4 Tiddly Jinx

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Suggested Reading Order

  What people are saying

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Please stay tuned

  Liz would love to hear from you

  Check out more books by Liz

  REB

  About the Author

  Tiddly Jinx

  Easy Bake Coven Series

  Book Four

  Copyright © 2014 by Leaping Lizards LLC

  Editing by Sylvia Spratt

  Cover design by Once Upon A Time Covers

  Formatting by Self Publishing Editing Service

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Secrets (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Choices (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Consequences (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Easy Bake Coven (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Be Light (The Guardian Trilogy)

  Hungry, Hungry Hoodoo (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Pickup Styx (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Ember (The Jinn Trilogy)

  Tiddly Jinx (Easy Bake Coven series)

  Inferno (The Jinn Trilogy)

  Vestige (The Jinn Trilogy)

  And two other books:

  Sweet Little Lies (Femi short story)

  Good Tidings (Baker Christmas short story in the Christmas Yet to Come Anthology)

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  “THE BOOK IS LIGHT HEARTED and will make you smile both from the witty way she writes as well as the wonderful picture she paints.”

  “THIS IS A WONDERFUL, fast paced book about a young girl and her girlfriends. I found myself laughing out loud a few times. The male character in the book sounds like a keeper, hope i see a lot of him in the next book.”

  “THIS WAS THE FIRST Liz Schulte's book that I've read, and I've got to tell you it is amazing. The plot is extremely well thought-out. There are plenty of twists and turns leaving the reader glued to their e-reader. The characters are complex, especially Selene, and funny too. Ms. Schulte even includes cameo appearances of Olivia Martin and Holden from the Guardian Trilogy, and Femi from "Sweet Little Lies". Without a doubt this is one of the most exciting series I've read. Selene has issues, but she doesn't spent half of the book whining about them, nor does she find an easy fix to all of her problems.”

  “IT'S BEEN A LONG time since I read a book I couldn't put down. This book was one of them. Except, I wasn't reading to get to the end and see how it all finished, I was reading to be absorbed into the world Liz Schulte created. I thought I would always be stuck reading books that I predicted endings of halfway through. This book kept me guessing right up until the end, and caused me to even audibly gasp out loud when a part was revealed.”

  “I LAUGHED AND CRIED”

  “I READ A LOT, so I don't really like to pay for books (free ones on amazon are fine by me) but after getting the first book for free I bought the rest immediately and devoured them like a giant piece of chocolate cake! This series is the first books I have ever paid for and I wish I could spend more money on them to get more books! Love love love this series and the writing style! More!!!”

  I RUBBED MY PALM against my forehead, not caring if I was causing wrinkles.

  “An entire crypt, a necromancer, and the bloody Pole of Charon cannot just vanish,” Cheney had said to Sebastian and Sy when they had arrived at the castle the next morning to report they couldn’t find anything: no leads, no clues, no hope.

  The day before had been a hell of a day. I died, traveled through purgatory to find the Pole of Charon, and then came back from the dead. Cheney, well, he had dealt with some seriously overdue family issues. We’d spent most of the night talking, filling each other in on what happened. Secrets between us had to stop, but for that to happen, we both had to make an effort. One crisis after another got us to this point and I wasn’t waiting for another one to make changes in my life; no matter how bad the situation seemed, it could always be made worse and more hurtful by not being honest. Just thinking about all the drama that could have been avoided had I not felt the need to handle everything on my own was staggering—and frankly, somewhat embarrassing. I’d even told him about kissing Corbin and the bond, which wasn’t exactly a fun conversation.

  A vampire was bonded to me—whatever that meant. Neither Cheney nor I had any dealings with vampires before I embraced my human half. There was only one way to get answers and that was to talk to Corbin, but whether or not those answers were ones I could trust was a different story. Sure, he helped me make it through purgatory, but not without incident. For as much as I learned about him, he was still a mystery to me. He helped me because he had his own motive for going to purgatory, and his plans changed only because of the bond—but where did that leave us, or what he expected from me?

  “What do you think, Selene?” Sebastian asked, pulling me back to the present.

  I blinked a few times, then looked at him. “About what?” I asked, yawning.

  “What we’ve been talking about. The crypt, Frost, the end of the world as we know it…any of that ringing a bell?” he replied, his tone sharper than normal and his eyebrows pulled together.

  “You know, the little things,” my cousin Sy said, an amused glint in his silver eyes.

