Page 17 of Muddled Magic

Finally, finally, my incessant pinging bothered him enough that he seized my most recent ping and flung it back at me. His intent was to deliver the equivalent of a sucker punch right between the eyes, and I let him. It was the only way he’d find me.

Crying out, I clutched my head in my hands as fireworks exploded across my vision. It wasn’t as brutal as the ricochet of my own battle magic, but the attack had struck tender flesh, and it was akin to pouring salt on a fresh wound. Followed by lemon juice. Then cayenne pepper.

Stifling a sob, I extracted a healing tendril of magic from my core and sent it to my head. The throbbing lessened then receded all together, and I was ready to try again.

Ping.

Boar hadn’t moved from his location. Clearly I hadn’t been annoying enough for him to abandon whatever he was doing to come find his tormentor.

Ping.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

He hurled another ping back at me, but it was less forceful this time. More curious.

This one felt like a migraine; another healing tendril massaged the pain away until I could concentrate and try again. If my body pressed against the tree cage and my cramped hand and bent pinky finger weren’t bothering me before, they sure were now.

Ping.

Boar was closer now, having finally decided to investigate.

Thank the Green Mother. I slumped back in my prison, drawing in a shaky, ragged breath before crossing my legs under me into a more comfortable position. Then I cupped the amazonite pendant Grandmother had given me all those years ago and drew upon the magic I’d stored within it. I healed every ounce of my tired self, but even magic couldn’t wet my parched tongue or restore the energy I received from food.

It was long past my dinnertime and evening teatime, and the moon was high in the sky when I finally heard footsteps on the barren rock and a male voice calling, panicked, “Meadow? By the Green Mother! Meadow, are you in there?”

“Hi, Boar,” I groaned, rising. “Thanks for coming.”

“What are you doing inside a tree?”

“Communing with my inner dryad. What do you think I’m doing? Marten locked me in here.”

“Why?” Shadows flitted across my face as his hands roved over my prison, interrupting the beams of moonlight as he searched for a weakness to exploit.

“Because he thinks I’m trying sabotage him! But I’m really just—” I choked off my words then, not sure how to explain exactly what I’d seen. A parasite shadow-thing embedded in the gemstone of our own grimoire had sucked magic out of Aunt Hyacinth and our cousin Otter. Parasites didn’t just infiltrate a coven’s home and take up residence in their grimoires. Someone had planted it there. The very thought that someone could have successfully attacked the great Hawthorne coven in this way was as ludicrous as it was laughable. On any other day except today.

“Are you, Meadow?” Boar asked suspiciously. “Sabotaging him?”

Boar hadn’t seen what I had, would take my declaration that we’d been attacked and sabotaged as an outlandish lie and quite probably leave me in here for Grandmother to deal with.

“Of course not,” I said, adding indignation to my voice, just in case. “He’s just nuts!”

“I knew that story about you skipping dinner to go sulk somewhere was a bunch of horse pucky. I’ve never met a Hawthorne who’d pass up a home-cooked meal to do, well, anything.” Then he stepped back, assessing. “Something wrong with your cuffs?”

“Not at all. Gave myself a nice shiner before you came.”

“Marten spelled it so you couldn’t break free, huh?” Boar grunted. “Step back as far as you can and get low.”

I did as he asked, hunching myself into a ball and giving a muffled, “Do it.”

Spheres of dark green magic ballooned from his palms, and Boar raked his iron cuffs against each other, activating the runes. His brown eyes glowed a dark green as he harnessed his battle magic, spreading his fingers wide before hooking their tips into the gaps in the sapling lattice.

What looked like glowing green threads radiated outward from his hands, tracing the lines of the trees’ own capillaries. They infiltrated everywhere in a matter of seconds, my prison becoming alive with green light, then Boar shouted, “Look away!”

The cage shattered into a shower of green sparks and beige wood pulp.

“You alright, Meadow?”

I popped out of the sawdust like a crocus from the winter snow and set off at a sprint. “Come on,” I urged. “There’s not much time until the moon is high and Marten makes the worst mistake of his life.”

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