Unruly Magic by Camilla Chafer Read Free Book Online

I was being. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to magic a coverlet.
    More pressing, however, was who had been at my house last night and why had they left it? I couldn’t work out if it was supposed to be a gift or a message. It had been almost a year since Steven, one of the witch council’s elders had handed me the parcel of documents that contained the deeds to this house. Unless, he’d copied everything – and I didn’t think he had – I could count him out. Besides, he had never been to the safe house and wouldn’t have known the coverlet had been on my bed. Plus, now that I thought about it, Steven had been quite careful about giving my parents’ things to me personally so I doubted anyone else had seen the contents. I sighed. This much I knew: things were about as clear as mud.
    No, it had to be someone from the house. There were only a few survivors to choose from: Étoile, Seren, Kitty or Marc. The sinking feeling inside me was saying that without a sign of him after all this time, that Evan couldn’t have survived. I was sure he would have come for me then, and here, if he could. He’d had extensive wounds when I’d last seen him and my hopes of his survival were fading every day.
    Whenever I thought of Evan my heart flipped and sank. I had been falling over the edge of loving him and the pain of losing him was almost too much to bear. During the few weeks that we’d had together I’d felt our connection grow fast and intense like thick cords binding us together. Now that connection felt like gossamer fine thread waiting to break at any moment. I didn’t know enough about my witch heritage, or his daemon one, to know if that was just me imagining things or if there was some kind of supernatural connection that we’d initiated and that hadn’t quite petered out.
    I hovered near the coverlet looking at it, feeling strangely superstitious about touching it. How was I supposed to narrow it down to a sender? Kitty had been horrendously injured too and I certainly couldn’t guarantee she had survived, not if there were internal injuries on top of everything else she had suffered. It was unlikely that Marc would do something as odd as deliver a coverlet under the cover (hah) of darkness. It had to be Étoile or Seren. I’d been closer to Étoile. She’d saved my life once and though she was bossy and pernickety, I’d liked her and trusted her.
    Still, that didn’t explain how anyone knew I was in Wilding. I was fairly sure I hadn’t left a trace, human or magic, to follow. I’d been very careful when I’d travelled here, criss-crossing back and forth, covering my tracks. I was sure no one knew about the house. It was very puzzling.
    I spent the day pottering about the house, growing increasingly frustrated. I tried all my usual pursuits. I read my book, and gave up when I realised I’d not registered a single word in several pages. I watched some more of the DVD box set Annalise had leant me but gave that up too when I realised my mind had drifted too much to know what was going on. I even tried having a nap but after tossing and turning for an hour I had to accept that sleep just wasn’t coming to me. I even spent some time thinking about my poker-bargain date tonight and wondered where Gage might be taking me, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty. Wasn’t it too soon to go on a date, even a faux date, when Evan was never far from the edge of my mind and I thought about him so many times a day until eventually I’d decided I had to steel my heart from the hurt and frustration.
    “It’s just one date,” I told myself firmly as I browsed my wardrobe late-afternoon. “It’s just an evening, with a friend.” A hot friend, my brain added, rather unhelpfully, and it was a date, not just a casual evening out.
    When I’d finally pulled out three outfits and was analysing them heavily for any untoward signals they might give off (too short a hemline, too much cleavage ... too damn puritan)