Three's a Coven

by Samantha Silver

  “Again! As fast as you can! Get me back to Ellie!”

  By the time I jumped out of the chariot once more and rushed towards my friend, the pool of blood underneath her had gotten bigger. I ripped off one of the leaves from the plant and began chewing it like crazy, and when it had turned into a giant pile of mush I spat the whole thing back out into my palm and pressed it against the large gash on Ellie’s arm.

  I really, really hoped that I had remembered my lesson properly.

  For the first couple of seconds, Ellie’s blood seeped between my fingers as I pressed the elgans blue mush against her arm. But then, the flow began to ebb, and a moment later the bleeding stopped completely.

  I was so relieved tears began running down my face.

  Mashing up another leaf in my mouth, just in case, I pressed this new mash against Ellie’s arm as well, and with my other hand I checked for a pulse. It was faint, but it was still there. Ellie was still alive.

  “Is she okay?” I suddenly heard Sara’s voice ask quietly, and I looked over to see her coming towards us. “I ran away, but I had to come back. I didn’t want to get involved in the fight; I figured I would only be a liability.”

  “Same,” I said. “This plant is saving Ellie. I think this is all I can do.”

  The two of us looked over at the fighters - student and professor - and it was obvious that the student was winning. Alex was panting, covered in dirt, and it looked like even the act of pointing her wand towards Amy was taking a toll on her. On the other hand, Amy looked completely poised, cool and collected. She pointed her wand at Alex and spoke.

  “We can finish this right now. If you’re willing to hand yourself in, and tell everyone what happened to Chief Enforcer King, I’m sure a deal can be worked out for leniency.”

  “Leniency? What’s the point? No one’s going to be lenient to a witch who killed a member of her own coven. Besides, if I’m going down, then Chief Enforcer King is going down forever as well.”

  Before I knew what had happened, Alex pointed her wand at the fountain, then ran directly into it. As soon as she touched the water she began to scream, a horrible sound that filled the night air. She disappeared into the water, her cries eventually cut off, and Amy rushed to the edge. She touched the water with a single finger, then pulled it back, shaking it.

  “She turned the fountain into acid,” Amy called out as she ran towards us. “I guess Alex would rather have died then gone to prison. Is Ellie okay?”

  “I think she will be,” I said. “We need to get her to a Healer, though.”

  Right on cue, one of the golden chariots appeared, and the three of us managed to lift Ellie up and get her in before closing the door and speeding off towards the Desert Plains hospital.

  “Is that elgens blue?” Amy asked, nodding towards the mush that my hand was still holding on the wound. “I knew all of those lessons would come in handy.”

  Chapter 24

  A couple of hours later, Ellie woke up, after emergency help from the Healers, who commended my quick thinking and using the succulent’s powers to save her life.

  “If you hadn’t done it when you did, she wouldn’t have made it,” one of the Healers told me. “You should be very proud of yourself.”

  I only nodded in response; it had been a very stressful day. We had solved Professor Lei’s murder, and Alex was dead, but we still didn’t know where Chief Enforcer King was. And the only person who could help us had committed suicide, probably in part to stop us from ever being able to find her.

  As soon as Ellie woke up she wanted to know what happened, and we all recounted the story.

  “I knew you were better than half those professors at the Academy,” Ellie told Amy, and while Amy waved away the compliment, I couldn’t help but notice a small blush of happiness crawl up her cheeks.

  “So where’s Chief Enforcer King?” Ellie asked.

  “We don’t know,” Amy said.

  “Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing now,” Ellie said, getting out of bed. “She’s been missing for days already, we’re not going to let her wither away and die in whatever hole Professor Lyn has been keeping her in.”

  “Have you asked the Healers if it’s okay for you to go?” Amy asked.

  “I’m awake, aren’t I? That’s good enough.”

  Amy definitely didn’t agree that it was good enough, but after asking a Healer if Ellie could leave, the Healer said it was fine. The five of us immediately made our way back to Western Woods, where we were absolutely going to find Chief Enforcer King.

