In a Witch's Heart: Witches in the City

By Diana Morland

Eighteen years is a long time to sleep when there's an evil faerie attacking your city. But Sophie Garcia didn't have a choice—and now that she's awake, she has even bigger problems. Her magic has been locked out of her reach by the same curse that sent her to sleep, and no one she knows is left alive in the city.

Joyce Mandel doesn't know she's working for a powerful magical being. She doesn't even know magic exists until Sophie comes knocking on her door. And when she realizes who she's been working for, she will not believe that Sophie is on her side.

With Sophie's magic forcing them to work together, will the two women find a way to break down barriers and save themselves—or will their enmity break their hearts and doom the city?

The powerful conclusion to the Witches in the City series, in which love finally conquers all!

• Language: English
• Publisher: LoveLight Press
• Release date: Feb 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524210182

Book preview

In a Witch's Heart

In a Witch’s Heart

Witches in the City: Book 5

Diana Morland

Chapter 1

Joyce

I scan through the paperwork in front of me one more time. Yes, this all looks like it’s in order. Are you sure you don’t want to advertise for new tenants? Rents are going up all over the city, and I’m sure you could ask for quite a bit more.

No, thank you, I wish it to be vacant for now, my client says.

I want to ask her why, but when I look up at her, she is gazing back at me, and I forget the question.

My plans are moving along well. Soon I will have the city. Aren’t you pleased?

Of course I am. She’s been telling me so much about the reforms she’s going to make in this city. I can hardly wait.

That is all for today.

Great, then. Everything is in order and the client seems happy. It’s a Saturday, and I’m ready to go home to my dog.

I’ll contact you if I need you again. My client stands.

I don’t have any way to contact her; I don’t know her address, phone number, or even name. The thought floats across my mind and is gone.

I stand, too, and shake her hand. She blinks her bright green eyes at me and leaves.

I sit back down to shut off the computer with a sigh. Stuck in the office on a weekend again. But she’s an important client, powerful (or she will be powerful soon), and anyway, I had no excuse to get out of it. Maybe if I had a girlfriend, someone to go home to…

I snort at my own thoughts as I lock up. Do I think the perfect girl is going to come walking through the front door of the law firm, asking for Joyce Mandel? If I want her, I have to go out looking.

Not tonight, though. Tonight I’m too tired. I’m just going to go home and watch a movie on my couch with Bonbon. That’s enough.

Sophie

A month later

The first thing I find myself aware of is that it’s cold.

The second thing is that it’s dark, but not completely.

The third thing is that I’m waking up, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to wake up. I thought I was gone forever, just like Bea. But here I am, lying on my back on exposed concrete, where it’s damp and dark and very quiet.

Then it’s not quiet, as a train rushes past, and I sit up hastily as I remember where I am.

Thankfully, I haven’t fallen anywhere close to the subway tracks—I couldn’t have, of course, or I wouldn’t be waking up at all. I certainly wouldn’t be waking up twenty years later.

I draw up my knees and rest my elbows on them so I can put my head in my hands. My head is throbbing, and this position makes it easier to contemplate the thought I’ve just had.

Have I really been down here, asleep, for twenty years?

I can’t be sure. But I know it’s been a long time, long enough for a person to grow from childhood to adulthood. I don’t know how I know that, but that knowledge rests somewhere deep in my bones, and I can tell it’s very true, the way I still know I’m a witch and I still know I’m a woman, though I’m so numb I can hardly feel my own body.

I take a deep breath and lift my head. The throbbing is starting to slow. I recognize where I am now; under the steps at the abandoned subway station where Bea and I fought the Tylwyth Teg. Thank goodness, Bea’s body is nowhere to be seen. Someone probably found her.

But they couldn’t find me.

I don’t see the Tylwyth Teg’s body, either, and I know I injured her badly. So either someone found her, her body vanished in the way some fae bodies do, or she’s still alive. I don’t much like that last possibility, but I have to find out which is right.

No matter what’s happened to me or to anyone else, no matter how much time has passed, this is still my city, and I still have to defend it.

I stand up slowly, holding my hand above my head so I don’t knock myself silly on the underside of the stairs. I make my way out into a an area that’s a little more brightly lit and lean against the column that holds up the stairs. Now that I have my bearings a little better, and my head is clearing, I can get out the same way I got in.

Magic.

I reach into my pocket for my wand—my clothes seem to have been preserved by the same magical process that kept me asleep and hidden, but not dying of starvation, for so many years—and grip it for a moment before pulling it out, feeling its reassuring firmness. Fae magic destroyed my favorite crystal, but this wand served me well against the Tylwyth Teg.

Maybe not well enough. But it will help me get out of here and finish what I started all those years ago, if I haven’t finished it already. I clench my teeth and give myself a little nod, steeling myself for what’s next. Find out whether it’s done—then worry about other things, like figuring out what became of Bea’s little girl.

I lift my wand and whisper the word to light it with a glow that is more than illumination, the thread of magic that will show me the way out of here.

Nothing happens.

My breath catches in my throat and I clutch my wand in panic. I bring it close to my face to make sure nothing is wrong with it, but I see nothing and really, I know it isn’t the wand. If the focus were at fault, then the magic might be weak but it would be there.

I close my eyes, still my body, and look deep within myself. A witch’s magic isn’t something that can be found by any physical or mental means, but I know it’s there, no matter what. I inherited it from my mother, and if I ever have a daughter, she’ll have it, too. It’s a part of me.

It’s there, all right. But I can’t access it. Magic isn’t available to me.

I swear aloud and throw the wand at the opposite wall. It clatters to the ground and I stalk over, fuming, to pick it up. How dare she. How dare she!

Apparently I had my priorities mixed up. If I can find out what happened to the Tylwyth Teg, great. But the first thing I’m going to have to do is find my key—my other half. My magic’s been locked away from me, and there’s someone out there who can help me unlock it.

I don’t know who she is. I don’t have any living relatives, and they would have been my first choice. Whoever she is, she may be a