37 A Magic Question (1/2)
Ash didn't know when he would be seeing Blair again so he decided to ask for another witch's opinion while he was here. Ruby was obviously curious but he couldn't say this was about her. She would have to operate under the assumption that it was a vampire matter.
The witch whose name he never caught led him through a maze of workrooms where other witches could be seen tinkering with objects or testing spells. Eventually she opened the door to one where a woman with distinctly Middle Eastern features and glowing orange eyes hidden beneath safety goggles was peering into a smoking cauldron.
”Jez, I have a vampire here who wants to ask you a magic question.”
Jezebel looked up with interest right as whatever was the in cauldron exploded in her face. Her hair stood straight up and what appeared to be soot had settled all over her face but she smiled as she took off her goggles and wiped them on the edge of her robe.
”Magic questions are my favorite! Especially when they're from strangers who by all means shouldn't even be here. Ask away,” she said eagerly.
The blonde witch turned and headed back out to the store and Ash felt secure enough to blurt out, ”Have you ever heard of a member of another race being able to amplify blood magic?”
Jezebel blinked at him, taken aback for a moment before launching into a series of questions. ”What race? What facet of blood magic? Where and when did this happen? Is there anything unusual about this fae that you can me? The tiniest bit of information helps.”
Ash told her everything he knew except for details that would give away Ruby's identity. His lack of magical prowess, what happened to the barrier when he touched her, her sand/glass power, her easy money-making ability, her glamour. Nothing got left out.
He was sure to specify that he didn't care about the secrets she kept from him and held no intentions of weaseling them out of her but that he wanted to know why his powers had been affected. He had been terrible at blood magic since before his fangs grew in. No amount of practice had made that dramatic of a difference.
The witch stroked her chin thoughtfully. ”An earth fairy, huh? Have you ever seen her true appearance?”
”I don't think so. Most of the time she wears the same human glamour but I have seen her wings because one was injured and she needed me to help her patch it up. I don't have a point of reference to compare it to because her wings are the only ones I've ever seen but they're pearlescent.”
Jezebel frowned. ”Pearlescent, huh? I've been around a long time but I've only seen a handful of fairy wings. This was back in the days of the witch hunts when humans were out to destroy anything fae.
”I found a few grounded fairies at different times after all their kin were killed that needed help repairing their wings. There was no one else they could turn to; without being able to fly away they would die.
”I had to work hard to earn their trust before they would so much as let me look at their wings but eventually they realized they had no other choice if they wanted to live. Two of them were earth fairies and their wings were not pearlescent in the slightest.
”The shades were slightly different but both were green and had webbing like the veins of a leaf. I also treated a water fairy whose wings were pale blue and had the appearance of ripples on a pond and a wind fairy with wings that looked like clouds.