Page 7 of How to Charm a Coven (How to Flirt with a Witch #2)

“Very well.” Fiona’s voice pierces the hum. “Jury, you’ve heard the accused and her witness. Now, let’s stop wasting time. Cast your votes. ”

Natalie comes to stand beside me, gripping my shoulder. But with the verdict looming, even her touch isn’t enough to reassure me right now.

Should I have said more? Maybe they don’t fully understand how dangerous the Madsens are.

I should have reminded them of how close Freddie came to killing me in that Alchemy room, and how they left a cursed plushie at my door that nearly killed Hazel.

I should have shown them the threatening text I got from Oaklyn, and…

Sky lifts her hand, and a wooden token floats across the room and settles into one of the vases on Fiona’s desk, where it turns green and glows like an emerald.

Agnes does the same—but her token drops into the other vase with a pointed clack , where it turns ruby-red.

My heart stumbles. This is how they vote, then. Tokens in jars, like this is all some game.

Hayley and Neil’s chips fall into the green vase. Others go into the red one. More float through the air—green, red, red, green. I lose count.

At last, the room goes still. Every person in the jury has cast their vote.

Natalie’s grip tightens over my shoulder.

Fiona’s fingers dance, and the tokens rise like fireflies, where they hang suspended. She counts, her lips moving silently.

I perch forward, my pulse beating in my neck as I frantically try to count the votes. They’re too far away, everything blurring together.

“Katie Medina Alexander,” Fiona says, pinning me under her sharp gaze.

Natalie sucks in a breath.

My heart seems to stop.

Fiona’s lips curl. “The jury hereby finds you guilty on all charges.”

“No!” Natalie barks, letting go of my shoulder to step forward.

Fiona rises, her clenched jaw and imposing stance daring Natalie to keep talking.

The world tilts. Guilty ?

The roses on the walls blur and twist, their thorns seeming to reach for me as voices warp like I’m underwater. The room gets vaster, darker, leaving me alone in a void. I grip the edge of the chair to steady myself.

The memory of swearing my oath in this room swims forward in my memory—nervously reading from a worn leather book, promising to protect magic at all costs. Well, I did, and look where it led me.

“Now.” Fiona’s triumphant voice cuts through the haze. “We’ll convene to discuss the length of your imprisonment—”

“Fiona, this is wrong!” Natalie barks.

“Quiet!” Fiona snarls.

My head spins as they argue, the verdict knocking me off-balance. This can’t be it. They never gave me a chance to reverse what I did or…

An idea sparks, and I blurt it out before I can second-guess myself. “I’ll fix it.”

My voice brings the room to silence. Fiona stares at me.

“Let me catch all the magic I set free,” I say. “If I can return it to the coven, will you waive my prison sentence?”

Fiona laughs. “Harness bio magic? You think you can do what Trackers spend their whole lives training for? What took us a century to contain?”

No , my inner voice says—but I have to try. “We don’t know the extent of my ability, do we?”

She studies me. The fact that she hasn’t immediately shot down the idea gives me a thread of hope that I desperately cling to.

“Katie,” Natalie murmurs, but I put a hand out to silence her.

“Give me a year to harness it all,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m begging. “If I fail, imprison me. But at least let me try to reverse what I did.”

Fiona scrutinizes me over her nose before looking at the jury.

My heart slams into my ribs. She’s actually considering it .

Finally, she tilts her head. “Very well. Since you were so eager to prove yourself useful to the coven, here’s your chance.

But you don’t get a year. You have two months.

By the end of June, you will harness all fifty-six instances of bio magic you set free and return them to us.

If you don’t succeed: imprisonment in our cells. Jury?”

Murmurs pass over the witches, and several of them nod. Sky goes pale, her eyes huge.

Two months?

A jitter rolls through me. The whole reason Natalie and I freed it was because of how hard it would be to recapture it. Skilled witches like Natalie’s dad dedicate their entire careers to the task—and I can’t even do magic.

I’m delaying the inevitable—but I have a shot now. At the very least, I have a few more weeks of freedom. A few weeks with Natalie.

Fiona’s eyes glint with the cold satisfaction that she’s finally brought me to justice. “We’re in agreement, then. Five years’ imprisonment when—sorry, if —you fail. And if you try to flee or hide…you know we’ll find you, don’t you?”

I dip my chin. She’s playing with me, but I won’t let her see my fear.

Five. Years.

I’ll be in my mid-twenties when I get out. I can’t ask Natalie to wait for me that long. And what’ll I tell my family and friends? They’ll all move on without me while I sit in a cell during the best years of my life. My degree and career plans, my entire future, all gone.

I’d planned to introduce Natalie to my parents and sisters soon. I’ve lain awake at night imagining how it would go—Pearl interrogating her with no filter, Mom fussing over her. Now that’ll never happen.

I have to run, to disappear into another city and change my name. If that would even work .

The jury stands, murmured conversations growing louder as everyone gets on with their day. As if they haven’t shattered someone’s entire future.

“N-Natalie,” I stammer, unable to breathe through the panic.

This wasn’t supposed to be the outcome. I never thought it would come to this when I freed those chimeras—I just did what needed to be done.

She bends down in front of me, her strong hands grounding me. “You won’t face this alone, okay? I’m going to help you.”

“If I’d known what breaking into that room—” I start, but she shakes her head firmly.

“You were right, Katie. Don’t doubt yourself. If we’d let Sophia and Oaklyn get a hold of bio magic, they would have killed or tortured us already.”

I nod. Yes, the alternative is worse, but it’s hard to believe we did the right thing when a five-year prison sentence is looming over me.

“This is my fault,” she says furiously. “I shouldn’t have let you return to Vancouver.”

“No! How were you supposed to know?” It hurts even more that she’s blaming herself.

Sky rushes over, pushing through the dispersing crowd. “Nat. We need Dad.”

Natalie and I turn to her, both of us struggling for breath.

“Listen.” Sky puts a hand on each of our shoulders, her grip steady. “We need a Tracker’s help, and Dad is one of the only witches who can catch a chimera. He’s good at it. We’ll find him, and he’ll help us.”

Natalie stares at her, her gaze slowly focusing. She nods. “Sky’s right. We have a fighting chance once we find Dad, okay? Katie?” She hooks a finger under my chin and angles my face toward hers.

I want to believe her. I’ve faced impossible odds before, and I did what was necessary to save myself and protect magic .

I have a choice: I can give up, or I can trust Natalie and Sky, who are staying at my side. Running isn’t an option—not when Sophia and Oaklyn Madsen have their dad, and not when finding him might be my only shot at freedom.

Fear coils around my throat like a boa constrictor, but I force myself to nod.

It’s an infinitesimal hope, but it’s going to have to be enough. After all, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Zacharias family, it’s that they never back down from a fight.

And honestly, neither do I.