Pawsitively Betrayed

by Melissa Erin Jackson

  It had to be Willow. Please, please let her still be alive.

  As she crept forward, Amber spotted Kieran among the group of twelve, and the back of someone who was possibly Patrice. When Amber reached her designated spot, she was directly across the street from Zelda’s house, as were the ring of witches. Amber wondered if Patrice knew this was the prime spot of the ley line spillover because she could sense the magic the same way Amber could, or if the location had been supplied to Patrice by Connor and Molly.

  Within another minute, all her witches were in place. It had to be about ten after midnight now, which gave Amber and her witches roughly twenty-five minutes to stop the ritual in its tracks. Something shone in her peripheral vision and she glanced back the way they’d come. A car sat at the end of the street now. Its headlights winked out a moment later, but the car remained in place.

  “You may begin,” a woman said, pulling Amber’s attention back.

  She bit her lip as she watched a man step out of the formation and stand near the body on the ground. Amber was positive now that it was Willow.

  Her jaw clenched at the sight of Neil Penhallow—the man who had murdered her parents. Her magic ignited, like someone had just poured molten lava into her veins. It wanted to retaliate, to make this man pay for not only turning Amber and Willow into orphans, but for putting Edgar through hell and back for years.

  Don’t storm the castle, she had to remind herself. Be patient.

  “The day the council decided to strip our family of our powers was the day the council turned its back on magic,” Neil said. “The council felt threatened by our growing power. They saw us for what we were—not dangerous, not reckless, but superior. And that superiority threatened the system they’d forced witches into for too long. We hide in the shadows among the magic-less like cockroaches scurrying from the light. But you know what cockroaches are? Resilient. We are a resilient clan and have waited years for the stars to align so we can take back what is ours. In this new future, we’ll be the head of the council. Fifty years ago, Annabelle Henbane crafted a spell that was the answer to all our problems as a clan—as a people. Today, we’ll acquire that same spell to give magic—and the witches who wield it—the freedom it deserves.”

  The witches around him nodded and muttered their agreement.

  Neil stepped back into the circle, and Patrice stepped out of it. “Do you feel the magic here? This is one of the six spots where magic ruptured. It’s raw, untapped power. It’s enough to literally make your head spin. The council knew how much magic was in the ley lines, yet regulated its use as if it were a limited resource. The WBI is worse still. We need to return to a time when magic was free to use, and make sure we build a future that lets witches thrive.”

  If the Penhallows had put this much work into keeping Amber and the chief distracted, what had they been doing to the WBI? Were they not here because they were off chasing a wild goose?

  Patrice gestured to someone in front of her, nodded once, and then stepped back into her spot in the circle.

  It was somehow both a shock and not to see her uncle step into view. He clasped his hands behind his back and slowly walked the track made between the circle of witches and the ring of candles. “Many of you likely think I blame Annabelle Henbane, my sister, for ruining my life. And I do, in a way, but I blame the society we’re in more. The council, and then the WBI, spent so much time telling us what we can and can’t do with our magic that now we fear the very thing that makes us who we are. Traveling back to the moment of the spell’s creation is going to cause changes here in the present but look where we are now. The collective decisions of others have given us a world where none of us truly belong. I was blessed by magic itself with the rare ability to manipulate time and memory. Why would magic allow such an ability to exist, only for others to tell me how to use it? Had we valued magic more, the council never would have done something as egregious as stripping away a whole clan’s magic. A time-travel spell like my sister’s should have been applauded, not hidden. So, today, on the eve of the spell’s creation, we’re taking history back.”

  The collected witches cheered.

  Raphael moved back to his spot in the circle.

  Patrice then turned to Kieran beside her. “I’m glad you’re with us again. We all worried you’d betray us, you know. That the time witch had poisoned your loyalty.”

  Kieran kept his features neutral as he said, “I am loyal.”

  “Yes, I believe that’s true,” she said. “But to who, that’s the question.”

