Page 101 of Enspelled

Bodie rises from the table and grabs his and my plate before carrying both to the sink, since Briar is still eating. Slowly, but she’s eating.

I gaze after him, bemused. What is happening with the shifters in Madden Grove today? First one cooks for me, and then the other clears the table after.

“So, Briar’s aunt was the one responsible for all the explosions in town,” Bodie says after dumping the plates in the sink.

I dart a glance at Briar, who pauses her eating. After a moment, she places the fork on the table and reaches for the glass of milk. “I know.”

“You said in the car that she stole Briar’s power,” I say, leveling a long look at Keane. “But you didn’t say how.”

“Disguise and tricks, mostly. She needs to die.” His voice is so cold and hard that it’s clear he intends to be the one to kill her.

“She told me she’d killed all the witches in town. I thought you were dead, Sera,” Briar says, her voice quiet.

I jerk my head toward her to find her hand wrapped around her half-drained glass and her head lowered. A tear splashes on the table, and I realize I’d be quite happy to fight Keane for the chance to be the one to hurt Mel.

I’m fumbling for a tissue in my pocket when a box appears right in front of us.

After snatching a handful of tissues from the box Keane is holding toward me, I press one toward Briar, which she takes and swipes across her cheeks. “Yeah, I probably would have been caught up in that explosion if Bullhorn Ellie hadn’t been in the parking lot and told us to leave.” Briar blinks at me. “Weird, I know. Anyway, you didn’t seem surprised to see me when you woke up.”

She sniffs. “I felt your magic take away the pain, and I knew she must have been lying. The way she lied about everything else.”

“Well,” Bodie murmurs, “if Sera hadn’t left the coven, she’d have been blown up right along with the rest of them.”

Briar’s head snaps up. Her red-rimmed eyes are wide with shock as she stares at me. “You didwhat?”

I shrug as if it’s no big deal. “I walked out. They were talking about hunting you down as if you were the one responsible for the explosions in town.”

“But you can’t quit the coven,” she whispers.

“Yes, I can. And I did.” I shake my head. “They weren’t nice people at all, Briar. Some of them were downright nasty. I know your aunt is doing all of these horrible things, but a large part of that is because of the way they treated her.”

“She still deserves to die,” Keane snarls. “So just because she was bullied or whatever the fuck the witches did to her, doesn’t mean she gets off with a tap on the wrist.”

I glare at him. “I’m not saying she wasn’t responsible. Just that if the witches treated her a little better, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe it still would have, anyway. Who knows?”

“So all the green witches are dead, then?” Briar interrupts, her voice soft.

I return my focus to her. “Yeah, looks like. I don’t know about Vera, though, because she didn’t turn up to the last meeting so—”

“She’s dead,” Keane says.

Silence.

“I’m not going to want to know how, am I?” I ask.

Keane gazes back at me coolly. “Doubt it. She used me to steal Layla’s secret grimoire, so she’d have the spell she needed to steal Briar’s powers.”

For a second, words fail me, and then I’m struggling under the weight of so many questions that I don’t know where to start. “Layla had a second grimoire.”

He nods.

“And now Mel—who has stolen Briar’s powers, killed all the green witches in town, and seems to have no problem with summoning demons—has it?”

Keane cocks his head. “Demons?”

I hesitate, because it's one thing wanting to hurt him for making Briar cry, but I have a feeling telling him about what happened to his pack is not going to end well.

“She summoned a demon, and we think she sacrificed your pack to it,” Bodie says in the casual way he always speaks.

---