Page 90 of First Ritual

“Did you two have a childhood game?” Her voice was fainter now. Relieved at the pointed question, I stepped from the pathway into a room that I knew was inside my mind.

In the room, two girls played with knucklebones. Though different in looks, they appeared the same age. One was only seven minutes older.

“We played human games,” I explained to a presence, though I couldn’t recall who I was explaining to. “Syera had trouble accessing her magic. I was much stronger, and I didn’t like to rub it in.”

Another question pushed at me from the invisible presence, and I answered, “Grandmother said that twins sometimes do that—one takes the lion’s share of the magic and the other only receives a little. Syera was best in divination. Which made me happy because I didn’t have that affinity at all.”

I smiled at the next question that arrived in my mind, and said, “Yes, she was the younger.”

I left the room and joined my mother in the kitchen. She was topping up our various kits with the abundance we foraged yesterday. She was singing. A human song, “What I’m Doing Here.” Grandmother always made fun of her for liking human music. I appreciated that mother could accept and join in the cultures of other races. Grandmother said humans were stupid and she couldn’t abide stupidity.

I was more like my mother when it came to humans. Syera? “More like Grandmother,” I told no one in particular.

Mother faced me. “Time to hop in the car, my little love.”

The car?

I shook my head, lips numbing. “No.”

Mother walked around the bench and hugged me. “Where’s my other little love?”

Syera strode in—a teen Syera. Long-legged, golden skin, and wearing my top. Again.

“You two hugging without me?” she asked.

My heart warmed as my twin sister joined us in a group hug.

The air crackled in warning an instant before Grandmother stomped down the stairs from her attic. “Enough. Get in the car.”

I hugged her for good measure, and Syera saluted her, earning a zap of Grandmother’s magic on the butt.

“Rust bucket,” I said, smiling. The car operated on magic and magic alone. Magic kept the doors in place and gave the appearance of a windscreen. The car was a running joke. We changed the car exterior every week, and mine and Syera’s human friends—well, my human friends—believed my family was rolling in money.

Grandmother yelled at someone out the window, and Mother shushed her.

Syera linked our pinkies, turning her head to look at me across the empty middle seat. “I need to tell you something, T.”

I waggled my brows. “About why you’ve been sneaking out?”

Mother and Grandmother were arguing in the front. Without heat. That was their love language, or so Mother said. Grandmother said it’s because her daughter was a pain in her vagina at birth, and a pain in the ass since.

“Yeah,” Syera said.

She was nervous.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s something happening to me, T. Something… I thought my magic was coming in more. Finally. But—”

Bang.

Metal screeched as the roof was ripped off in one sheet. My head crashed against the seat belt holder, then against something else hard. Syera’s head?

White-gold power erupted. Grandmother’s. Attack.

Periwinkle blue. Mother’s magic. Defense.

Black power. Liquid black. Unknown. Enemy.