  Sara volunteered to find Lita and tell her what had happened while Ellie, Amy, and I did our best to find where Chief Enforcer King had been hidden.

  “Should we try her house?” Ellie suggested as soon as we got into town. “Maybe she’s keeping her there?”

  Amy nodded. “Okay. But I don’t know where Professor Lyn lived. Check her office first so we can find an address?”

  “Done,” Ellie replied. “Although, to be honest, I’m surprised you don’t have home addresses for every single person who’s ever taught you. How else can you stalk them to try and get a better mark when they only give you 90% on tests?”

  Amy stuck her tongue out at Ellie. “I’ll let you know I haven’t gotten below 95% on a test in over seven years.”

  Ellie burst out laughing as we made our way into coven headquarters, rushing past Estelle Thurman who was watching the door and making our way upstairs to the Professors’ offices and classrooms.

  I followed Ellie and Amy, who, unlike me, knew where they were going, and entered into a sparsely-decorated classroom whose walls were covered in mathematical posters and charts.

  “If we find anything that might indicate a secret hideout or something like that, we need to check it out,” Amy said.

  “How about using that spell you used in Desert Plains?” I asked. “After all, that one revealed any magic that we couldn’t see. It should work here too, right?”

  “Good idea,” Amy nodded. She closed her eyes, pulled out her wand, and re-cast the spell. Once again, white mist began to flow from Amy’s wand, and she walked around the room, pointing the wand everywhere until finally the entire room was enveloped in the fine mist. There was nothing.

  “Okay,” Ellie said. “Now we look for anything with her home address on it.”

  Before we got a chance to, however, Kelly Treach entered the room. She stopped as soon as she saw the mist, waving some of it away from her face with her hand.

  “Is it true that Professor Lyn killed herself?”

  “Yes,” I said to her. “We know that she was the one who made you lure Chief Enforcer King into a trap.”

  “She did,” Kelly said. “I felt so awful about it. But I didn’t feel like I had any other choice. I thought Chief Enforcer King was dead, but Sara says she isn’t?”

  “That’s right,” I replied. “Alexa told us she’s keeping Chief Enforcer King alive, but that she was working on a potion to erase her memory.”

  “I can help you,” Kelly said. “I didn’t say anything before, because I thought Chief Enforcer King was dead. But I’m pretty sure I know where she is.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the three of us were walking through the woods.

  “Are you sure she was out here?” Amy asked, and Kelly nodded.

  “Yes. I’m sure. As soon as Anton told me that Aquila wanted me to get Chief Enforcer King to come to the outskirts of the woods, I knew someone from town had to be involved. After all, why else go after Chief Enforcer King? So I cast a tracking spell on Chief Enforcer King, which was never detected.”

  “Smart,” Amy nodded.

  “Maybe the first smart thing I’ve ever done,” Kelly said glumly. “I’ve made so many mistakes, if it turns out Chief Enforcer King is dead, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Well, you’re doing what you can now to make amends for your mistakes,” I said reassuringly. “That has to count for something, right?”

  After abou
t five hundred feet of following the path, Kelly motioned to the right. “She’s down there, about two hundred more feet along.

  Ellie, Amy, Kelly, and I pushed through the brush, when finally we reached a small clearing with some rocks at the far end. “There,” Kelly said, pointing to the rocks. “That’s where my tracker says she is.”

  Amy waved her wand at the rock at the front of the entrance, but nothing happened. She frowned. “Professor Lyn must have cast a spell here.”

  “Definitely,” Ellie said. “Otherwise, the shifters would have been able to follow the smell and find Chief Enforcer King no problem.”

  “Of course,” Amy said. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have all of the spells canceled.”

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later Amy waved her wand at the rock again, and this time it dislodged, showing a small hole in which Chief Enforcer King was lying.

