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 ident.i.ty. His lack of magical prowess, what happened to the barrier when he touched her, her sand/gla.s.s 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.

"None of them were pearlescent and all bore an appearance similar to their powers. I wonder…you said you saw her making gla.s.s out of sand, did you not? Plants are not the only things born from the earth."

Ash didn't understand what she was saying. Not the only things born from the earth? What else was there?

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Jezebel sighed, a brooding look appearing in her eyes. Those eyes had seen things long forgotten by the rest of the world.

"You, a vampire who knows nothing of the ways of the earth, probably thought that sand was similar to dirt and that was why she could manipulate it. But did you ever stop to think what dirt was made of?"

He had not. "What IS dirt made of?"

"Many things," she said simply. "It varies based on geography but basic components typically include rocks, sand, clay, and organic matter. Do you know what sand is made of?"

Ash shook his head and Jezebel continued with a wry smile. "Rocks. Do you see the common thread here? The very core of the earth is made of rock. There is far more rock on this planet than there are plants.

"People think of earth fairies as a bunch of lackadaisical plant lovers but forget that there is more to the earth than that. Rock may not be living but life would not be possible without it. I learned that from an earth fairy back in the 1200s. His powers involved the manipulation of stone.

"He was a builder, constructing homes and other necessities for his village of fairies buried deep in the Carpathian Mountains. My mother and I were fleeing persecution at the time and stumbled across their village entirely by chance. They gave us a place to stay and supplies to continue on our journey.

"He could mold stone into any shape as long as he could envision it in his mind's eye. I was but a child then and he gave me an intricately carved stone flower to cheer me up as I cried when we first arrived. I have never forgotten that act of kindness."

That sounded a lot like what Ash had seen Ruby do in the dungeon. She held her hands over a pile of sand and concentrated until it turned into gla.s.s.

"Are you saying R—she has stone powers?"

Jezebel shook her head. "No. At least, not in the way the one I met did. Gla.s.s is made from liquid sand. The melting temperature of sand is incredibly high but your friend is able to bypa.s.s that in the creation process based on what you told me.

"I have a feeling there is much more to her power than meets the eye, especially since you also told me she is capable of making thousands of dollars in a single day. But that is not the mystery you are trying to solve, is it? You want to know why she affects your weak powers."

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