Bound Powers Read online

  “I’m going up first,” Victoriya said, her usual snarl lessened. Her eyes moved slowly over Joy as she brushed past, checking her. Gus and Maisie followed, each of them scanning Joy, worried. But Joy took a breath and told herself she could do this. It was just a room. She’d been in before—when her mum had died, she’d refused to be removed from the bedroom and had spent the next few months almost constantly in there, trying to feel close to her. She could go in now.

  A warm hand curled around Joy’s where it hung at her side and Joy’s heart tugged as she met Eilidh’s eyes. Her blonde and blue hair was in a tidy knot on the back of her head but her face was drawn and she looked as wrecked as Joy felt. Joy squeezed her hand and, with Gabi on one side and Eilidh on the other, walked into the house.

  Eilidh recoiled, almost ripping her hand from Joy’s as they walked into her mum’s room. Inside, Gus was standing, shoulders hunched, his arms crossed over his chest, and Maisie had already left and now sat bolt upright in the hallway. Victoriya was turning in place, glaring at everything around her, a single trickle of violent red blood running down her upper lip. Joy walked inside and felt nothing, only hollow and heavy, the ebb and flow of death all around her, pressing in on all sides.

  “What is that?” Eilidh asked.

  “You can feel it?” Gabi’s voice was low, strained. Joy looked at her sharply, searching her face for whatever was paining her.

  “Obviously we can feel it,” Victoriya snarled. She had her hand pressed to her chest, not in shock but hard enough to make her knuckles white, as if her chest was hurting. Joy wasn’t sure she realised she was bleeding.

  “What?” Joy rasped. “What can you feel?”

  “Seriously?” Victoriya’s eyes were wide and disbelieving.

  Gus walked around the floral-patterned bed to Joy. “You don’t feel that?”

  Joy shook her head, tears burning her eyes again.

  Gabi’s arm hooked Joy closer to her side. “You don’t feel anything out of the ordinary?”

  Joy frowned at all of them. “Just what I always feel.”

  “Nothing else?” Victoriya came closer like a storm blowing in, her coat whipping behind her. “Seriously, Joy? You don’t feel anything?”

  Joy shrugged, feeling small with their attention on her. “Just … just death, like always.”

  “Death?” Joy turned to meet Eilidh’s eyes as she spoke, her voice subdued. “What feels like death, Joy?”

  “Just…” Joy struggled for words. “It feels like the sea, rushing slowly, always moving.”

  Victoriya and Gus shared a look. It was Gus who spoke. “That’s what I can feel, but there’s something under it. It’s like acid, or metal, or something.”

  “Like licking a battery,” Victoriya agreed.

  Gus raised his eyebrows. “When have you ever licked a battery?”

  “You may struggle to get your tiny brain around this, Augustus, but I was a kid once. I did kid stuff.”

  Gus looked intrigued. “You ever stick your finger in a plug?”

  “No, ‘cause my mum’s not an imbecile. She had socket protectors.” She narrowed her eyes at him, a smirk at the corners of her mouth. “Did you?”

  “No comment.”

  “Guys,” Eilidh interrupted softly. “Can we leave? It’s giving me a headache.”

  Gus and Victoriya shared another look. “Huh,” Gus said.

  Victoriya frowned at Joy, then at Gabi. “I stopped feeling it for a second.”

  Gus said, “Same.”

  Gabi nodded, her eyes narrowed and contemplative. “Let’s get out of here. Joy, can we use the kitchen?”

  “Yeah.” Joy’s throat was still raw. She didn’t understand what any of this meant, or what was really happening. Just that something was wrong with her, for not sensing what they sensed.

  Victoria wiped the blood on her sleeve.

  Gabi shut the door softly behind them.

  “I have a theory,” Gabi said, ramrod straight in her chair at the kitchen table. Joy kind of liked that she was sat at the head of it, where her dad had sat years and years ago.

  “Enlighten us with your genius,” Victoriya said sarcastically. She was still rubbing at her chest as if it hurt.

  “You stopped feeling whatever that power is when you two were bickering. I think when you stop focussing on it, you stop noticing it. And maybe you couldn’t sense it, Joy, because you’d gotten used to it.”

