Establishing a basis for trust was one thing. Agreeing on a plan was another.

  “You need to raise them so we can learn what happened.” Wayne continued to press the same issue.

  “No, I need to raise the fey. The other werewolf is irrelevant, and his head and neck were damaged. If he can’t talk, he isn’t a help to us anyway.”

  “What? Zombies can’t write?” An eyebrow crept up.

  “You didn’t see the body. This zombie won’t be very useful for information gathering. Plus, the fey already talked to me once. It shouldn’t be too hard to make it talk to me again.”

  That was the hope, anyway. Raising the squirrel from the dead hadn’t taken much energy, but a fey was a larger creature, and that required more power. How much more? Well, hard to say, since neither of the humanoids I’d raised had been intentional.

  Wayne pressed his lips into a thin line. “I didn’t realize the damage was that extensive. My reports focused on the physical side of the altercation.”

  “It was impressively terrible.” Right now, this case was a daily reminder of why few people managed more than a few years in this job. A harsh lesson that my efforts to break with the clan could be short-term gains. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind where it belonged. That was a problem I’d deal with when necessary.

  “We sneak in, you raise the fey, and then we have the answers we need for you to unravel the spells on the werewolf.” Wayne ticked each point off on his fingers like it would be simple.

  “No.” I shook my head. There was a better way to do this. “We nicely ask Nash for time to review the body because we think there’s more evidence to be found. You distract him, I raise the fey and question him. Once we have the information, I’ll make up the spell, and we’ll trap the werewolf so I can reverse the magic.” As uneasy as intentionally raising the dead made me, the werewolf being forced to kill because of the magic on him deserved a chance to be himself again.

  One finger tapped the face of his wristwatch. “Nash should be at work. When I talked to him yesterday, he said all the work would keep him there through the weekend.”

  “Not so fast. I don’t have the magic for all of this.” Between a week of power-intensive spells and this morning’s excitement, I was down to a quarter of my normal power reserve, which wasn’t enough for what we had in mind.

  “How long?”

  Shrugging, I gave him my best estimate. “Two days. Maybe three.”

  “That’s not fast enough. More deer and people will die.” Wayne grimaced. “Is there any way you can get the power?”

  “I don’t use blood magic! Necromancy is bad enough, but blood magic, that corruption follows you into the hereafter!” By the end, my voice was just shy of a scream.

  Wayne’s back straightened, and his shoulders tightened. The gray of his eyes darkened to that of thunderheads heavy with rain and fury. “That is not what I meant.”

  I took in a deep breath of air and held it, not trusting myself to speak.

  “Is there a way you can regenerate your power faster without risk to your health or that of anyone else?” Each word was carefully enunciated, which did nothing to hide the anger underneath them. “I would never ask you to do blood magic, especially not when we are fighting against that very evil.”

  “How do you suggest I refill my magic?” I hefted the mug filled with a restorative brew into the air before drinking deeply. Trouble was, it wasn’t enough. I could drink nothing but these (if the stress they put on my body didn’t kill me), and I still wouldn’t have the power I needed.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The herbs were bitter on my tongue. Dad had given me some power, but it wasn’t enough, and I couldn’t ask him. He had his own work, and the last thing I wanted was to give the clan another reason to look at him if they discovered my necromancy.

  “Can’t you witches store energy in things for later use? Like stones or such?”

  “Yes, but I don’t have any.” He didn’t need to know about the vase, especially since it had all of two drops of magic in it right now.

  “What about another witch’s store? Could you use that?” Wayne tapped his fingers on the table. “Do you know anyone who’d let you have that much power?”

  There was one store of energy I should have been able to access, but couldn’t. The clan hadn’t outright forbidden me from withdrawing power, but the implications of what would happen if I did had been unpleasant.

  Of course, a witch in good standing with the clan wouldn’t have that trouble. My dad couldn’t make a withdrawal like this without attracting attention, but other witches were trusted.

