Page 66 of Twisting Twilight (Homesteader Hearth Witch #9)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“Marten!”

I wasn’t sure whose shriek that was, mine or Mom’s, but we both broke rushed forward at the same time.

Dad grunted as Marten went slack in his arms. “I thought the bargain said he was to be returned unharmed!” With a curse, he lowered his son to the ground and rolled him onto his back.

“Check his pulse!” Mom cried, dropping to her knees.

“He was doing just fine before,” Aunt Peony said. “What could’ve?—”

Arcadis’s contingency.

“Strip him.”

We all looked up at that voice.

Grandmother Iris flowed out of the darkness, followed closely behind by Aunt Eranthis, Uncle Badger, and Otter.

The other witches of our family, the reinforcements from the manor, weren’t with them.

They had either failed with the barrier or had left them behind.

There was no hello from any of them, though Otter’s lips quirked up at the sight of me. They were all too exhausted.

“Check his neck and wrists first, then his ankles.” Grandmother shooed Aunt Hyacinth aside and attacked the battle leathers on Marten’s left wrist.

There was a cacophony of rustling and creaking as battle leathers were removed, then someone gagged at the scent of Marten’s unwashed body.

“Meadow,” Sawyer whispered. “What is that?”

Unnoticed by the frantic witches, a gray insect trundled out from the gap between Dad and Mom’s knees. About the size of an acorn, it resembled a tick with one fat, very bloated, gray abdomen.

There was a trill, and suddenly Thistle pounced. The tick vanished beneath her black paws, then disappeared into her mouth. There was a pop and a crunch , and the faelene licked her lips. “Yummy.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” the tabby tomcat whispered.

“What was that?” Grandmother demanded, head popping up from the huddle of witches.

“I-it looked a like a big gray tick,” I answered hastily.

“Did you see any steam?”

Thistle burped, a grayish vapor wafting out from between her teeth.

“Yes.”

“A Fen flea,” Mom gasped.

“But it looked like a tick.”

Grandmother waved my description away, focusing on the black cat. “And that cat ate it?”

Thistle manifested her wings with a sharp crack . “Fae-lene,” she corrected, enunciating the syllables.

If she was impressed or appropriately terrified, Grandmother didn’t show it. “Well I suppose that explains why you didn’t immediately die. But now you’ve destroyed any chance of us reviving Marten with any speed. He was supposed to eat it.”

Sawyer puked in the leaves at his feet.

“Fen fleas are a nasty little Unseelie trick,” Grandmother said. Rising to her feet, she urged everyone else to do the same. “With their first bite, they connect a demon to his victim. Should something traumatic befall the demon, such as getting sucked through a portal against his will?—”

So they’d been close enough to see that. I simply squared my shoulders, unwilling to apologize.

“—they bite their host. The flea then drains away your magic, and even your life, if you’re weak.

The only way to get it back without suffering any side effects is to eat the flea.

It would’ve completed the loop, giving all that it took back to Marten.

Except since the flea was neither eaten by the host nor the demon, but another, it’s just acting like a drain. A wound that won’t clot.”

Thistle hunched, ears lowering and tail wrapping around her paws. She gave me a mortified look. “Oops.”

“But the Fen flea is dead!” Otter protested.

“So?” Grandmother him a snort. “Since when did death affect magic?”

“But there has to be a way,” I said, mustering what reserves remained of my magic. “I have healing magic, much stronger than before?—”

Grandmother shook her head. “There is no wound for you to heal, Meadow. But there is a way to stop the drain, but only if we act quickly. Forsythia, where is the grimoire? Everyone, gather ’round. You too, Meadow. Cluster up by family group.”

Sawyer spat the filth from his mouth and bounded over, taking up position between my ankles. He was part of my family, whether Grandmother wanted to acknowledge him or not. Thistle remained nearby, apologetically watchful.

The second after Mom revealed the grimoire and handed it to Grandmother, I snatched up her hand.

I already had Dad’s in a death grip. Marten, Marten, Marten.

