Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser Series Book 5) by Meghan Ciana Doidge Read Free Book Online

purred in her uppity, overly posh accent. “When I’m reborn, I will simply take it.” Intent on the necklace, she took a step back from me. The magic I’d spent years collecting in the chain and its wedding rings danced around her head, stretching between us as if it were still tied to me.
    “Call off your shadows,” I said. I flicked my right wrist, which I still held at my side, to call her attention to my jade knife.
    The child lifted her gaze to me, then nodded. The leeches moved a few feet away from Scarlett and Gran, lining themselves along the French-paned windows and blocking out the lights from the busy street beyond.
    The child continued to pull the magic from the necklace. I could see it settling on the skin of her face, neck, shoulders, and arms. Years and years of residual, wild, and even malicious magic collected by me and placed in the necklace to create a personal shield. A shield reinforced by my own alchemist powers.
    What did a dragon need with alchemist magic?
    As the child drained the necklace’s reserves, I slowly inched closer to Gran and Scarlett, still on my knees. I could feel Scarlett’s magic gathering behind me.
    I felt the instant Gran woke.
    The preschooler slowly pivoted, continuing to face me as I moved. But she didn’t pause in draining the magic from the necklace until she had every last drop of it wrapped around her in a multicolored gossamer bodysuit. She raised her arms, holding the necklace aloft.
    “Now!” she commanded.
    I raised my knife, ready for the shadow leeches to attack.
    They didn’t.
    “Now! Now!” the rabid koala repeated, locking her once more fevered eyes to me.
    “Now what?” I snapped.
    “Now make the magic mine, alchemist.”
    “Make it yours? You’re a person, not a freaking necklace.”
    “Now!” the child demanded with a stamp of her foot. The shadow leeches rustled around us.
    “Fine,” I muttered. “You asked for it.”
    I reached out with my alchemist powers to pinpoint her dragon magic. Then, pressing against all the magic from the necklace that she’d dressed herself in, I shoved and mashed the two power sources together. God, I hoped she choked on it. No one could take that much magic into themselves without passing out — and maybe never waking up. She was a mortal being, not a car battery.
    Let her pass out. Then I’d drag her ass into the nexus and let the guardians deal with the magically induced coma that was the fallout.
    Except she didn’t falter. Somehow, with my help, she sucked the layer of gossamer magic into herself. Her skin briefly glowed with the golden light I attributed to the portals. Then the lingering taste of the witch and sorcerer and dragon magic that I’d collected in the necklace was gone, nullified by her dragon spiciness.
    I could feel Gran crafting some spell behind me, the grass-and-lilac taste of it overriding all the other magic in the bakery.
    I readied myself to lunge forward to follow whatever Gran was going to throw. Dragons were naturally resistant to offensive witch magic, but Gran was no ordinary witch.
    The child was changing. It was subtle at first, but as she absorbed the magic she siphoned from the necklace, she began to grow. To mature.
    As I knelt waiting on Gran, the four-year-old before me transformed into an eight-year-old, then a twelve-year-old. Then, shaking and sweating gold-infused drops of magic with the effort, a sixteen-year-old.
    The sundress she was wearing stretched and shortened to more than risqué proportions. A slight sweetness that I couldn’t identify began to temper the sootiness of her dragon magic. Her magic was evolving along with her form. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure that more strength and power would come along with that evolution.
    The newly transformed teenager dropped her hands to examine her outstretched arms. The necklace fell to the wood-slat floor.
    She frowned. “Not enough,” she muttered, kicking the necklace away as if it was a piece of trash.