Hidden Magic

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I STARED AT THE HOLE I’d just created in the wooden floor beneath my feet. “Damn it. That was sloppy.”

I glanced around, and after seeing no-one, I flicked my wrist. The hole dissipated, fixed instantly thanks to the magic that burned through my veins. I tapped my foot. I wasn’t the sort to mess up magic spells, especially with a book that told me exactly what to do.

Then I remembered the walls I’d created around my bedroom were soundproof. My shoulders sagged with relief. My sister hadn’t heard me.

I grabbed the spell book off the table and sat back in my chair with it in my lap once again.

If there was such a thing as a black sheep in our family...it was me. The middle child. The ugly duckling. The one who didn’t fit in with the others.

My mother, may her soul rest, was the most beautiful, vivacious, strong-willed, talkative woman to ever walk this earth—not that I had a huge spectrum of reference, having lived in a magical void for most of my life. But, going on pure factual speculation, no-one could out-talk my mother.

Well, almost no one.

My sister, Ava, came close, and there were times I thought she purposefully gave herself the task of doing just that. If only to finally best Mother at something.

Courtney, my younger sister, on the other hand, was less tolerant. Less talkative. Less blonde. But goodness me, she was a force to be reckoned with; a tornado in intensity.

I flipped a page of the book, my fingers skimming the words as if they wanted to read them the way my eyes did.

I wasn’t like my sisters. I was a bookworm. I was happy at home, in this realm of solitude. If I didn’t have to talk to another living soul for a week, or more, all the better. Talking was not my strong suit.

Not like reading, understanding literature, and putting magic into practice. Those things were easy.

I stood again, taking the book in my arms. Even though I was sure Courtney had soundproofed her walls as well – she preferred sleeping in to waking up – I didn’t want her to get up before she was ready. A cranky Courtney was not a Courtney I enjoyed being around. So, I tiptoed down the hall and stepped into the bright living room we’d created in the house.

Our house.

The one Courtney and I had built after our mother died. After we’d learned that our mother had created everything we’d ever owned with her magic. Our clothes, our food, even my books. The life we’d known wasn’t real; it was a figment of her design. As such, when she’d passed, we lost everything.

It had been devastating to lose our whole lives worth of possessions and memories, and heartbreaking to watch our mother disappear. We hadn’t expected it. She had been young, and the picture of health.

But she had slipped away suddenly, without warning, and we were confronted with the notion that we really weren’t prepared for her to be gone. Rebuilding was our only option.

As I took a seat in the comfortable leather settee, I couldn’t help but look around. I’d thought rebuilding was going to be difficult. But it wasn’t. If anything, creating a new home, especially without Ava – our oldest sister – watching over us, had been liberating in lots of ways.

I sighed and put my book on the table, then glanced outside. The sun was rising over the landscape, casting shadows as the sky lit up with oranges and purple. What a beautiful day it was shaping up to be.

However, as I thought about Ava, I felt restless and alone in this world of ours. I missed my meddling older sister.

I looked down the hallway, half expecting to hear the music that would normally come from Courtney’s room, assaulting my ears and rocking me to my core.

But there was nothing.

Nothing but the sound of our small house in its silence.

The house phone rang with a melodic shrill.

My heart leapt as I raced for the phone. Only one person called that line—the person it had been created by.

I picked up the old-fashioned red phone and put the receiver to my ear.

“Ava!” I exclaimed, giddy with excitement.

My sister laughed. “You knew it was me?”

I chuckled and sat down at the kitchen counter, happiness skittling through me and making me grin.

“You know you’re the only one with this number,” I reminded her. “How’ve you been? It’s been ages since you called!”

It hadn’t been that long, of course, but with our self-imposed exile in the realm, having only my sister Courtney for company grew thin quickly.

“I’m sorry, Bella,” she said. “It’s all been so crazy with the shifter war we’ve been fighting. It’s ridiculous. These stupid laws, and the hypocrisy of it all. Once they settle down, we need to set up some better standards...or something.”

I frowned at her tone. She sounded frustrated—and that was putting it lightly—but as Courtney and I had been kept out of the loop, quite on purpose, I really couldn’t comment. There was part of me that wanted to, though.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear things are going badly, but are you coming to visit anytime soon?” I asked. I tried to control my eagerness, but I liked seeing her and making sure she was all right. “We miss you.”

