Board Games, Broomsticks, and Cottage Magic

CHAPTER ONE

There were three rules when it came to strengthening protective wards.

The first (and most important) was to cast your spell circle with intent.

Bringing any negative energy inside was a recipe for disaster, and given her mood lately, Nyssa Hawthorne should have passed the task off to another member of the coven.

But alas, she was coven leader, and the job of ritual preparation fell to her and her alone.

And so with a rather large sip of her coffee, which she’d enchanted to stay the perfect temperature, Nyssa Hawthorne got to work.

First, she practised casting the spell circle, a task so familiar to her now that she could likely do it with her eyes closed.

And yet as she went through the motions, placing and lighting a candle in each cardinal direction, Nyssa couldn’t shake the feeling that her magic seemed almost … reluctant to come to her aid.

Well, of course it is, considering how off your game you’ve been lately, her inner voice, which had been growing increasingly insistent lately, mocked.

When it had first started, it had all been because of a simple error: the coven’s latest batch of plants and herbs – which she’d enchanted to grow strong and fast – had ended up growing so quickly and healthily that they’d taken over the entire garden and half of the kitchens in just a single day.

A small (albeit fairly inconvenient) mistake, but one that was easily fixed.

Except Nyssa Hawthorne did not make simple mistakes. Especially when it came to magic. She was one of the greatest mages of her time. The leader of her coven. The banisher of the warlock Morven Delamorte. Up until the incident with the plants, the word mistake hadn’t been in her repertoire.

Now, however, the word seemed to be haunting her.

A few weeks after the plant debacle, she’d attempted a modest protection charm, binding it to an iron coin for a visiting elf setting out on a pilgrimage to a sacred spring.

But when he’d returned a week later with his clothes singed and his belongings stolen, it was clear his complaints that Nyssa’s charm had done the opposite of protecting him weren’t entirely unfounded.

She’d been able to brush the plant incident off as a blip.

The second, she’d blamed on the charm itself (the iron was old and rusted, after all).

But the third – and largest – mistake, a month later, was harder to pass off.

Nyssa had tried to cast a weather-soothing enchantment and caused a mini tornado in the covenstead’s courtyard: their sacred oak would have been pulled up from its roots had Nyssa not managed to get a hold on it just in time.

She’d thanked the ancestors that the tornado had been contained to the coven: if it had spread to the surrounding streets of London – where non-magic folk were unaware of the covenstead nestled only minutes from their homes – she would have seriously jeopardized the coven’s safety.

But even that small mercy hadn’t been enough to waylay the worry that had started to gnaw at her: that perhaps, really, the problem was her.

Don’t be silly, Nyssa. She’d worked hard to get to where she was.

Had sacrificed relationships and years of exploration and socializing in order to study every grimoire she could get her hands on, ensuring that when she applied to become an initiate with the infamous Coven of the Sacred Owl, they’d have no choice but to accept her.

And they had, eagerly, with remarks about her potential that had only made Nyssa work harder.

She’d done her time as an initiate, passed her first, second and third degrees with flying colours, and become the youngest head mage the coven had ever had.

A few simple mistakes didn’t undo all the good she’d done since then, like recruiting more coven members or improving the very ritual she was so worried about performing tonight.

Thanks to her, their protection wards had been stronger than ever for the past few months. And after tonight, they would be again.

Shoving aside her self-doubt, Nyssa carried on with her preparations.

The spell circle was first, followed by the adding of ingredients – salt, rosemary, cinnamon and dried eggshells – to the cauldron.

Nyssa began measuring out the correct amount of each ingredient in order, the monotonous act causing her eyelids to start drooping.

Witches, she was tired. Once tonight’s ritual was over, all she wanted to do was take a hot, cleansing bath and crawl into bed with Nyx.

As if summoned by her thoughts of her, as she so often seemed to be, the small black cat jumped up on to the table beside Nyssa and let out a loud mew before bopping the iron pocket watch hanging around Nyssa’s neck with her paw.

‘Not now, Nyx, I’m—’

A loud clang rang out, causing Nyssa to jump, the ingredients in her hand spilling out on to the table. As the second clang of what Nyssa knew would be twelve echoed throughout her office, Nyx gave her a look that Nyssa knew to be her ‘I told you so’ face.