  I knew him well enough to still see the worry underneath. We were all worried. We seemed to have an “out of the frying pan and into the fire” situation before us—yet another crisis. I had to bring back the Pole of Charon, which had a largely unknown amount of power and the terrifying ability to tear the veils between worlds, from purgatory or lose my life and my soul to a seriously creepy hoodoo priestess, so I did it. However, bringing the Pole to the Abyss threatened life as we knew it—something I wished I had known yesterday. The moment I touched the Pole in the underworld it healed all of my wounds and the sheer force of its power coursed through my veins. It was incredible. If I possessed it with my current magical abilities, armies would fall at my feet, governments would crumble around me, and the Abyss would be mine to cherish or crush at will. One thing was clear, nobody here needed or could be trusted with that kind of power. In retrospect, I probably should have just let her kill me.

  “Sorry. Being dead wasn’t as restful as
it sounds.” Rest in peace had taken on a whole new meaning. I was tired. Too tired to handle another crisis. Just mentioning being dead was enough to bring pieces of my journey back to the forefront. Concentrating on the people in front of me no matter how dire the situation was when my mind was still reeling from what I had been through was nearly impossible.

  Cheney raised his eyebrows, silently asking if I was okay. I nodded and smiled a little, forcing my attention back to Sebastian. I didn’t have a choice. Quitting and failure weren’t options. So much more was at stake this time.

  Sebastian pressed his lips together as if mentally counting to ten. “I apologize. It’s just…” He let out a breath. “There is nothing else we can do.” He gestured to Cheney and Sy. “I know that you are probably exhausted and I can’t even begin to imagine what happened to you there. However, this problem isn’t going to go away or wait for you to feel more like helping. It’s only going to get worse. So do you think you could focus?” Sebastian abruptly turned away and began pacing.

  Condescension aside, he was right. I shook my head at Cheney when he opened his mouth to say something. I understood. I wasn’t the only one who’d had a shitty day. Sebastian had been up all night and had gone through his own emotional upheaval yesterday that he hadn’t yet taken the time to process. None of us were quite ourselves this morning—well, except Sy. He, if anything, was irritatingly chipper—my cousin had endless amounts of energy. I stood up and went to Sebastian, placing a hand on his arm. I waited until his eyes met mine. “I’m sorry,” I said gently.

  His eyes softened, and I could see that he understood that I meant more than just spacing out. I was sorry for everything he and Cheney went through yesterday. I was sorry for what happened to Cheney’s sister and I was sorry for Sebastian’s broken heart. Though he never spoke about them, Sebastian had feelings. His head tilted in acknowledgement and I squeezed his arm before letting him go.

  “Sit down, Sebastian.” I waited until he had taken my spot, then I went to stand next to Cheney. I assumed between Cheney, Sebastian, and Sy they had covered and eliminated most of the Abyss options for tracking the Pole’s location available to us. They had to be looking for a human magic solution. “I don’t know if the coven could do a spell or not. I have to research it more to be sure, but my gut feeling is the spell would have to deal with magic we know nothing about. Obviously the crypt didn’t disappear anywhere in the Abyss or the human world.”

  “Where else would it go?” Cheney asked.

  I shook my head. “I have no idea…back to the underworld? But if that’s the case, then why did they make me get the Pole?” I pressed my lips together. “Maybe this isn’t a big deal. Maybe they’re gone and all of your worries about what the Pole is capable of will come to nothing.” All three guys looked at me as if I was concussed. Wishful thinking wasn’t exactly an elf trait.

  “Selene, there’s nowhere else to go,” Sy said. “There’re not an infinite number of worlds out there.”

  “How do you know? There could be hundreds. None of us are able to travel between worlds so we don’t know what else is out there. Most humans think that their world is the only world too because they don’t know about the Abyss. With the Pole, who knows what could be discovered.”

  “Who knows what could be let in,” Sebastian countered.

  “Maybe Corbin knows. He knows more about the underworld than any of us,” I said.

  “I think we’ve involved the vampire enough.” Sy gave me his first truly disapproving look.

  Vampires irritated the hell out of him, but I had no idea why. To the best of my recollection we never encountered a vampire growing up. Sy’s hatred for them formed sometime after I became a changeling. Yes, they had a reputation ripe with manipulation, exploitation, and of course their survival hinged on their using the rest of us as a walking buffet of life-force. Corbin was different—maybe they all were. I really didn’t know any other vampires. Okay, so maybe he fed on people just like the rest of them, and he had done his fair share of manipulating since I met him, but when I needed him, he came through. I really hadn’t thought much about vampires until recently, and Sy’s reaction made me curious about what had happened to make him write off an entire race of people. Between the two of us, my cousin was normally the more accepting of others. He worked with all different races and had friends across the board. I made a mental note to ask him when life was less hectic.

  Cheney coughed slightly, bringing my thoughts back to the room. I rolled my eyes. “There might be a spell, but it’ll probably be dark magic.” They looked at me blankly. “That’s bad.”

  “Why?” Cheney asked, his eyebrows tugging together.

