Page 41 of Destiny of the Witch

Mack laughed aloud. ‘Leaving breadcrumbs, Gretel? Don’t worry, little girl, the griffin will find you. We’ll make sure of that.’ He winked at me in the rear-view mirror.

Despair rose in me just as the world slid away.

Chapter 33

I sat up and touched a hand gingerly to my aching head. It was pounding and I was more than a little woozy.

‘Mack gave you too much potion.’ Shaun sounded annoyed. ‘I’ll speak to him about that.’ His voice was heavy with threat.

I ignored him; I didn’t give a hoot what he did to Mack. I reached into the pockets of my skirts but wasn’t surprised when my hands encountered nothing more than lint. They weren’t stupid enough to leave me armed with a potion bomb. More’s the pity.

I sat up. ‘What should I call you?’ I asked my father. ‘Shaun or John?’

‘Dad,’ he growled.

‘That’s what I call Oscar,’ I said deliberately. It was easier to think of him as John because he was wearing John’s face, speaking with John’s voice. That had been his name to me for over a decade. It alsohelped me separate him in my head from anything paternal – but I couldn’t afford to do that. He was my father; he wasShaun.

His top lip curled in a snarl when I spoke of Oscar. ‘I should have hit him harder,’ he muttered.

I stilled. ‘That was you? During the elemental attack?’

‘Obviously,’ he drawled. ‘How did you think he got hurt?’

‘By the car when we slammed into it.’

‘That was unfortunate.’ Shaun frowned. ‘Youweren’t supposed to get hurt. Unity were supposed to scare you a little, that was all.’ He sighed. ‘Never trust hired help.’

‘I would have expected your advice to simply be “never trust”.’

He smiled humourlessly. ‘If your associates fear you enough then you can trust them plenty.’

‘And did you fear the last leader of the evil Coven before you took over?’ I asked pointedly.

His smile widened. ‘No. And what makes you think I harmed him? Maybe he died of natural causes.’

I studied my father. ‘He didn’t though, did he?’

‘No. He didn’t.’ He stood abruptly. ‘You know why you’re here. Make the potion for healing familiars and then we’ll talk some more.’

‘Bastion and theothers – you called off the chimera?’ I didn’t know why I was asking; it wasn’t like I expected whatever fell out of his mouth to be the truth – and yet a small part of me still hoped it would be.

‘They’re all fine,’ he murmured. ‘Even your mother.’

‘Leave Mum out of this,’ I snarled.

‘You’re asking the impossible, my dear. She’s as embroiled in this as it is possible to be. She is, as they say, in the thick of it.’ His voice was grim. He gestured to the mass of potion ingredients lining the walls. ‘You have all the ingredients you’ll need.’

‘And how do you know what ingredients I’ll need?’ I asked flatly.

‘I catalogued the ones in your lab and in the Coven’s potion store and reviewed all your recent purchases at The Shoppe. You have everything you need,’ he repeated with certainty.

I folded my arms. ‘I’ll need my workbook.’ Hopefully he – or a lackey – would get caught in the Coven while fetching it for me.

Shaun gave me an amused look, opened a desk drawer and pulled out my work notes and the DeLea potion bible. ‘I took the opportunity to take these into my custody whilst Bastion and Oscar were occupied.’ A frown crossedhis face. ‘I couldn’t find the bloody grimoire, though. You’ve hidden it well. I thought it would be in the safe.’

I kept my face neutral. ‘I destroyed it.’ Kind of.

He studied me, ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said finally. ‘You might not want to use it yourself, but you respect knowledge. You wouldn’t destroy it.’

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