Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 49

She lit two of the candles she had left and hoped it would be enough. Dimensional magic wasn’t something she was going to take lightly, but it was imperative that she get hold of Serena’s spell book.

From the wash of memories still knotted together in her mind, Teresa had learned that most witches kept shadow books—magical journals where they recorded their spells and other important information. Whatever she had once known as Serena would be in that spell book. She had to find it.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

She glanced over at her lover, sitting not a foot away from her. He looked worried—and who could blame him. He remembered more clearly than she did the last time she and her sister witches had played with dimensional portals.

“Ready or not, I have to do it,” she said as a flicker of apprehension slithered through her.

She wasn’t even sure how to do the spell, but she sat cross-legged on the floor, lit her candles and tried to focus on the book she wanted. Serena’s spells.

She spoke, creating the words to a spell that seemed to echo in the small motel room.





Open dimensions let me see,

A peek back through eternity.

Serena lived and died as me

Find my book in the library.





She felt a rush of comfort and slowly opened her eyes. The air in front of her solidified, bending and twisting as if creating something from nothing. She watched as a shining ball of energy formed and floated three feet off the floor. Her breath came fast and hard in excitement. Despite her crappy rhyming skills, it looked as though she’d done it.

“You opened the portal,” Rune whispered.

A swell of pride filled Teresa as she stared into the wobbling sphere before her. It shone with the light of a million suns, yet somehow it didn’t hurt her eyes to look at it. The dimensional orb pulsed with power and shimmered with the magic that formed it.

She shot Rune a quick smile and then turned her gaze back on the doorway to the Sanctuary library.

“Now all I have to do is find the book.” Steadying herself, she reached out, unsure what to expect. When her fingertips brushed the surface of the sphere, a buzz of energy skittered through her system. It was a little like a static charge, she thought with a grin, and pushed her hand beyond the edge and into the heart of the orb.

She sighed at the contact and closed her eyes as she focused completely on the book she searched for. There were thousands, maybe millions of books in the library. She knew that because within the sphere each volume flew past her fingers, allowing her to skim across them, divining their contents. Finally, though, she felt a jolt of awareness when her fingers came into contact with the particular book she sought.

She stopped the slide with a thought, curled her fingers around the book and slowly brought it forth from the dimensional portal.

The moment she had completed the task, the sphere blinked out of existence and the only light left in the room was that of the two candles she had lit before beginning her spell.

“Is that it?”

Teresa held the hand-tooled leather journal in both hands, her fingertips stroking the soft, faded material. She took in the carved sun and moon, the interlinking ribbons of power that streamed back and forth between the two. She felt the sense of ownership zinging in her bloodstream. As if her heart recognized the antique book even if her eyes didn’t.

“Yes,” she whispered. “This was Serena’s.”

She untied the rawhide strings that held the journal closed, flipped the book open, and her breath caught in her lungs. The slanted handwriting. The Old English spelling. Even the sight of the faded ink itself. All rose up inside her in a wave of memory so thick, so rich, that her eyes filled with tears that blurred her vision and rained down her cheeks. The woman she had once been called out to her from the heavy vellum pages. Treachery and betrayal flooded her soul along with a nearly tangible sense of hopelessness and regret.

While her heart bled quietly for the doomed woman who had once held this book precious, Teresa could only hope that the answers she needed so desperately would be found in its pages.