My stomach growled again, and I grabbed another chocolate, unwrapping it as Nix touched the goblet with her right hand, then hovered her palm over the counter. She closed her eyes, and the hum of magic took shape around her, complex and delicate.
Unlike me, Nix could use her magic, as long as she did it in small amounts. She practiced her magic more because it didn’t result in explosions. She was so good at it that I could now barely sense her magic when she used it. The scent of flowers was so light you’d assume it was from a vase nearby.
Her hand glowed. Beneath it, a goblet slowly materialized. It glinted gold—an identical replica.
“Jeez, that was fast.”
“Eh, it’s gold.”
Nix had a knack for replicating gold, even though what she created wasn’t technically the same stuff. Just yellow metal. If we could have replicated gold, we probably wouldn’t have been in the treasure hunting business in the first place.
“Now for the last step,” she said as she hovered her left hand over the goblet.
Magic swirled up from the goblet and into her hand, like blue smoke. It shimmered, the smoke dancing beneath her palm. Once she’d gathered all the magic from the original chalice, she let it hover under her hand for a moment. She infused it with some of her own power, stabilizing it a bit. Once the shimmering faded, she transferred the now stabilized magic to her forged chalice by hovering her hand over it and forcing the blue smoke into the metal. Nix wasn’t able to give the magic its original lifespan, but it’d last long enough that the buyer could use the magic they’d purchased. And it likely wouldn’t blow up our shop.
“There. Ready for old Mr. Sampson. Hottest weather guy on TV for the last sixty years.”
I grinned.
When we’d set up our shop, Nix had learned how to magically forge the artifacts I found so that we could put the originals back in their tombs or temples. It was part of our deal with the Magica—take just the magic. Only the oldest magic, since it was ready to expire anyway. Initially, we’d put the enchantments in regular old pieces of polished glass, but then we’d figured out we’d get more if we sold the magic encased in a replica. Sure, our buyers would like to own an original piece of ancient magical history to put on their mantel, but I wasn’t willing to give them that. Not only was it illegal, I didn’t like the idea of selling off pieces of history.
The memory of the shattered column sent a shiver through me. I hated when I caused damage like that. But worse, I hated the memory of that demon.
“Hey, you okay?” Nix asked.
I glanced up at her.
“You look a little rough,” she said.
I glanced down at my dirty, black tank top and the honey-colored leather jacket that was now blackened with smoke. I got a whiff of my hair, which was even worse, and when I pulled a strand out of my ponytail, I saw that the red was almost completely gray from temple dust.
“Ugh.” I dropped my hair.
“Not your hair, though you could use a shower.” Nix brushed some dust off the shoulder of my jacket. “Looks ruined. Good thing you’ve got a hundred more of these. But I’m not talking about how you look. You just seem off.”
I sighed. “Yeah. There was a demon in the temple.”
“So? There’s always a demon.” She shrugged. “Almost always.”
“Yeah.” Demons were frequently called upon to guard tombs and temples because they made excellent henchmen if you were willing to spring them from their hell, but they really shouldn’t be on earth. Getting rid of them was a big part of my job.
“You sent him back to hell, right? It’s not like one got away.”
I almost huffed a laugh but didn’t have it in me. Nix knew how I liked to leave clean jobs behind. All demons sent back to hell. So far, my record was spotless. Though I wished I’d left that demon alive long enough to get more info out of him.
“Was it an extra awful demon?” Nix asked.
“No.” Like mages and witches, demons had their own gifts. Some could get into your head and really screw around—make you see your worst nightmare, that kind of thing. “No. This one said something creepy. Really creepy.”
Nix just raised her brows.
“He said I was one of the three. And”—I swallowed hard as my stomach turned—“FireSoul.”
Nix’s face turned serious, and her brown eyes darkened with fear. “What?”
I could almost feel her terror. I could certainly hear it.
“How could he know that? No one knows that,” Nix said.
Just us.
It was hard to breathe. The memories always made it hard to breathe.
“We’ve been hiding for so long,” I said. “It’s been ten years since we woke in that field, and we’ve never told anyone what we are.”
It was our most precious secret. The one that our lives depended upon.