Page 30 of Spellbound
She lifted the cane and came down hard again and again, until Mona was screaming and I couldn’t take any more. I ran at Miss Thompson and grabbed her wrist. “Mona, run.”
Miss Thompson snarled, then smiled sinisterly. “Come to help ya sister, have ya? How sweet. For it, I might just cut open her pretty face with this.” She laughed and held the cane up, where a piece of Mona’s flesh dangled.
“No!” I screamed. A spark left my hands as a power unlike anything I’d felt coursed through my veins. My insides burned, like flames licking through my veins to the point I wanted to tear off my skin.
“Elle.” Mona’s voice flooded me.
Miss Thompson screamed when I felt the power leave me, momentarily bringing her to her knees. Mona stood at the other end of the room, hugging her arms around her torso and crying.
Miss Thompson shrieked once more, then stiffened. My grip, which had left half-crescent marks on her arms, loosened once she fell to the floor.
“What did you do?” Mona whispered.
The pain was gone. “I-I don’t know.”
“Elle, wake up.” Viktor’s voice pounded into my ears.
The ring tumbled from my grip. I looked up at Viktor, my chest heaving as I attempted to catch my breath.
“You okay, doll?”
A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed thickly, but it didn’t move. My heart fluttered, as if there were a pair of wings in its place, and my legs felt as if they’d turned to gelatin. “Caught me off guard,” I said, breathless, and took his hand to help me to my feet. I steadied myself against him. Grabbing his shoulder, surprised at how hard it was, I looked down at the ring. “I was remembering when I first felt my powers. It was...” I searched for the right words. “Eventful. It usually takes some kind of traumatic or emotionally heightened thing to happen for a witch’s magic to present itself.”
“What big event was it?”
I leaned my hands against my knees, closing my eyes. “Nothing crazy,” I said slowly, then breathed deeply. “I need a minute.” I looked him up and down. “You were worse. You were screaming and crying—”
“It was powerful. You did warn me.”
“I didn’t realize it wasthatpowerful.” I glared at the ring. “How awful was it?”
“Like reliving hundreds of suppressed dark memories.”
“Ah.”
We both stood in silence. I wanted to ask more, but his pained gaze told me not to.
“I’ll tell Edmund we passed this one,” I said after a minute.
“I want to master it.”
I gave him an incredulous stare. “Are you serious? It almost killed you. I’ve never seen someone affected like that.” I paused. “You must have so much anguish for the curse to hurt you like that. I can’t expect you to go through it again.”
Sadness softened his gaze. He looked at me, then at the shelves behind me, shaking the emotion off. “Let’s try something else then.”
“You don’t want to rest?”
“I don’t have time.”
I parted my lips. “What do you mean?”
He glanced at me. “I mean we don’t have time. We need to be a help to the coven, with this threat.”
“Right,” I said slowly, but something felt off. I didn’t want to interrogate him over something so small, especially after what had happened, but I was surprised he was still standing and wanted to do more. The curse had even caught me off guard, and I was used to handling it. I’d been shown that memory of my sister countless times until I mastered it. It never got easier, remembering her face when it dawned on her I was a witch. I could still hear her screams as Miss Thompson hit her. The thought made my blood boil.
“What about that?” He pointed at the book of Midas. “What will you have me do?”
“Ah, that one.” I smirked. At least it wouldn’t hurt like the last one did. “It belonged to a king who was cursed to turn everything he touched to gold.”
