Free Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) by Maria Schneider Page B

clients who needed renewals of protective charms. I hammered them out in less than an hour.
    Lynx’s new client required a more intricate spell. It was rare to get an order from a client who not only believed in witchcraft, but knew enough about it to request such a complicated spell. “Matched set” spells were magical elements split in two that would allow either half to be “found” using the other half of the spell.
    Because I had already moved most of my dried herbs to White Feather’s house, I selected juniper bark and berries from a single tree out back. The client had also provided two birthstones, a red garnet and an amethyst. I cleaved them in two and split the results across each packet.
    Wisely, the client had also sent hair for each set, which I snipped in half before sealing the strands in silver to protect them.
    If the client knew the best ingredients for a finding spell, why hadn’t she completed the magic herself? Or had Lynx had a heavy hand in advising the client what to send?
    A witching fork would be necessary to locate the matching packet, but the client could always hire a witch for that part too. It was quite possible that I’d be the witch hired should finding the packet become necessary.
    Once business was out of the way, I turned to my own experiments, many of which needed finessing. Today I wanted to mimic White Feather’s ability to extract information from the air, only in my case I intended to gather data from Mother Earth. So far my attempts resembled warfare rather than reconnaissance, but I had a new idea.
    After being stuck in the eye of a killer storm, I realized my affinity to silver didn’t require that I be in actual contact with the metal to push or pull from it. Silver was an electrical current for me; it provided a ground and energy. I could feel it across a room. Of course, its ability to communicate information was in doubt, but one step at a time.
    I arranged multiple caches of silver around the lab. Sensing them was no effort at all. Pulling them to me...I could certainly feel them, nudge them around, and if I needed to...yes! “If they were round, they’d roll easily. Or arrows would be good. Wait. How did I get back to warfare? Beads would be better.”
    Melting silver into balls was child’s play. While the balls cooled, I grabbed a quick lunch, but the rewarmed pasta was on the stale side. Seemed to me that there had been a few more items in the cupboards. I checked the spot where I normally kept animal crackers.
    Nothing but dust. Hmm. Lynx had been helping me pack.
    Well, I’d been eating more than my share of fattening foods lately anyway.
    I tossed the remaining pasta in the garbage disposal and returned to the lab.
    The silver beads weren’t perfectly round, but there would be time to perfect them later. Not having a complete handle on anything other than sensing, I rested my hand on the table a few inches from the first ball. I grounded to the bead, purposely reaching for it, knowing it was there.
    It rolled right to my finger as if yanked by a magnetic force. “Awesome!”
    I pushed the round blob of silver while pulling another one towards me. The two hit each other rather harder than expected. One flew off the table and slammed into the potted aloe vera sitting high in the lab window.
    I didn’t need magic to tell me to duck away from the ricocheting missile.
    Good thing I hadn’t taken the plant to White Feather’s or I’d need to replace the window. “Wow.”
    Okay, I hadn’t really figured out how to use this technique to gather information, but I was progressing fine on the warfare part.
    I sighed and took a moment to rethink. “My door is lined with silver. If Dad knocked...how can I read the aura?” Dad’s aura was very familiar to me. And silver recognized auras...I played around with shapes and various properties. Strangely, one of the easiest things to do was push or pull the silver. Excited by the possibilities, I designed larger