How to Stone a Crow (Witch Like a Boss Book 2) by Willow Mason (great novels txt) 📕

<Why? You want me to answer that so you can twist it to be my fault? That’s what you all think, isn’t it? I must have done something wrong.> She retreated until her back was hard up against the sofa cushion. <The only thing I did wrong was love my witch when she wasn’t worth the trouble. Violet’s the one who did something wrong. She’s the one who should be sanctioned.>

“Having a child who’s allergic isn’t a—” Genevieve broke off as I shook my head. “What?”

“Sara’s not allergic to cats. It was a lie.”

<Yes. Because Violet is a liar. A bald-faced liar. She said she wasn’t going to touch that treasure. She said finding it was a big mistake and she wouldn’t dabble in anything so evil ever again. But she did.>

My spine locked in place with a painful twinge, my shoulders hunching as the muscles tightened into rock. “She found the treasure?”

<None of them was meant to touch it. They swore an oath they wouldn’t. But she couldn’t help herself. When Sara was born, the idea came into her dreams and wouldn’t let go. I tried—> Paisley broke off, choking out a sob like it was a large hairball. <I tried to stop her. I pleaded with Carson to stop her, but she put him under a spell. When I went to Jac and Evie, begging them to intervene, it just made everything worse.>

“Paisley.” I waited until the cat looked directly into my face. “What was the treasure?”

<An old amulet. He said if you placed it behind his grave, it had the power to make everyone in your life safe. But he lied.> Her head twitched as though caught in a powerful sneeze. <Benedict Kelburn always lied.>

“If the treasure wasn’t what he said, what was it?”

<I think it was a trap. I think he used it to gain dominion over their souls.>

We phoned Carson but he didn’t know where such an item would be. “Violet didn’t care much for jewellery,” he apologetically told me, as if it were a crime. “Because of that, I know each piece she did have, inside-out. She just wouldn’t have an amulet. She hated wearing anything around her neck.”

He couldn’t place it with Evie either and Wes just sounded lost. “It could be hidden in our stock, somewhere, but I can’t think where. Are you sure Jac had it?”

No. I wasn’t sure of anything.

<It’s a lot of trust to place in a cat who’s lied at just about every turn.>

True, but our options were limited.

“Can you describe it in detail?” I could send out a searching spell but only if I had a clear target in mind. The last thing we needed was to chase over half of Briarton, finding every single amulet in existence.

<There was a crow engraved on the surface,> Paisley eventually managed between fits of panic. <That’s part of the Kelburn family crest.>

I stared at my fingertips as they prickled with pins and needles. “The stone in the cemetery.” The blood drained out of my face, leaving it numb. I’d touched it. I’d moved it. Was there a ‘Bad witch’ sign coming for me?

I spun on my heel, running out the door. “We need to get back there.”

We ran, following the same path as before. Our foot traffic over the past few days had worn it into an easily followed track.

“Remember the days when I didn’t know there was a graveyard out back?” I said between pants to Annalisa. “They were good times.”

<Save your breath,> she warned me as her lithe body streaked ahead. <You might need it when we get there.>

A sobering thought.

“Over here,” Jared called, leading the pack. “We can cut around the back of the gate and come in from a different angle. If he’s expecting us, that might catch him off guard.”

<Not when you’ve yelled it at the top of your lungs to everyone within hearing distance,> Annalisa snarled. <Why don’t you just explain our plan in detail to the man?>

As if we had a plan.

Even though we were the length of a rugby field away from the plot, I heard the cawing of birds above our thundering feet, my heaving chest, and the blood pulsing through my ears. One swooped down from behind me, scoring my scalp so blood trickled down my face.

I kept running but held a hand up, warding off another attack.

Andrew greeted us at the gate, howling and screaming warnings in turn. “Get away. The murderer’s here! GET AWAY.”

I would dearly have loved to follow his advice, but I bent nearly double and followed Jared’s lead, running around the side of the gate. The twisted wrought iron did nothing to disguise us but the overgrown grass sprouting along the edge shielded most of our passage from view.

<The birds are overhead. You’re not hiding from anything.>

“Group together,” Patrick shouted. “We can fend them off easier if we stand in tight formation.”

I wasn’t sure the ragged clump we formed counted but I hit out at an attacking bird while Jared stopped another behind me.

“Now what?”

I turned to Genevieve shocked. “You’re the supreme. Shouldn’t you be the one telling us that? How do you destroy a powerful object?”

“Find it first.” She sent out a quick pulse of magic that sent a nearby crow tumbling to the ground. “Before this lot take us all down.”

Patrick took a talon to the cheek as he dropped his guard. “Look.”

It was hard to when my eyes wanted to hide away from stabbing beaks, but I forced myself to stare around me. Taken individually, the birds were small projectiles, each intent on doing harm. Together, they were starting to take a larger shape. A man, looming over us. King Kong on a muscle training day.

“Stop them forming,” I yelled, hitting one bird with my fist, and zagging a line of magic to hit another from the sky. “Get them with your magic. They’re more susceptible to it than punching.”

Patrick groaned, then yelled in victory as