,” Seth echoed curiously.

I eyed him, considering how to explain such a complex topic as succinctly as possible. “Yes. The study of alchemy is a philosophical one as well as an art. The idea is that all matter is connected, made from one original thing. It gets more complicated from there, but that’s a discussion for another time. What matters is that, it extends the same idea to the elements, that all four were originally one, the prima magicae . Inside every being with access to magic, you can find the four elements.”

I took out a clean sheet of paper and doodled the symbols for the four elements for him.

“Seth, your affinity is for water. It’s what you can control.” I wrote his name down next to the water symbol. “However, if we cracked open your chest and inspected your magic down to the grain, we would see that it is not formed entirely of water. There are minute amounts of earth, air, and fire there to keep you in balance, as long as they maintain a pattern that is entirely unique to you.” I etched in a simple circle around the symbol for water on the page and then replicated it until the pattern resembled two figure eights connected by their middles.

“Huh,” he said.

“Magic loves shapes. Look at any ritual or spell and you see they come in every conceivable geometric shape. This forms the basic principles of the symmetry of magic. It is the main alchemical theory I worked towards proving, in my first life. I sought to have perfect symmetry, an equal balance of earth, fire, air, and water in a flawless geometric pattern. It would have resulted in me being able to wield all four elements equally.”

“I think I’m following,” he said. Ceridor, who used to listen to me talk in deep lengths about my symmetry, simply nodded.

“Back to present day…the elements crave balance and we can use that,” I said, putting the paper with my newest array back on top of the stack. “My curse ruins my symmetry by taking away the other elements, even though I was born with an affinity for earth as a green witch. Every spell I cast is forced to become fire.”

My fae husband was still nodding along, so I met his eyes as I finished my explanation. “Which means I am chaotically unbalanced . The fire within me now, personified as Aodhnait, will latch onto the promise of a new balance with strong representatives of the other elements. They can draw her out of me, if we provide the proper ritual and in the right place, which we have to assume is the site I was cursed, in my shop in Spells Hollow. That would bring the whole thing full circle, and again…magic loves shapes.”

Ceridor’s stare slipped from me to the page. He could’ve burned a hole straight through the array. “You need a third person. A third man,” he muttered. “After all this, we still don’t have everything you need.”

I nodded, not too surprised he’d figured the rest out from what I’d written. “If this ritual is to work, I also need to be more tethered to the other people in the circle than I am to Aodhnait. She and I have the familiar bond and have been together several centuries now…the only way to form a more powerful bond is through mating, handfasting.” I glanced toward Seth. “Finding my anam cara. But don’t worry…I’ll keep working on this. Maybe I’ll find a more sensible solution.”

Something that wouldn’t hurt Ceridor, preferably. He looked like he was trying to swallow a ball of spikes as he listened to me, and quite frankly, I felt the same. I didn’t necessarily want three husbands.

But if I found another man who called to me like Ceridor and Seth, I could be convinced to embrace it as destiny. I would need fate to drop him in my lap so I could break this curse in my current life.

As if it were listening in on my thoughts, fate sent the heavy thud of a boot slamming against the front door of their apartment. Or perhaps that was simply the start of the consequences of me staying in one place for too long, catching up to me.