  Patrice tipped her head back and the crisp, clear words of a spell left her lips. Amber’s stomach sank to her feet like a boulder when she recognized the spell as the same one Kieran himself had used on Edgar’s property the night he attempted to kill her. Déjà vu washed over her, and she futilely scanned the darkness she and her companions stood in, searching for a place to hide.

  “Give me the book, Blackwood,” Kieran had growled at her as she’d run for her life. He’d pursued her as if she were a defenseless rabbit.

  A moment later, the whole neighborhood lit up in a burst of blue light as if lightning had just struck. Her arm shot up to shield her eyes. When Amber lowered it, Patrice was smiling at her from the middle of the road. The light had chased away not only the shadows, but Amber’s hiding spot as well.

  Then Patrice’s gaze skipped a bit to the left, and then swung to the right. “How quaint! You all came wearing the same face. But you can’t really expect to out-glamour us, can you?”

  “I am loyal,” Kieran said. His eyes jumped to Amber for a moment and she held her breath. He sidled up next to Patrice and whispered something in her ear, pointing to the Amber to the right of her.

  Patrice thanked him, and he stepped back into his position. “Raph, dear, can you do the honors?”

  Several of the Penhallows cast more lightning spells, filling the neighborhood with so much light, it gave off the illusion of daylight.

  Raphael turned around, facing the side of the road where Amber and her companions stood several feet apart. He looked first to the witch to Amber’s right, the one Kieran had pointed out. With little warning, the witch beside him spun around and hurled a mass of magic at the Amber-lookalike. It looked like a thick black tendril of smoke, the end forming into a clawed hand. It was cursed magic manifested into something physical. And it was a killing blow. Amber had seen magic used as a weapon like this before: in her memories of her mother’s and grandfather’s altercation with Neil and his own father in Delin Springs.

  Neil’s father had sent this same kind of attack at Miles Henbane. Amber’s mother had stopped it—had frozen the magic in place—just seconds before the cursed magic slammed into Miles’ chest.

  The memory flashed through Amber’s mind in a split second, but that second was enough to cause her own magic to rise up in her. Her instinct to stop this from happening overrode all else.

  “No!” she screamed, thrusting her hands out toward the cursed smoke careening for the Amber clone. Instead of freezing the cursed magic as her mother had done, Amber knocked the witch out of the way with a force of wind so strong, it knocked her clear off her feet.

  The burst of cursed magic hit the wall of an abandoned house, cracking one of the porch’s support beams. The wood held, but the roof sagged dangerously in one corner.

  The fallen witch Amber had knocked into the brambles struggled to her feet. And revealed that she wasn’t Amber at all, but Gary. The gruff man managed a smile at Amber, silently thanking her for saving his life even though she’d just given herself away. As had Kieran.

  Amber heard the whoosh of air before it hit her—hit all her companions—and simultaneously sent nine witches airborne. She managed to curl herself into a ball before she hit the ground, rolling a few times before her shoulder connected with the edge of a rotted porch. Amber was glad Aunt G and Zelda weren’t here, being the oldest in the bunch. Amber knew everyone’s glamours had been knocked loose.


  She had just gotten herself into a standing position, her shoulder aching, when someone grabbed her forcefully by the arm. “Hi, Amber,” he said in her ear. “I’m glad you could make it, my gullible little fool.”

  She recognized the voice instantly. Uncle Raphael.

  Just like back at Pleasant Meadows, his magic allowed him to travel from one spot to the next in the blink of an eye. Was this a facet of his time magic?

  A shocking jolt of cold hit her. She blinked and a moment later, she was in the circle, standing beside the body on the ground that was very much Willow’s. Amber, briefly forgetting that she was literally surrounded by Penhallows, dropped to her knees. She checked Willow’s pulse, and was relieved to feel a steady, if slow, beat below her fingers. “Willow,” she said softly, patting her cheek. “Willow, can you hear me?”

  “She can’t.”

  Amber shot a glare over her shoulder; Patrice stared down at her. “What do you want with her?”