  Joy ducked her head, not wanting to remind everyone that she was defective for not sensing the dark thing in her mum’s room. Everyone else had felt it but she couldn’t feel even a flicker, just the slight rocking in the air she’d associated with death. Nothing vast and sickening and evil.

  Joy jumped as something solid thwacked down in front of her, shatteringly loud. It was a family sized chocolate bar, and Victoriya was leaning over her, a deep frown on her face. “Eat some,” she ordered Joy.

  “What?”

  “You’re in shock.” She covered her concern with an exasperated sigh. “Chocolate helps with shock.”

  “How do you know that?” Gus peered at Victoriya. “Who are you?”

  Victoriya rolled her eyes, shoving his face away from hers with her full palm. “One, my mum’s a healer. Two, have none of you idiots read Harry Potter?”

  Joy raised her hand, as did Eilidh. Gabi tucked a smile between her lips. “Good for shock and dementors,” she said.

  Victoriya grinned. “Exactly.”

  Maisie huffed through her nose. Joy couldn’t interpret the look she was giving her brother but he raised his hands and said, defensive, “I’ve seen the films. I understand the reference.”

  While Gus and his sister got into their silent bickering, Joy broke off a row of chocolate and ate it. When that disappeared quickly, she ate another. At some point the sugar did settle her.

  Gabi took her hand across the table, her thumb sweeping over Joy’s knuckles like it had in the car outside. “Do any of you know what that is up there? Witchcraft?”

  Victoriya shook her head. “Not even close.”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t feel like witchcraft at all,” Eilidh agreed, her jaw set. “I don’t think it feels like magic, either, but I’m not the best at sensing magic.”

  Joy swallowed the lump in her throat. “Maisie?”

  Maisie’s orange-brown eyes met hers, clear and sad. She gave her best approximation of a shrug.

  “Not magic?”

  She shrugged again.

  Gus leaned forward. “Can you feel what’s wrong with it?”

  Maisie’s eyes flashed with frustration, as they did when she wanted to talk and tell us something but couldn’t. She couldn’t write it down either, not with her paws or her mouth—she’d tried both. The only thing that worked was a voice spell, which wore off after fifteen seconds. She could easily communicate with another witch shifted into an animal form, but since no one at the table could do that, it was out of the question.

  Instead she jumped onto the table and began to nudge at one of Joy’s coasters, a wooden set with different motifs burned into them. She nosed the top three out of the way until she reached the sun coaster—and Joy’s mind lit up with an idea. Years ago, she’d painted her own set of major arcana tarot cards; what if she painted something similar, but with different images on for Maisie to use to communicate to them? It would take a lot of work to figure out what the different symbols meant to Maisie but it would give them a clearer way of speaking. Joy filed the idea away for later.

  “Sun?” Gus asked. “Bright? Day? Daylight?” Maisie shook her head for each one. She stubbed her nose against the bottom of the sun, the flat end where it rose from a horizon. “Sunrise? Sunset?”

  “Time of day?” Eilidh offered. It wasn’t that either. Maisie got more and more annoyed. Joy tried to think what it could be but they’d already said everything she could think of.

  “Light?” Victoriya tried. “Rays? Giant fucking orb in the sky? Ooh—planet?”

 
Nope.

  “Sunrise and sunset?” Gabi said, her tone distracted in the way it was when she was thinking out loud. She let Joy’s hand go so she could work the plain rose gold ring around her finger, faster and faster in a circle. “Do you mean transition? Change?”

  Maisie uttered a string of high pitched sounds. Relief and victory.

  “It’s magic that’s been changed?” Gabi propped her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her palms. “Changed how—do you know?” Maisie shook her head. “Alright. That’s more than we had this morning. Thanks, Maisie.” Maisie puffed her chest out as she sat on her hunches. It was tempting to read that as animal behaviour, but Maisie had always been the type to puff up with pride.

  “So,” Victoriya drawled. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know what the fuck that means?”

  “Nope,” Gus offered helpfully. “I have no idea either.”

  “It means it’s a fae or an elf,” Eilidh said. “And they’ve been changed somehow, until their magic feels like … that.” She pointed at the ceiling.