  “Dark magic is sort of like jumping into murky water and expecting to be able to stand. You don’t really know whether or not you can reach the ground, or if you can, what it will be made of.”

  Elf magic was more natural than human magic, so it was harder to corrupt. It manipulated what was already there—powerful in its own right, but not as strong as human magic could be. Humans could create something from nothing. We could summon demons, curse people, make people do things against their will, or even kill them. When I lived as a human I didn’t understand magic fully, though I thought I did. The power at my fingertips deserved more respect and caution than I ever gave it. Frankly, had it not been for my grandmother’s rules, I could have gotten myself into a lot of trouble.

  By Abyss standards, being a witch was a huge deal. We had infinite magical powers and nothing to govern us. Humans long ago stopped believing in magic, which was great for witches like me, but dangerous for the world. We had no rules. Sure, we made the distinction between light and dark witches, but no one was there to keep you from dabbling in the darker elements of witchcraft if you chose to do so, except for the rule of three—whatever magic you send out into the world will come back on you threefold. Some human witches didn’t believe dark magic existed, thinking that all magic came from the goddess, and therefore it must be good. I personally didn’t know much about it, but I knew enough not to want to dabble.

  “So it’s dangerous?” Cheney asked.

  “Potentially. But what isn’t these days? In fact, I’m changing my middle name to Danger. Has a nice ring to it.”

  Cheney barely cracked a smile and I could feel his eyes drilling into me, but I refused to meet them. I knew what he was thinking. I was pregnant. It wasn’t just my life at risk anymore, and I needed to be more responsible. It was all true. I did. However, that didn’t mean I could ask other people to risk their lives to clean up my mess. I brought the Pole of Charon back. If dark magic was the only way to get it back, then I had to be the one to do it. Besides, not finding it would be much worse for the baby in the long term.

  Sy crossed his ankle over his knee. “Do you know any dark practitioners?”

  “No. That wasn’t really my crowd when I was human. My coven is more of a drink-martinis-and-talk-about-life sort of group. A Wiccan Sex and the City, if you will.”

  “You know that clarification didn’t clarify anything to us, right?” Sy laughed.

  “Well you’re missing out.” Having been reborn as a human and spending the last twenty-six years of my life with no memory of being a half-elf was an adjustment. Pop culture was as much of a part of me as elf-lore and sword fighting.

  Sy nodded. “I’m sure I am. But back on subject, maybe I can find one for you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You know a lot of humans, do you?”

  This time I got a smug smile. “I know a lot of everyone, coz.”

  I laughed. Sy was a riddle with a serving of enigma on the side. “How is that? Humans can’t even see elves unless you let them, and doesn’t that pretty much break the only rule the Abyss has? Exactly what is your job, Sy? And how did you get it? Who do you work for?”

  He winked and leaned back in his chair, clearly with no intention of answering me. Figures. Jerk. “Well, thank you, but let me check with Grandma first.” My huma
n grandmother was not only the oldest witch I knew, but she was also the only witch I knew who had dabbled in dark magic during her life. If anyone could advise me, it was her.

  “Cheney?” Sebastian said. “You can’t tell me you don’t have an opinion about this.”

  I still avoided looking at him.

  He took a deep breath. “Will you have to be a part of the spell? Can the coven not do it without you?”

  “Maybe. But if they could do it, it would take all of them, and possibly my grandmother, too. Then we are looking at potentially five evil witches. Their ability to successfully cast dark magic without me is a big ‘if,’ too.”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t going to risk all of my friends’ lives to take care of another problem I had caused. I had ruined enough lives. “Honestly, I’m the best choice. I’m strong enough to cast alone and maybe I won’t turn. Grandma had to have used dark magic when she cursed me and she didn’t turn. Strength is in my bloodline.”

  “Okay, let’s not make any rash decisions. Surely we can find a dark practitioner. Maybe none of you will have to do this,” Sy offered.

  “Even if you do, then what? We can’t trust someone who is essentially evil. What if they find the Pole and try to use it themselves? We’ll be making a bad situation even worse. Right now the priestess hasn’t done anything here. We have time to find it and dispose of it before anyone is hurt. Bringing an outsider in when I can handle it seems risky.”

  “I don’t think you should do it, Selene,” Sebastian said. “As you said, it hasn’t been used here that we know of. Maybe it won’t be. If the priestess took it to another world, maybe that is what she wanted it for to begin with. When and if it is used, couldn’t we just follow the Pole from that point?”

  Cheney shook his head. “Save your breath, Sebastian. Telling her not to do something is the same as begging for her to do it. Selene isn’t going to risk the Pole being brought back here given what it can do.” I nodded. “That said, there are other considerations this time. You aren’t just risking your life. We need a lot more information about what could happen and what all of our options are before we take any steps.”