Spell Maven Mysteries- The Complete Series

by J L Collins

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The edge of the black dragon-leather jacket gave her away before she fully came into view from behind the glowing tree. Delaney Drakar smiled down at us with a kind of sick satisfaction that clung to my bones like dry rot. I wanted to claw her freaking eyes out.

  “Don’t you dare touch my daughter,” I growled, scratching and yanking at the unyielding roots.

  She laughed, shaking her head. “That’s not my intention, though I would warn that doesn’t help you very much.”

  “No!” Fiona-Leigh screeched even louder as she tried kicking the roots. They closed in even tighter around her and she stopped, gasping.

  “Don’t move, honey,” I said through the bindings all around me. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Delaney came over to bend down right in front of me. “Mmhmm. Just like you figured out the rest of it, huh? Just like you realized I was the one who sent Gentry to kill your stupid brother. Though you didn’t realize the Renaldis were working for me, did you?”

  The Changeling brothers? My heart sank. An Leabhar na Ciallmhar. She must have had access to it at some point… for who knows how long?

  A crooked smile spread across her porcelain face, her hooded eyes narrowing even more at me. “Oh, I see it working in your little brain right now. It did give me plenty of time to take what I needed from the book. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of magic involved…”

  “Not all of us need the help of some old ancient textbook to get our magic working right,” I said. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Fiona-Leigh moving oddly to one side of the root cage, facing us. All I could do was hope that she was using that pocketknife Sully had given her for Christmas to good use. I needed her to get the heck out of here.

  Delaney’s smile twisted. “Or, here’s a thought. Not all of us have the gumption to try and take their magic to the next level. Me? All it took was some hard work, a little string-pulling, and the right people in the right places… and look at Spell Haven now.”

  “What did you do, Delaney? If you’re so smart, then how come you’re out here in the woods like a Forest Troll? Maybe that seems more fitting for you…”

  I became all too aware of the tiny thorns bursting forth through some of the roots around me. I sucked in my stomach to help take up less room.

  She stood back up, shrugging indifferently. “I needed somewhere to store the magic I stole from you hags, didn’t I? And I thought this was a rather nice tree myself. The filthy Fairies needed to go, but other than that, it worked out quite well I must say. Even after the stupid Dwarf found the tree afterwards.”

  I dropped my head. Of course. “That stupid Dwarf had a name. Tiberius.”

  “What an utterly fantastic name wasted on such a pathetic fool. What a shame. Perhaps if he hadn’t tried to mess with my spellwork, he wouldn’t have ended up dead at the bottom of a hill. This magic really is such a blessing, you know,” she said with a deranged look on her face. She held up her hands, green sparks stuttering out of them. A frown slid over her victorious face, and she shook her hands out, wringing them together angrily.

  Something fluttered inside of me. To my right, Fi was very slowly sliding backwards out of the root cage, barely making a sound. If she wasn’t careful, she wouldn’t get very far.

  I needed to distract Delaney.

  Biting down on my bottom lip and knowing what was coming, I leaned forward, my voice a low hiss. “Sounds like that blessing was meant for someone who could handle it properly. Someone more powerful.”

  She didn’t give into the bait quite like I had hoped, but the thorns twisted against me tighter anyway, and I swore under my breath, trying to keep her attention on me. “If you did some kind of.. ugh… some kind of, of magical transference spell, then how do you ex-expect to hold all of our power? Your body isn’t prepared for something… ow… like that!” I fumbled against the roots, doing my best not to move too much.

  Delaney turned on her heels and walked back toward the tree, my gut clenching tightly as I hoped she didn’t see that Fiona-Leigh was no longer pinned inside her cage.

  “See this?” Delaney said, kicking at the base of the gnarled, glowing tree. “The magic is contained in it for now. In fact,” she said, kicking at it again with more force, “you’re just in time for the show! I had to wait for a few days and get everything just right… but now I am ready. Despite what you may think. And believe me, I don’t give a dragon’s hide what you think.”

  “Ready for what?”

