a bucket of cleaning supplies. I’d never seen her before in my life.
“You’re the owner, right?” she said. “The one who’s been in a coma. I’m Flora, Flora Beattie. Cassandra hired me last week. I really like it here.” She gazed at me with eyes like a lake reflecting summer skies. “I see that you have a magic mirror. Want me to fix that big hole in it for you?”
Chapter Nine
My mouth had to be hanging open about six inches. I snapped it shut.
Flora watched me with nothing but helpful concern. She was a little older than I was, closer to Cassandra’s age. Her face was already lined by hard work, her skin liquid brown from a lifetime under the desert sun. Her voice was rich and low, like the sound of a wooden flute.
“Fremont Hansen suggested I come here for a job,” Flora was saying. “Cassandra thought I’d fit in just fine. She’s one incredible witch, isn’t she? And Fremont—he has nowhere near the power he wants to, but he’s pretty adorable. I met him in Tucson at a sci-fi con. We got to talking witchcraft, I said I was looking for a job, and he told me to come up here and speak to Cassandra.” She said all this without pause, regarding me without worry.
Flora’s aura was clean, no black streaks of evil, but the most powerful mages could disguise their auras or hide them completely.
The fact that Cassandra had hired her without waiting to consult me, however, meant that, in Cassandra’s opinion, Flora was perfectly fine. Cassandra was no fool, and as Flora pointed out, an incredible witch. If Flora carried evil within her, Cassandra wouldn’t have let the woman in the front door. Nor would Flora have been able to breach Mick’s and my wards to enter at all.
I reversed through her speech to her first words. “Did you say you could fix my mirror? How?”
The mirror had a pretty big hole in the middle from one of my first adventures in the hotel. Only a very powerful mage would know how to fuse the glass again, and a mage that powerful—Emmett, for example—would likely try to kill me and run off with the mirror.
Flora shrugged. She was taller than I was, with wide shoulders and a solid build, pretty in a strong, capable way.
“I know spells. I’m an earth witch.”
She looked as though that explanation would be enough, but I shook my head.
“I’m sorry—I don’t know what that means.”
“An earth witch is connected to the earth,” Flora explained patiently, “and to all the elements within it. That means I work with crystals and other stones, and that I draw strength from the earth’s bones and its past. Mirrors are glass and silver, which are earth elements. Easy-peasy.”
“I’m a Stormwalker,” I said, bewildered. “That’s earth magic, but I can’t begin to repair a magic mirror.”
Flora’s blue eyes filled with admiration. “I know you’re a Stormwalker. More powerful than I can ever hope to be. But it’s different. You’re born of the earth, like dragons are. I’m human, not supernatural. I can touch the power of the earth, and I’ve studied and trained for a long time. So we’re both of the earth but very different. Cassandra’s magic is air and fire—a wonderful combination. Most witches only have one element in their magic, but she has two. It makes her very powerful. If she could find a way to link to water as well, she’d be unstoppable.”
This was all new to me. Mick had taught me a great deal about magic, but his was mostly fire, and he was a supernatural creature. Now that I thought about it, every spell he’d taught me—working wards into the walls, making talismans, or even the tiny door unlocking spells—all involved some sort of spark or simply lighting a smudge stick with a match.
Flora smiled, a wide, warm smile. “You look confused. I suppose that’s natural, waking up after two whole weeks. I hope you’re feeling better.”
“I am,” I said. Much better than I had in a while. “Thanks. But I still don’t understand how, if you say Cassandra is much more powerful than you, you can repair the mirror and she can’t.”
“Sand,” Flora said, as though it should be obvious. “I can make it do as I please. I’ll flow the sand together and fuse it again. The mirror has to let me, of course.”
Of course. I said, “You mean I’ve been searching the globe for a mage skilled enough