I turned to Angie and said, “If you don’t stop it trying to get into the hedge, I am going to turn you over my knees and tan your little backside.” Empty threat. I’d never hit my goddaughter, but still.
I didn’t know what Angie saw in my face, but she finished breaking the manacles with a snap of sound and a flash of light. She jerked her hands away from the hedge and scooted out of the closet, her back still to the door and her mother. Her cheeks were red apples of anger, her eyes flashing with fury. “It’s not fair! It’s dangerous. It’s gonna hurt Mama.”
“There is nothing in that bag that will hurt your mama. She made most of the spells.”
“Not the workings,” Angie said, thrusting out her bottom lip. “The shiny lizard that wants to hurt Mama. She’s gonna use the scabertoothed lion bone!”
And that shut me right up.
“I have to bind the bones,” she said, “like Mama and Daddy bind me. Or the lizard will find it, and that will be bad! Very, very bad.”
Molly’s eyes had gone dark with the realization of what Angie was saying and what her words might mean for Angie’s future. Keeping Angie bound was a way to keep her safe, and Angie wasn’t supposed to be able to sense the bindings, let alone bypass them or turn them off.
The witch gene was carried on the X chromosome, and due to the scarcity of male witches who lived to adulthood, Angie was one of only a very few witches to ever have received the witch gene from both parents, one on each of her X chromosomes. If PsyLED or the Department of Defense or any other government agency, or worse, some terrorist group, discovered how powerful Angie was likely to become, the fear was that she would disappear into their clutches forever. The development of the psy-meter, a device to measure the magic used by a person or a spell, had made it easy to detect witches. If one was ever used on Angie and she wasn’t bound, her secret would be out.
Molly sucked in a breath that sounded strangled and said, “She’s free of the bindings.”
Angie jerked and whirled all in one motion, her eyes wide at her mother.
“Might have been free for a long time,” I said, “and her magic is different from yours. Black light with some purple and a trace of blue.” I paused and took in Angie, whose eyes were full of guilt. “There’s a faint reddish tinge around the edges. Arcs of black light were zapping out. Black light.” It was raw power, which was unstable, dangerous all by itself, and needed to be soundly reined in by training and the proper workings mathematics. Her parents had made her bindings impregnable, keeping her magics under lock and key. Or so they’d thought.
Angie’s mouth fell open in an O. She looked terrified, her shoulders rising, her head ducking. “Uh-oh.”
Molly stood straight and dropped her arms from the jambs. “Come here.”
Angie looked at me and I shook my head. “Forget it.” She was getting no protection from the consequences of her actions, not from me, not when the real consequences of breaking her bindings and using unstable, untrained magic were beyond anything she could imagine. She could harm herself, burn herself, kill someone by accident. She could be taken away, disappeared into a secret government program, and never heard from again.
Angie put a hand to the floor and stood. Her wrists were red where the blue manacles had trapped her, though the signs were resolving rapidly.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Angie burst into tears. And every bit of my resolve crumpled with her. She threw herself at her mother and wrapped her arms around Molly’s waist, hugging her tightly.
“Your room is ready, Miz Molly,” Alex said. “The one directly overhead. I’ll bring up the luggage and put it in the hall outside your door.” Which was a terribly polite way to tell Molly she had a private place to take her daughter. The Kid was growing up finally. I gave him a nod of approval and his shoulders went back; an expression that might have been pride swept across his face and vanished. He shrugged and then gave me a faint smile, one slight enough to be Eli-worthy. I gave him one back.
Molly and Angie trudged up the stairs, Molly reprimanding her daughter in angry hissed sibilants, anger that was also suffused with fear. Alex gathered up the dropped bags and followed them at a distance to give them more privacy.
Eli came into my bedroom, his expression noncommittal. “How bad do you feel?”
“Bad enough. But Beast can mitigate some of the problems, now that”—I attempted a joke—“I’m back in time.”
“Not funny,” he said.
“I know.”
Eli held out a hand and I let him help me to my feet. He said, “Let me see your belly.”