  “Chief Enforcer!” I called out, running towards her. As soon as I reached the blonde lion shifter, I feared the worst. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t look like she was alive. But, putting two fingers to her neck, I felt a pulse. “She’s alive,” I called out to the others, who all rushed over.

  “We need to get her to a Healer,” Amy said. “She’s obviously under a spell, and I don’t want to wake her from it without knowing what it is.”

  I immediately texted Sara our location, telling her to come with a broom.

  “Sara’s on her way,” I said. Five minutes later, she arrived, and without a single word loaded up Chief Enforcer King in front of her on the broom.

  “I’ll get her to the hospital as fast as I can,” Sara said.

  As soon as Sara left, Kelly broke down in tears. “I thought I had killed her. I thought Professor Lyn had killed Chief Enforcer King, and that it was all because of me.”

  Ellie put a comforting hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “She’s alive. Thanks to you. If you hadn’t put that tracking spell on Chief Enforcer King, I don’t think we ever would have found her.”

  I had to agree with Ellie. Kelly had done something wrong, but at the same time, she had done what she could to rectify her mistake. I really hoped whoever was in charge of sorting these things out would be lenient with her.

  Epilogue

  “Okay, are you ready?” Sara asked, and I gave her the thumbs up. We were recording her video to apply for the new broom flying competition being run by the same people who did the duels. I had my phone out, video set to record, in the middle of the coven gardens as Sara flew up onto her broom and up into the sky faster than a speeding bullet.

  I squinted as she flew into the sun, then drove down at top speed, pulling up just in time to miss the ground, blades of grass swaying from the wind of her broom as she swept past.

  Sara darted in and out between some trees, showing her agility and skill on the broom with a deftness I knew she had but that still surprised me every time I saw it.

  Watching Sara on a broom was like watching a ballet dancer. She had an elegance that anyone would envy, but at the same time a strength unmatched by anyone else that I knew.

  There was absolutely no way she would not get chosen for this new sport.

  I had a long conversation with Sara about it after everything calmed down a little bit once Chief Enforcer King was found.

  The Chief Enforcer was fine. After Sara took her to the hospital, the Healers did their thing and figured out which spell was used to put her under, and managed to reverse it. Chief Enforcer King woke up, and found out exactly what had happened to her, and to Professor Lei.

  Chief Enforcer King explained that Professor Lei had figured out that Aquila was actually Alex Lyn, and that they had planned on arresting her that day. She didn’t remember anything after that.

  After being told of Kelly’s role in leading her to the trap, but also discovering that Kelly was instrumental in finding Chief Enforcer King once more, Chief Enforcer King decided to be lenient with Kelly, and instead of going to prison, Kelly would be working for the community, unpaid, for the next year.

  Kelly sobbed with gratitude when Chief Enforcer King told her that was her sentence. She swore she would get help for the gambling, and promised to do everything she could to make up for the pain she had caused.

  The following morning, Sara and I found ourselves alone in the house, and I brought up the topic of the broom flying competition.

  “I get the impression that you don’t really want to do it,” I said to Sara. “Am I wrong? I just want you to know, if you’re not interested, then I will fully support you in that decision.”

  Sara sighed. “You’re not imagining it, but it isn’t that I’m not interested. Honestly, nothing sounds more amazing to me, and I would love to do it. But the thing is, there is no guarantee. Broom flying is the only thing I have in my life that I’m good at. It’s the most important thing to me, and what if they don’t take me? What happens then?”

  I considered Sara’s words for a minute. I could definitely see where she was coming from. She really wanted to do this, but she was scared. “Then what happens is you’re still the best witch on a broom from Western Woods, but you’re not going to spend the rest of your life wondering what might have happened. What will you regret more: trying, failing, but knowing that you gave it your best, or never trying at all?”

  Sara mulled over my words. I decided to keep going, since after all, I felt like I was on a bit of a roll. “You don’t even need to tell anyone you tried out. Let’s go out now, take an audition video, and then I’ll send it to you. You don’t even need to tell me if you submit it.”