I glanced around the empty kitchen, realizing the ‘we’ was being generous.

Ava cleared her throat. “That’s actually why I’m calling.” There was hesitation in her tone. That, and disappointment. “I don’t think I’ll be able to visit for a while. Tavlor and I are going undercover in one of the Fae realms to unearth some bad happenings that have been reported. I won’t be contactable for ages, so I wanted to let you know.”

I bit my lip. I hated it when I couldn’t contact Ava.

“Well, at least you’ll be with your husband,” I said, trying to see the bright side. I could tell Ava felt guilty about what she was telling me, but I didn’t want her to worry.

She laughed. “You know he would never let anything happen to me.”

I smiled to myself. I didn’t have to vocalize my concern for her to be able to read it, and know that I was upset.

“Yeah. I know.” I’d met Tavlor three times. Twice when he’d come to see Ava here in our realm, and once at their wedding. Every time I’d met him, he’d been as impressive and ferocious as I’d expected him to be. Half-warlock, half-Fae, he was a warrior of the highest kind.

And there was no-one I would trust with Ava more. But even so...

I sighed. I couldn’t tell her I was still concerned about her safety and what the Council would do to her tomorrow. To us. I didn’t want her to feel even more guilty than she already did about the choices she’d made to enter the Magic Realm.

“Well, thanks for letting me know, Ava,” I said. “You know I worry.”

“I do, and I’m really hoping that the next time I come home, we can bring you across to the Council and finally introduce you to everyone,” she said.

I could tell by her inflection that she meant every word. The problem was, I didn’t think that ‘introduction’ would happen as easily as she made it sound.

Even if it did, the thought of meeting the Council made me shiver. I still had nightmares about what they’d done to Ava when they first found out who she was. Or more, what she was—the illegitimate daughter of the High Warlock.

We were all threats to the Council and the flimsy rules their world was built upon. Courtney and I were just as much of a threat as Ava was to them.

The difference was, the Council didn’t know about us yet.

I cleared my throat. “Well, I can’t say I’m dying to join you, Ava,” I admitted, “but it would be nice to spend more time with you and our...father.”

I’d met Matlock at the wedding, too. But it had been a stilted moment, not at all what I’d expected it to be like the first time I saw my father.

Ava had worked an enchantment to make us unrecognizable at the wedding. She didn’t want anyone knowing who we were until the new laws about illegitimacy were finalized, not to mention succession agreed upon.

High Warlock families generally only sired one child. A male. To say our mother had bucked tradition was an understatement. I didn’t know if she purposefully chose our gender—if her magic could even do something as powerful as that. Knowing her, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Our mother had been as strong and stubborn as Ava and Courtney put together, and when the Council demanded a male heir of the High Warlock, she would have taken pleasure in producing the opposite.

Mother had birthed all three of us, all daughters, in secret. The mistress to the High Warlock. And no one had known about us, until Ava had taken it upon herself to meet our father.

Lucky for Ava, the High Warlock had never had a child by his legal wife, and the Council was finally coming around to the idea of naming her as the heir. Even if she was illegitimate and a woman.

“I can’t wait to show you all the beauty of the Magic Realm, Bella,” she continued, breaking me out of my musings. “You will love it, I promise. I just need to make sure it’s safe for you. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to either of you.”

I raised my eyebrows and played with the ends of my hair. “I know, Ava.”

It wasn’t as though I didn’t believe her. The problem I had was that she kept telling us the same thing over and over. I didn’t necessarily want to go to the Magic Realm, not when I had my books and my solitude. But I did wish the danger gone.

There was a pause, then she asked, “What’s our little sister up to? Is she even awake?”

I laughed, despite myself. Ava knew the rebel sister too well.

“She’s good,” I replied. “Not sure if she’s awake or not, but she’s good.”

“Really?” Ava asked, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

I chuckled again, standing up to grab a drink from the fridge. “You know Courtney. She’s been chomping at the bit to get out into the world since she turned sixteen.” Courtney was a safe subject for us to discuss, and I was glad to be on it. “Waiting here while you gallivant all over the universe is hard for her. Especially when she insists she’s ready for the world.”