  “Don’t worry,” Patrice said. “Willow is a bargaining chip. We needed you here, but we also needed to know who the rat was in the organization. My bets were on Raphael, honestly.” She smiled at Amber’s uncle. “I’m glad it wasn’t you, pet.” Then she rounded on Kieran, who shrank back a fraction.

  Amber quickly scanned the dark neighborhood, squinting to see beyond the shadows now that the bursts of light had faded. She heard a faint rustling from both in front of her and behind. Were her witches regrouping?

  Neil clucked his tongue, pulling Amber’s attention back to the world of trouble she was in. “You’d really turn on family, brother? After everything the Blackwoods and Henbanes have put us through? They want us rounded up and caged, Kieran.”

  “She freed me,” Kieran said. “My magic is healed. The curse has been lifted. It’s not all or nothing for us like we thought. Our curse will be gone, but our magic won’t be.”

  Neil’s lip curled. “You’ve gone soft over the years. You’ve lost sight of what’s important.”

  “I agree,” Patrice said. “Shall I?”

  Neil nodded.

  Amber, with a hand still protectively on Willow’s arm, glanced over her aching shoulder again just as Patrice lunged forward and grabbed Kieran by the neck with both hands. Amber was convinced Patrice was going to snap it like they do in the movies, but instead she cast a spell. As the words poured out of her mouth, something seemed to be oozing out of her hands and into Kieran’s skin. He clawed at her hands as he gasped for breath, black tendrils running up the sides of his neck. His back arched as he screamed.

  “Stop!” Amber called out, scrambling to her feet.

  But Raphael blinked into existence behind her again and yanked her back. He wrapped an arm around her middle, pinning her arms to her sides. “Do you want Willow cursed as well?” he hissed in her ear and Amber shied away from his hot breath. “No? Then hold still.”

  Amber’s jaw clenched as she watched the cursed magic continue to snake up Kieran’s neck and into his face. Abruptly, Patrice let him go and he slumped to the ground in a heap. He didn’t move. Amber choked out a cry. Had Patrice reinfected him with the curse, or had she outright killed him?

  “Now,” Patrice said cheerfully, turning back to the group.

  Raphael still held Amber in place near Willow’s motionless feet. She ignored the death glares Neil sent her from across the circle.

  “Now that Amber is here, we can get started. But first we’ll need some privacy,” Patrice said.

  The Penhallows all held hands again. They tipped their heads back, speaking in unison.

  “No!” someone called out.

  Amber craned her neck to see Scarlett and Gary running toward her.

  “Get out of there, Amber!”

  “We won’t be able—”

  A noise-cancelling spell snapped down around the Penhallows like a bowl, immediately cutting off the shouts of alarm from her companions. When they reached the invisible barrier and started beating their fists against it, Amber knew with a sinking feeling that this was more than a dome of silence. She was trapped in here with a dozen Penhallows, and her only two allies on the inside were both unconscious.

  Amber’s time-freeze spell wasn’t complete. Patrice had successfully distracted Amber out of finishing it. And now, ironically, she’d run out of time. How was she supposed to combat twelve Penhallows all on her own?

  “Amber,” Patrice said, not at all fazed by the muted shouting and fist-pounding happening around their invisible dome by the eight other witches trying to get in. “I’m sure you’re wondering how we plan to complete this ritual when we’re missing the key piece of the puzzle, yes? What on earth are we going to do when the spell we need is in a car speeding toward—where are they now, Neil? Portland?”

  “Close to it,” Neil said.

  Patrice laughed lightly. “Well … you see …” She snapped her fingers and just in front of her, the cloaking spell that had been shielding a leather-bound book from view dropped away.

  Amber struggled in her uncle’s grasp as she realized that her mother’s grimoire sat at the feet of Patrice Penhallow. “How … what …”

  “Ah, we’ve surprised her!” Patrice said, grinning. “You really need to thank Thea for this.”

  Amber cocked her head.

