Page 25 of Muddled Magic

Breath stilling in the back of my throat, I approached the gap in the double doors as more crashing resounded within. Realizing my glowing fingers might give myself away, I shoved them behind my back. There was no way I was releasing my magic until I knew what was going on.

“—supposed to be easy,” Otter was whining.

There were no lights on in the library, save for the hurricane lamp whose green flame was dancing a frantic jig, and the flashes of lightning that had started to streak the sky beyond the diamond panes of glass.

“Does this look like it was easy?” Marten exploded, shoving a slick, glistening, red-covered hand and arm into his cousin’s face. The sleeve of that arm had been shredded, tatters of black fabric whispering against his skin and sticking.

Thistle thorns! What that his blood? Or someone else’s? I’d seen blood before—hello, thorny rose bushes and ornery roosters—but never like that. My stomach heaved, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from retching.

“Quit flinging blood over my books,” Buck said sharply. It was some mercy of the Green Mother that Stoat, still secure in the chest harness, was fast asleep, despite all the ruckus.

Aunt Eranthis was there—void of her usual thick eyeliner and coral-colored lipstick—and so was Grandmother, the first helping Buck move a bunch of librarian knickknacks from the closest research table while the latter approached Marten and slapped him across the face.

“You were told—”

“I did as you instructed,” Marten protested.

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be bleeding all over the carpet.” She snapped her fingers at Aunt Eranthis as she moved to the high-arching windows and the storm beyond. “Get him stitched up.”

Marten grunted as Otter and Buck held him and his arm down on the table in front of the lantern. “That hurts!”

“Drink this,” Otter said, handing him a vial. “It tastes like rotting eggs, but you’re going to want it.”

Marten flipped the cork off the vial with his thumb and downed the oily substance, immediately wincing. “Ugh.”

“Don’t you dare add your vomit to your blood on my carpet,” Buck warned.

Marten shot him a furious look then turned to our aunt as she laid her sewing kit on the table like they were surgical instruments. “Can’t you use magic, Eranthis?”

“There’s no magic that you possess that can heal this,” Aunt Eranthis said calmly as she put on her glasses and began threading a needle. “It’s designed that way. For you to suffer. But we’ll get you cleaned and stitched and packed with poultice and you’ll be as good as new in a few weeks. Probably. Either way, I daresay no one will notice the scar. You’re welcome.”

Despite his toughness and bravado, Marten whimpered as our aunt dabbed and mopped and otherwise got the area on his arm clean enough to work on.

Meanwhile, Grandmother searched for something hidden by the rain, giving an exasperated huff when she saw nothing. Turning back to the others, she demanded, “But you were successful, regardless?”

Tears in his eyes, Marten nodded, jerking his chin to a limp sack by the window. It was then I noticed there were wet footprints by the window too, as if he’d climbed one of the rose trellises to enter the house instead of the front door. Given the kerfuffle and the blood and the secrets of the morning, it was a good guess.

“Should we wake up Forsythia and Tod?” Otter asked. “’Sythia might know a spell to help him, and Tod—”

“No,” came Grandmother’s sharp reply. “At least, not yet.”

I shifted where I hovered at the gap so I could watch her bend down and retrieve the burlap sack. It was no different than the sacks we used to store grain for our chickens and goats, but the contents inside were dripping, and not just from the rain. From where he stood holding Marten’s arm flush against the research-turned-operating table, Buck had noticed the drips too, and was none too pleased about it. Inside his harness, baby Stoat miraculously snoozed on.

Open it. Open it! a morbid little voice inside me urged. I clamped my lips tighter, just in case.

But Grandmother didn’t, instead turning her attention to the flickering hurricane lamp between the windows. “Why is that still green?” she demanded to no one in particular. The little flame snapped back and forth at a frantic pace, relaying the activities of the main hearth.

“Maybe Meadow’s not doing her job at the hearth?” Marten offered.

My glowing hands tightened into fists behind my back. It was just like him to shift the blame off himself and onto someone else, usually me.

Grandmother saw right through his attempt, sending him a scathing look. “The lottery was rigged that she should draw the vigil tonight and not another. I saw the strength of the flame increase—she has loaded the fire with wood and performed the Hearth Protection Spell, as she has been trained to do. If only you were as good at following instructions as she is.”

I smirked at that, but quickly sobered. This was no time to play Who’s Grandmother’s Favorite? There was no time at all, actually, not with the hearth still spitting out counterspells and something wet dripping from the burlap sack clutched in Grandmother’s fist and Marten’s arm being stitched as Aunt Eranthis deftly wove her needle and thread back and forth and—

My back went ramrod straight as I realized with the same sharpness of stepping on a pitchfork that I had just missed an opportunity. A distraction. Probably the only good one I’d ever get to run down the remaining half of the house to challenge the not-dog for the grimoire and get out of here.

When the hurricane lamp suddenly burst like a dropped champagne flute, the little flame flaring three times its size and turning the most brilliant shade of cardinal red, I knew the Green Mother had given me another chance.

---