When they reached their house that evening, Kaeli knelt at the front porch steps.
“What are you up to?”he asked.
“Lorene showed me how to set anchors,” she said.She took a black shiny rock from her pocket and traced a symbol into the bottom step—a small circle with three lines through it.“This is blessed lava rock, and it’s used to make something called aconstant cast.It’s a spell that the foundation of the house will remember once I cast it.It’s a basic protection that draws from the earth and not my own magic.”
He watched her as she opened the spellbook.“What happens if someone crosses the spell?”
“They won’t feel anything, but everyone inside the house will.A feeling of danger will pulse through the floorboards.”
“How long does it last?”
“Forever,” she said.“Or until I wipe the sigil away.”
She moved to the corner of the house and drew the same mark in the foundation, and he followed as she made her way around the house and stopped at each corner.When she pressed her fingers to the original sigil on the step and spoke the spell, he felt the ground vibrate and smelled heat and dirt.He knew it was a mixture of her magics working together.
“You just set a protection spell around our house,” he said.He was in awe of what he could feel she’d done, and how amazing she was.
She stood and closed the spellbook.“I wanted to do something for us.I’ve got work to do to learn how to fight back if someone comes after me or someone I care about—like you—but I can do this for us.”
He drew her close, the twilight sky making her look like a goddess deserving of worship.Ethereal, powerful, beautiful.
“I’m so proud of you.”
She smiled, her eyes glittering with happiness.“Let’s see where the night takes us.”
“You have the best ideas,Nightling.”
ChapterFourteen
Kaeli took a drink from her travel mug of coffee and finished copying the new spell from the book Lorene had left the day before into her spellbook.It was a south magic spell for offense, not defense.She’d learned that protection spells were mainly defensive, like using the roots to trap a dangerous person so someone could flee, or the anchors she’d put around their home to let her and Solan know if someone dangerous came into the house.
But if she was in trouble?She needed to be able to fight back.And her fire magic seemed tailor-made for it.
“Okay, girl,” Cinder said, yawning as she stirred honey into her mug of tea.“Let’s head outside and see if you can send fire away from yourself.We’ll use the firepit so you can practice setting something on fire besides a candle.”
“Awesome.There’s so much to learn,” she said.
“You’ll get there.You’re doing great.”
Kaeli smiled.She took her coffee, gathered her spellbook, and followed Cinder out into the yard.It was about an hour past dawn, and there was a chill in the air, but she was too excited to go back into the house and grab her jacket.
She stared at the spell, committing the short phrase to memory, then she set the book down and looked at the firepit and the logs waiting to be set on fire.
“Direct your magic, don’t try to throw it.”
“Gotcha.”Kaeli raised her hand and called her south magic to herself.She whispered the two-word spell, and a bloom of fire swelled in her palm, all gold and red and pulsing with warmth.She guided it to the logs in the firepit.But her direction was forced, and the fire shot through the air like a bullet, right past the firepit and landing in the yard with a whoosh.
“Crap!”
“Pull it back to you, try again,” Cinder said calmly as the grass burned.
Kaeli reversed the spell and drew the fire back, leaving the ground black where the fire had started to spread.
“At least it wasn’t the house,” Cinder said.“Or one of the guys.”
“I’d never hear the end of it if I set Solan on fire,” Kaeli said.
Cinder grinned.“Definitely.Okay, try to touch your north magic at the same time.Allow the earth’s power to work with your fire.”