“I don’t understand.”
“Is it a taste, a sound, a premonition?”
“Oh.” She considered. “It’s magic,” she at last concluded.
He grimaced.
Of course it was.
“Your magic?”
“No.” The denial was emphatic. “It’s not human.”
Roke glanced toward the window, allowing his powers to flow outward. He could pick up a few distant water sprites and an even more distant pack of hellhounds, but none of them were close enough to disturb Sally with their magic.
So what could be . . .
The answer struck without warning.
“Fey?” he demanded.
Sally was too intelligent not to instantly follow his train of thoughts.
“You think it might be the box?”
“When did you start to feel the change? Before or after the spell was broken?”
She chewed her bottom lip, silently searching her memory.
“After,” she finally pronounced. Roke whirled away, headed for the bedroom. “Hey, where you going?”
“To get the box.”
She was directly behind him as he reached the bed and plucked the box off the quilt.
“Do you think it might be dangerous?”
He wasn’t idiotic enough to admit he thought anything to do with magic was dangerous.
He’d already made his opinion of witches painfully clear when they first met.
Now wasn’t the time to remind her of his initial prejudices.
“I think that if you can feel the magic, then so can others,” he said. “Thankfully this place is isolated enough that it shouldn’t attract too much attention.”
“We could toss it off the cliff.”
He met her worried gaze. “I have a nasty suspicion it would find a way back to you.”
She shivered, clearly considering the perfectly logical tactic of running the hell away, before calling on that remarkable courage that alternately impressed and infuriated him.
“I suppose I could try to put a dampening spell around it,” she suggested.
“That might help.” He studied her pale face. “Do you have what you need?”
She gave a slow nod. “I think so. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
In silence they made their way through the cottage, Roke stepping aside as she began bustling around the large room, with an efficiency that spoke of years of practice. Soon she had a small chalice filled with dried herbs and strange ingredients. She filled a second chalice with a potion she pulled from one of the cupboards then took both to the center of the circle.