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“There’s one way,” Merle replied with a coldness that could have frozen the air, “we could make sure the head-of-family title passes to you.”
“We are not going to kill Juneau,” Tanya Kaminski ground out.
“Why not?” Sarai’s eyes flashed.
“No,” Sophie whispered. “I don’t want that. There must be another way…”
Kristen leaned forward. “We could unbind her and lock her in one of the dungeons.”
Hazel shook her head. “The manacles that drain her of magic when she’s shackled in a cell will work the same way the Shadows suppress her powers right now. The Laroches will still be cut off from extra magic in that case.”
“And we can’t lock her up without suppressing her powers,” Elaine said. “She’ll only use her magic to escape.”
“You don’t know that,” Sophie shot back. “Maybe she’ll cooperate.”
“Oh?” Elaine gave a humorless laugh. “You expect me to believe an Elder witch of your mother’s powers will voluntarily sit in a dungeon when she could snap her fingers and walk out?”
“Maybe not a dungeon,” Sophie ventured. “She could stay under house arrest and promise not to use her magic.”
A muscle feathered in Elaine’s jaw. “I’ll more likely trust a hungry lion not to bite off my hand than believe that Juneau won’t abuse her powers again.”
“Same,” Sarai muttered.
Sophie wrung her hands. “Please, reconsider. What’s my family supposed to do without additional magic?”
Merle regarded her fingernails. “Same thing you’ve been doing for the past seven months?”
Sophie made as if to reply, but Shobha cut her off.
“Isn’t there,” the oldest witch among the Elders slowly said, her expression thoughtful, “a spell to transfer the responsibility for upholding the balance from one witch to another?”
Everybody turned to her, the attention woven with tension.
Shobha’s forehead crinkled. “I seem to recall that Juneau mentioned this once…” Her gaze fell on Merle. “When she pressed you to bind your demon again?”
Merle sat up straight. Murmurs rose from some of the other Elders.
“That’s right.” Sonia frowned. “I remember that, too. But she didn’t elaborate, and it wasn’t a spell I’m familiar with. In fact, I was surprised when she mentioned it as punishment. It was not something that had been discussed with us beforehand.”
Some of the Elders mumbled in assent.
“Wait.” Merle leaned forward, her expression intent. “You mean to tell me that there is a spell to shift having to pay back for the magic used? A spell?”
Her gaze sought out Hazel, who raised her brows and gave an imperceptible shake of her head. I didn’t know about this, she tried to communicate silently to Merle. I’m just as baffled as you are.
Merle looked lost.
Hazel pressed her lips together, her chest tightening. If they’d had this information a few months earlier, when Merle was newly pregnant and the looming deadline of payback to the Powers That Be had threatened the health of her baby, they could have simply used that spell to transfer Merle’s responsibility to uphold the balance of magic to another witch. Heck, Hazel would have volunteered to take it on in a heartbeat.
But she’d had no idea a spell like that existed. Hazel hadn’t yet been a member of the Elders when Merle was forced to bind Rhun in the Shadows again, and no one had mentioned a spell like that later. Merle had likely been too stressed and preoccupied in that moment when the Elders had forced her to bind Rhun again to remember Juneau even mentioning this spell.
“Yes,” Elaine said in answer to Merle’s question. “Or at least, in theory it exists. The first I heard about it was when Juneau brought it up at that meeting.” She nodded at Merle. “But like Sonia, I didn’t know anything about that spell. I figured it was some obscure piece of magic that was rarely used, and Juneau knew it because she was probably one hundred and fifty years old.”
“Seventy,” Sophie threw in. “My mother is seventy.”
Elaine made a dismissive hand gesture.
“That’s all well and good,” Patricia said, “but what does this have to do with the issue the Laroches are facing right now?” She turned to Shobha with a questioning look.