  Joy still had nothing to say. She wanted to disappear into the furniture. She wanted to leave home and never come back. Mostly she wanted silence, and for everyone to stop talking.

  “That’s exactly it,” Gabi said to Eilidh, sounding impressed.

  “I still don’t know what the hell it means,” Victoriya complained. “How can magic be changed?”

  Gabi’s eyes slid to Joy’s for a split second. Joy looked down at her hands, pale and thin but with blue danger hiding just under the surface. “Get out,” she said, quiet.

  “What, Joy?” Gus asked. He sounded so normal. How could he sound normal with all this?

  “Get out,” Joy said louder. She watched everyone share a look. At some point her grief had turned to bright red temper. “Get out.” Eilidh’s hand fluttered by Joy’s arm, touching for a fleeting moment. “I want to be on my own.” It grated to speak at a normal level when all her voice wanted was to scream.

  “Joy—”

  “I mean it, Gabi.” Joy looked at the table as she spoke, her anger seeping into her voice with every word. “Please. I need to be alone. Leave me alone, all of you.”

  Everyone stood but hovered, unsure. Joy startled as a kiss was placed on her head, but she knew it was Gabi. “Phone me when you want to talk again.”

  Joy clenched her jaw and nodded. She couldn’t explain the anger in her but she knew it wasn’t aimed at Gabi. She was relieved when they all left and the front door shut. Joy folded her arms on the table and collapsed forward. Her head smacked the wood but she ignored the shoot of pain; it was nothing compared to the howling fury inside her. She jumped half a mile as a cupboard clattered open and her head shot up as a glass bottle of amber liquid hit the table in front of her, followed by two shot glasses.

  Victoriya dropped into the seat opposite Joy, a stubborn set to her mouth.

  “I want to be left alone,” Joy spat.

  “That’s nice,” Victoriya replied sweetly. “But I think you mistook me for someone who gives a shit about your wishes. This is how this works. You’re going to tell me what’s wrong with you, or you take a shot.”

  “Good idea,” Joy muttered. “Drink to oblivion.”

  “And then I’m going to tell you how I’m feeling, and if I don’t, I take a shot. It’s a drinking game I just made up. Also that room up there is fucked up and I need a drink. So talk.”

  Joy glared, but it was a futile effort to glare at Victoriya, Princess of Burning Holes Into People With Her Eyes. “Fine,” she ground out. “I’m a murderer. And my mum was killed by something magic and evil, only I can’t feel any of that because I’m wired all wrong.”

  Victoriya nodded. “I’m in love with Neil.”

  Joy’s anger stumbled a bit. “I knew that.”

  “No.” Victoriya leaned forward, her eyes intense. “I don’t just like him. I love him. I’m in love with him. I’ve never been in love with anyone in my life. I use boys and get rid of them when I get bored, but what if I never get bored of Neil? What then?”

  “You live happily ever after?”

  Victoriya scowled harder. “Is it bad that I like angry Joy a bit more than normal, annoyingly happy Joy?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, thought so.” She sobered. “You’re not messed up because you can’t sense that thing up there. Like Pride said, you got used to it. Now say something else.”

  “I killed Perchta,” Joy spat, rage thrumming inside her. “And she was vicious and evil and she deserved it, but I still feel like a bad person for doing it.”

  “Good.” Victoriya poured herself a shot, threw it back. There was no change in her appearance whatsoever, even though Joy would be coughing. “That makes you a real human being. We feel bad for shit. We regret. That’s what happens.”

  But that was the worst thing. Joy looked at the bottle of whiskey, losing her grip on her anger. “I don’t regret it. I’d do it again. If someone hurts Gabi, I might kill them again, and I might not regret it then either.”

  “Good,” Victoriya said fiercely. “That makes you a real witch.”

  Joy looked up sharply.

  “We defend the people we love with spells and curses. It’s what we do.”

  Joy shook her head. “Not me.”

  “Well, you did, so yes you.”

  Joy glared at the table.

  “If you’re not gonna talk, you’ll be drinking.”

  “Fine.” She swallowed the small glass Victoriya poured for her, her eyes watering at the burn of it.

