Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove #1)(28)

It had just been really, really nice to be with her again.

Just as the sun arced into noon overhead, a faint blue glow began to radiate from within the Grimoire where it sat on a portable pedestal in front of me. This time I’d chosen to stand alone, feeling confident enough to shrug into the Arbiter’s mantle myself.

Scratch that, not just confident. Downright eager, practically aching to immerse myself in that heady exhilaration again.

As soon as the mantle settled over my shoulders, there came that sense of surging growth, followed by a giddy head rush as each of my senses kaleidoscoped into dazzling life. I expanded until my head all but brushed the canopy of creamy clouds, until I could see all the way to the clear horizon; past the web of streets, orderly orchards, and rolling woods of Thistle Grove, past even the fields of crops that spread out far beyond.

A strange, deep conviction sang through me, almost like a summons. You were born for this.

When I looked back down at the Grimoire, words had coalesced into my first prompt.


Vying scions from the families three, eager to don the Victor’s Wreath,

You must hurry, and hasten, and demonstrate your speed!

By west and south and east and north,

Hie thee bring the flower forth!



So it would be speed first, then, I thought, a thrill corkscrewing through my belly as the Grimoire’s glow melted from blue to a delicate rosy gold. The light spun up into filaments, spooling into a ball that hovered just above the pages. Petals peeled off and unfurled from its center, forming a gilded flower, a filigreed rose made of softly pulsing light. Then it zoomed straight up like the prettiest-ever UFO, glow intensifying as it lifted, its radiance eliciting a chorus of gasps from combatants and spectators alike.

It was making a show, I understood, ensuring that everyone could see that it was meant to be the prize.

Then the rose sailed off toward the water, juddering to a stop a few feet above the middle of the lake. Under my hand, the Grimoire hummed; I looked down to see more words materialized below.

“Combatants!” I called out in my titaness’s voice. “Prepare to fly upon my mark!”

With my enhanced Arbiter’s vision, I could see Gareth to my left, his jaw squared and tense, lifting his stupid vambraces up in readiness. To my right, Rowan Thorn’s grip tightened on his ceremonial staff, his face setting into a mask of intent concentration.

And directly across the lake from me, a ferocious shieldmaiden’s grin split Talia’s face, and the Avramov garnet at the pulse of her throat began to glow like a bloody little star.

Then, as the Grimoire instructed me to do, I clapped my hands three times. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, each a deafening peal, like three rolls of thunder crashing across the lake. So loud that whoever heard this below in Thistle Grove would pause to consider the blueness of the sky, momentarily bewildered, wondering how and where lightning might be splitting such a perfect day.

Say what else you would about him, Gareth was fast. At my final clap, he streaked toward the water’s edge in a blur, his gold-trimmed robe swirling around his feet, long stride eating up ground. Just before his booted foot landed on the water, a chunk of ice came rising from the lake like the prow of some frozen shipwreck. He landed on it without missing a beat, barreling ahead at full force. With each stride the water yielded more and yet more filmy ice, huge milky swathes of it, so unmoving under his weight it was as though he was conjuring whole glaciers underfoot.

As more of it reared up into view, I could see that its shape resembled a clever suspension bridge, as if he were summoning up some Atlantean wreck from the lake’s invisible depths.

I couldn’t even fathom how much raw magic that must take.

To the right, Rowan tossed aside his staff and took a running dive into the lake, sliding gracefully under the surface without so much as a splash. I winced on his behalf, imagining how cold that water likely was already, though it would get a good deal more frigid closer to month’s end. Then his head breached the surface, which churned around him like some primordial cauldron, sluicing and twisting in wildly unexpected ways. It looked almost like it was torqueing around his body, propelling him forward like some sentient current tasked only with driving his momentum.

When I looked more closely, I could see that it wasn’t just water abetting his progress. Silvery bodies flashed around him, of all shapes and sizes, sunlight sparking off their scales. A massive school of fish, maybe the entirety of the aquatic life of the lake, busily swam him toward the center.

Linden was so going to give him Aquaman shit until the end of his days.

And directly across from me, Talia had also begun her ascent.

With the garnet at her throat glowing like some otherworldly beacon, a fog began to gather around her. It was an eerie, unnatural mist, ashen and somehow unctuous, writhing in a way that made it seem disturbingly alive. It wrapped itself around Talia in questing tendrils, then lifted her from the ground and propelled her into the sky.

Caught up in its tangle, she drifted toward the middle of the lake like a dark comet, a sooty smear trailing in her wake.

My mouth dropped open as I watched her wing her way toward the center like a wraith; I’d never seen anything remotely like this spell. Whatever dark Avramov magic this was, there was no denying that it was both entirely fucking cool and hot as hell.

The problem was that Gareth was still outpacing both of them.

He was already so much closer to the golden rose than either Talia or Rowan that he felt comfortable enough to slow his sprint to a more leisurely jog, dimples clefting his cheeks as he readied a triumphant smile. He even went so far as to pop off a snarky salute to Talia, whose answering glower from amid her cloud of darkness would have turned a wiser man to stone.