Free Hush (Witches & Warlocks Book 2) by R. M. Webb

Daya with a little slap of her hand on the table. The remnant had been wandering around the room, kind of flickering and stuttering, his movement halting and totally eerie despite him being light. Daya’s instructions are simple, open our minds and listen to what he has to say. With soothing words and gentle nudges of magic, we’re to basically coax him into leaving.
    “Why are you here?” I ask him, concentrating on peace and warmth.
    “Why are you here?” he retorts, darkness glinting in his beautiful eyes, an unwanted blemish on something beautiful.
    “I’m here to help you.”
    “Oh, ya?” The remnants face starts to droop and sag like melting wax, his voice growing like blustering wind whipping my hair against my face. “Like you helped all those people the last time? You’re so good at helping people.”
    I swallow and stare. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
    “Oh, no. Of course not. Poor Zoe. So helpless. So confused. Playing into the bad guy’s hands like every worthless piece of shit ever.” The remnant bares his teeth - his never ending rows of teeth - and his eyes spiral like death. My heart sinks and rage clenches my jaw.
    I stand. I bow my head. Reach my arms out to my side. My movement is instinct, my body on autopilot.
    My words come unbidden, but I know them as the only possible thing to say in this instance. “Tenebris ad lux.” I bite off each syllable and stare down the remnant, daring him to continue speaking. When he grins, bile slinking between his parted lips and rolling off his chin, I call my magic into my hands, a flickering ball of everything, dark and light and all the power I can maintain.
    “Tenebris ad lux!” My voice rips through the library and someone screams. The room darkens, winds ravage the bookshelves, pulling ancient tomes from their place and whipping papers into the air. There’s a flash, like lightening without a storm, and a rush of power and it’s. so. good. Like I’m finally alive. Like everything’s finally right. I am what I’m supposed to be and nothing, no one, can make me be anything else.
    I point a finger at the shrieking remnant and magic hits it in the chest, piercing it, splitting it open in a blaze of golden light and creeping darkness.
    And then someone’s pulling on my arms and screaming in my ears. There’s crying, hitching sobs and wails of terrified children.
    I blink.
    It’s Noah who has my arms and he’s not screaming, he’s whispering every calming thing he could say to me.
    I look around.
    Tony’s tiny little body sags in the arms of one of the teenaged girls - Cora. Her name is Cora. And she’s bending over him, tears dripping from her chin to land on his pale, waxen face.
    “He’s breathing,” she says in a breathy rush of panicked hope.
    There’s a rush of people swarming to his side, witches and warlocks chanting healing spells, but I don’t get to see what happens because there’s a wrenching feeling, a pop in my ears, and then I’m standing in Daya’s office, Noah at my side, Daya leaning on her desk with both hands, palms spread, all traces of maternal humanity utterly obliterated.
     

Chapter Nine
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “Sit. Down.”
    Daya is still as stone. Nothing on her moves as she speaks, not even her jaw. She just bites the words out between her teeth.
    “I think I’ll stand.” I don’t know where the strength came from to say something like that to her. Maybe I’m still in shock.
    Daya still doesn’t move. “Sit down or I will sit you down.”
    I do as I’m told, the brief moment of rebellion quelled by whatever it is that has her eyes flashing like they are. Everything about Daya softens when she looks at Noah. “You too, please.” There’s something weary in her voice and there’s this moment of sadness hanging between them, of things left unsaid, and maybe I’m reading too much into what I’m seeing. I tend to do that when I’m nervous.
    Little sparks of golden magic is flickering