  Victoriya’s fingers drummed the table top. “What if I don’t know how to do the happily ever after thing?”

  Joy rubbed her eyes. She was somewhere between the raging fury and her hollow grief, somewhere between herself and what today had made her into. “Do it anyway and figure it out as you go along. Neil’s decent and you said you love him. You can do the happily ever after thing.” Joy sighed, her shoulders dropping. She was slowly coming back to herself and she didn’t really want to. “Do your own version of happy.”

  Victoriya was quiet so Joy looked up. She’d scraped her dark hair into a messy ponytail and her face was pale, her cheeks and ears splotchy. The last of Joy’s anger fled, replaced by surging worry. She reached across the table to lay her hand over Victoriya’s. “What are you scared of?”

  Victoriya shook her head.

  “Okay,” Joy breathed. “I’ll go first. I’m scared to drain the magic and witchcraft out of everyone I touch. I’m only okay with this now because I’m wearing gloves. I’m scared I’m a killer, deep down in my witchcraft, and it’s only a matter of time before I kill someone again. Mostly I’m scared because I can’t stop thinking about Perchta after she lost her witchcraft, and how angry and scared she looked. I don’t want to do that to my friends, or Gabi.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I might.”

  Victoriya narrowed her eyes. “You won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re a goody two shoes. You don’t want to use that power, but learning about it is the only way you’ll be able to control it, so even though that scares you, you’ll do it anyway. You’ll traumatise yourself just so you can’t hurt anyone else. That’s how I know you won’t hurt us. You won’t let yourself.”

  Joy didn’t have a response to that. Instead she said, “Love is scary, Victoriya. It’s okay to be intimidated by it, but I’m pretty sure Neil loves you too.”

  She laughed softly.

  “Victoriya.” Joy waited until she looked up. “He really does love you, even if he doesn’t realise it yet. I can see it in how he looks at you—there’s no hiding it. Love is always dangerous but it’s less dangerous with someone who loves you back. You’ll be okay. I was okay with Gabi, and I was terrified.”

  Victoriya rolled her eyes. “Your advice always sucks. My advice of chocolate and whiskey however…”

  “Is very unhealthy and should be avoid
ed?”

  Victoriya grinned. “Just the way I like it.”

  Joy squeezed Victoriya’s hand. “Go next door and talk to him. It’ll all be fine. Promise.”

  “Yeah, same advice to you. Minus the talking to my boyfriend thing.” She shrugged. “Actually he’s pretty good at talking about problems and shit. I stand by it. Go talk to him. Just not right now, because I’m gonna talk to him. And not any time in the next two hours, either.”

  “Okay.”

  “Because we’ll be having sex.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “Repeatedly.”

  “Thanks, Victoriya, you can leave now.”

  “Are you sure? Because I’ve been looking for someone to talk about this with. My whole coven wants to talk about feeeeelings but no one really wants to know how much I love it when Neil—”

  Joy stuffed her fingers in her ears as Victoriya rose, laughing. She snuck behind Joy before she went, wrestling her into a one-armed hug. “Thanks,” she said when Joy unplugged her ears. “You’re pretty great, Joy.”

  “You’re pretty great too, Victoriya.”

  “I know.” Victoriya tightened her grip then let go. “See you tomorrow, then?”

  “What? Why?” She turned around to crane her head around the door, watching Victoriya wrangle her coat on as she marched down the hall.

  “Gabi wants us to work a location spell. Didn’t you hear that earlier?”

  “No.”

  “Well. That’s what we’re doing. See you later.”

  “Yeah,” Joy replied, still distracted. A location spell on what?

  Pride

  Gabi tried to keep out of the way as five witches buzzed around her kitchen, getting things for spells out of bags of shopping and measuring instruments out of the big hessian bag Joy had brought from home, wands in hand. All except for Victoriya who was on her phone arguing with her mum, who wasn’t happy to find out her daughter was looking into serial murders. Gabi’s dad had waited an entire day before ratting her out to his friend, which Gabi ought to have seen coming. Victoriya was now doing her best to keep her mum from storming out of the clinic and turning up here to babysit them all.