Page 15 of Muddled Magic

How could he be light-hearted and joking at a time like this? Did he not remember what had just happened to him? A shadow-thing had shoved its tentacle arm into his chest and sucked out a gulp of his magic!

“I know that!” There was a sound of a book swatting an arm. “Let me take this back to where it belongs, and you go tell your aunt Peony she can harvest the wine caps but the chestnut mushrooms are off limits until they’re the size of golf balls. Shoo.”

There were two sounds of retreating footsteps, one in each direction, and as I dared peek out from behind my curtain, I spied Aunt Hyacinth adjusting her hair in the reflection of the furthest window before bustling back to the grimoire’s special closet.

What the?

She’s adjusting her hair? And is that Otter whistling?

Did no one just see what I just saw? That the gemstone embedded in the grimoire was possessed with some sort of shadow creature that had just stolen itself a magical snack? And did it feed off just Aunt Hyacinth and Otter only, or from the other robed elders of the coven as well?

By the Green Mother, was that what was going to happen to Marten tonight?

Marten Tod Hawthorne might be the most arrogant, conceited, self-centered butthead in the world, but he was still my brother. Even he didn’t deserve that.

Throwing the curtain aside, I sprinted away to find him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Briars take your eyes, Meadow,” Marten cursed, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “That stupid Scouting Spell has me seeing stars!”

Fighting for breath, I braced my hands on my knees when I reached the summit of a rocky hill. There was barely enough soil for the trees up here to cling to, not with the wind whipping it free, but sometimes they found a way.

“Thistle thorns,” I rejoined with my own curse. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” And for hours, I didn’t add.

I’d checked all his usual haunts, trying to maintain a cavalier, disinterested attitude even while inside I was freaking out, but he wasn’t sneaking beer from the kegs or risking his neck on top of the gazebo or swimming in the lake or lazing in his favorite settee in the main library with a book. Aunt Peony didn’t know where he was either, though she’d given me a piece of her mind for losing both her sauce-making helpers for the day, working herself up into such a tizzy she began slinging tomatoes around like they were grenades. Uncle Stag had quickly escorted me from the kitchen then, and I’d sent a Scouting Spell after Marten.

“What are you doing in the northern hills?” I blustered. We only really came up here when Rose wanted to go camping.

“So there’s no one around to see me do this.”

And just like that, I was immobile. Face reddening in outrage, I screamed at him, but no sound came out of my mouth. There were invisible bands tightening my arms against my sides, flattening my palms against my thighs. Without the use of my hands, I couldn’t direct my magic, much less strike my iron cuffs together and defend myself with battle magic.

Wafting glowing green fingers in the air between us, Marten explained in a conversational tone, “Dad’s got a bit of air magic in him, did you know that? I think that’s what makes him such a good tracker—he can sense scents on the wind better than any of us. Understands the path of air and what kind of route it took to reach him. I’ve learned to harness mine, which is why you’re trapped in a wind barrier. Pity you haven’t learned to use yours, if you even have any.”

Bending down, he tapped his glowing fingers against the rocks around my feet as if they were piano keys, and saplings rose from dormant seeds. He must have scattered them along this ground in advance, and they entwined together around me in a tight mesh. When he straightened from his crouch, his brown eyes were hard. Accusing.

“I knew you’d try to stop me at least once more before moonrise,” he said flatly.

“I’m trying to save you, stupid!” I screamed at him, my lips moving soundlessly once again.

“The Green Mother knows what you had planned for me when you found me, no doubt alone and unsuspecting. You’re my sister,” he spat at me as the trees continued their entwining embrace. “You’re supposed to support me, not undercut me at every turn!”

“Marten, no! Let me out of here!”

While he couldn’t read my lips or hear my words, he could understand my expression enough to know it had evolved from anger to panic as the saplings wove in tight, sealing me away in this trunk of a prison.

“They’re spelled to die after I’m confirmed,” he told me, almost begrudgingly. “You won’t be in there forever, but by all means, scream your heart out. No one will hear you.”

And with that, the winding saplings cinched tight, trapping me in the dark.

Marten’s wind barrier lifted the moment I was encased, and I wasted no time dragging my iron cuffs against each other and activating my battle magic. Slamming a palm wreathed in ivy-green magic and sparking with red cinders against the smooth inside of the trunk only ricocheted my attack straight back into me. It was like deliberately leaning into one of Boar’s haymaker strikes.

And like one of Boar’s haymaker strikes, I was knocked unconscious.

Thistle… thorns…

My nose was itchy, and there was something salty and coppery in my mouth.

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