Chapter Ten
Her father didn’t count.
Ms. LaPlant had been free during third period when Lily had burst into her classroom and done her best to explain—with paper, pen, and an unfortunate demonstration—what was going on. But rather than cast a counterspell herself, Ms. LaPlant had insisted on calling Lily’s parents. Something about her needing to teach next period and the fact that Lily’s parents should be the ones to do the spell because of the risk involved. She’d promised that Lily wouldn’t be in trouble for leaving school early, but Lily’s hopes of making her afternoon classes were shot.
As was her mood. It shouldn’t have been possible for it to get fouler, but as she huddled in a ball in the passenger seat of her father’s Mercedes, she had to fight back tears. He wouldn’t even let her drive herself home in case the hex had more damage left to dole out. No doubt he was right to be cautious—Lily hadn’t considered whether things could get worse—but it meant she had to listen to him lecture her during the whole drive.
“You should be better able to defend yourself from magical attacks,”
Donald Allerton said, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.
“Your teachers are always telling us how magically gifted you are, but being a witch is more than doing tricks in a classroom. Or are they not teaching you about warding in that school?”
Yes, they’d covered wards and the importance of maintaining magical protections last year. Good warding practice was to recast and strengthen those protections every full moon. Lily hadn’t done that. She didn’t know anyone who did, because who was going around casting hexes? Although she knew the Historical Society had resources about hexing, they weren’t allowed to learn about them in witch school. That hadn’t stopped anyone from sharing illicit knowledge on the down-low, but it wasn’t anything anyone took seriously.
Of course, Chrysanthemum knew how to cast a real hex, though. Of course, hers were powerful enough to get past any weak protections Lily’s crumbling ward had left.
The worst part about this was that Lily should have known better. With an unhinged, vengeful nemesis like Chrysanthemum on the loose, she should have taken everything about wards to heart. She should have been rebuilding and strengthening hers regularly since she’d learned how to cast one. But just as Lily had assumed there were some lines she wouldn’t cross, she’d assumed Chrysanthemum felt the same. How na?ve of her.
Reminding her father about her witch school lessons was as pointless as bringing up Chrysanthemum. He was upset and wanted to fume, not hear her rebuttals or accusations. And, oh yes, she couldn’t talk anyway, and he couldn’t read messages while he drove.
Normally, Lily would have been happy to have his undivided attention for several hours. But could she get it when she’d won the magic fair two years ago? Or when she’d been elected student council class president? No. She got it for being miserable and pathetic. The bar she’d have to clear to prove herself to her parents had been raised another several feet because she was starting off so much lower in their esteem. At least if her mother had been the one to pick her up, she would have been spared the lectures. She might even have gotten some sympathy.
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, and Lily forced herself to hold them in. She couldn’t afford another sign of failure.
“There it is, tilt your head a little farther.”
She did as instructed, and her father took a picture of her tongue.
“Crude-looking thing, but I guess it was effective. Unfortunately, no sign of tinge anymore, so we can’t identify the caster that way.”
His voice went cold.
“You should have been able to ward against this. You are an Allerton witch, the beneficiary of an old, distinguished family’s accumulated talents. A role model for magical excellence. Yet today someone made a fool of you because you’re not living up that legacy. I’m disappointed.”
Embarrassment mixed with anger flushed Lily’s cheeks as she studied the photo on her father’s phone. A hazy black mark, vaguely star-shaped, marred her tongue. Lily bit down on the organ, and the pain felt relieving.
She could do nothing except stand aside and watch her father put together a counterspell. Such a measure required the witch to either cast a spell strong enough to overpower the original spell, or for them to disrupt the original spell’s power. That was usually the easier of the two options, assuming the original spell wasn’t masterfully crafted. In this case, her father seemed to think Chrysanthemum’s hex was weak enough to simply overpower.
Lily stood still while her father burned a broom made from sweetgrass to sweep away residual negative energy. Then she sat in the house’s designated magic workroom—a sunny third-floor spot set aside specifically for this sort of purpose—surrounded by five white candles while he drew a banishing pentacle on her tongue with a special mixture of salt water and herbs. The taste made Lily gag, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
The tingling sensation that followed was almost worse. She cracked her eyes open, caught sight of black smoke drifting up in front of her face, and closed them again.
That smoke was coming off her tongue.
She was going to murder Chrysanthemum.
Well, dream about murder, anyway. Plot elaborate revenge fantasies that she would never follow through on, because she was a decent person. She had lines she wouldn’t cross. But, oh, Lily was going to rub it in Chrysanthemum’s snarky little face when she was named valedictorian. It didn’t matter if she didn’t sleep the rest of the year due to excess studying and practicing. She. Would. Win. It was the best revenge.
“Good,”
her father said, and Lily snapped open her eyes.
“Try to speak.”
Lily swallowed, afraid to try in case it hadn’t worked. “Trying.”
The word came out the way it was supposed to, and she let out a sigh of relief deeper than any she’d felt in a long time. Tears of gratitude threatened, but they were every bit as bad as the ones of frustration.
Her father nodded.
“Then it’s done. I expect you’ll strengthen your ward before school tonight, and I’ll be having a word with your teacher.”
“What?”
“Someone attacked you, and you were unable to defend yourself.”
He screwed the lid shut on the jar of salt water.
“Both these things are unacceptable, particularly when I’m positive you are more than capable of preventing it from happening. Do you know who did this?”
Oh no. The last thing this situation needed was her father throwing his weight around.
As if being hexed weren’t embarrassing enough, he was going to make a scene. There was no way to hide what had happened from the Society, since Lily had already gone to Ms. LaPlant for help, and Stina had probably already spread the news around the school, but this was taking it to another level. And Chrysanthemum would love it, even if she got in trouble, which Lily intended to make sure of.
“Dad …”
He held up a hand.
“Do you know?”
The air around his hand flickered a deep burgundy with his magic. Her father was very good with simple truth spells. He’d done it many times on her and her siblings.
Lily’s stomach sank. The best she could do was make this easier on herself by not requiring the spell.
“Chrysanthemum Quinn.”
“We’ll discuss this more later. I need to salvage the rest of the workday.”
All Lily could do was hope that they would not, in fact, discuss it later. Hope that her father got so caught up in his work that he went back to forgetting she existed, leaving her to handle Chrysanthemum herself.