Bewitched, page 1
BEWITCHED
LAURA THALASSA
LAVABROOK PUBLISHING GROUP, LLC
Copyright © 2023 by Laura Thalassa
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Lavabrook Publishing Group, LLC
CONTENTS
The Law of Three
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Coming Soon
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Books by Laura Thalassa
About the Author
For Astrid, who brews potions, dances with skeletons, and howls at the moon. You have magic in your blood, love.
THE LAW OF THREE
The magic you cast,
In use be wise and true.
Do good unto others,
For threefold it shall return to you,
If ill will moves your hand,
And woe strikes in your wake,
Threefold it shall return its might.
Threefold the curse will take.
PROLOGUE
Memnon
I am trapped.
I have been for a very, very long time. My body and mind are bound by spells both suffocating and comforting. I cannot escape them, no matter how hard I try.
And how I have tried.
This is not as it should be. I know that. I remember that.
Someone did this to me.
Someone…but who?
The answer evades me.
My thoughts are…fragmented. Broken apart and scattered by the very wards that shroud me.
There was a life before this shadow of an existence. Sometimes I catch glimpses of it. The memory of the sun, the heavy weight of a sword in my hand, the feel of a woman—my woman—beneath me.
Even when I cannot recall much of what I look like, I can see the slope of her shoulder and the curve of her smile and the mischief shining in her sharp blue eyes.
Her image…it cuts deeper than a wound.
Need her.
My queen. My wife.
Roxilana.
Need to leave this place. Need to find her.
Unless…
What if…what if she is truly gone?
Lost to me forever?
Terror eclipses my longing and clears some of the haze from my mind. I release what magic I can, funneling it through the few holes I’ve found in these spells.
Roxilana cannot be dead. So long as I exist, she must too. I have…taken pains to make this so.
I relax.
She will find me.
One day.
One day.
So I call to her, as I always have.
And I wait.
CHAPTER 1
Selene
Today will be the day Henbane Coven accepts me.
I exhale as I stare up at the sprawling Gothic buildings that make up the coven’s campus. The property sits on the coastal hills north of San Francisco, bordered on all sides by the Everwoods, a thick coastal forest composed of evergreen trees.
There’s no placard that announces I’m now standing on witch-owned land, but this place doesn’t really need one. If a person lingers for long enough, they’ll see something out of the ordinary—like, for instance, the circle of witches sitting on the lawn ahead of me.
Their hair and clothes float every which way, as though no longer bound by gravity, and plumes of their magic thicken the air around them. The color of their individual magic varies—from bright green, to bubblegum pink, to turquoise, and more—but as I watch, it all blends, creating an odd sort of rainbow in the air around them.
A wave of longing moves through me, and I have to tamp down the panicky, desperate feeling that follows in its wake.
I glance down at the open notebook in my hand.
Tuesday, August 29
10:00 a.m. meeting with Henbane Coven’s admissions office in Morgana Hall.
*Leave an extra twenty minutes early. You have a bad habit of arriving late.
I frown at the note, then glance at my phone: 9:57 a.m.
Well, shit.
I begin walking again, heading toward the weathered stone buildings, even as my eyes flick back to my notebook.
Beneath my scrawled instructions is a drawing of a crest with flowers rising from a cauldron atop two crisscrossing brooms. Next to the drawing, I taped a Polaroid picture of one of the stone structures in front of me, and I’ve scrawled the words Morgana Hall beneath it. At the bottom I’ve written in red:
Meeting will be held in the Receiving Room—second door on the right.
I head up the stone steps of Morgana Hall, growing breathless with my churning emotions. For the past century and a half, any witch worth her weight in magic has been an active member of an accredited coven.
And today I’m determined to join that list.
It didn’t happen last year or when you reapplied at the beginning of this one. Perhaps they simply don’t want you.
I take a deep breath and force the insidious thought away. This time is different. I’m on the official wait list, and they arranged for this interview only last week. They must be taking my application seriously, and that’s all I need: a foot in the door.
I open one of the massive doors into the building and head inside.
The first thing I see in the main hallway is a grand statue of the triple goddess. Her three forms stand back-to-back—the maiden, flowers woven into her unbound hair; the mother, her hands cradling her pregnant stomach; and the crone, wearing a crown of bones, her hands resting atop her cane.
Along the walls are portraits of past coven members, many of whom have wild hair and wilder eyes. Mounted in between them are wands and brooms and framed excerpts of famous grimoires.
I breathe it all in for a moment. I can feel the gentle hum of magic in the air, and it feels like home.
I will get in.
I stride down the hall, my determination renewed. When I get to the second door on the right, I knock, then wait.
A witch with soft features and a kind smile opens the door for me. “Selene Bowers?” she says.
I nod.
“Come on in.”
I follow her inside. A massive crescent-moon table takes up most of the space, and on the far side of it, half a dozen witches sit patiently. Across from them is a single seat.
The witch ahead of me gestures to it, and despite all my encouraging thoughts, my heart hammers.
I take the proffered seat, folding my hands in my lap to stop them from trembling while the woman who led me in takes her own seat on the other side of the table.
Directly across from me is a witch with raven-black hair, thin downturned lips, and shrewd eyes. I think I’ve spoken to her before, there’s something vaguely familiar about her features, but her identity lies just beyond my reach…
She looks up from her notes and squints at me. After a moment, her frown deepens. “You again?”