  She threw another hollow grin in my direction. “To become the most powerful Witch in all of the realm, obviously.”

  She was crazy. She was absolutely insane. There was no way the magic would stay holed up in that tree, much less, inside an actual person.

  “You know that won’t work, Delaney. It’ll take too much of a toll on your body. It’ll kill you,” I yelled over the sound of a loud whoosh escaping from the tree. It seemed it wasn’t a fan of her kicking it. Was it just me, or was the trunk slowly expanding…?

  She wasn’t fazed. “Sure, that’s what someone who’s barely studied the intricacies of black magic like I have would say. But I know what I’m doing. It will work and you will very much regret ever searching for me. Your poor, bastard daughter. What will she do without her Mommy to help her…?” she turned to face Fiona-Leigh, only she wasn’t there. Delaney’s head whipped back toward me, and the violet blaze in her eyes burned brighter as she stalked toward me.

  “Ungh,” I cried out, struggling as the thorny roots ripped at me, wrapping tighter and tighter. “Fi—run!”

  “Guess she can say bye to you at your funeral,” Delaney cackled, the strange sort of green haze spiraling up from the palm of her hand as she took another step toward me.

  I closed my eyes, preparing for the worst, clinging on to the last image of my sweet girl’s face.

  Chaos exploded into the air.

  The green, glowing tree sent debris, dirt, roots and all flying through the air as it ballooned too much and burst, the magic inside of it unstable and unable to stay put any longer.

  What had once been standing in the middle of the clearing was reduced to barely a stump, the rest of its roots jutting out and seeing open sky for the first time. I was protected by the roots in place around me, but Delaney was thrown into the air, smacking hard against the tree at my back, before sliding down it just as quickly.

  “Fiona-Leigh!” I shrieked, terrified she hadn’t gotten far enough away to be safe from the terrible blast. I clawed at the roots which thankfully retracted the thorns and fell away easily, no longer enchanted by Delaney.

  I scrambled to my feet, coughing through the smoke in the air. The green haze seemed to be gone, and when I looked at the base of the tree I’d been pinned against, I quickly looked away. Delaney’s neck was very clearly broken. Magic or not… there was no way she could survive that.

  “Fi!” I screamed again, stumbling over the broken branches everywhere. I began sifting through the debris, my heart pounding so hard in my head that I could’ve sworn my vision was pounding along with it.

  “She got away… she got away,” I mumbled, unable to think of the alternative, still rummaging through everything as quickly as I could.

  There was the sound of leaves shifting. “M-Mama?”

  “Oh my god, Fi,” I whispered to myself, vaulting over everything in my way. She was a few dozen yards away, lying on the ground but at least moving to sit up.

  “I can’t… my head hurts,” she said as I collapsed at her feet.

  My own head was still pounding, but as I took a good look at her, everything seemed to swim into view. My heart stuttered.

  Fiona-Leigh’s eyes rolled back into her head as she slumped back in my arms, an eerie green haze hovering and surrounding her entire body.

  14

  The Human At The Door

  For such a skinny thing with her bony limbs and barely there curves, Fiona-Leigh’s weight dragg
ed me down as I slumped through the tree line, trying to catch my breath.

  “Almost. There,” I huffed, wishing she would just answer me. That she would turn her head and make some kind of sarcastic comment about me joking on her weight or something. I would’ve taken anything at that point.

  I forced myself to keep going—there was no choice; I had to. And there was no way this magic that was using her as a vessel would be patient with her body. She was human; she wasn’t meant to have this kind of energy coursing through her.

  Ahead, I saw a hulking figure and a smaller one pushing a stuck carriage transporter down the road by hand. A sense of recognition and relief flooded through me.

  I could barely form the words coherently that were screeching out of my throat. “Arcas! Arcas!”

  He threw his massive bull head back to glance at me, his hands dropping from the back of the transporter. We locked eyes and he froze before rushing toward me at full Minotaur speed.

