Reconstructionist Series: Introducing Wisteria

Wisteria Fairchild narrates my newest novel, Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1) aka the first book in the Reconstructionist trilogy. But I first introduced Wisteria in Dowser 3, then again in Dowser 4.

From Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)

Just before dawn, a knock at the suite door pulled me away from watching Mory sleep. I’d been worrying that she hadn’t woken yet, but was also fretting about waking her to feed her if she needed the sleep to heal.

I’d ordered food the second the kitchen had opened, so I thought the knock was room service. Instead, I opened the door to find a dark-blond woman around twenty-five standing in the hall. She was a couple of inches shorter than my five feet nine inches. Her hair was pulled back and up in a French twist that wouldn’t last an hour on me, and every well-tailored piece of clothing on her dripped money — all without my recognizing a single label, because there weren’t any.

“Jade Godfrey?” she asked politely, already knowing the answer. Her slight accent identified her as American.

I met her gaze and flinched. Her blue witch magic curled and coiled behind her eyes so tightly that I couldn’t distinguish their actual color.

She furrowed her brow at my flinch. I transferred my gaze to her hands where her magic also pooled, though not as intensely as behind her eyes.

“I know you,” I said, and I met her gaze without flinching a second time. Her magic was heavily doused in nutmeg — which wasn’t a scent I associated with witch magic — along with the sweet floral tones I would have expected. Sweet nutmeg was an odd combination.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’m Wisteria Fairchild. The reconstructionist.”

From Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4):

I could see Wisteria settling into a table at the farthest corner of the cafe and ordering something from the server. A tea, I guessed. Oddly, the chairs closest to her had been lifted and flipped onto their tables as if the floor was about to be scrubbed.

Wisteria’s dark blond hair was pulled back into the perfectly smooth French twist she had worn the last time I saw her. Her cornflower-blue, pristinely pressed cotton dress was belted in white to create an empire waist. She looked as if she were about to attend a wedding, but this was everyday attire for the witch. The blue of the dress was a couple of shades lighter than the magic I could see pooled in the palms of her folded hands.

Kett was somewhere in the shadows of one of the storefront stoops just ahead of me. I could taste his magic rather than see him. “Why are you hunting the reconstructionist?” I whispered into the dark night.

“Why do you assume I’m hunting anyone?” Kett murmured back without revealing himself.

“Well, you aren’t working together. Are you? Or dating? Do vampires even date?”

“Your words indicate jealousy, warrior’s daughter.”

“But my tone sounds concerned.”

“Indeed.” Kett laughed. “I would not be hunting a Fairchild witch without permission.”

“Whose permission? And do you have it?”

Kett didn’t answer.

“Have you even met her?” I asked.

“Not officially.”

“And this isn’t any of my business.”

“Not even remotely.”

I sighed. I had my own reasons for being in Seattle, for meeting with the reconstructionist. I wasn’t here to police Kett or Wisteria, if she’d done something to get on the Conclave’s radar.

“She saw you die in London,” I said.

“Yes,” Kett answered. “Perhaps it is best left at that.”

Find out why Wisteria holds her magic so tightly and why Kett was in Seattle – or at least the beginning of their story – in Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1).

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