CHAPTER EIGHT #2
And even if you did have it, you probably wouldn’t be able to cast the enchantment, the cruel voice in the back of her mind whispered. Nyssa forced herself to ignore it, giving a small shrug at Liora’s pleading look. ‘Sorry, Li. You’ll just have to beat him using your own—’
A loud crash cut off Nyssa’s words. She turned to see one of her enchanted teapots in pieces on the floor, the water which had come out of it so scalding that steam was actually coming off the rug.
Clara, daughter of the owners of The Pixie’s Grove, was brushing shards of porcelain from her long blonde hair, a furious scowl pinching her usually pretty face.
‘What kind of botched magic do you use here?’ she demanded.
There were small, red welts on the bare skin of her arms, and Nyssa immediately enchanted a cloth to soak itself in ice-cold water and tend to the woman’s burns.
Instead, the cloth remained lifeless on the countertop, and the tap she’d enchanted to turn on did so with such ferocity that water sprayed all over Liora, who had rushed to brew Clara a fresh pot of tea.
No, no, no.
Nyssa’s breath caught in her throat. Everyone in the store was looking at her, waiting for an explanation she couldn’t give.
Not without admitting that her coven had been right about her being a failure all along.
Her hands were trembling and she clamped her eyes shut, fighting to feel even a flicker of magic at her fingertips, anything so that she could right the incantations that were failing around her.
But instead of a reassuring tingle, she felt a sudden bolt of magic fly from her, completely uncontrolled. And Nyssa could do nothing but watch on as everything around her descended into chaos.
The enchanted tap began gushing even more furiously, water pooling around Nyssa’s feet, icy and unforgiving.
More enchanted teapots and teacups began shattering, spraying shards of china across the room as customers sheltered behind their seats or under tables.
A shrill whistle pierced the air as the kettles which had been gently warming on the stove began to boil over simultaneously.
Liora was yelling something, grappling desperately with the enchanted tap, as Alaric raised his hands to cast a protection charm so that scalding steam and pieces of china couldn’t injure more customers.
Wild-eyed, Nyssa took in the scene her uncontrolled magic was causing. She knew she was the only one who could stop it, but the terror of somehow making things worse meant she couldn’t summon even a whisper of her magic to her fingertips.
Unable to do anything else, she hurried into the safety of the back room and shut the door, locking herself – and her magic – away.
She just needed a second to compose herself.
To hide away from all of the expectant eyes on her and just breathe.
But the wave of anxiety that she’d managed to tamper down all morning was rising even more ferociously, and the more she tried to calm herself the harder it became to get air into her lungs, and soon the familiar setting of the small kitchen-cum-break room turned into a blur of shapeless colours.
Nyssa was so focused on trying to calm herself down that she barely heard the click of the door.
‘Hey, it’s all right,’ a voice – Elowen’s voice – whispered. She appeared in front of Nyssa, eyes soft. Nyx had followed her in, and was currently nuzzling Nyssa’s calf with her head in an attempt to soothe her. ‘I’m going to take some deep breaths, and you’re going to do it with me, okay?’
Nyssa managed a shaky nod and put all her attention on copying Elowen’s movements as the elf drew in a deep breath through her nose, held it, and let it out in a long puff of air that caressed Nyssa’s face.
Her breath smelled of cinnamon and something slightly earthy, a scent that was so uniquely Elowen that it calmed Nyssa almost as much as the breathing did.
‘That’s it, good. Now tell me what’s going on.’
‘I … I don’t know. One second everything was fine, and then my enchantments just …
’ Nyssa took another deep breath. Closed her eyes.
‘It could be because Samhain is only a few days away. A witch’s power and emotions are always heightened around this time of year when the veil is at its thinnest …
’ She trailed off, thinking about how, in the past, she hadn’t needed to take precautions.
But that had been before her magic had started going awry.
Almost immediately, the memory of Edith’s letter appeared, the words ‘I am certain you will be grateful to have more time to prepare’ repeating over and over in her head. No, it wasn’t Samhain …
‘… It was the letter,’ she said, more to herself than to Elowen. She’d let it get to her. Let it eat away at her all morning, until any triumph she’d felt over passing the first trial had withered away.
‘The letter?’
‘From a member of my coven. It said … It doesn’t matter.
’ Nyssa sighed, not sure that she was ready to go into details about the trials right now.
‘What matters is that I let it get to me, and now I have to fix it.’ Ideally before Clara decided to have the place shut down.
Or, her inner voice mocked, before you hurt someone else.
‘We …’ Elowen said. ‘We’re a team, so tell me how I can help.’