Page 11 of Big Little Spells

I’m forced to wonder if this is what keeps the Joywood on top around here. I spent years in exile turning over things like this in my head, wondering why the magical center of the world always seemed to devolve into petulance and spite and figured it was just people.

But now I wonder if the endless pettiness that is the Joywood’s specialty isn’t despite their power. The pettiness is their power.

I crack open the cover and begin to flip through my pages, and Ellowyn stands next to me, comparing. She’s required to attend many of the same things I am—the hideous Beltane prom chief among them, to atone for her sins. But I have more things listed than she does—classes, practicums, all leading up to the grand pubertatum in June at Litha.

Worse, I remember all of this. It’s exactly what they made us do as seniors.

Like...exactly.

I can only assume Ellowyn is spared the full scope of this humiliation because she already passed the test once. While us spell dim get double the punishment for being anything but.

“Looks like we’re going back to high school,” Ellowyn says, but then lets out a laugh. A bleak one. “Does that mean I have to dye my hair black again? I’m going to need to stock up on the eye makeup that makes me look like I’m bruised, I guess. I gave that up in celebration of my twenties.”

I want to throw out my own joke in response to Ellowyn’s, but I’m having trouble finding the humor here. This is meant to embarrass us. Humiliate us. Just because they can. At least if they wanted to kill me it’d feel like we were equals. Or at least like we were all adults.

Again, I think—if a bit distantly as I contemplate the horror of witch prom—that maybe that’s the whole point.

But I really don’t like it.

“You okay?” Ellowyn asks me warily.

I have no idea what face I’m making, but I can feel that dark black rage choke me. Worse, I recognize it. It’s the same righteous fury that had me facing down the Joywood when I was seventeen, ready to prove to them exactly who I really was—and who Emerson could have been if Carol hadn’t mind wiped her. Just like that. Cutting her down to size in a single, brutal second, not even waiting for the usual ceremony.

Emerson bustles in from the kitchen, followed by Jacob. He’s holding a slim binder like Ellowyn’s and Georgie’s. His face is grim.

Emerson’s expression is one of bouncing excitement. “Jacob said Felix Sewell stopped by and brought him a binder that—Oh, is that mine?” she asks, practically rubbing her hands together at the prospect of the thick binder.

I hold hers out to her. “Apparently.”

She takes it like it’s a baby, smoothing over the cover and then opening it to gaze at the pages. She begins to flip through it—magically—frowning slightly like she’s committing all the information to memory. Right now. She looks up at me, eyes bright and shining with excitement. “Isn’t it great?”

“Great?” I echo.

Ellowyn just glares, as if too offended by the smiling to speak.

“It’s a very clear to-do list of what we have to do to win.”

“Em.” Ellowyn shakes her head. “The enemy doesn’t supply you the tools you need to beat them. It’s almost certainly a trap.”

Emerson looks wholly undaunted. “If we do everything to the letter, they can’t punish us. It isn’t about beating them.” She considers, then amends. “Not necessarily. It’s about proving we were right all along—not just to them, but to the next generation.”

Now we are both staring at her as if she’s lost her mind.

This is familiar ground, though. Maybe too familiar. Must everything feel like high school?

Except there’s something to what she’s saying that gives me that strange...disordered feeling. Like when my visions are fractured. I push the odd feeling away as Emerson waves a hand.

“We don’t have to discuss it now, of course, but I think it’s clear the Joywood can’t go on. They’re broken. Corrupt, maybe. At the very least they need some competition. Why not us?”

I can think of approximately twenty million reasons it shouldn’t be us, and especially not me, taking on the Joywood in Ascension—the ritual that decides the ruling coven. Ascension has always been a boring affair as much as I can recall, and the Joywood are never challenged. But I know that look in Emerson’s eye. There’s no talking her out of this current crusade, or any other wild idea she has, so we need to shift the topic. “And how do you feel about all this?” I ask Jacob, waving the binder at him.

Jacob clears his throat. “I think it’s meant to embarrass us, so in that way, I think Emerson has the right of it. We shouldn’t let it.”

“And in what way does Emerson have the wrong of it?” Ellowyn demands. Earning a frown from Emerson and an uncomfortable look from Jacob.

“Well...”

Emerson glares at him, but he shrugs. “I agree with Ellowyn. They’re not after helping us. They don’t want you and Rebekah to prove you have power, to take your rightful places in witch society, or wield your magic openly. They’ll find a way to make it not happen. This is—” he holds up his binder and shakes his head “—a distraction.”

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