Page 74 of Magic in the Woods
Don’t make me regret giving her to you to raise instead of putting her in the Academy, where she belongs.I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the memory.
“Your grandmother might’ve raised you, but she clearly didn’t teach you right.” My mother’s cackles rose from her chest and out her throat with slight gurgling sounds from the water left in her lungs from her time spent frozen in the pail. Her hand lifted toward me, the threat of water, air, or earth magic at the tip of her fingers.
I closed my eyes, waiting for whatever magic she chose to hitme with.
Air—I could be blown up or back several feet in the air, hitting the floor or wall behind me.
Water—Matilda could pull water from the kitchen, or even from the toilets, splashing me, shoving waves of liquid down my throat, drowning me.
Earth—there was enough dirt surrounding us that she could easily draw roots from the earth, wrapping them around my limbs, pulling me under, deep beneath the dirt.
I waited, anticipating her choice. It wouldn’t be pretty, but I was ready.
“Use it, Dafni.”
That voice froze my body, the sound of Matilda’s gasp breaking my concentration. I opened my eyes…
Annabel was there, behind Matilda. She pointed her index and middle fingers at the cauldron, blending both air and water magic to raise a mist from the bubbling brew. “You can do it too, Dafni. Use your powers.”
I glanced back and forth between the potion and Annabel. She nodded, her fingers still extended. I pointed my own index and middle fingers at the cauldron, willing the brew to vaporize into a mist. Together Annabel and I created a cyclone of mist—all coming from my cauldron.
“It’srage,” Annabel whispered as she looked up at the green mist we’d made.
She tilted her head toward the rest of the witches standing along the work benches. I looked down the line, seeing witches scratching at their marred skin, others trying to cover their spitting cauldrons with their arms. Some just stood with sullen looks on their faces.
But they were all glaring at Matilda.
Annabel flicked her fingers, sending the mist down the line of water elemental witches standing alongside the workbench. I followed suit, watching the green mist float in the air, settlingamong the witches. They breathed in the mist, their demeanors immediately changing from apprehension to rage. Their eyes narrowed, their lips pulling back to show their teeth. Poison dripped from their canines, burning as it hit the dirt floor.
The potion was working.
A finger pushed through my lips and ran along the gums under my upper lip, the pointed nail clacking along my teeth. Her breath was rancid. I tried to keep my nose from scrunching. Not only was her face littered with bumps and sores, but her insides were also just as ugly.
Matilda looked down the line of witches and began slowly backing away. “The question is, did your grandmother ever want you to begin with? You’re a witch without poison.”
A collective gasp rumbled through the arena.
“I never wanted you.”
“That’s enough!” Annabel yelled.
She took the papers Gideon had handed her and flattened them against her thigh before she started reading.
“Ira ille conventus perdere alloco.” Annabel shook her head, rearranging the order of the papers.
Matilda threw her head back and laughed. “It’s not enough to read the words, my idiot sister. Earth magic was always your weakness. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that you have to mark the words into the ground before you recite them?”
Annabel took a breath before beginning again, the words in a different order this time. “Alloco ira perdere ille conventus.” Slowly, she raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes were wide with what the etched words meant.
Let rage destroy the Coven.
The flames flickered in the cavern.
Matilda whipped her head around toward Annabel. “No. It can’t work. Those words…they were never written.”
Dirt began tumbling down the walls.
Annabel’s arm fell to her side as she looked around the cavern, displaying the words that had been rubbed onto the paper from an engraving on stone or brick. “It worked. My spells…they worked.”
