Next she gathered a dozen candles, carefully spacing them around the circle before she walked toward him and held out her hand.
Reluctantly he handed over the box.
It wasn’t just his dislike for magic that made him edgy. He understood that it was necessary to try to muffle the fey magic.
But while she was performing her spell, she would be cut off from him.
Completely and utterly.
It was the sort of thing that made any mate crazy.
In an effort to distract his growing discomfort, he moved to watch her set the box in the center of the circle and then slowly begin to light each candle.
“Why can you speak some spells and others you have to cast?”
“Like vampires, every witch has her own strengths,” she answered even as her attention remained on completing her delicate task. “My talent lies in molding the environment.”
He recalled her earlier words. “That’s how you set the curtains on fire?”
“Yes.” An absent nod as she grabbed the chalice filled with the dark potion and walked along the inner perimeter of the circle, dribbling the potion on the flickering flames. “And how I put the protective bubble around the box.”
He grimaced as the candles hissed and a strange stench filled the air.
“A bubble of what?”
She shrugged. “Weaves of air.”
He shifted nervously, his gaze clinging to the delicate perfection of her profile and unconscious grace of her movements. Any second he was going to snap and yank her out of that circle. Distraction. He needed a distraction. Pronto.
“How is a dampening spell different?”
She completed the ritual and set aside the bowl.
“I’m going to try to blend the glyphs in a stew of magic.”
“Stew?”
“Stew is a mixture of tastes so it’s difficult to pick out one ingredient.”
“Ah.” It made an odd sort of sense.
She knelt beside the box, sending him a warning glance. “I’m going to raise a protective shield around the circle now. Don’t try to come near me.”
She lifted her hands, but as she began to chant soft words Roke went rigid with an unexpected alarm.
“Sally,” he hissed.
She frowned with impatience. “I’m just starting.”
“There’s something outside.”
Her eyes widened. “Levet?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
He concentrated on the vague presence that had arrived outside the cottage without warning.