Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)(21)
I reached for the Grimoire, steeling myself for another overwhelming magical assault. I didn’t really want to touch it again at all, but at the very least, I’d want to read over the rules, make sure this version didn’t contain any prohibition on an alliance between two houses. As if it sensed my apprehension, the spellbook sat circumspect under my touch, buzzing pleasantly against my skin but nothing more. I found its restraint oddly reassuring, giving me just a little hope that I wasn’t in quite as far over my head as I suddenly felt.
Maybe arbitrating the Gauntlet in the town I thought I’d left behind for good, while I helped Linden and Talia scheme against Gareth Blackmoore, Prince of Bastards, would be manageable after all.
7
The Ring Effect
My got-this attitude soldiered on until the night of the opening ceremony, before summarily abandoning me.
I stood in the vast and unruly garden behind The Bitters, the Avramovs’ demesne, my high heels sinking into the soil beneath the overgrown grass. Wearing the pair of power Jimmy Choos I’d splurged on to celebrate my Enchantify promotion had probably been a bad call, but tonight I needed every shred of confidence I could muster. Deep night loomed above, the crescent moon glowing against it like some trickster’s impish smile. Behind me, an ornate wrought iron fence, twined with ivy and topped with wickedly sharp finials, guarded against the thick woods that hulked behind The Bitters.
And in front of me, the three hundred or so members of the founding families stood robed and gathered, waiting for me to declare the Gauntlet begun.
Firelight from the scattered braziers painted their features with writhing lines of light and shadow, stripping even well-known faces of their familiarity. I couldn’t even pick out my own mother, Nana Caro, or Delilah amid the hooded throng, much less Talia or Linden, though I knew they must all be here tonight; I’d forgotten just how many of us witches there were in this town.
I wasn’t usually one for stage fright, but with the expectant weight of all their eyes on me, the sense of being scrutinized by a host of sinister strangers instead of people I’d grown up with, my heart pounded in sickening lurches, my knees going watery and weak.
“Ready, scoot?” my father murmured into my ear. He’d come to stand behind me, the heavily embroidered purple velvet of the Arbiter’s mantle slung over his arm. The Grimoire sat waiting on the stone table in front of me, splayed open to the page of incantations, two fat pillar candles flickering on either side. The spellbook’s pages stirred in the breeze, and I could feel the eager swell of its magic lapping against me like a rising tide.
Which meant it was almost time.
“Ready,” I whispered back, licking my lips. Trepidation surged in my throat as he unfolded the mantle and shook it out, my stomach twisting with irrational qualms. What if it didn’t work? What if the mantle felt the way my magic had guttered since I’d been gone, and rejected me as Arbiter? What if—
Then the fabric settled lightly over my shoulders—and its spell ignited, burning out every last trace of nerves.
A sudden wind kicked up around me, swirling around my feet. It built upon itself, gaining in intensity until the Grimoire’s pages fluttered wildly in the gale like thrashing wings. A swell of magic thundered through me until I felt as though I were expanding, growing like the giant beanstalk in the tale, rushing up and up into the sky. Soon I loomed above the peaked roofs, turreted towers, and widow’s walks of the Avramovs’ manse, its wolf-and-serpent weather vanes whirling in the gusts of wind. I was somehow so tall that I could see Lady’s Lake glimmering atop Hallows Hill to the west, could even spot the glowing storefronts and the milling streams of tourists coursing down Yarrow Street toward the east.
Whooooa, I marveled giddily to myself, high on the magical equivalent of heroin. The mantle’s magic was immeasurably stronger than any spell I’d managed on my own before, and it felt nothing short of fucking spectacular.
Did not expect the Galadriel-puts-on-the-Ring effect, but must admit it is absurdly cool.
Amid the dizzying euphoria, I found that words had appeared on the page of incantations, emblazoned in a glowing script. And even though I felt miles high—and maybe even looked it in some way, judging by the stunned expressions in the crowd—the Grimoire was still exactly where it had been before, right within reach of my fingertips.
“Elder Igraine, matriarch of House Blackmoore,” I boomed, in a knelling cadence that sounded like some behemoth orchestra playing my voice, “Victor of the sixth Gauntlet of the Grove. Your time now comes to cede the wreath.”
A figure peeled away from the shadowy mass of people that seemed impossibly far below me. But I could see Gareth’s grandmother perfectly well as she approached, the silver wreath perched on a chignon of ice-blond hair. She really did look no older than when I’d left Thistle Grove, and even then she’d seemed uncannily youthful, just as Talia had said; her skin porcelain pale and smooth, a stern cast to her patrician face.
She took off the wreath and set it on the table in front of the Grimoire, giving me a grudgingly respectful dip of the head. But I could see the challenge blaze to life in her pale blue eyes, the way her hand lingered on the circlet before she withdrew.
As if she was saying, Don’t get too attached, my girl. Me and mine will be having this back.
Rebellion surged up in my throat, a revolt so hostile and potent it almost felt like it hadn’t come entirely from me. No, ma’am, you won’t, I thought back at her. Not if I have any say in it.