Sorcerer's Spin Read online

  Sorcerer's Spin

  Mayflower Mages #3

  Anise Rae

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Passion’s Potion

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Thirteen sorceresses stood in a circle in the crumbling parking lot behind Blue Light Mills. Weeds poked up here and there in a determined bid for survival, dandelions with puffy heads, ragged blades of grass, and a scattering of vibe violets. Though charm and beauty lacked a place in the setting, none of the women paid attention as they cast their ritual spell. Instead, they darted glances at their boss.

  Mara Rand’s glowing eyes—a terrible quirk of her wayward mage power—were a definite distraction.

  She resisted the temptation to lower her eyes and hide. Her forewoman must have sensed her unease from across the circle. Esther shook her head at her as if to say she couldn’t back out now.

  And Mara wouldn’t. Without her, they’d be short on power for the ritual.

  Much too short.

  Blue Light Mills was a haven for weak and damaged sorceresses. Mara made it her policy to hire them, though she herself had enough mage vibes to power the entire mill.

  Wayward vibes, that was.

  Like every wayward mage, she’d been taught to keep her shameful, imperfect energy tucked out of sight. A trickle of nervous sweat dripped beneath her ceremonial gown. She resisted fidgeting at its unwelcome touch.

  Though no one but an aurist mage could sense the extra frequency that ran through a wayward’s vibes, everyone could see their glowing eyes. Other wayward mages hid their bronze glow with concealing spells or lenses that fit over their corneas. But Mara’s waywardness was so extreme nothing could keep the light hidden when she gave her power free rein. Her glow shined through everything. There was no denying her true nature.

  Unblessed.

  A freak.

  Cursed with the evil eye.

  But this was her mill, these were her employees, and the fine thread they were spinning in the early morning ceremony would be woven into a blessing dress for her assistant’s new baby.

  She checked her supply of fiber on her distaff, the tall rod she held beside her, its top bunched with flax for spinning. Each of the thirteen women stood with her own distaff.

  The ends of the long, old-fashioned devices rested on the ground. To some, they might have looked like upside-down brooms since the flax at the top resembled the straw on a broom’s end. Like a mage’s broom, each sorceress might have mounted her distaff and flown away. In theory at least. Only the truly powerful sorceress who had bonded with her distaff for a lifetime could manage that. It didn’t happen often anymore. For much the same reason, few mages could fly on their brooms nowadays either.

  Fluffs of fiber drifted out from each sorceress’s distaff with gentle pushes of her fingers, connecting to the new thread forming from the twist of her drop spindle. Held on the opposite side as the distaff, the spindle, a short wooden rod with a small saucer of wood skewered at one end for weight, pulled and twisted the fiber into thread.

  It wasn’t the only way to spin. Her factory was filled with spinning wheels of all kinds, but drop spindles were portable and more ritual-friendly than the wheels.

  Mage energy whirled among the sorceresses until the center of their circle was littered with skeins of the fine thread.

  Spinning was a sorceress’s domain.

  Mara could have filled the circle with yarn in a mere moment, but she held back, letting her employees contribute their share at their own pace.

  Stella, the young mage beside her, looked up from her drop spindle and gave her a closed-mouth smile, happiness pulling her cheeks into cherries. Her spinning was the slowest by far. The girl was so damaged after being conscripted by the electric company to spin copper wire that she had almost no vibes at all. Nor hair nor teeth. A scarf covered her head. Despite all that, Stella had bravery in spades. Though she was new to the mill, she didn’t shy away from Mara’s glowing eyes.

  Truth be told, none of them did. Their glances might have held curiosity and wonder, but they also held acceptance.

  As the thread piled high in the center of their circle, the first sliver of sunshine joined the morning star and the crescent moon in the still-dark sky. As dawn pulled the world into a new day, Mara directed her power at the fine thread and guided her sorceresses to cast the weaving spell. Vibes sparkled as threads wove on a loom of air until soft fabric floated before them. Only the luckiest baby was gifted with a blessing dress that was born at the same time she was.

  Their ritual complete, their vibes faded away. Mara gathered the fabric into her arms before it fluttered to the ground. To her mage sense, it shimmered with beauty.

  Now for the tricky part.

  She looked over at Esther, tempted to give the task of the blessing to her. For all that her forewoman had suffered—forced to work for Power United like Stella—Esther had a belief in the Goddess that had only strengthened from the forced labor she’d endured.

  Mara didn’t believe in the Goddess. The only prayer she ever muttered was to the lost girls and that wasn’t going to work here.

