Free Elemental Shadows by Phaedra Weldon

I was very suspicious of anything left here by Dionysus.  
    Inside was a delicate silver pentagram. I carefully held it out to get a good look at it in the light. Around the circle and woven into the crossing bars that made the star was the etched image of a tree.  
    I recognized it immediately. This was the symbol my mom's Coven had used when I was a kid. All the members had one of these, and I had wanted one myself. But I had to be initiated first.  
    Was this Inamorata's pentagram? Her sigil from the Coven before Dionysus took her?  
    Balancing it in my hand I lowered it to Grey again. "Whatcha think, girl? Should I wear it?"  
    Grey put her nose into my palm and backed up, moving her head from side to side. I was gonna take that as a no. And I agreed. Jewelry from Dionysus was a bad idea, seeing as how he'd given me that heirloom necklace with the ability to suck souls into it.
    I put the pentagram back in the box and back on the dresser. "No thanks, asshole. If I wore one, it'd be my mom's."  
    Grey barked and the hairs on the backs of my arms stood on end. Looking in the mirror I saw something in the bed behind me. I whirled with my hands up, white fire ready.
    But there was nothing there. No one else in the room.  
    The Circle was visible from the window overlooking the back garden. From the second story, everything looked peaceful. Quiet. Nothing there to tell the tale of what happened in the Sacred Space.  
    "Come on girl. Time for me to face the music."  
    But once in the garden, and in the center of the Circle, standing in the very spot where Arwen died—there was nothing to face. No music. Not a sound. It was a dead zone. No hint of power, no thrill to touch the edges of my soul.  
    The ground glittered red where I shed her blood, and I had to keep telling myself that was Arcane and not real blood. Real blood was long gone, either by Crwys's hand or by that of nature.  
    When I stepped away from that space, I could feel the Circle again.  
    I'd left a dead zone in the center of Sacred Space. This had also been the place where I'd talked to Tzariene, the Seelie Queen, also known as the Silver Queen of Faerie. The Summer Court.  
    Maybe if I Cleansed the Circle and was able to talk to Tzariene again, I could find out if the original children were in Alfheim . If I could find them, that would be at least one thing off my list of things to make right.  
    The Silver Queen would need something in trade. We'd used honey milk before. I'd have to think on an appropriate trade later. I had to clean up my mess first.  
    Searching through Ina's books, I didn't come up with anything, and several times while in her library I got the feeling I was being watched. But when I looked up—there was nothing there. My nerves were shot.  
    Eventually, I came to the assumption that the only way to Cleanse Arcane was with an Arcane spell. Back in the kitchen I removed the necklace and pulled the drive from its chain. After setting it on the now clean center isle, I put my hand on the drive and said, "Open Sesame."  
    The drive instantly expanded in a beautiful, swirling sparkle of red glitter. I stepped back as it pulled more Arcane from the air itself, and my fingertips. It started unfolding and unfolding until it was the proper size with the last bend and became a book.  
    Grey growled and I waved at her to shush. She didn't like the book, and she'd tried to chew it up a few times.  
    To anyone else but me and Ivan, this book would look like a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum. Hardback. Old leather cover.  
    To us it was a spell book of Arcane Magic, and the very book the Clerics had threatened me for that morning.  
    Had it only been just this morning?  
    The problem with books like this was the lack of an index. I'd seen a big spell book once that actually had one, and a table of contents, but that book wasn't accessible as it was in Savannah, Georgia.  
    So I had to go through it page by page.  
    A loud noise