  “Gwen! What the hell happened? What’s going on? Is she okay?” he roared, stopping to carefully scoop Fiona-Leigh out of my arms and cradle her into his own. “What is this… magic?”

  I nodded, trying to catch my breath again, tears running down my face as I explained in a hurry that I needed to rush her back to the manor house.

  “I’m on it,” he said, carrying her forward in a charge only Arcas was capable of. He was so far ahead of me by the time he made it to the front gate that I ran all out to catch up with him, my legs like compacted jello.

  The gate swung open and we were through, inside the house, everyone swirling around us, all of them at once.

  The room blurred. Erie was directing Arcas to the parlor. Uncle Gardner was shaking my shoulders, trying to get me to tell him what happened. His words felt slow in my ears like molasses moving through a funnel and didn’t match up to his mouth.

  Aunt Ginevra was somewhere in the background, barking orders—or was that Aunt Bedelia?

  “Shock… She’s in shock…”

  Arcas’ voice was a deep rumble. “She was coming out of the forest I think…”

  “Why was she in the forest? Erie? Reaghan! Get the kids out of here!”

  Someone was leading me to a seat. I felt it underneath me, but I still didn’t register it really.

  “Gwen.”

  How had I been so stupid? Why did I think I needed to be the one to catch Delaney? Why didn’t I leave it be?

  “Gwendolyn?”

  It was my fault that Fi was hurt—my fault that she was now holding what was potentially all the Witch magic in Spell Haven, inside her frail, human body. My gut clenched even tighter as I brought my fist to my mouth to keep the scream in.

  Someone shoved me, hard.

  “Gwen! You have to snap out of it! Tell me, what happened?”

  Erie was at my knees, her eyes so full of concern that they were the only things tying me down to reality. “Tell me.”

  I blinked through tears I hadn’t realized were falling down my face. “There… in the forest. Delaney Drakar.”

  “Where is she…? Gwen? Oh my god, Gwennie!” My brother threw himself at the floor by her, clutching onto my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry Gwennie, I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “Sh, she was telling me something,” Erie said softly to him. “You said you saw Delaney in the forest? Is that right?”

  I did my best to nod. “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

  My mouth had never been drier and speaking around the growing lump in my throat was no easy feat. By the time I’d given everyone the account of what had happened in the woods with Fiona-Leigh, I begged for a glass of water. It didn’t help—my mouth still tasted bitter like dirt and fear.

  I was only barely aware of Uncle Gardner at the edge of my peripheral, and when he came to stand in front of me, it took me a second for my eyes to adjust.

  “Ginny and I are going straight to the Athenaeum, lass. We’ll bring An Leabhar na Ciallmhar here and we’ll figure out how to fix this. I swear to you. Do you trust me?” he said, his voice rough as the sandpaper I felt in my own throat.

  All I could do was nod. He pulled me in against his chest tightly, just like when my mother had died. I could smell his aftershave and the crisp clean of his Shadow Hands uniform.

  “We will fix this. We will fix her. I will make sure of it, Gwendolyn.” He pulled away with a curt nod, and he whisked Aunt Ginevra out the door with him without another look back.

  I slipped out of the seat I was in, choosing instead to be the one to keep a cold wet rag on Fi’s forehead. The magic was causing a feverish state in her body.

  Erie pressed herself against my side, leaning her head against mine as I felt the Fi’s flushed cheeks with the back of my hand. “Hey Gwennie, I have something I’ve got to do—I’ll be right back. I think I know how I can help but I need to hurry. Okay?”

  I merely nodded, only registering her words once she had dropped a kiss to the top of my head and dashed out of sight.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been at Fi’s side on the chaise lounge. Outside the light coming through the windowpanes seemed to shift until shadows grew longer and enveloped most of the sunlight. At some point Isobel had come to sit next to me, tending to the multiple puncture wounds and scratches across my skin from the thorny roots. It burned, but I didn’t care. I would’ve dealt with much worse if it meant Fi would wake up.

  In the corner, Tristan was watching, his eyes on the pair of us as Isobel hummed softly to herself. The kids must have been somewhere else entirely, because I couldn’t hear a thing from them. In the back of my mind I realized they must have been so worried about their cousin.