Ava sighed heavily.

I felt her pain as though she’d sliced through my heart.

“Oh! I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty,” I said, shutting my eyes. I had been so careful when the conversation had involved me that I’d forgotten to do the same when discussing Courtney. “I, for one, am happy to stay in my little library forever, but Court is, well...she’s Courtney.”

What else could I say? Ava had to understand. Surely.

“Is she still going to the human village?” Ava asked.

The question made my stomach tighten. “Yes, she is.”

She’d gone out last night and, as usual, I’d been worried for her safety until I’d heard the front door open and Court bumble her way to her bedroom to pass out.

Only then had I managed to get a good night’s sleep.

“Bella...” Ava’s warning tone was obvious.

I rolled my eyes. As much as I understood and even agreed with my older sister, it wasn’t exactly fair to assign me the role of Courtney’s keeper.

“I can’t keep her locked up forever, Ava,” I said. “She’s twenty-one years old and bored out of her mind here with me.”

I wanted to stop her. I had tried to reason with her. But Courtney didn’t reason. She just dove in, driven by her feelings and her passion. She didn’t bother to think first.

“It isn’t safe,” Ava said, as though I didn’t know that.

“Then you tell her!” I didn’t like that Courtney didn’t listen to me, that she didn’t respect me the same way she respected Ava. My cheeks burned with anger, and my nostrils flared as I took in a deep breath.

There was silence on the end of the line, and I realized I’d probably been too harsh, or my tone had been, anyway. But I was sick of feeling guilty because I couldn’t control my sister.

“Sorry, Bella,” Ava finally said. “I know this must be hard for you, to just...wait.”

Ava’s apology had my anger deflating as fast as it had risen.

I stopped fiddling with my hair and glanced back at Courtney’s door.

“It isn’t that hard, not for me,” I said. “But for Court, well, yeah. She would love to come to you this very minute and start helping out. Fight the bad guys, all that jazz.”

Me? Leave me in my library forever and I’ll be happy. I’m not a fighter. Never have been. Never will be.

“I’m working on it,” Ava said.

She sounded frustrated again, and not because of me. I knew she was frustrated because she couldn’t get us where she wanted us, and, of course, she blamed herself for it.

“As soon as we’re home, I’ll approach the Council. I have no idea how they’re going to respond to two more heirs turning up, but hey, it can’t be worse than how they dealt with me, right?” Ava tried to laugh, but the sound was thin.

The Council had charged her with treason, sentenced her to death, then chased her all over the universe to neutralize her as the threat they perceived her to be.

She’d won that fight, but it had taken everything she had to win. Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure it was worth actually admitting there were more of us.

I swallowed hard, deciding to keep my opinion to myself. “I’d love to come see your new life, Ava,” I said.

That much was honest. I did want to visit her. Not because I was curious about the Magic Realm—though a part of me was—but because I wanted to see if this life suited her. If she was happy there.

There was another awkward silence, and again I wished for the life we’d once had: a time when my sisters and I were so close it had been hard to ever think we would be apart. When I knew what Courtney was doing even though I couldn’t hear her and I knew what Ava was thinking even when she was trying to shield me from something.

We’d been a united front against our mother, and each other’s support teams. And although my love for my sisters had not diminished in the slightest, it seemed that life had changed us.

“I’d better go, Bella,” Ava said, her voice touching on regret. “It’s getting a little crazy here, but please know that I love you, and can’t wait to see you again.”

“I love you too, Ava,” I said. I wanted to tell her to stay, not to go, not to continue to put herself at risk, but I bit my tongue. “And I’ll tell Courtney you called.”

I closed my eyes. I hoped she couldn’t hear my voice c***k. I was trying so hard not to make her feel bad. I didn’t want her to worry. Not when she was in so much danger already.

“Please do,” Ava said, after a moment’s pause. “Send my love, too.”

We hung up and I sighed. I hated not knowing what the future held, or where our lives were going. I thought she was going to call me out for holding back on her. I thought she was going to ask what was wrong.

If she had done that, I wouldn’t have been able to hold on to all the things that were troubling me.

And Courtney’s attitude was the most worrying thing of all.