  “Okay,” Sara said finally, making up her mind and jumping up from the couch. “Let’s go do this.”

  That was how I found myself now taking a cell phone video of Sara as she displayed all of her skills on a broom, leaving me completely awestruck. There was absolutely no way she wasn’t going to get selected for this. There just couldn’t be. She was too good.

  After she finished flying around, including a dip into the water where she flew straight down into the lake in the middle before coming right back up and shooting straight up into the sky like some sort of bird of prey, Sara landed directly in front of me and shot a grin to the camera.

  “My name is Sara Neach, and I’m going to be crowned the best broom rider in the paranormal world.”

  I turned off the video and grinned at my friend. I had no idea if what she said was true. I didn’t even know if she was going to send in the audition tape. But I did know I was so thankful to have a friend like her, and all the others as well. No matter what, Sara was a winner in my book.

  Also by Samantha Silver

  First of all, I wanted to thank you for reading this book. I well and truly hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I loved writing it.

  If you enjoyed Two Peas in a Potion I’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment and leave a review for the book on Amazon, to help other readers find the book as well.

  You can also sign up to my newsletter to receive an email every time I release a new book. To sign up for my newsletter, click here now.

  Want to read more of Tina’s adventures? The fourth book in the Western Woods Mystery series is available on pre-order, due to release in January 2019. Click here to pre-order your copy on Amazon now.

  Other Western Woods Mysteries

  Back to Spell One (Western Woods Mystery #1)

  Two Peas in a Potion (Western Woods Mystery #2)

  Four Leaf Clovers (Western Woods Mystery #4)

  Willow Bay Witches Mysteries

  The Purr-fect Crime (Willow Bay Witches #1)

  Barking up the Wrong Tree (Willow Bay Witches #2)

  Just Horsing Around (Willow Bay Witches #3)

  Lipstick on a Pig (Willow Bay Witches #4)

  A Grizzly Discovery (Willow Bay Witches #5)

  Sleeping with the Fishes (Willow Bay Witches #6)

  Get your Ducks in a Row (Willow Bay Witches #7)

  Busy as a Beaver (Will
ow Bay Witches #8)

  Magical Bookshop Mysteries

  Alice in Murderland (Magical Bookshop Mystery #1)

  Murder on the Oregon Express (Magical Bookshop Mystery #2)

  The Very Killer Caterpillar (Magical Bookshop Mystery #3)

  Death Quixote (Magical Bookshop Mystery #4)

  Pride and Premeditation (Magical Bookshop Mystery #5)

  Moonlight Cove Mysteries

  Witching Aint’s Easy (Moonlight Cove Mystery #1)

  Witching for the Best (Moonlight Cove Mystery #2)

  Thank your Lucky Spells (Moonlight Cove Mystery #3)

  A Perfect Spell (Moonlight Cove Mystery #4)

  California Witching Mysteries

  Witches and Wine (California Witching Mystery #1)

  Poison and Pinot (California Witching Mystery #2)

  Merlot and Murder (California Witching Mystery #3)

  Cassie Coburn Mysteries

  Poison in Paddington (Cassie Coburn Mystery #1)

  Bombing in Belgravia (Cassie Coburn Mystery #2)

  Whacked in Whitechapel (Cassie Coburn Mystery #3)

  Strangled in Soho (Cassie Coburn Mystery #4)

  Stabbed in Shoreditch (Cassie Coburn Mystery #5)

  Killed in King’s Cross (Cassie Coburn Mystery #6)

  Ruby Bay Mysteries

  Death Down Under (Ruby Bay Mystery #1)

  Arson in Australia (Ruby Bay Mystery #2)

  The Killer Kangaroo (Ruby Bay Mystery #3)

  About the Author

  Samantha Silver lives in British Columbia, Canada, along with her husband and a little old doggie named Terra. She loves animals, skiing and of course, writing cozy mysteries.

  You can connect with Samantha online here: