Prologue
16 years ago
“Patience.”
My grandfather sat in a wooden chair in our backyard, a glass of iced tea in his hand, and watched me levitate a log. His voice was soft, his smile easy, and yet he boasted an intensity that had my nerves churning.
“Patience,” he repeated again.
I furrowed my brow as I concentrated on the log. It wasn’t overly large, or even heavy. It wasn’t special in any way. It was simply one of the many pieces my grandfather bought from a neighbor so we could enjoy backyard bonfires throughout the summer. Given the heat in New Orleans, I knew the logs wouldn’t be touched until late fall at the earliest. We weren’t exactly known as bonfire people ... which had absolutely no bearing on what I was doing.
“Patience,” Grandpa hissed when the log began wobbling.
Even though I knew he was trying to offer me support, there was an edge to his voice. The more I concentrated, the more my control wavered. Sweat broke out on my brow and instinctively I reached up to keep the moisture from dripping into my eye. That turned out to be a mistake. I completely lost the thread of the magic thanks to the distraction and the wobbling log turned into a missile as it shot away from me and slammed into our fence.
“I guess mentioning you need patience would be a wasted effort,” Grandpa offered as I swiped my forearm across my forehead.
My temper bubbled and I struggled to keep from snapping at him. It never went well when I lost my temper. He might’ve been my grandfather, a man who sometimes doted on me, but he could be a hardass when he wanted. When it came to magic, he was always a hardass.
“I did my best,” I muttered, resting my cheek against my knees and closing my eyes. There was a decent wind blowing in from the Mississippi today and it ruffled my dark hair. I found comfort in the steady breeze, enjoying the way it kissed my skin. It was the middle of summer in the French Quarter, which meant the heat and humidity were both off the charts. I’d been a resident of the city for years at this point and yet, still, memories of cooler summers in Michigan invaded my mind at the oddest of times.
This was one of them.
“Isabella Sage, you did not do your best.” Grandpa’s tone was full of warning and caused me to cringe. There was nothing I hated more than disappointing him. He only used my first name when suffering from an attack of disappointment, so I knew this was going to be a long conversation. Otherwise he called me Izzy if it was a normal day, and Izzy Bear or Izzy Bee if he was feeling particularly playful. There was nothing playful about his features today.
I wanted to argue — anything to wipe that look off his face — but I knew he was right. I honestly hadn’t tried my best.
“You can have a rest and then we’ll go again,” Grandpa supplied, his tone firm. “We won’t break for dinner until you get it right.”
The declaration, however normal, made me irrationally angry. I snapped up my head and glared at him. “Since when do you get to decide what I can and can’t do?”
If he was surprised by my reaction, he didn’t show it. “I know you.”
“Well, I think I know myself better. I say I’m done for the day.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.” I slapped my hand against my knee in an effort to vent some of my building frustration. “You can’t tell me how I feel.”
Rather than immediately respond, Grandpa folded his arms across his chest and regarded me with the steely gaze I’d grown accustomed to. He wasn’t the sort of man who liked to be trifled with. Sure, he was capable of making fun of himself, and even encouraged me to do it at times.
This was obviously not one of those times.
“You can’t,” I repeated, refusing to back down. In addition to the magic we both possessed, I also inherited my stubbornness from him. Even though I knew the smarter move was to acquiesce and give him what he wanted, I couldn’t simply cede defeat. That was not who I was.
He licked his lips and something dark sparked in the depths of his eyes. He wasn’t evil by any stretch of the imagination — in fact, he was the best man I’d ever known — but he was angry. He was about to take out that anger on me. I just knew it.
Instead, he went the opposite way, throwing me off my game.
“Tell me what you were thinking when the log started shaking,” he prodded.
I stilled, surprised by the conversational shift. “Why does that matter?”
“Because your magic is tied to your emotions. What you’re feeling has a direct correlation to how well your magic works.”
That sounded made up to me. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d once told me that eating too much licorice before bed would cause me to spurt dangerous magic from my fingertips in my sleep. It turned out he’d just wanted me to stop eating all the licorice.
“I wasn’t thinking anything.” I searched my memory. “I was distracted.”
“By what?”
I turned sheepish. “I didn’t want the sweat to drip in my eye. It stings.”
“So, fear of discomfort had you losing control.”
I hated it when he boiled stuff down to such a basic level. “It was just a log,” I reminded him. “It’s not as if we were dealing with life-or-death stakes. I was levitating a piece of wood. It’s not like they give out awards for that.”
His eyebrows hopped at the statement but otherwise he remained still. “Is that what you want?” he asked finally. “An award, I mean.”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t say that.”
“You kind of did.”
“No, I didn’t.” I recognized that expecting a reward in exchange for my abilities was something he would frown upon. I also knew — deep down, at least — that I didn’t want to be the sort of person who charged for helping people. There were women in the Quarter who did that. Most of them hung around Jackson Square, lauding themselves as true practitioners of magic even though the only thing they could conjure was trouble. They were grifters of the highest order and could read people well. They did not, however, possess magic.
That didn’t stop them from selling the idea of magic.
“You’re a strong girl, Izzy,” Grandpa offered, his voice softening. “You would have to be to survive what happened to you.”
My heart rolled at the words. He was referring to my parents, who had been killed in Detroit when a creature crossed the death gate they were supposed to be monitoring and ripped them apart. Somehow I’d survived. How? I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I’d been plucked from the rubble of my house and secreted into my grandfather’s custody. Anything associated with that day had been wiped from my mind.
“You’re also still growing into your magic,” he added. “Nobody expects you to be perfect.”
“You do,” I fired back. “All you care about is me being perfect.”
He wagged a chiding finger and leaned forward. “We both know that’s not true. I don’t expect anything more from you than what is possible to give. However, you’re barely putting in any effort today. Would you care to share with me why that is?”
I sensed danger. “Um ... there’s no reason. I’m trying.”