Free covencraft 04 - dry spells by margarita gakis Page B

concerns. She shook her head.
    “Let’s talk about Sakkara,” Jade said.
    Lily swirled her coffee, shot gunning the rest of it. “I’d complain you were changing the subject, but that’s definitely something we need to discuss. Mommy Dearest.”
    “She is kind of creepy. Like one of those plastic people whose smile has been grafted on.” Jade motioned around her face. “The lips make a smile but the rest of the face is like a robot.”
    “Uncanny valley,” Lily added, referring to the state when something almost appeared human, but not quite. Jade had seen a robotics show on it once. Lily must have plucked the memory from her brain. There was a slight twinge at the back of her skull and she wondered if her earlier bad joke about another migraine was foreshadowing. God, she couldn’t be getting another one so soon, could she?
    “Yeah,” Jade agreed, scratching at the table with her thumb nail. “I’m… curious.”
    “I’m not,” Lily replied.
    “What? Why not?”
    “That woman has been stalking you for weeks, creeping on your dreams. It’s weird. I don’t want to do her any favors.”
    “Oh,” Jade said, blinking at Lily.
    “You do?” asked Lily, her tone incredulous.
    “Well, I don’t know. I mean, it sounds really hinky, but…” Jade trailed off, swirling her finger in the air above her coffee cup, making the liquid stir itself with a short burst of magic.
    “Yeah?” Lily asked, leaning in. Jade sensed she might already know what Jade was about to say.
    “I wonder if she’d teach us some demon magic. As a trade. Maybe. I’m good at it, but I think I could be better. Sometimes, when I work with it I think I’m really close to something. Something bigger than what I can do right now.”
    Jade liked demon magic and there was no one else at the Coven that she knew of that would even touch it with a ten-foot pole. Paris got very stiff and proper when Jade mentioned it and would caution her against doing too much. After reading through his mother’s demon grimoires, he would often rub his fingers together or on his pants, as though they were covered in some kind of filth that he couldn’t see, but could only feel. If Sakkara wanted to use Jade for an errand, then maybe Jade could use her in return.
    “You already have a lot of power.”
    “Yeah.” Jade shrugged. “I guess.”
    “But you want more.”
    “I don’t… it’s not like I’m power hungry; at least, I don’t think I am. I just feel like…” She continued to swirl her coffee with short pulses of magic. “You know when I first got here and that guy Matthew wanted to take my power, he sent that weird quick-silver demon after me and I feel like I barely got away. And then Dex and Veronica were here and Dex was so sure he had a spell that would compel me to do what he wanted. He might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for our…” Jade waggled her fingers around her brain. “Our duality or whatever. Then Sakkara was creeping on my dreams and she was able to take apart my demon lock, the one I had keeping the cottage secure.”
    “Yeah, because she mostly wrote that spell,” Lily countered.
    “But what if I had more power?” Jade pressed. “I’m strong now, but I’m not as good at regular magic as other people in the Coven, I don’t think. Maybe with fire, but with everything else? I think there are some witches that could give me a run for my money. But with demon magic…”
    “But why?” Lily leaned in. “For what purpose?”
    Again, Jade shrugged and in that moment, she forgot that Lily had direct access to her brain. Jade couldn’t shrug off questions she didn’t want to answer with Lily like she could with everyone else.
    “You think you’ll be able to protect yourself, protect me. Us,” Lily filled in. “Because you think about us growing up, with Dad and then later when…”
    Lily’s brain touched upon the spot in Jade’s mind: the moment which should not be discussed. The spot in time that Jade