Page 13 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

Pinching her lips together, she nodded.

“Hattie and Ellis—”

“W-With Ma,” she mewed.

“Tell me to fight after I seal you up, okay? I’m going to get stupid again.” He grabbed a baking sheet and animated it; his magic was chaos, not kinesis, but he was so practiced with it he could shuffle through a spell multiple times until it did as he bid, albeit with more side effects. It took a few tries before the pan shifted downward into the hole. He quickly put Mabol onto it and watched her descend into the shadows. “I’ll come right back,” he promised, and sealed the boards over her with a restore-order spell, hiding the cellar.

He paused. Why was he in the kitchen? Thunder rumbled outside. “What—”

“Fight!” Mabol screeched beneath him.

His wits crashed into him.Fight.Silas. Merritt!

Owein darted into the house, knocking over a chair in the breakfast room as he zipped through it, then the dining room and into the reception hall. The front door beat against the wall behind it with the wind. He burst into the yard just as Silas shattered another of Merritt’s wardship spells, but this time the kinetic blast carried Merritt backward just as it had Owein. Merritt crashed into the house under Hulda’s window.

Hulda’s scream pierced Owein’s ears as Merritt fell doll-like into a crumpled heap.

Owein stopped breathing. Wardship weakened the body, the bones. And Merritt had been using a lot of wardship spells.

“Fallon!” Owein screamed, but she was already bolting across the fray toward Merritt.

Leaping off the porch, Owein seized Silas with an alteration spell, clawing his hands to demand Silas’s clothesshrink,shrink,shrink.Owein’s set jaw radiated pain at its joints. His back twisted in response to the magic, but he didn’t care. This was his home. This was hisfamily.

Shrink. Suffocate him.

Silas stumbled, stiff hands grabbing at his collar as it coiled around his neck, cutting off air, cutting off blood. He summoned a breaking spell and shredded the clothes just as he had his cloak, completely uncaring that it left him stark naked, minus his shoes. He looked sickly and gaunt, each rib straining against the flesh pressing hard against it, his stomach sunken, the skin of his torso too loose. It gave Owein only a half second’s pause.He’s mad. He’s absolutely mad.

Owein strode forward and imbued Silas’s shoes with discordant movement. He couldn’t tell themwhereto go—this was chaos magic, after all. But they split and danced, and Silas appraised Owein anew, fear mixing with the madness in his bugging eyes.

See if your luck holds.Owein shot out another deep blast of chaocracy. Sod rippled and rolled up from the earth in four great sheets, knocking Silas over, tumbling him away, farther and farther from the house. Owein pinched himself as the magic took.Focus, focus, focus.

Wait, where were his paws?

Earth rolled and sped and broke apart, sending dust and rock and grit spraying in all directions.Silas.He refocused, readied another spell—

But the spray didn’t relent. Dirt swept up, ground broke, stone hurled until it created a great torrent. Owein turned away and crouched as loose soil stung his eyes. Mud and muck and leaves spun around him, sent flying from ... a breaking spell? Kinetics? Both?

It died after a moment, leaving only the gusts of the true storm. Rain started to fall, turning the earth clinging to Owein’s skin, clothes, and hair into sludge. He stood, body tensing at the quietness.

He saw Silas’s still form out on the water, sailing away with kinetic speed.

“No!” he shouted, and ran after him, to the edge of the island, into the water. He couldn’t let Silas get away. He’d hurt them again if he got away. “No!”

He shot chaos into the water, warping it and spinning it, but not far enough to reach the retreating wizard. He hesitated, disoriented. Shook his throbbing head. The confusion ebbed like cold honey. Docks. He had a boat. He’d run to the docks, and—

Barking.

Owein turned back toward the house. That was Fallon’s bark.Merritt.

Cursing, Owein ran back for the house, mud sliding under his shirt as he did. Hulda was outside when he got there, without the children, and Fallon hurried up to his hip, whining. Merritt’s collarbone had snapped; his shoulder and arm twisted askew. But he was alive. Hissing through his teeth and wincing, but alive.

Gingerly, Owein touched the broken bone and whispered order into it, hoping to mend it, but the spell didn’t take. He cursed aloud, recognizing the direness of the situation when Hulda didn’t reprimand him for it. Owein’s magic didn’t work on people. If it did, he’d be a necromancer.

Do you have nothing to help me, Oliver?he asked. But if Oliver Whittock had inherited any of the necromantic spells in his bloodline, he kept them locked up somewhere Owein couldn’t reach. Or maybe they’d died with his soul.

“Fallon, can you carry your dress?” He started unbuttoning his shirt in case she couldn’t, in case it was too far. A woman in town in only a man’s shirt would be scandalous, butMerritt—

“Fallon?” Hulda asked.

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