Neon Blue by E Frost (best big ereader .TXT) 📕

to make me up before we did any ritual magic. ‘Great bones,’ she always said.

Now her cheekbones are higher, and rosier, than mine will ever be.

I shake my head.

I finish the last tie, tuck the surgical tape into the robe’s front pocket and go to answer the door.

The Squire follows me through the house without comment. I shouldn’t really expect any, but some acknowledgement of the hours I’ve spent on my hands and knees would be nice.

Men.

He doesn’t comment on my robe, either. And in that case, silence is golden, because if I’ve offended him by showing off the shape of my legs in jeans, he must be freaking out over how much the open sides of the robe show. But he can probably tell that it’s a ritual robe, since I don’t usually run around in ankle-length, embroidered, white silk, so maybe that makes it okay.

We leave the house by the back door. Walking down the steps into the yard teaches me a lesson in why most people don’t stick surgical tape on their genitals. Ouch. I’m going to need a healing potion after tonight, I can tell.

Shah’s porch light comes on automatically, casting a small yellow pool of light into the yard. I ignore it. It doesn’t matter if he looks out his back door to see what’s tripped the sensor. All anyone looking into my yard tonight will see is fireflies and falling leaves.

I lead the Squire across the yard and into the circle of trees. Oak, ash, rowan and holly. My holly’s the best holly tree anyone has seen in Massachusetts. New England Horticulture has even been out to photograph it.

It’s what drew me to this house. The circle of trees, and, in particular, the magnificent holly, which must have been planted by some other witch, long before the area was developed in the 1960s. But I’ve never been able to find any records of who owned the place before the very nice but completely un-talented couple who sold it to me.

As soon as we enter the circle, my hearth room appears around us. Witchlight rises, silver and blue near the trees, gold and red near the center. Suspended in the middle of a permanent pentacle set into the dirt floor, my cauldron flares, shooting green and blue sparks into the air.

Show-off.

I pick up a hazel besom from the pile leaning against the oak tree and sweep the path before me, chanting softly under my breath. I spare a thought for the Squire. I hope he won’t be offended by anything I do. This isn’t fae magic. This is my magic, and a lot of it is very untraditional.

Then I don’t have time to spare him any more thought. Magic ruffles through me. The small hairs of my body rise. My hair flutters in a breeze of my magic’s making. The sweetgrass and yew fire I laid under the cauldron earlier bursts into bright, burning life, and the smell of wormwood rises from my cauldron.

I feel the Dead immediately. They press close, just outside the circle of trees. I sweep quickly, wanting the protection of the pentacle and the inner circle around me before they start talking. I cross the stones of the pentacle set into the hard-packed earth and feel its defensive magic snap into place around me. The Squire stops like he’s run into an invisible wall. I reach back, take his gauntleted hand, and welcome him into the heart of my hearth room.

He crosses the pentacle slowly, like each movement is an effort. I sweep two more steps to the circle of sand. It flares to life, gold light erupting from the ground. The ley-line my hearth room sits atop glimmers, light rising from the ground to shoot off through the trees.

Oh, magic is walking tonight.

I leave the Squire at the edge of the inner circle and go back to sweep around the pentacle. There’s no dust or dirt on the pentacle stones – my hearth room keeps itself a lot cleaner than I keep my house – but as soon as I sweep them the river stones begin to gleam wetly, the way they did when I first collected them from the Mystic’s bed. They fill with moonlight, and the shush of water laps through my hearth room.

“Water,” I say softly, calling the Element, and for a moment I’m drenched, cool liquid sluicing down to splash over my toes. Then I’m dry again, and I stoop to call the next Element.

“Earth.” I rub my hands over the hard-packed ground, scraping it lightly, until dirt gathers under my nails. My skin goes gritty, as though I’d rolled in freshly-turned earth, and a small dust-storm swirls around me.

When the dust settles, I step forward, into the golden light of the inner circle.

“Fire,” I call. It leaps at me from all corners of the room. I stand within a swirling holocaust, feeling its hot feathery kiss against my skin. I hold out the besom and let it burn to ashes.

“Air,” I say and begin to dance the circle. A tug from the surgical tape. Ow. I ignore it and the next step takes me off the ground. I dance the rest of the circle in the air, my arms outstretched, fire and water and earth swirling around me.

The first Elemental appears. A pyroclast, small eruptions of lava spilling from his rocky body to hiss on the stones of the pentacle.

The second is a heartbeat behind him. An ondine, who rises out of the river stones’ glow like she’s surfacing from deep water. She shakes herself and drops of water spatter against the side of my cauldron to fizz with the biting scent of vinegar.

I finish the circle and wait for a moment, dropping gently back to the ground. Nothing else appears. Just two Elements tonight. Well, three, since the pyroclast represents both fire and earth. Still, less than usual. And not my usual crowd. I usually get a nethanc or a salamander or two.

And neither