Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
‘It’s sloppy,’ she replied. ‘Spells are meandering loops of interlacing magick. Think knitted items. You don’t want holes, snags or pulls. This spell here? The pattern is slightly uneven, the edges weren’t bound and there are dropped stitches. All this not only weakens the spell, it also leaves it vulnerable to being undone.’
Kerr returned with a large, roughly heart-shaped leaf. ‘Here.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, taking it from him.
Ripper squatted beside her. ‘Do you know what kind of spell this is?’
Resisting the urge to frown at him for coming so close, she replied, ‘I do. Which is another reason I’m sure Millicent had no hand in this. She’d never poison the land.’
His brows flew together. ‘Poison it?’
‘This is a curse jar.’ Although the spell had dissipated, Emberlyn wasn’t about to touch something that had so much ill intent attached to it, so she curved the leaf around it before lifting it out of the soil. ‘Somebody wanted to cause damage to the land. This jar has been active for at least a month, so you may see some signs of degradation. Patches of dead grass. Bare shrubs. Brittle tree bark.’
Ripper’s gaze sharpened, a very low growl vibrating in his chest. ‘There are a few spots like that,’ he said, his voice rough in a way that made her nipples pay attention. ‘Who the fuck would want to curse the land?’
‘The coven wants to build on it, so it wouldn’t have been them,’ Kerr commented.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Emberlyn, standing upright. ‘They could have thought that if they made this area look barren and ugly, she’d choose to sell it.’ The jar was placed in the ground months before she died.
Ripper hummed, slowly straightening to his full height. ‘Maybe. The other clans wouldn’t care what happened to it, so they wouldn’t have had one of their witches do it. No one from ours would ever damage it. And you say it wasn’t Millicent.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, she was spiteful enough to destroy the land so that it’d be useless to the coven,’ Emberlyn conceded, using magick to push the soil back into the hole. ‘But they would have healed it eventually, so that wouldn’t have been enough for her. And she’d have had no reason to harm the area if she’d planned on giving it to you. I can understand if you’d consider me a possible suspect, but I have more self-respect than to perform such poor spell work. There are far easier ways to poison land, anyway. If I’d done this, the area would look like a marsh by now.’
Ripper’s eyes flitted over her face. ‘I believe you.’ He flicked a look at the jar. ‘I thought the coven didn’t approve of casting curses.’
‘It’s like I said yesterday, nobody uses magick for good all the time.’ The coven’s rebel faction came to mind.
‘Think there might be other jars buried around here?’
‘I doubt it, because there’d be more evidence of degradation. One jar is enough to afflict land with several sporadic areas of decay. But I’ll check.’ Emberlyn sent her magick out to search the area once more but, thankfully, found no additional curse jars.
‘Now that you’ve dug that up, will the land heal?’
She felt her nose wrinkle. ‘Not for a while. I can inject some healing energy into the earth if you want. Call it payment for your clan replanting half of Millicent’s Poison Patch on my side of the invisible fence.’ At Ripper’s nod, Emberlyn wrapped the leaf tight around the jar and then gave it to him. ‘Do not touch the jar.’
His raised brow said he didn’t appreciate her tone.
‘You’re Kerr’s Alpha, not mine.’
Kerr snorted at that, which earned him a glare from Ripper.
She crouched down and planted both palms on the ground, fingers splayed. She chanted again, releasing her magick into the earth – stirring it, greeting it, blessing it, healing it.
Grass rustled. Shrubs tremored. Flowers bloomed. Tree branches creaked.
Done, she brushed one palm against the other to wipe off dirt as she stood. ‘It might take a day or two for the damage to completely disappear, depending on its severity, but it will heal.’
Ripper inclined his head in thanks. He went to speak but then stopped, his head tipping to the side as if picking up a sound. ‘You have a visitor.’
‘I do?’ It was ten seconds or so later that she heard the faint rumbling of an engine in the distance. ‘It would appear you’re right.’
CHAPTER SIX
Ripper tensed when Reena’s car came into sight moments later. It would have been smarter of the woman to have given Emberlyn time to calm down before turning up here. But the High Priestess had plans to put in motion, so he supposed she couldn’t afford to procrastinate.
Emberlyn exhaled heavily. ‘Well, this has taken a piss all over my morning mood.’
Kerr snorted. ‘Want us to make her leave?’