  My heart stuttered, but I pushed back against any thought that didn’t have to do with Fiona-Leigh beating whatever this was.

  Arcas paced back and forth by the front door. What he was waiting for, I wasn’t sure of.

  Time seemed to pass all at once, and then barely at all.

  Aunt Bedelia, the one who was usually the most calm and collected, was sitting in one of the chairs by Tristan, hurriedly flipping through a stack of books she’d placed at her feet. She must’ve grabbed them from the library at some point.

  “No, no. That’s not it,” she mumbled, completely lost in her own worries. Or maybe lost in everyone else’s… sometimes it was a hard burden to bear being a telepath.

  Some time later, when Isobel had finished up and was upstairs with Reaghan helping to put the kids to bed, Arcas quickly stood to attention at the entrance of the room. His bullring swung back and forth.

  The front door banged open and I shielded Fi with my entire body automatically, still not out of the woods in my mind.

  Erie’s voice broke through the fog in my mind. Someone else yelled and Arcas was there growling, arguing with Erie from the sound of it.

  What the heck was going on in there?

  Aunt Bedelia was already on it, stalking out of the room to give them a piece of her mind, but she gasped as soon as she found them, loudly enough for me to hear. I frowned.

  “What have you done?” I heard her hiss.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Bee, but I had to. Move, Arcas! We don’t have time to explain,” Erie said, her footsteps thudding through the foyer, into the hall, to where they stopped as she stood at the opening to the parlor.

  “Gwen. I…” she sighed, shaking her head. “I thought you needed the reinforcements.”

  I tilted my head to the side, slowly bringing myself up to a stand. My face felt as raw as my throat. “What? What do you mean?”

  She bit her lip and moved so that I could see past her, her head dropped down.

  In the doorway, looking both terrified and confused, stood Sully. He moved around her, his eyes steady on me.

  I gasped, dropping the rag I had in my hand to the floor.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, rushing to me, his hands on my face, in my hair, checking over me, holding me, shivering against me as I stood, unable to move.

  When h
e pulled away, he immediately dropped down to check Fi’s pulse, checking the timing of it, and glancing up at me, his eyes wide. “She’s stable, at least.” He stood back up slowly, running his hands through his hair as he shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t know if this place has a hospital or how that works or whatever, but we can take her. Whatever you need from me, you know I—”

  I crashed into him, clutching onto him so tightly, scared he’d leave me the moment I let go. Sobs wracked my body, but he held me just as tightly, whispering to me, rocking me against him.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, Gwen. Shh.”

  All I could do was try not to wipe my face on his favorite flannel. “I’m—I’m so sorry. I s-swear Sully, I wanted to… to tell you…”

  But he shook his head, refusing to listen. “No. No, we don’t need to worry about that. Whatever is going on outside this room, I don’t care about, baby. All that matters is right here. All that matters is making sure your little girl is okay. Let’s focus on Fi, let’s make sure she gets better, right? The rest can wait.”

  I sucked in a quick breath and nodded against him, something in me sliding loose and opening up.

  15

  The Last Sacrifice

  There was something in having Sully squeezed up next to me on the floor, both of us unable to look away from Fi. Whatever was going through his head would have to wait for later, like he’d said. But just having him here with me meant more than I could ever begin to explain to him.

  Some time after the kids had tried to sneak downstairs to see Fiona-Leigh and Reaghan had nearly bit their heads off, shuttering the parlor room, Uncle Gardner and Aunt Ginevra returned home, both of them a little breathless.

  Uncle Gardner leaned heavily on his cane, a familiar and ancient-looking text underneath his arm as he staggered over carefully. “I had to fight tooth and nail to get this,” he said gruffly, handing the Book of the Wise to Aunt Bedelia who was standing closer to him, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “Brina and Hale. They didn’t want to give it up considering the situation out there,” he said as he pointed outside. “It took some doing but I got them to see reason.”