Page 151 of How to Flirt with a Witch

Natalie, Sky, Amir, and Fiona launch attacks, but the Madsens are quick to retaliate, blocking anything from hitting them.

“Tell me you’re lying,” Oaklyn snarls. “Tell me Freddie isn’t dead.”

Fiona looks my way, inviting all eyes to fall onto me. I shiver, my throat too tight to let me speak. If I tell the truth, will they snap and kill Agnes? I’ve alreadygot one person’s blood on my hands today. I can’t handle another.

“He is,” Natalie says, palms up, ready to fight. “And it’s no one’s fault but your own.”

Oaklyn trembles, a glint of tears in her eyes. She turns to her mother, her chest heaving. “We can still save him. The bio magic.”

I don’t know enough about magic to know whether this is true—whether they can bring him back to life. But if they’re mistaken, nobody corrects them.

“We just—need—directions to it,” Sophia says through gritted teeth.

Agnes whimpers, suspended upside down beside Oaklyn, all her earlier bravado evaporating.

“Care to share where you hoard your magic, MissDirector?” Sophia yells, her eyes wild. “Or would anyone in the audience like to step forward and spare her life?”

“D-don’t kill me,” Agnes squeaks.

“Talk, then,” Oaklyn snaps, and Agnes squeaks as the roots groan and tighten around her.

Fiona swears under her breath.

“Don’t say a thing, Agnes!” Amir shouts—and there’s no mistaking the panic in his tone.

They’re afraid Agnes is going to crack.

Natalie’s eyes reflect the fear rocketing through my chest. If Agnes tells them, will we be able to stop them from getting it? They’ll gain access to mind control, telepathy, shapeshifting, and God knows what else. And while there might be some good people who would only use this power for saving lives, for acts of charity, for world peace… I know with absolute certainty that the Madsens are not those people.

As if reading my thoughts, Oaklyn’s eyes find mine, and her expressionis so icy that I shiver.

“You and I,” she says, her voice just loud enough to hear over the din, “are going to have so much fun once I take some bio magic.”

Nausea fills me, my mouth going dry. I don’t want to think of what sort of torture is possible with that power—how she’ll be able to control me, to hurt me, to make me beg for her to stop and wish I’d never killed Freddie. And she’ll probably do the same to Natalie.

We need to stop them from seizing bio magic, no matter what it takes.

“Natalie,” I whisper, “what do we do if Agnes tells them where it is?”

No answer. Her brow is pinched, her breaths heaving. She doesn’t know.

Nobody around me seems willing to admit how close the Madsens are to taking bio magic. Maybe they’re overconfident in their abilities, or maybe they’re underestimating what the Madsens can do. Maybe they just haven’t been attacked by the Madsens like I have—all the kidnapping attempts, the curse delivered to my door, the conversations with Freddie. Could I be the only one who fully comprehends how sinister these people are? The only one who understands how dangerously close they are to getting what they came for?

Call it instinct or intuition, but I feel it deep within me that I need to get to the bio magic first. And though the Directors won’t share where magic is stored, that doesn’t mean I can’t find it on my own.

Trusting my gut, I let my gaze pull like a magnet toward the corridor markedLibrary. It’s needled me since I arrived, that strange, beckoning call from the depths of the building.

Thathasto be it.

I clench my fists, a plan forming.

“Natalie,” I whisper, my voice barely a breath. “Distract them.”

Her eyes snap to me, wide with alarm. “Don’t. Whatever you’re about to do—”

“We don’t have a choice. They’re going to find it, and you know it.”

She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.