Page 71 of Perfectly Charmed Pixie

“Ah yes… Well, they would have to find out first, now wouldn’t they?” Letty winked, twirling away and walking off toward a side table.

Her loose skirt flared out, revealing a familiar ombre aqua pattern. Cream-colored at the top, Letty’s skirt darkened to deep aqua at the bottom. Did she know what she’d done? Did Letty Fox have any idea how deeply her obsession with Parsnip had affected her?

“You think they won’t?” I barely kept the fear from my voice.

Letty shrugged as if it wasn’t important. Ignoring my question, she reached for the table and picked up something I recognized: Byx’s magical storage charm.

“This is a very interesting piece of work.” Letty shifted the small stone this way and that. “Not just warlock casting, but witch too. And if I’m not mistaken, and let’s face it, I’m never wrong”—off to the side, Franny sighed her agreement—“it’s filled with brownie magic.”

Letty stared at Byx’s stone, desire laid bare. The level of sheer want filling her pale blue eyes stole my breath and sped my heart.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She licked her lips. “I can feel it pulsing, just out of reach. Imagine what one could do with all this untamed, wild brownie magic.” Letty shivered, eyes glazed. “Trust me, warlock, I can imagine a lot.”

I swallowed hard, fear taking over my rage as I watched Letty’s attention zero in on Byx. “She’s still young and so full of power.” Letty’s eyes slid shut, both hands clasped over Byx’s charm. “Tell me, warlock, how do you get it out? How do you use it?”

Several realizations hit me. One, Letty was under the very misguided notion that I was the one benefiting from Byx’s brownie magic. Two, she hadn’t the slightest clue how she thought I did that. And three, Letty had a bigger ambition than destroying Parsnip. I supposed you could add on a fourth realization, although this one wasn’t difficult to figure out.

Letty Fox was batshit crazy.

I sat there, hating that I was on my knees with no way to change my position. I looked like I was kneeling before Letty, and that grated more than the burning in my thighs. I needed to think, needed to push my fears aside and figure a way out of this. I needed to get Byx somewhere safe, and I needed to keep Parsnip as far away from Letty and Franny as possible. I just wished I had a fucking clue how to do that.

“Warlock?” Letty’s tone lowered, head tilted and eyes narrowed. “You’ll find that my patience is limited, and what there once was of it has been whittled away by that fraud of a pixie who stole my job.”

“Your job?”

Letty’s lips twisted. “I was supposed to be the host ofInterspecies Habitat. They were all set to pick me until Parsnip showed up.” Letty said Parsnip’s name as if she were spitting poison.

For the first time, I chuckled. “That’s not what I heard.”

Letty’s eyes went ice-cold. “You’d listen to a pathetic, lying pixie. And you even know he’s lying.” With a hand gripped around Byx’s charm, Letty strode forward, her long limbs quickly eating up the space between us. “Lance told me everything.” She grinned, triumphant hate gleaming in her eyes. “I know it all. Now, all I need to do is get it on video. I’ll upload the great reveal and prove to everyone that I was right all along. I will destroy Parsnip’s reputation. His fans will hate him for his deception. And even if they don’t hate him for lying, no one will want to watch a gray-colored pixie.”

I didn’t hide my surprise well enough.

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Letty bounced back, all bubbles and joy again. “Lance said you might not. You made Parsnip’s charm, but you don’t even know what you’re covering up.” Throwing her arms out, Letty spun in a circle with her head thrown back, her light laughter cutting like razorblades through my mind.

“You made the charm, but you didn’t truly know. Oh…how deliciously sweet. You’ll see too. You’ll see how bland and boring Parsnip really is. No one wants a dull pixie.” Letty shook her head. “Honestly, I’ll be doing Parsnip a favor, handing him over to Franny. At least he’ll still be wanted. Franny won’t care about his color. The dust should still be just as effective.”

I’d never felt so cold in all my life.

“I get the pixie,” Franny parroted, eager glee evident.

“Of course. I promised, didn’t I?”

Franny nodded so hard I thought her head might tumble off. “You did.”

“And I always follow through with my promises. My last coven found that out. A little too late, but that was on them, not me.” Shrugging, Letty dismissed thoughts of her previous coven and whatever had happened to them, focusing on Byx’s charm again.

“Now, back to this lovely, exquisite, magic-filled masterpiece. Tell me how I release the magic and maybe I’ll let you leave this basement alive.”

I had no illusion that Letty Fox would follow through with that dangled carrot. Even if I thought she would, I wouldn’t have told her a damn thing beyond “you can’t. It’s for Byx’s use and her use alone. It doesn’t do anyone else a damn bit of good.”

That wasn’t completely true. Brownie magic was specific to the individual. When Georgiana had been dying due to magical drainage, no other brownie could have cured her. That’s why we were banking Byx’s magic. However, warlocks and witches weren’t magic. We used it. We manipulated and contorted it to fit our needs. In that sense, Byx’s stored magic was a gold mine. That’s why Letty wanted to break into it so badly. What she didn’t know, what I couldn’t let her find out, was that Byx was the only one that could do that. She was the only one that could release the magic within for another to use. Theoretically, Mattie and I could activate the charm if Byx wasn’t capable, but in that case, the magic could only do one thing—siphon into Byx.

Letty rolled the charmed stone within the palm of her hand. “You don’t say.” Fisting the stone, she once again focused on Byx’s still unconscious form. “I wonder if your brownie will tell the same story?”

I swallowed down my rising fear. Earlier, I’d prayed to Gaia for Byx to wake up. Now all I wanted her to do was stay unconscious.

“The answer won’t change,” I bravely bluffed.

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