  “It’s all you, lady boss.” Esther’s voice was rough. Spinning hay into copper for so long had damaged her vocal cords. When she’d first arrived at Blue Light Mills years ago, she too had been missing her hair and a few teeth. But Mara’s mill had a hair mage on staff and a contract with a bone mage. Now, Esther looked as normal as she was willing to appear.

  Mara looked up at the sky as if the words for a blessing might slide along the curve of the crescent moon and shower down on her. Or perhaps they might burst out of the tiny light of the morning star like a celestial fireworks charm.

  But no such luck.

  She forged on, as always, and concocted a blessing on the spot. “Bless the babe born under starlight and moonbeams, the morning sun’s ray and night’s dark cloak. May the light and shadows twined through this gift bring love and happiness to your path upon this world.”

  “Blessings,” a chorus of voices sang out with joy. Their job complete, the circle of sorceresses scattered apart.

  “Someone else needs to have a baby so we can do this again,” Esther said, heading toward the picnic tables where the workers lunched on sunny days and where the Tea Time food truck pulled up every Wednesday for four o’clock tea. She sat down. “How ‘bout you, lady boss?”

  Mara’s lips went tight. She yanked her power back and shut it away. Her vision, perfect with her vibes free and open, went blurry and dim. It was a cruel trick of fate that she couldn’t see well without her power flowing�
�and without her eyes glowing. She pulled her spectacles from the pocket of her robes and slipped them on.

  No mage ever willingly wore spectacles. Such a physical imperfection was an embarrassment.

  “Not me.” She tapped the nosepiece of her red-rimmed specs. “No mage would make a pass at a sorceress with these.”

  “Then find a fairy.” Esther’s bold suggestion was met with horrified gasps.

  “I can’t believe you just said that!” Stella cried.

  To most mages, whose power was either of the pure light or dark, fairies were the murky in-between…the gray. They were the children of the Goddess’s disgraced consort.

  But to Mara, they simply held another type of the universe’s power. And she never called them the gray or fairies. Both words were considered a slur. The people with the in-between power had their own name for themselves—glister—but few mages knew it. Mara was one of those few.

  Esther continued, “Why not a fairy? They won’t mind the spectacles. They’re bound to like you, lady boss, especially considering you spin with the webs of the fairy’s spiders.”

  The webs.

  Mara straightened. It wasn’t a topic she talked about freely. She was skating a dangerous edge by using the fairy spiders’ silk. Considering most mages didn’t like fairies, using the silk could end up being a public relations nightmare for the mill. If she weren’t careful, she’d be swirling in a cauldron of scandal—or worse—because of it.

  She’d sold clothing made of the spider fabric only to a few clients, but it had enormous potential. The fabric helped heal mages with sense sickness or those burdened with too many vibes. It could also help people like Stella, whose power had been crushed.

  “I’m positive some handsome fairy man would do you.” Sometimes her forewoman didn’t know when to stop.

  Mara started to respond, but Stella beat her to it.

  “She can’t have a baby with a fairy!” the girl cried. “They’re all in the West and, anyway, can you imagine what she’d get? A freak!”

  The women went still.

  A freak.

  It was a common term for waywards.

  “I mean….” The young woman lowered her gaze. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” Mara knew what she was. She’d accepted it long ago. She was content—delighted even—with the power that spun through her. The labels couldn’t take that delight away. Still…. “I wouldn’t pass on my wayward blood. No child deserves that.” Not the way things were now. And there was no hope for change. Mages worshipped perfection. Wayward power fell far outside the boundaries of perfect.

  She handed the fabric to Lara, one of the mill’s best seamstresses. “Ladies, it was a privilege to be a part of your circle this morning,” Mara said.

  “We made a fabric worthy of a princess thanks to you,” Lara said. A chorus of agreement followed from the others. Everyone was desperate to change subjects, something other than fairies and freaks.

  Mara smiled at the gentle attempt to soothe her. This was a time for celebration, and the boss needed to exit.

  “Esther has coffee and doughnuts for you all. Enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you inside.” She walked toward the south door of her mill, their goodbyes echoing behind her. Turning at the corner of the long wing of the blue building, she moved out of their sight.

  “She’d be so pretty,” one of the women whispered. “Except for those eyes.”

  Mara almost stopped. She almost turned back to explain. She had no use for pretty. Pretty attracted goods she could not afford to covet much less buy. Pretty was on the surface. It was a covering that hid what lurked below, things even she didn’t want to look at.

  But they wouldn’t understand. Their eyes didn’t glow. None of them was wayward.

  She straightened her spectacles and quickened her pace to the door, reviewing the day’s schedule in her mind. First up was changing out of this ceremonial gown and into the crisp white blouse and black suit that waited in her office.

