Witcha Gonna Do? (Witchington #1)(72)
I’m wiping away giggle tears a minute later and taking in the rough and ready gathering of Sherwoods. “I can’t believe everyone came and that they came so well armed.”
“We may have overpacked,” Mom says with a whatcha-gonna-do shrug. “We Sherwoods do have a tendency to do that.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may need all those weapons,” Erik says as he and Vance walk down from the train platform to where Leona and I are standing with our parents. “My dad is absolutely livid and ready to go to war—but if I can get the spell book back tonight, there’s a chance I can talk him out of emptying our armory.”
Looking as bored as she most definitely is not, Leona crunches a pile of fallen orange leaves under her tennis shoes. “So we take it back.”
“We?” he asks, one of his dark eyebrows shooting up.
Leona gives him a dirty look that would send most witches for cover. Erik doesn’t even flinch. “After what happened last time, there’s no way I’d trust you to make sure your dad understands that war is not on the table.”
“How many times do I have to tell you the same thing?” Something that looks a lot like annoyance at having what seems like the same argument for the fortieth time flashes in Erik’s bright blue eyes. “Last time was not my fault.”
My sister’s smirk back at him is anything but sweet and friendly. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Leona and Erik continue to bicker, but it fades into the background along with the rest of the world because that’s when I realize Gil is here. He’s been here the whole time, hanging out on the edge of the crowd. It takes two beats of my broken heart for all of the pain to come rushing back, vicious and raw.
If he has any idea of the danger he’s in at the moment, he doesn’t show it as he walks confidently over. “I knew you could do it if you only gave yourself the chance.”
I’m shaking with a whole tornado of mixed emotions at seeing him—anger, hurt, relief, excitement. Even now, after he abandoned Birdie, Eli, Vance, and I to our fates, I can’t help but want to throw my arms around him and be forever grateful that he came back. What kind of weak fool am I? Gil Connolly is a know-it-all jerk who couldn’t even be bothered to trust me with his plan. And that was it right there, why all of this hurts so bad. He’d asked me a million times to trust him, but when it came down to it, he didn’t return that trust.
“Trust me,” I throw back his own words at him before adding a few of my own, “you’re about to find out exactly what I can do.”
I grab Erik’s forearm, the power of his magical abilities a perceptible humming in my head as soon as I do. “I need a banishment spell.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, glancing over at Leona for support or guidance or who the hell knows.
I sure don’t. I’m not sure I know what I want right now, but seeing Gil standing with my family as if he belongs, as if we belong together, has me hurting so bad all over again by showing me everything that could be.
I tighten my grip. “Just do it.”
Erik inhales a breath, summoning his family magic and the unique flavor that’s all his own.
“Tilda, wait!” Gil pleads, his hands palms up in surrender. “Please. Can we talk?”
But it’s too late for that, the wind is already whipping around me and the scent of butter and fresh-brewed coffee is in the air. Magic rushes through me, a blast of power with only one target.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gil . . .
There isn’t time to duck and, honestly, I already know there isn’t a need—not with Tilda. She may have enough power in her little finger to flatten half of Wrightsville, but she’d never actually do it. Still, that doesn’t mean the little hairs on the back of my neck don’t stick straight up and my balls don’t tuck up when she tells me it’s too late for talking.
I’m confident in Tilda, I’m not stupid about my ability to piss her off.
A blast of magic makes a sonic boom in the meadow and an entire hundred-acre orchard of apple trees that was on the top of the hill behind me disappears in an instant.
All of the Sherwoods fall silent—something I wouldn’t have believed possible—and those of us non-Sherwoods stand there for a second, our mouths agape. There’s power and then there’s banishing more than 3,500 apple trees with the flick of a wrist.
This is when a better man might approach the love of his life with some caution. As you know by now, though, I’m not a better guy. I’m a double agent. I’ve lied, cheated, snuck around, double-crossed people, and—up until I met Tilda—was more than satisfied with that life. Of course, now I can’t imagine being that guy any more than I can imagine spending the rest of my life without Tilda.
Eyes wide with shock, Erik makes a tactician’s surrender and walks over to Leona, who, while surprised at the power move her sister made, is still obviously annoyed enough with the Svensen heir to shoot him a 9.5 glare on a 6-point scale.
Heart hammering against my ribs, I close the distance between us, needing to be near her the way I need oxygen to breathe. “Did you just send a bunch of apple trees into The Beyond?”
She straightens her glasses and gives me a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it chin lift. “Until we can put a stop to what the Council is doing, I thought it might help add to folks’ food stores so they don’t have to work as hard as your parents did to feed you.”