‘Enough of that.’ Nyssa frowned and hurriedly regathered the ingredients, shoving them each into the small velvet pouch attached to her belt. She’d just finished when the bell gave its eighth ring.

‘See, I still have four bells left to get to the ritual chamber,’ she told Nyx, placing a quick kiss atop her head. ‘That’s more than enough time.’

As it turned out, it was not enough time.

The rest of the coven were already there, each in their respective positions around the large cast-iron cauldron.

Nyssa pretended not to notice the look a few of them gave her as she hurried through the door and into position, her cheeks flushed and her braid slightly unravelled from the windy courtyard she’d had to pass through.

She held her head high despite the fact that she likely looked more like some sort of bog witch than the head mage of The Coven of the Sacred Owl.

‘Sorry for the delay, there was … an urgent matter I had to attend to.’

Kilan, a handsome warlock with a talent for potion making, muttered a polite ‘Of course’, while Prim, an elderly witch who’d been part of the coven long before Nyssa had even joined, simply nodded her head. And Noah – the latest warlock to join their coven – offered her a small, encouraging smile.

Only one member remained completely silent, her haughty expression making it clear she knew Nyssa was lying.

Edith Kelster.

The raven-haired witch had been vying for the position of coven leader for almost as long as Nyssa had known her.

She hadn’t kicked up a fuss when Nyssa had been granted the position over herself, but having known her since they were both sixteen, Nyssa had been able to sense the thread of tension between them ever since.

A thread that, lately, had been growing more and more fraught.

She knows you’re not cut out for this, her inner voice mocked.

Nyssa once again tried to ignore it. Instead, she willed herself to focus on the familiarity of ritual as she positioned the candles in their respective places.

Once she was done, she began walking clockwise around the circle of coven members, lighting each candle as she passed with a small flick of her wrist. The scent of magic was already thick in the air, sweet like toffee, with the faintest hint of sea spray.

Every witch’s magic had its own signature scent, and in rituals like these, those scents came together to create something that was unique to its coven.

Nyssa breathed in the familiar notes as she reached the northern point of the circle once more, standing over the still water in the cauldron.

Her drawn, tired face stared back at her, and Nyssa was shocked to see just how lifeless she truly looked.

There was a dullness to her hair and skin, and the purple circles beneath her eyes looked awful in the flickering candlelight.

It was no wonder Edith had given her such a look.

Seeing herself this way, caused a pang of sadness to wrap around Nyssa’s heart. Later, she told herself, blinking back tears. She would allow herself to feel it later, when her duties were done and there were no prying eyes waiting to watch her fail.

‘Spirits, ancestors, guardians, near,

We seek your aid, we ask you here.’

She began the familiar incantation, grateful that her voice, at least, remained steady despite the burning in her throat.

The scent of her own magic – honeyed sweetness with a slight earthy tang of cacao – rose around her.

She tried not to grow disheartened at how imperceptible the scent was – as head mage, it should have been dominant in the mix, but recently she could swear it had been growing fainter and fainter.

Voices joined Nyssa’s as she continued the chant.

‘Mother Goddess, in your name,

Bless our sacred circle with your eternal flame.

Old Ones, meet us where we stand,

Lend us your strength, guide our hand.

We offer salt to keep at bay

All negative energies sent our way.’

Nyssa tipped the small portion of salt she’d weighed out into the cauldron, where the crystals which made up the coven’s protective wards were already placed.

Normally, the addition of the first ingredient would cause the crystals to emit a soft, barely perceptible glow.

Yet tonight, they remained as lifeless and dull as Nyssa’s own reflection.

For a brief moment, Nyssa considered restarting.

But there was no way of doing so without looking like an absolute fool in front of Edith and the rest of the coven, and besides, a lack of glow didn’t mean the ritual wouldn’t work.

Sometimes it just took a little longer for the magic to start flowing, especially if the witch in charge was as exhausted as Nyssa felt.

She just had to get through the rest of the ritual, had to give it time to work, and everything would be fine.