That was my brother lying there on the frozen ground, stripped to his underwear like a corpse for burial.

Thistle thorns, his skin was the same gray of the Fen flea, his breathing coming in shallow gasps.

Arcadis had either expected trickery or was just that spiteful. Probably both.

Grandmother flipped open the grimoire to a page somewhere in the latter third of the book.

She placed it on Marten’s chest. From her belt, she unhooked a spare censer and withdrew the Hawthorne ember.

It was less than when I’d revived it in the farmhouse, but it was strong enough to aid us.

She nestled it in the dip of Marten’s navel.

“The Revival Spell?” Aunt Hyacinth gasped.

If Mom were a lioness she would’ve slashed her cousin across her face. “He’s worth it!”

“We’re not strong enough for that spell,” Uncle Badger said gravely. “We’re all running on fumes.”

“ She is.” Grandmother leveled a finger at me. “And this spell predates the Circle of Nine initiation rites. We have all that we need: a circle, a hearth ember, and the grimoire. Now focus.”

With our hands linked, we waited tensely for Grandmother to begin the incantation.

With her first word, I felt the pull of magic on my core.

It flowed out of me to either side, mingling with the magic of Mom and Dad, which streamed into me.

We became like the banks of a river, channeling the magic into an endless circular current.

It picked up speed and power, compounding.

Such was the power of a coven—combining a circle’s power and magnifying it into something greater.

So this was what it was like to be a robed elder, a member of the coven’s official casting circle.

No wonder I’d ached for this opportunity.

It was community, it was singleness of purpose, it was power.

And it was all directed by my grandmother.

While we were very Arthurian with this Round Table of conjuring, it was in appearance only.

She still drew upon our magic like we were extensions of herself.

Pawns. Living crystal batteries. Endeared pawns, though, because we were family, blood of her blood, but this unchecked siphon on my magic proved I was just a tool.

That dream I’d nurtured back at the manor, way before I’d discovered the curse on the grimoire, that becoming a robed elder was the epitome of my witchy aspirations… I’d been na?ve. Wrong, even. There was so much more to a life, my life, than this.

And that was okay.

“Concentrate on the spell,” Grandmother’s voice cut through the whirling wind of magic. Perhaps she’d sensed my wavering thoughts, perhaps this spell just needed extra attention.

It was for Marten, so I pushed my reflections aside. I couldn’t see the words of the Revival Spell from this angle, but the magic we were making knew them. Guided by my grandmother’s voice, I joined the others in their chanting.

“Take my spark and make it yours.

Rise up again and shut Death’s door.

Give life back to one, by nine it is done.”

We repeated that final verse again and again, our voices growing louder each time.

The current of green magic we channeled through our linked hands shot towards the grimoire on our ninth repetition.

The spellbook sprang into the air, taking Marten and the ember with it.

I felt the real siphon then, the spark I was donating to my brother.

From the pained expressions on my family’s faces, I knew they felt it too, but only my knees buckled.

My donation outweighed theirs because I had more to give. Could give.

Mom and Dad’s voices wavered as I sagged between them. They allowed me to lower to my knees, bending so as to not to break the connection between our hands. Sawyer mewed, and young magic poured down the bond.

“ Don’t ,” I warned. “ It’ll take too much. Save it for yourself. For Ossian. ”

My familiar didn’t like that decision, but he obeyed.

Within our circle, green magic whizzed around Marten’s limp body like a flock of crazed fireflies—our sparks. Wherever they landed, his skin glowed as the spark absorbed into him. The last one disappeared into the center of his forehead beneath his brown hair.

The hearth ember winked out.

Marten’s eyes flashed open with a concussive blast that sent us staggering back a step.

The circle held, and an invisible current settled Marten on his feet.

Within his crossed arms—eerily similar to a corpse’s pose—was the closed grimoire.

My brother drew in a gasping breath, his cheeks rosy pink in the cold, and the clearing trembled with the power suddenly present there.

The Circle of Nine was remade.