Page 20 of Muddled Magic

The pressure insistently vanished, and I wheezed, twisting onto my belly so I could get my hands and knees under me. Two massive hands on my shoulders yanked me up to my feet so fast the blood rushed to my head and made me stumble.

“Put on another fifty pounds of muscle and I think you could actually take me,” Boar said, mussing the top of my head and teasing free wisps of brown hair from my braid. I swatted his hand away, still frustrated with how the fight had ended.

“Who knew you were as a scrappy as me?” Rose said, swaggering over to whump me in the shoulder. “Going after the groin like that? I like your style.”

“You could use that move on Marten whenever he next decides to show up to practice,” Lilac suggested, looking as lovely in athleticwear as she did in her dresses. “No doubt he’s gone soft after missing these past few days.”

Ever since he’d been bound to the grimoire, Marten hadn’t shown up to our morning training sessions. He’d looked a little sickly too, whenever I managed to spy a glimpse of him. We’d all speculated why, and not all the reasons were charitable.

Only I knew the truth—the parasite had leeched magic from his core.

“Practice is over,” Dad announced suddenly, no doubt wanting to nip that line of conversation in the bud. “Hit the showers.”

“Yes, Coach,” Otter said in a singsong voice, earning the thirty-five-year-old a mild slap on the fanny from his mother.

I felt Dad’s gaze on me as I fell in step with the others, traipsing across the training field back to the manor. Summer mornings were less hot, but they certainly weren’t less humid, and all of us were far more than damp—we squished in places that shouldn’t ever squish.

As we filed into the house through the kitchen door, Aunt Peony was there with a tray. “Here’s a recovery juice for you,” she said, handing out whiskey glasses of greenish-brown sludge, “and one for you, and one for you. Oh, this one’s for you, Boar. Extra Boswellia and turmeric.”

One by one, we winced and drank the foul brew, snaking around the big trestle table to put our empty glasses right into the kitchen sink. As we left the kitchen to disperse to our individual rooms to shower and prepare for the rest of the day, some diverted to the chalkboard hanging by the archway that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house.

PANCAKES & HAM was written across the top, and anyone who wanted a portion knew to pick up the chalk and write their names down beneath it so Aunt Peony would know how much to make. I surprised my family for the second time that day when I wrote my name under Boar’s. I was a latte-and-eggs-with-apple-butter-on-toast kinda gal eight days a week unless it was a holiday, but I need the extra energy Aunt Peony’s pancakes would provide.

How am I going to get that grimoire away from that not-dog? Stepping into the shower, I hoped the hot water and steam would loosen a revelation from the depths of my mind.

The lock on the door was no trouble—the key hung on a peg right on the doorframe—but that thing guarding the door was trained to attack, maybe even kill, anyone who had no business messing around with that spell book.

And then there was the whole escaping-the-manor thing after I had the spell book in my possession without being caught. I had that ward-disabled unmarked car already prepared, but I still needed to sneak out of the house without alerting any one of my forty relatives.

After that…

My gaze turned to the southern windows as I wrapped myself in a towel, my little goldfish plant on the sill there bobbing in the eddies left by the steam currents. I wiped away the condensation from the window with a swipe of my hand, letting it drip into the soil, and stared at the dark forest beyond the manor walls.

That’s where I would be going. Sure, I’d left the Hawthorne estate before, but never like this. Never without family. Never with a stolen spell book.

I started to tremble. They’ll hunt me down for this. There was a reason why the Hawthornes were renowned amongst witches. We were as loving as we were ruthless, and we had battle magic.

So you stay hidden! Hide in a place they’d never think to look, keep your head down, and free them.

My trembling ceased as my hands tightened into fists. Then I help them find who did this to our family.

CHAPTER TEN

I was cramming the last bite of ham and syrup-slathered pancakes into my mouth, my stomach already fit to bursting, when Mom approached the trestle table where I ate with Boar and the rest of the family not deathly afraid of eating carbs at every meal.

“Meadow,” she prompted, “I know the chores list has you designated for the vegetable garden again, but you’ll be with me today.”

“Helping you… teach?” I had nothing against my younger nieces and nephews—technically my first cousins once removed, though no one ever called them that—I actually adored children, but I was not in the right headspace for it. And kids saw everything and said everything, having no filter on their little mouths, and I couldn’t have one of the cleverer children suspecting what I was up to and then blabbing to someone who could actually do something to stop me.

“No,” Mom answered. “Aunt Hyacinth has the whole class today. It’s just us.”

“Oh.”

Boar leaned down to whisper at me, “What’d you do to piss off your mom?”

I elbowed him in the ribs. “Nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

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