Page 39 of Muddled Magic

Peony’s ivy-green eyes flashed wide, and she whipped around to stare at my mother, who had used her sister’s distraction to reactivate the spell on my cuffs. My aunt turned back to me, eyes brimming with tears. “Meadow, I didn’t—”

“Peony, take your position,” Grandmother said crisply, extending her left hand. Her right hand already held Aunt Hyacinth’s.

Biting her lower lip, Aunt Peony ducked her head and took hold of her mother’s hand. You didn’t need to be a supe to understand what they were about to do: form a circle and break down that barrier.

“Meadow,” Arthur rasped.

It took both Dad and Uncle Badger to restrain the lumberjack shifter with battle magic—normal green magic had barely any effect on him—and Otter monitored Lewellyn’s cage, tendrils of magic twisting from his fingers and finding and fortifying any weak spots. Marten joined the five women—witches preferred multiples of three, you know—and paused at the edge of the barrier.

I only had enough strength to cock my head a fraction of an inch to look up at him.

“I’m going to make sure this hurts,” he hissed down at me.

But my family wasn’t the only one would could make use of a distraction. In the time Marten had taken to gloat, a blur of stripes had raced out of the forest.

“The cat,” Dad shouted.

Arthur shifted at that exact moment, a grizzly roar shattering the air, and the witches tightened their focus. They were not easily rattled, each doubling down on their job, but those precious seconds had been enough. As had Flora’s forethought to alter the crystal barrier’s parameters to let one specific cat through.

Marten’s magical clawed hand snatched only air as Sawyer sprang through the force field. He landed on all fours, sliding through the leaves until he shored up against my immovable form.

“Break down the barrier!” Grandmother shouted.

The six remaining witches scurried to equidistant points around the crystal circle and locking hands. Mom continued to maintain the spell on my cuffs, but like any powerful Hawthorne, she was able to split her magic between more than one spell. The witch on either side of her held onto her shoulder, completing the circle.

“Do it fast,” Dad shouted, fighting with Uncle Badger to restrain the grizzly. “The bear’s too strong!”

As the coven began to chant, the force field no longer invisible but now a persistent opalescent shimmer, Sawyer climbed up to my shoulder and gave my head a quick nuzzle. “I’ll always come back for you too,” he said. Then he asked, “What do I need to do?”

There was only one thing that could help us now, if at all.

“Get that parasite bracelet off my wrist,” I ordered.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Whatever bond of friendship, of love, of loyalty we had created all these months kept the parasite bracelet from repelling Sawyer in a blast of heat and scorched fur. Mostly. The magic recognized him, albeit reluctantly, and half-heartedly resisted as the tomcat worked to release the bracelet. The thorns didn’t dig as deeply into my skin this time, though they still dragged bloody rents in mimicry of the scars left behind on my forearm from the glamoured not-dog.

His little white teeth gnawed and chewed, but he quickly learned that the magic of the bracelet made it impervious to such abuse. It needed to be pulled of, which had been easy for me as the bracelet’s true bearer, but was proving rather frustrating for him.

The little cat hooked his bottom teeth under the band, dug his claws into my arm, and wrestled-pulled-tugged it down my hand. The protesting bracelet zapped him over and over again with bursts of white light like sparks of electricity, and soon his whiskers were smoking. His amber eyes were dark slits to protect against the sparks, and I didn’t know if he was drooling so much because the bracelet was hurting his mouth, or if he thought lubrication would remove the bracelet faster, but if I could actually move, I would’ve shuddered in revulsion.

Beyond our little microcosm within the crystal barrier, the shadowy shapes of the coven continued to chant. The force field had transformed from a sheer opalescence to a translucent white. At our feet, the crystals glowed the same color of white as they were systematically overloaded. The barrier was on the verge of shattering.

“Hurry,” I urged.

“Almost… there…” he grunted. The smell of burning fur singed my nostrils.

As Sawyer reangled himself, balancing on and bracing against my hand while he attempted to tug the bracelet off, I summoned my magic. Fighting against the paralysis brought on by the cuffs with a dampened core was useless—my first foray against that spell have proven that. But the moment that parasite bracelet was gone, I would be ready. Each breath grounded me even more, sharpened my focus, fueled the seed of my magic. It was like the revving engine of a race car on the starting line, gears and wheels spinning, waiting impatiently to be unleashed.

With a pained mew, Sawyer shoved himself away, dropping the last few feet to the trampled grass and dragging the parasite bracelet down with him.

The seed of my magical core exploded with life.

Time seemed to slow as my inner eye was blinded by gold-green light. My chest seemed to expand to make room for the arching canopy, my legs lengthening to accommodate the roots. The magic tree saw the spell constraining it as two sparking red bands around its trunk and drove right into it. It didn’t need the amazonite pendant, only itself. Magic channeled down from every root and branch, expanding the trunk until the red bands thinned and cracked.

The bands exploded, their sparks snuffed out in the wind of my magic. Distantly, I heard Mom screaming as I burned through her spell.

My sight returned to the physical world, focusing on the runes of my cuffs that now burned with golden-green light instead of red, just before the crystal barrier shattered.

---