Free Legacy & Spellbound by Nancy Holder

don’t.” She scowled at him. “You’re just as bad as the Mother Coven. All this talking isn’t going to get anyone back.”
    â€œWe need to figure out who each of us is first,” he replied. He gestured to the tea bag. “May I have some as well?”
    â€œSorry,” she muttered, picking up a second bag. “There should be some cups around here somewhere… .”
    He opened a cabinet and pulled out two mugs that said LILITH FAIR. He chuckled. “Rose is such a one who would go to a thing like that, eh? Sarah McLachlan?”
    Despite herself, Holly smiled in recognition. “My mom loved her stuff. She thought that made her hip and cool.”
    â€œMoms yearn to be hip and cool.” He chuckled. “My own mother is a traditional French housewife. Except that she sells magic herbs and potions to all her rich girlfriends.”
    â€œSome sell Avon, some sell love spells.”
    â€œExactement.”
    She pointed to the cabinet. “You have a bit of psychic awareness. There’s no way you could have known the cups were in there.”
    â€œPeut-être.”
His shrug was pure French.
    The kettle began to burble. Holly took the cups from him and settled the tea bags inside them.
    â€œOkay. You’ve broken the ice and found commonground, thereby bonding with me. What do you propose we do now?”
    â€œTransportation spell,” he said. “Go to them.” Her grin widened. “I like that.”
    He grinned back and pointed to his head. “Psychic awareness,” he replied. “You see? We will work well together.”
    â€œI hope so,” she said as she lifted the kettle again.
    He frowned. “Let it boil. Americans never let it boil.”
    Setting the kettle down, she folded her arms. “I’ll let it boil over, if that’s what it takes. To make good tea,” she added pointedly.
    â€œTo make good tea,” he echoed.
    Jer: London
    James and Eli swaggered belowdecks, pints of beer in their hands, and chuckled at the mess that was Jer, lying prone on a sleep-away cot nestled among the ship’s cargo. They had taken one of the Supreme Coven’s private yachts for the voyage to London— James, being who he was, commandeered it—and Jer, though in terrible pain, understood that he was being taken to headquarters to help with the conjuring of the Black Fire.
    Does my father know what’s going on?
he wondered.
Whose side is he on these days? Will he be there?
    He knew that his days of relative isolation were over. Now he would have to earn his keep … and ensure his own survival.
    But it was Eli and Dad who conjured the fire. I have no idea how they did it.
    He wondered how Holly was. Where she was. He had dreamed of her so many times.
    I hope I haven’t sent my spirit out to her, but I can’t be sure. I’ve spent so much time half-unconscious, and I know I’ve thought about her. They’re looking for her. They want to kill her.
    â€œWant a beer, Jer?” Eli asked, sidling over to his brother. Viciously he pressed the bottom of his beer mug against Jer’s burned, swollen lips. Jer groaned in pain as his lower lip cracked and began to bleed. “Not thirsty?”
    Jer was thirsty. He was practically dying of thirst.
    I won’t give them the satisfaction of begging,
he thought. But with his next breath he moaned, “Water.”
    â€œSorry? What’s that?” Eli queried politely.
    Jer clamped his mouth shut.
    Eli laughed. He made a show of swigging down his beer and walked away.
    â€œHelp James and me conjure the Black Fire,” he said, “and you’ll have all the water you can drink.”
    London, Safe House
    Kari sat quietly, rocking gently. She had been feeling better, safer when they were at Joel’s. Now the realization that a huge battle had happened and she couldn’t even remember it terrified her.
Was I going to die?
she