Page 28 of Board Games and Broomsticks

Protect Nighthaven from this incoming storm.’

It was the best spell she could come up with at such short notice, and as she spoke, the shelves and tables around her began to shake. Wind gushed through the café, a fierce whoosh that sent any loose bits of paper flying, and Nyx’s hissing had turned into a full, ear-piercing yowl as she lunged at Morven and sunk her teeth into his calf, buying Nyssa enough time to say the final words of the spell:

‘Heed my call, destroy the threat,

With these words, the spell is set.’

Morven’s eyes widened, shock and hate twisting his handsome features as he began to shrink before her. His skin cracked, clay forming where there was once flesh, creeping up his neck and jaw before covering his mouth and cutting off his screams of rage. Nyssa watched, her mouth agape, as the tiny, clay form that was now Morven Delamorte shifted into a dark, twisting gas. As finally, Familiars – lid now open – sucked the gas into its waiting maw with a rumbling growl.

The stillness that fell in the aftermath of Nyssa’s spell was unsettling. The tables and shelves had stopped shaking, the wind had dissipated and, most shockingly, Morven Delamorte was gone.

It worked.

A laugh of disbelief bubbled in Nyssa’s throat. She’d done it. She’d actually bested Morven. No, not just bested – trapped.

And she’d done it all without the help of her coven.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nyssa was in the middle of enchanting a broom to clean up the shattered glass when the door to her café – now slightly damaged and a little rickety – burst open for the second time that night and Liora, Alaric and Elowen crowded in.

Liora immediately ran up to her, her wide eyes scanning Nyssa’s body for any signs of injury. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, brow furrowing at the sight of the broken glass and overturned tables. ‘What happened?’

‘I’m fine, Li, it was just a … minor disturbance.’

Alaric snorted. ‘Minor? We heard the commotion all the way from the tavern, and this place looks like a hurricane blew through it. If this is what you call minor, Hawthorne, I’m worried about what you consider major.’

Nyssa chewed on her bottom lip. The place did look awful. She’d barely had time to clear up any of the glass before her friends had arrived, nor had she gotten around to righting the tables and chairs that were currently in heaps on her floor. ‘I had … a visitor.’ She wanted to tell them the full story, but … would they tell her to leave if they knew? Nighthaven was meant to offer safety and security to all magical folk, and she was the reason someone as dangerous as Morven had come here. The reason they’d been in any danger at all. ‘I dealt with it, and he won’t be a problem any more. I promise you’re all safe.’

‘That’s great, Nys,’ Liora said, gripping her hands tightly, ‘but are you okay? You don’t have to deal with these things on your own, you know. We’re all here for you.’

Nyssa’s throat tightened. They’d all accepted her past so far, but this was … different. This put them – and all of Nighthaven – at a risk far greater than her awry magic could ever pose.

But as Nyssa glanced at each of her friends’ patient, worried faces, she found herself telling them anyway.

‘It was a warlock that my old coven and I banished a few years ago. He’d … well, he was dabbling in some forbidden magic, and The Briar Council agreed that he had to be dealt with.’ At Liora and Elowen’s faintly puzzled expressions, Nyssa explained, ‘You know, The Briar Council? The governing magical body of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?’ Liora shook her head slightly, clearly none the wiser, so Nyssa went on, ‘The council is basically a handpicked selection of witches and warlocks that meet every few months to discuss coven politics and ensure each individual coven across the United Kingdom are obeying its laws. They aren’t technically a secret, but lots of non-coven members probably wouldn’t cross paths with them, so that’s probably why you haven’t heard of them. To be honest, most coven members rarely interact with them directly, either.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Liora said, before waving her hand to signal that Nyssa should continue.

‘Well, given Morven had broken the sacred law of never stealing power from a magical tome or grimoire and, subsequently, become a threat to more than just The Coven of the Sacred Owl, the head mage before me, Sophia – she’s retired somewhere near Cornwall now, I think – had no choice but to seek the support of The Briar Council. I didn’t really have anything to do with them after I became head mage,’ she finished, adding silently, And if possible, I’d really rather keep it that way. After all, the council weren’t exactly forgiving of the kind of failures Nyssa had made lately.

‘What did they do to him?’ Liora asked.

‘They … we, lured him into a trap. I had a history with him,’ she said, her stomach churning with age-old guilt. ‘He was … well, at one time he was my closest friend, so I knew him better than most. I knew that if I agreed to join him, he’d trust me. The plan we devised meant that I had to keep up the lie and get him to follow me to a small, isolated isle off the Scottish coast. Once there, I led him into a cave, where a confinement spell awaited him.’ Nyssa could still see the look of betrayal on Morven’s face. The way he’d thrashed and yelled against her spell like a trapped animal, helpless in the face of the power The Briar Council wielded. For months after, that look had haunted her dreams, tainting her victory in ways she’d never admit out loud.

‘Once he was stuck,’ she continued, ‘my coven and I stripped him of the power he’d stolen, and cast a banishment spell I’d created specifically for him, one that meant he would be unable to leave that isle.’

The plan had only been possible because of her friendship with the warlock; Nyssa was the person Morven had first spoken to about the forbidden tomes he’d found. About the spells and the sort of power the covens could have if they used them. And Nyssa … she hadn’t shot him down.

Instead, she’d been intrigued. With the race for head mage on, Nyssa had been looking at how she might adapt the spells into something less dangerous to give her an edge over Edith. By the time she’d realized Morven wished not only to use the spells but to absorb them in order to challenge – and ultimately overpower – Sophia, it had been too late.

It was why she’d offered herself as bait. Not just because she knew Morven would believe her if she said she wanted to join him, but because she was responsible for his fall from grace. For not stopping him sooner, when she’d had the chance.

And now he’d come back here to get his revenge.

‘I heard about that,’ Alaric said. ‘Morven Delamorte, right? Rumours were that some warlock had gone mad, stolen a bunch of magic, and been put in his place by a young witch that everyone was calling a prodigy.’

Some prodigy, her mind taunted. In the end, she’d ended up in the exact same position as Morven, banished from her coven and licking her wounds – a far cry from the life she’d imagined for herself.