Mathilda, SuperWitch (Mathilda's Book of Shadows #1)(48)

Once I was properly attired, he held out his hand.

“Give me your wand.”

Excuse me? I thought.

“Uh… what?” I asked.

“Your wand,” he said.

“Why?” I asked (kinda loud).

No way. I thought.

Mavis and Gran had told me the Witches Council would be investigating. Malevolent witch-on-witch magic was frowned upon. Word got out (Darling’s people, no doubt). We were informed that an investigation had been opened and we were to expect a visit.

Of course, I had nothing to worry about. I mean, Darling was clearly a psycho – cavorting with bad guys, kidnapping eight year olds and striking people with bolts of lightning.

“You don’t know what you’re going to meet down there. They could confiscate your wand,” Ash told me.

Was he crazy?

“No way!” I snapped. “She kidnapped Rory!”

He sighed, patient as ever (yeah, right). “Mathilda, Prunella Craddock and Endora Eccles are down there – the Crone and the Lady.”

This was supposed to explain things?

“Yeah? So?”

“If what you say is true and Agatha Darling has put herself up as the protector of tradition –”

“She kidnapped Rory! He’s my Spellbound. I’ve vowed to keep him safe! Surely they can’t –”

Ash stepped close and tipped his chin to look at me. “They’ve lived their entire lives behind the veil of secrecy. You represent significant change to the Wiccan world, to the way witches practice their Craft, which is to say, the way they live their lives. You can’t assume they’re going to be on your side.”

Oh.

Well, then.

Fuck.

I had to admit that Ash had a point.

I gave him my wand.

* * * * *

They were all assembled in the front parlor (the one I called the Plush Parlor because everything was covered in velvet, even the wallpaper was flocked).

Mavis and Gran were already there.

The hag, lady and maiden were wearing the Council uniform which, to be frank, needs updating – black crepe silk, ragged hem, lace-up cle**age (under which, thankfully, the crone had added a camisole), pointy hat, chunky shoes and red and white striped stockings.

Jeez.

The crone looked to be about eight hundred years old. The lady was Mavis’s age (give or take a hundred years). It was the maiden who surprised me, she was my age.

“I’m Myra Dingle and I’m a proxy,” she said, reading my thoughts. “My daughter, the Maiden, is Seraphina and she has school tomorrow. I don’t want her up too late.”

Well, that explains that.

* * * * *

Must say, I was expecting a friendlier interrogation scene. A bunch of kindly witches sitting around commiserating about the state of the witch world today – perhaps while eating steamed syrup sponge with custard and hot cocoa.

Instead, the crone looked cranky, the lady looked bored and the maiden-proxy looked like she’d like to be anywhere but there.

And then Dr. Bennett cleared his throat.

Uh… pardonnez moi, but what was the f**k was Dr. Bennett doing there?

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Okay, so that wasn’t exactly polite but it was two in the morning, Ash was a jerk, my chest hurt (maybe I was milking that a bit), I didn’t have my wand on me and things didn’t look like they were going to go to well with the Council.

And there he was, standing by the fireplace, the Head Dude of Psychical Research, standing in, of all places, the Plush Parlor of The Gables.

Dead people somewhere were spinning in their graves, no doubt.

“Dr. Seymour is indisposed,” Ambrose Bennett answered. “And, quite unusually, he was a firsthand witness to reciprocal malignant Wicca. He’s asked me to come in his stead and present evidence on your behalf.”

Oh Aidan.

He’s so sweet.

“We,” the Crone said, sounding even crankier than she looked, “had a member of Le Société de Mathilde at the scene. We hardly need your watcher’s evidence.”

Mm, seems the Crone is in Ash’s camp about the Royal Institute.

Dr. Bennett teetered a bit away from the fireplace.

“I’m afraid it isn’t testimony Dr. Seymour was intending to share, rather, physical evidence.”

And then he whipped out a wand.

I was the only one in the room who gasped. But then, I’d been the only one in the room to feel what Agatha Darling’s wand could do.

“That’s Darling’s wand,” I said.

“That it is,” Dr. Bennett replied.

The Lady took a step forward. “A watcher in possession of a witch’s wand?” She sounded horrified and offended. “How…?”

“If you would allow me,” Dr. Bennett interrupted her, turned, went to the wall, bent creakily to the floor, fiddled with something and then whipped around with surprising agility.

A bolt of lightning went up and over everyone’s head, harmlessly crackling away for a brief moment and then dying.

Five wands were pulled out immediately (not mine, obviously, damn it all).

In the midst of that, Ash strolled casually forward and yanked the wand from Dr. Bennett’s unresisting grip.

Then everyone else in the room but me (and Ash) gasped.