  “Agent Garcia! Willow has been kidnapped!” Patrice said in a perfect imitation of Amber. “Hurry, you have to find her! Edgar is coming to take your place.” Switching back to her own voice, she said, “I dropped by the hospital where Henrietta is being treated, and I told Thea that if she didn’t tell me every detail she remembered you and your family discussing while she was imprisoned in your care, I would kill her sister. She called my bluff. I activated the poison tincture in Henrietta’s system that was keeping her stable, yet comatose. There was some writhing and alarming beeping from the machines.”

  Amber struggled in her uncle’s grasp again, but it did little good.

  “Anyway,” Patrice said, “non-witches aren’t made of the strongest stuff, so when she was convinced her sister would die if she didn’t give me the information I needed, she started babbling. Took us a while to get there, but with enough pressure, she remembered the name Quill.”

  Which was how the Penhallows had been able to swoop in and snatch the grimoires out from under the WBI’s nose. She shot a disgusted look at Neil. His supposed connection to her mother hadn’t been the reason the book had been located. It had been Patrice’s nasty interrogation techniques.

  But it still didn’t explain how the book was now in Patrice’s possession if the books were triggered to return to Amber or Willow the moment they’d been found.

  “The boomerang spell was a nice touch,” Raphael said from behind her. “But I was with the team when we got word that the books were in Quill. Locator spells got us to the dead zone—also a nice touch. After we cracked through your layers of spells, I sensed the boomerang just before it was triggered and I froze time. After breaking the spell, I took the Henbane book out of the trunk, unfroze time, and then let the trunk with just the Blackwood grimoire go off on its merry way. We figured you’d be so worried that the uncloaked books would alert us to the grimoires’ location that you’d immediately cloak the trunk again without opening it. After all, your magic was sound, and your aunt would have assured you the plan you’d crafted had been foolproof. You Blackwoods were always so arrogant.”

  “The only little problem now is that the book does have a rather powerful spell on it that won’t allow us to open it,” Patrice said. “It’s a binding spell that protects it from being opened by anyone who is doing so with ill intent, yadda yadda. So I’m going to need you to open it so we can get this show on the road.”

  “No,” Amber said.

  “Who thought she’d say that?” Patrice asked, and the Penhallows around her rose their hands in the air, smirking. “Of course you’d say no. Which is why Willow is here.”

  It was Willow’s arm that twitched first, followed by a foot. Amber
thought she might be waking up, but then realized her back was arching off the ground. Her neck twitched awkwardly. Then she began to seize.

  Amber lurched for her, but her uncle held her so tightly now, Amber was sure she’d bruise. “What are you doing to her?”

  “She was injected with the same poisoning tincture I gave Henrietta,” Patrice said. “But since it was injected rather than consumed in tea, like it was with your friend, the coma came on faster, and the poison will work more quickly when activated.”

  Oh God, Willow. I’m so sorry.

  Willow jerked more violently now, a faint cloud of dust rising up from the road as she thrashed.

  “Fine!” Amber screamed, nauseated. “Just stop whatever you’re doing to her.”

  Patrice waved a hand in the air and Willow immediately stilled. Raphael let Amber go. After Patrice gestured at it, Amber reluctantly grabbed her mother’s book off the ground. Even though she’d only held it a few times, the weight was familiar in her hands. The feel of the smooth leather cover, the deep engrained letters spelling out HENBANE. Her mother had spent most of her adult life trying to keep this very book out of Penhallows’ possession, and now Amber had to hand it over voluntarily.

  “I told you I’d get the book one way or another,” Patrice said.

  Forgive me, Mom.

  Willow twitched slightly in Amber’s peripheral vision, and a soft, agonized groan whispered past pale lips.

  Amber’s hands shook as she opened the book, flipping to the back where the time-travel spell was located. Willow settled again as she did so. Amber attempted to flip the pages slowly, searching discreetly for any sign of a time-freeze spell—any spell—that could get her out of this.

  “Stop stalling, Blackwood,” Patrice said. “You have ten seconds to find the page, or I’ll instruct Neil to torture Edgar until he runs his car off the road.”

  Defeated, Amber opened the book to the spell the Penhallows wanted, then held it out to Patrice. Amber watched in disgust as the woman’s dark eyes alighted as they scanned the words on the page.