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“Nadine is a Curse Breaker—the only member of her Cast—and I’m the Reaper’s Apprentice,” Lucas said. “I will become a reaper when I die and ferry the souls of our coven members to Alora.”
“I’m honored to meet you!” Beau grabbed Lucas’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Boy, do I have a story for you.”
“Why don’t we go somewhere private to talk?” Chief Cauac suggested. “Luana and I can escort you to the Hall of Records.”
“A good idea,” Beau agreed. “There is much to discuss about your Wands.”
Beau handed my wand back. We followed Chief Cauac through the library, until we came to an elevator. We stepped inside, and we rode the elevator to the next level. We came to a hallway, and Chief Cauac guided us to the doors at the end.
We entered a small room lined with bookshelves on all sides, with sconces hung between them. Arching stained glass windows let in sunlight, and two tables sat in the center of the room. Sculptures of magical creatures filled the shelves beside the books. There was no one else here, so we could talk freely.
Luana signed something to her father, and Chief Cauac said, “My daughter and I would like to stay and help in any way we can.”
“Yes, of course,” Lucas agreed. “We could use all the help we can get.”
Chief Cauac gestured to one of the study tables. “Please, have a seat.”
The five of us gathered around the table, and Chief Cauac interpreted for Luana as Beau began speaking.
“If you wish to learn more about wands, then you’ve come to the right place,” Beau began. “Wands are my specialty, as I am a wandmaker myself. I’ve been studying them most of my life, even before I moved to Octavia Falls.”
“You weren’t born there?” I wondered. “My grandma said she knew you when you were both young.”
Beau chuckled. “Young can mean many things to a person my age. It’s true I lived in Octavia Falls in early adulthood, but I was born in Malovia to a sorceress mother and a warlock father.”
“How’s that possible?” Lucas asked. “The witches and fae despise each other.”
“My mother was Unseelie fae, which means she can draw magic from sources outside herself,” Beau explained. “It is a rare classification, as the Unseelie were all but wiped out by the Seelie fae long ago. Unseelie fae have kept their magic secret for a long time, as the Seelie deem their magic dark, and will criminalize anyone who uses magic they don’t like. The Seelie fae consider wands to be black magic, and they are banned in fae culture. However, as I am half-warlock, I could never resist the call to wands myself.”
“That’s why the fae don’t like witches, isn’t it?” I asked. “We use wands and crystals, and they don’t approve of that.”
“Yes,” Beau confirmed. “But my mother did not see it the same way, as she wielded dark magic as well. She met my father at a supernatural hub located in Paris while researching Unseelie magic, and they fell in love. They settled in Malovia, because my mother was hired to do important work for the monarchy, though they had to remain in hiding. When I came of age, my father performed my Evoking Ceremony, and I received the mark of Mortana. I came into my dragon-shifter powers at the same time, and I attended Arcanea University to learn my shifter magic. It was there that I began studying wand making in secret. My unique warlock gift is to work with gems to amplify their powers for other members of my Cast, and I found these gems worked well when embedded in wands.”
“So you put your magic inside of them, like transference?” I asked.
Beau shook his head. “No. I work with the natural magical qualities in the stone. I don’t give my power to others. Rather, I pull that power out of the stone, so that the gem’s power to amplify a Mortana’s ability is even stronger. I was able to keep those powers a secret, but before I graduated, I found my mate. The fae did not approve of my mating bond, and my mate and I were forced to flee.”
I couldn’t believe they’d do that. Witches didn’t bond magically the way the fae did, but just thinking of someone trying to break Lucas and me apart made my blood boil.
“How could they do that to you?” Lucas asked. “From what I’ve heard of the fae, the bond between a shifter and his sorceress mate is the most powerful type of magic they have.”
“That, precisely, was their objection,” Beau said. “I did not mate with a sorceress. I mated with another dragon shifter. Same-sex relationships were considered blasphemous in my day. I have much respect for the current reigning Malovia monarchs, because they are fighting for the rights I never had as a gay man with Unseelie magic. I hope they succeed in their endeavor, because I don’t want anyone to go through what I did. My mate Sebastian and I kept our relationship secret for a time while we finished up our studies at the university, but we had no choice but to leave when my parents were discovered. Their intersupernatural relationship was outed, and they were hanged for it.”
“That’s terrible,” I said sadly. “I hope Octavia Falls was kinder to you.”
“For a time,” Beau admitted. “We found a home in Octavia Falls. I opened a wand shop, while Sebastian worked at one of the cider mills in town. He posed as an Alchemist, as fae are able to brew potions. We were able to conceal our true nature using fae magic and went undetected for over twenty years. But it took only a moment for the magic to falter, and Sebastian was discovered as a dragon shifter living within Octavia Falls. He was poisoned by yarrow, which is deadly to fae. It was my parents’ execution all over again, though even worse, because he was my mate.”
Beau dropped his gaze. “To lose a mate you’re magically bound to… it can make a man go mad. And that’s exactly what it did. I left Octavia Falls and began researching the Oaken Wands profusely, with a keen interest in the Mortana Wand. I thought if I could find it, I could use its power to bring him back from the dead.”
“Is that even possible?” I wondered. “The coven can’t bring people back to life, so it stands to reason that the Wand can’t, either.”
“The Wand has power over death, but nobody knows for sure how far that magic extends,” Beau admitted. “I wish I had the answer, but I stopped asking that question long ago. I pursued the Mortana Wand because I was so in love that I didn’t know who I was without my mate. I was in denial that he was gone from this life for good, and I’d bargain anything to get him back. But my grief stretched into decades, all while the world was changing around me—and I with it. I came to realize that even if I was able to bring Sebastian back today, I couldn’t go back to who I was and have what we had again. I spent all that time mourning the life we’d lost, that I forgot to continue living myself. I abandoned my search for the Mortana Wand several years ago, and I came to Hok’evale to heal.”
“So you never found the Wand?” Lucas asked softly.
“No, but I got close,” Beau admitted. “Your friends tell me the Oaken Wands were hidden from the Imperium Council decades ago, in order to protect the relics. However, what your friends mistakenly assumed was that all the Wands were in the council’s possession.”
“Nicholas didn’t take them all?” Lucas wondered. “Which ones was he missing?”