  She opened the factory’s door and a paper fell to the ground with a smack.

  No, not a piece of paper. An envelope.

  Another one.

  The shush of her blood filled her ears. Her face grew hot. She gave a quick look left and right.

  She was alone.

  She picked it up. Her hands were steady, but her soul trembled.

  The stationary was always the same—thick and expensive. It was the message that varied, odd prophecies, poems, nursery rhymes, or sayings that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the glister…or the fairies, as her sorceresses would say.

  Which one would it be this time? Would it be the prophecy warning about evil clutching one of the glisters’ mythical relics and killing the entire Republic? Or maybe it would be the one about wielding a relic, a deadly choice if one wasn’t a glister prince or princess. Perhaps it contained the childish ditty about the white spinning wheel, the largest relic.

  A proper mage would know nothing about the relics since they belonged to the glister. But the author of these neatly written messages knew that Mara was not a proper mage. He…or she…likely believed that wayward was a synonym for evil, as so many mages of the Republic did.

  She opened the flap.

  No matter where she was, the notes always found her as if they were written by an all-knowing pen pal. In her mail slot at home, in her desk drawer at her office, on the driver’s seat of her car. They’d been arriving for fifteen years.

  No citizen but the High Councilor should know about the prophecies. Mara would be in a dungeon so deep she’d never get out if the old crone found out about these letters.

  Mara freed the paper inside.

  As she stared at the simple words, the envelope fell from her hand.

  She knows.

  2

  Gregor Whitman stood guard at the front entrance of Blue Light Mills while his team—he used that word loosely—confiscated the last of the spinning wheels. They needed ten more minutes.

  They weren’t going to get it.

  Judging by the vibes flowing in the ritual behind the building, they had three minutes. Maybe four. He and his team were going to get caught. Then he’d have to face the woman he knew of only through her file. Based on what he’d read, Mara Rand didn’t deserve this.

  It had been a damn long time since he’d had to carry out a mission that he disagreed with as much as this. But these orders had come from on high. Very high. Refusing would have been detrimental to his continued existence. Then again, the same could be said if this undercover mission was exposed.

  A sense of unease hissed through his mind and not for the first time. The old crone had to know that their intel about Blue Light Mills was as cracked as an ass because it made little sense that the place would be empty at this hour. His so-called team should have been deployed in the dark of night instead of less than an hour before the mill’s first shift started.

  They would have been caught the moment they’d arrived if it hadn’t been for his fast spell. The sorceresses in the back lot would have heard their vans pull in. It had taken an enormous amount of lightning-fast vibes to seal the dome of silence throughout the interior of Blue Light Mills and around its front parking lot and driveway, but Gregor had cast it with ease.

  And then he’d sighed with relief.

  His vibes had functioned. Though it had been three months since the incident, he still didn’t trust his power. He wasn’t sure he ever would again.

  He eyed the front lot and the street as he focused his mage sense on the women at the back of the building. Based on the different energy signatures, there were twelve of them, most of them so faint he could barely sense them. But one had power that would have sung a symphony to his ears if he’d still been able to hear the melodies of mage vibes. The incident—as the army called it—had stolen that ability.

  Don’t go there. Don’t.

  Too late. Grief waved over him. Its battering was familiar, but the p
ain was still raw and fresh. He tightened every muscle to hold it back like it was a physical force. As if in answer to the wave of grief and despair, the women’s power flowed higher, reaching its zenith. The one crystal clear note among them vibed with purity and strength.

  It had to be the Rand woman. Her vibes showered around the land, a silent, gentle mist to his mage sense.

  Was it cowardly that he didn’t want to be unmasked as the leader of this mission by her…the one wayward who dared to live openly? How had he not heard of her before her file was slapped into his palm? She helped those no one else would—the weak, the damaged, the ill, the wayward—the people that mage society preferred to ignore. She risked censure…or worse…for her actions. He had to wonder if the High Councilor was taking revenge on the sorceress by stealing her spinning wheels because it was clear the wheel they were looking for was not here.

  Behind the building, the ritual vibes eased and then faded away. The ceremony was complete.

  “Hurry.” Gregor pushed the word with his mage vibes straight to the men inside the building. Sound was a cadence mage’s specialty.

  No one responded. He hadn’t expected them to. With one exception, none of the men in the building was strong enough to respond using a spell. But no one appeared in the doorway either, so maybe they were ignoring him.

  A distinct possibility with this team.

  “They’re as slow as fucking turtles,” Captain Dane Smith responded with a comm spell. His frustrated sigh came through. “Perhaps a prod spell up their asses? Please? I’ll be gentle.”