The work was nearly complete and everything was the absolute finest available. All the witches she’d gathered around her from different times and places were delighted by her creation. They often wondered amongst themselves why they’d never thought about joining together before.
One reason was money, of course. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, most of the witches who congregated there were dirt poor. They didn’t seem to think it was ethical to use their powers for material gain. However, if they found her methods for keeping them in such opulence unsavory, they never made a peep about it around her.
The other reason was that they just weren’t used to being able to practice in the open. The Povest clan used to have a hold over the magical community for ages, punishing anyone who made too much of a stir with their powers. But her mother and father and uncle had vanquished the evil matriarch who’d kept them all down and now they were free to do as they pleased. Stuck in their ways and overly paranoid about being discovered by non-magical folk, they continued to skulk around despite the fact they’d been free for a generation.
Thinking of the Povests made her think of Owen and she felt a stab of loneliness. She missed her parents and brothers desperately as well, but it was easier to push thoughts of them away. Her brothers were better off not knowing about her lifestyle. If they happened to have any latent powers of their own, they wouldn’t know what to do with them and things would end up exploding, she was sure. The hypocrisy of not wanting her brothers to know anything didn’t escape her. But she still refused to believe her parents had done the right thing. If only they had been open and honest, she could invite them for a visit, send Gloria back to escort them. But they hadn’t and she couldn’t.
Or could she? Thinking about her mum and father actually hurt a lot less than missing Owen so she concentrated on this new nugget of an idea. Why exactly couldn’t she invite her parents here? Show them how well she was doing. How absolutely not in danger she was. She liked the idea of it until she thought of Nick.
Her parents had known him back before she was born, since he was the brother of her father’s best friend. The fact that she’d never met Nick in all her years of visiting Jeremy Kerr as a child meant he must have been considered a black sheep in that family. She’d gone back to a time before she was born and Nick had been part of her parents’ social circle, so they most likely knew about the debt he’d been mired in then. Ariana didn’t think they’d understand it wasn’t his fault and that he’d been deceived by a friend. And they wouldn’t love the fact he was so much older than her. No, a visit was out.
One of the new recruits popped his head in the door, pulling her from her thoughts. “Lady Ariana, er, your Majesty?”
He was gangly and had a mop of tangled red hair, wild freckles all over his face and disappearing into the loosened collar of his shirt. He was probably only a few years older than her and from what she’d seen was a very nice young man. They might have been friends if everyone didn’t revere her so. Calling her a queen had been a jest started by Gloria and Milo, but now everyone took it so seriously. They all walked on eggshells around her as if she’d throw them out at the slightest offense. Had she ever given them a reason to think that way? It made her remember every petty thing about herself that she longed to forget.
“Ariana by itself is fine, Caleb,” she said. It came out magnanimous instead of casually friendly and she winced.
“It’s Alan,” he corrected with a slight bow.
She winced again. “I’m so sorry. I won’t forget again. We both start with an A, you’d think I wouldn’t have forgotten at all.”
“It’s not a problem, Lady … Ariana.”
Her smile felt stiff but she tried again to break the barrier between them. “Shall I ring for some tea?” she asked, waving toward a chair.
“No thank you. I only had some news for you.” Alan moved in front of the chair but didn’t sit. He continued to look everywhere but at her so she finally snapped.
“Well, what is it?”
“Er, as you might know— well, actually, you might not. At any rate, I’ve been assigned to the scrying you wanted done. For your, er, cousin?”
She jumped out of the armchair and hurried to Alan, scaring him half to death. She bit down on her hurt feelings and irritation, excited to hear what he had to say. No one had been able to conjure an image in weeks.
“Owen? Is he all right?”
Alan nodded and swallowed, pulling out a piece of paper. “He arrived at the Povest stronghold. We can’t see inside the walls, it’s much too heavily guarded.” He sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair. “What I wouldn’t give to learn some of their secrets.”
“So that’s all you know? He arrived? I suppose that’s something. At least he’ll be safe there with his family.”
Turning the paper over, Alan cleared his throat. He was the biggest ball of nervous ticks she’d ever seen. “Yes. He arrived at the village and as I said, we lost all sight of him. But we moved up a bit in time. Actually, that was Gloria who did that. I don’t
