Page 32 of Muddled Magic

Then my young tabby tomcat was a streak of stripes as he charged towards the farm, leaf litter flying with every racing step of his clawed paws.

There was no time for tears. I plunged through the anti-frost wards, the warmth of the grove easing the chill that had clung to me from the moment I’d entered the tunnels. Another few frantic strides and I was inside the moonflowers, the spell book still clutched to my chest as I adjusted the crystals one-handed into a circle.

Then there was a snap of a twig breaking underfoot, a muted flurry of surprised voices, and I wrenched up from my work to discover the Crafting Circle ladies, all three of them, plus Ame, approaching from the east.

Daphne was armed with her blackthorn shillelagh, Shari with her crochet hooks, and Flora’s beechwood wand was glowing. They were also armed with steaming mugs of coffee, as if the trio were used to indulging their favorite brew while simultaneously fending off whatever ruffians they found in the forest.

“We were already on our way over to talk about last night when your signal flare ward went off,” Flora blurted. “Then we came as fast as we could.”

“Whatever is the matter, dear?” Daphne asked, her attention shifting to a commotion behind me. “And where’s Lewellyn? Are the magic hunters—”

“Where is Sawyer?” Ame demanded just as a white light and an explosion detonated in the orchard.

“Get inside the circle!” I screamed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My friends instantly abandoned their coffee mugs and obeyed, high-stepping over the moonflowers to join me in this tiny gap of turf, and Flora immediately joined me in setting up a protection barrier.

“What have you gotten us into this time, cider witch?” the garden gnome groused.

“Wait,” Shari cried as the shimmering force field rose from the moonflowers. “Ame!”

“That’s my ward out there,” came the caliby’s tart reply, then she vanished into the undergrowth.

Daphne seized Shari’s arm as she tried to follow. “Don’t! She’s a cat, Shari, and a good one too. She knows how to remain unseen.”

Shari still released a keen of desperation before allowing herself to be hugged tight against Daphne’s chest.

“There.” Flora staggered back, clutching the hem of my dress for support, woozy from the sudden discharge of magic. “Jumping hop-toads, Misty—Meadow—why are you out here in just a dress? And where are your boots? It’s freezing out here! And more importantly”—she kicked me in shin—“what on earth is going on?”

“I don’t know who’s out there,” I admitted shakily, “but it doesn’t matter.”

It could be my family, the rival coven who’d cursed us, or even those magic hunters. Not a one of them would I allow to get their hands on this grimoire, especially when it was still cursed and my family still enslaved. Who knew what someone might do with all that power?

Crouching down, I set the wrinkly, black spell book on the ground at my feet. The nearest moonflower vines instantly recoiled, flowers tightening into spirals and tucking their vines closer to their bases like defensive octopi. A green witch’s spell book never caused that kind of reaction; flora and fauna normally strained towards such an artifact, drawn to the goodness of the magic held in its pages.

The parasitic demonic half-heart glinting like an emerald in its cover had driven them away.

“Is that what I think it is?” the garden gnome whispered, backing away. She bumped against Daphne’s legs, and the two older women shifted their embrace to look down at what Flora had called attention to.

The silver letters spelling out HAWTHORNE across the cover were answer enough.

I pulled the demon claw out of my pocket and held it tightly, point down. “Stay back.”

The words were only halfway out of my mouth when my friends reacted, and I realized they weren’t backing away because I had told them, but because they realized someone was standing very close to the protection barrier. Someone who had soundlessly approached.

I yelped as met the light brown eyes of my father, the finest tracker the Hawthorne family had ever known. “D-Dad.”

“That’s your father?” Flora shrilled.

I could empathize with her reaction. My father looked not a day over thirty-five, though I knew him to be older than that. Much older. But green and hearth witchery kept its users young, long-lived. It was only after they’d seen a few centuries did they start to show their age like Grandmother.

“Hi, honey,” he greeted softly, offering a flicker of a strained smile.

He may have startled me, but his presence did nothing to alter my resolve. The barrier was still up, the grimoire still at my feet, the demon claw still in my fist. His freedom was seconds away.

I rammed that claw down as hard as I could.

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