  Sweet bones of Narzel. “You don’t know what you’re asking.” Or who I’d have to ask.

  Wayne leaned back in his chair and adopted that bland voice that told me just how much he cared. “Can you live with knowing you could’ve prevented another death?”

  He knew the answer, but he didn’t know the real reason I agreed. I wasn’t afraid of being guilty of acting too slowly and allowing a death. I was afraid my necromancy would get away from me, and one night I’d wake up with a zombie standing over me, asking if my heart had been worth their life.

  ***

  With my phone in one hand and a mug of sadly decaffeinated tea in the other, I watched Wayne’s car pull out of the driveway. Our entire plan hinged on this phone call.

  “Narzel fart.” I mashed send and prayed I wouldn’t regret this.

  Two rings.

  Maybe it would be better to hang up.

  Three rings.

  There had to be another way to get a boost.

  “Kelsey, to what do I owe the honor?” Jamie’s voice slid through the line, cool and curious. “Last we spoke on the phone, you hoped a spell would melt my face.”

  I scrunched my eyes shut. He hadn’t forgotten. “You’d just broken up with me after four years together. What did you expect?”

  “Does it matter?”

  How was I supposed to answer? I set the tea on the end table before I could forget it was in my hand and slosh it. “I don’t know. That was years ago. We were different then, younger, naive.”

  “What do you want, Kelsey? You’ve barely been civil.”

  I wanted to get off the phone, but that didn’t get me the magic I needed. “Since the day you dumped me, you’ve shown up at my place to remind me the clan is watching. You’ve never apologized for how you behaved, and you’ve never once apologized for being the clan’s messenger. How should I have acted?”

  My voice held more anger than I’d meant to convey because I was angry. Newly minted adult I may have been, but that hadn’t made my love any less real.

  A sigh drifted across the line. “No apology I give now will sound sincere. But I am sorry. Perhaps one day, you’ll believe me.”

  “Maybe, and maybe it’s years too late.” And the wound in my heart still bled every time I heard his voice.

  “Why did you call?”

  Fingers digging into the arm of the couch, I hoped this bit of trust wouldn’t come back to haunt me. Or light me on fire. “I need magic, for a spell to capture the werewolf corrupted by blood magic.”

  Seconds ticked by.

  “You have magic.”

  “Not enough. I won’t have enough to do the spell tonight, and it has to be tonight.” My hand started to cramp from gripping the arm of the sofa too tightly. One by one, I relaxed my fingers.

  “Oh... oh.” A sound like a pen clicking over and over filled the gap. “How much power?”

  “I’m at about a quarter tank. I need to be full to the brim for this spell.”

  The pen clicked again. “Dinner, my place.”

  “What? That’s where you’ll give me the power?” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. Why would we need to eat together? Power exchanges could be very simple things.

  “It’s the price.” A hint of amusement twisted through his voice.

  Narzel fart. Always a catch. “There has to be something you want more than that.” Anything but spending an hour trying to remember the times he’d made me laugh. And the last time he’d made me cry.

  “Dinner or no deal.”

  “I still need the magic tonight.” If he didn’t give it to me at dinner, how would I get it in time to start the spell preparations?

  “You’ll have your power.” His voice took on a rich texture that he hadn’t grown into years ago. “Do we have a deal?”

  Sweet bony knees of Narzel. “Deal.”

  “I’m delighted.” A weaker woman would’ve shivered at the suggestion in his voice. “Seven. My place.”

  He hung up. Hardly a second later, a message showed up with his address.

  I should’ve felt triumphant. The power wasn’t mine yet, but nearly so. After what Jamie had seen when he’d assisted with the purification ritual, I couldn’t think of a reason he wouldn’t help. The blood magic was even more a threat to him since he didn’t have the necromancy to combat it. And, all it cost was a dinner.

  So, why did I feel like I’d just agreed to a date with my own personal devil?