Gwen and Magda both refocus on me ,and it’s like that mirror wipe challenge I’ve seen on some clock app: wipe, moony eyes and flirty smiles; wipe, vicious bitches with dagger-filled stares.
“Excuse the trailer trash, she’s practically feral,” Gwen tells Rogan with a sneer that morphs into an inviting smile when her eyes move from me to him.
“All these years, and trailer trash is still the best that you can come up with?” I taunt, unaffected.
“Listen here, you little mongrel,” my Aunt Magda snaps, stepping even with her daughter. “Either you leave now or I’ll call the authorities.”
I gasp, forcing my eyes wide with fear, and throw a hand over my mouth. Rogan stiffens with concern just behind me. “Oh no, not the authorities,” I plead overdramatically, bringing the back of my hand to my forehead and wobbling like I’m about to swoon. Nailed that Scarlett O’Hara impression. “And which authorities would that be, Magda, the Lessers or the Order? Pretty sure when either finds out that you’ve burgled a dead woman’s house before her bones even had enough time to grow cold, and then stole things that don’t belong to you, they won’t be too fussed with me,” I point out as I straighten up.
“Things that don’t belong to us? They only belong to us. Gwen is the rightful heir, and every scrap of our magical lineage belongs to her,” she snarls at me, outrage flaring in her nostrils and her dim blue eyes.
Gwen adds a haughty nod and crosses her arms over her chest. “Rogan Kendrick, now why does that name sound familiar?” she queries flirtatiously, snapping seamlessly out of her irritation with me and right into her interest for him. If I weren’t so pissed off, I’d be impressed with her ability to multitask.
“Oh shit, my bad,” I announce, popping myself in the forehead in a universal duh gesture. “Gwen is the rightful heir? I had no idea. Guess you won’t mind showing me the bones then,” I deadpan, dropping all the theatrics and leveling my aunt with a baleful stare.
She stammers, her gaze bouncing around the room as her brain struggles to form another delusional argument that we both know has no merit.
“We don’t have the bones yet, but it won’t be long,” Gwen sneers, and with that obvious threat, I’m done fucking around.
I step closer to her, my patience for this situation tapped. Options pop up in my mind, as though I’ve just opened a closet full of magic and now I need to decide what to wear. I’m reminded of how I felt when I sealed the bones to me and more abilities than I could comprehend wove themselves into my very essence. It’s as though, in response to my anger, some of those abilities are asking to be called on now.
Let’s see what we’re working with then.
The ground below my feet begins to quake. It’s slight at first, but with each steady step I take, the movement grows. The glass on the floor plinks and scrapes as it’s jostled, and both Magda and Gwen shriek and reach out for each other as they try to steady themselves, their terrified gazes landing on me as I close the distance between us.
It may look like I’m controlling the elements, a power that an Osteomancer shouldn’t have, but what Gwen and Magda don’t know is that this house has been built on top of the graves of some of our ancestors who used to live here ages ago. Their bones have long since disintegrated, but their essence and power still remain in the very soil. That is what I have domain over, but these assholes don’t need to know that. Let them think that I’m some meta witch, maybe then they’ll think twice about fucking with things they shouldn’t in the future.
“Stop!” Magda screams as pictures fall from the walls and a crack moves up the grand marble stairs to the right. “Please stop!” she begs.
“Where is my book?” I snarl, my tone not to be trifled with.
“We don’t have it!” she squeals, but she can’t seriously think that I’ll believe that.
They thought they were big and untouchable when they stole the grimoire, but as the ground quakes beneath them and cracks climb up the walls of this eye-sore of a house, reality is dawning. Magda wants to argue, I can see it in her eyes, but she knows the longer this goes on, the more I will destroy. Right here in this moment, my wrath, my claim, is undeniable.
The power I feel coursing through me is heady. My heart is pounding with excitement as I connect to the essence of those who came before me. The magic inside of me feels eager and ready, like it wants to play and test its limits, but I’m not trying to get myself buried in the rubble of this house. I just want the grimoire and to never see my aunt and my cousin again. Their torturous reign of supremacy and entitlement is over. The bones have chosen, and they’re no more special than any other average human. They’re the Lessers they always mocked and held themselves above.
Out of nowhere, Theresa the maid comes running back into the room, a large chestnut leather-bound book clutched in her arms. Her gait is unsteady as the ground trembles beneath her, but she staggers toward me, determination etched in her features. I release my hold on the bones that are part of the very fabric of this land, and she hands me the tome. With it, she also passes over my grandmother’s scrying board, her onyx pendulum, and a long silver chain with a pendant that has my family’s sigil on it.
“How dare you!” Magda shrieks, stomping over easily now that the tremors have subsided. She raises a hand as if to slap the frail middle-aged woman, and without a thought or even an uttered incantation, I lift my hand and stop Magda’s bones from carrying out the loathsome action. I’m a little taken aback by the ease in which I just wielded a lot of serious power, but I hide my surprise away and embrace the pride and exhilaration that bloom in my chest.
This whole magic thing is so much more than I could have ever imagined, and I can’t deny, boss bitch looks good on me. Magda becomes a statue, her ability to move taken from her as easily as blinking. She can still make noise, but the screech emanating from her is nonsensical without her ability to move her mouth and form words. It all happens so fast that Theresa flinches back, expecting a hit that will never come.
“What the hell did you do to my mother?” Gwen cries out, pulling on Magda’s raised arm. It doesn’t budge.
She wails and tries to move her mother, to snap her out of the state that I just put her in, but she’s more likely to snap her arm if she keeps it up. I have a hold of her bones, and she’s not moving until this woman is safely out of here and I have some answers. “Did you think I wouldn’t come looking for this?” I irritably ask my frozen aunt. “What was the point of stealing it in the first place?” I’m about to release my aunt’s jaw so she can talk, but Theresa’s next words stop me.
“They were going to burn it,” she tells me quietly, and my mouth drops open in shock. “Gwen was going to read everything in it, and then they were going to destroy it.”
Theresa’s declaration leaves me speechless. How could anyone be so selfish, so reckless, so completely corrupt? Hate that I have the bones all you want, but the grimoire isn’t just for me, it’s for every Bone Witch that will come after. They would have maimed our line of magic, and for what?
Disgust fills me. I know the grimoire has protections, but I need to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again. It’s too valuable to allow anyone to get this close to potentially destroying it and crippling our magic forever.