With that question, I swear the entire mood of the room shifts from inviting to tense.
I swallow delicately. “Yes, me,” I say hoarsely before clearing my throat. I’m frightened this interview is now doomed before it’s even begun.
The witch who spoke returns her attention to the papers in front of her. She licks her finger and flips through them. “I was under the impression we were interviewing a different applicant,” she says.
What am I supposed to say to that? Sorry I’m not someone else?
Short of shape-shifting into another person, I don’t think I can appease her.
Another witch, one with a hooked nose and wiry gray hair, says gently, “Selene Bowers, it’s lovely to meet you. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you’d like to join Henbane Coven?”
This is it. My chance.
I take a deep breath, and I dive in.
For thirty minutes, I answer various questions about my abilities, my background, and my magical interests. Most of the witches nod encouragin
“It’s been a dream of mine to be a part of Henbane Coven for as long as I can remember.”
“How long can you remember?” says the witch in front of me.
I squeeze my hands together, a wisp of pale orange magic slipping from between them. I’ve danced around this topic in my previous responses, not quite sure how to handle it.
“It…depends,” I say now. “But my memory in no way affects my determination or my abilities,” I say.
“But it would,” she counters. “It would affect your ability. Spellcasting costs you your memories, correct?”
There it is, out in the open.
I tighten my jaw. “Yes, but—”
She flips through the papers in front of her before pulling one out and placing it on top of the others. “The medical records you released suggest that, and I quote, ‘It is believed that the patient’s memory loss is a magic-based disease with no known equivalent and no known cure. It appears to be a progressive disease. Prognosis: terminal.’”
The silence that follows her words is somehow very, very loud. I can hear my own breath leaving my lungs. More magic has slipped out of me, rising from my hands like a wisp of smoke.
“So,” she continues, “every bit of power you use chips away at your mind, am I correct?”
After a moment’s hesitation, I give her a halting nod.
“And with every use of your magic, your brain deteriorates.”
“It doesn’t deteriorate,” I protest, annoyed by that word. I lose memories, not functionality.
Now the witch’s expression softens, but it’s pity I see on her face. I hate that, more than anything else. I hate it so much, it’s hard to breathe.
“At Henbane Coven,” she says, “we don’t simply embrace all manner of disabilities—we hold those witches in particularly high regard.”
She’s not lying. There’s a reason some of the most powerful witches have been blind, and the first recorded witch in Europe to fly a broom—Hildegard Von Goethe—did so because she had limited mobility.
“But at Henbane Coven,” she continues, “you will be asked to rigorously perform magic. If your magic use is directly related to your memory loss, then being here will undoubtedly speed up your…condition. How can we, in good conscience, ask that of you?”
I swallow. It’s a fair question. It makes me feel panicked and desperate, but it’s fair all the same.
I glance down at my hands. I’ve had to think over this very thing so many times. Do I walk away from magic simply because using it will one day kill me?
I look up at the woman across from me. “I’ve had to live with my memory loss for the past three years,” I admit. “Ever since my powers Awoke. And yes, spellcasting eats my memories, and it can make my life very complicated.
“But I cannot live without magic. Surely you understand that,” I say, my gaze sweeping over all the witches sitting across from me. “And there’s so much more to me and my magic than my memory loss.” Like the fact I’m organized as hell. I’m so goddessdamned organized, it would make her head spin. “I would like the chance to show Henbane that side of me. I have a lot to offer.”
By the time I’m finished, my magic has swathed me in its soft sunset glow. I’m wearing all my emotions out in the open, and it’s making me feel uncomfortable and exposed.
The head witch stares at me for several seconds. Eventually, she taps the table, then stands. “Thank you for your time,” she says. Everything about her expression and posture looks solemn and guarded.
Fuck.
Today was supposed to be my day. I spent so many months working toward this. There is no backup plan, except to reapply again in another four months.
I mean to get up, but my ass is rooted to this chair.
“Selene?” the head witch says. “Thank you for your time.” Just the way she says it is supposed to be hint enough. She wants me to leave. The next interviewee might already be waiting out in the hall.
Emotion tightens my throat, and my hands are clasped so tightly, it hurts.
“I contest your rejection,” I say, staring up at the head witch.
She pauses a moment, then lets out an incredulous laugh. “You’re a soothsayer now? You peered into the future and saw your results?”
I didn’t need to, though her biting response is confirmation enough.
Before I can let it get to me, I straighten my spine. “I contest it,” I repeat.
She shakes her head. “That’s not how it works.”
Now I do stand, placing my palms on the desk. “I may not have the best memory, but I am persistent, and I can promise you one thing: I will keep applying and keep coming back here until you reconsider.”
It’s my toxic trait not to give up.
“If I may interrupt,” says one of the other women. It’s the witch with the wiry hair. “You might not remember me, but I am Constance Sternfallow.”
She flashes me a tight smile. “I think you are a fantastic candidate,” she says, “but your application is flawed in a couple of critical places. You need a better magic quest than the one you’ve submitted, and you need a familiar. I know it says that’s optional, but really, we do require it in most cases.”
Constance glances at the other women sitting at the table. One of them gives her a slight nod.
Returning her attention to me, Constance says, “If you can provide those two things—”
“Constance,” the head witch cautions.
“—then, Selene Bowers,” Constance continues, ignoring her, “you will be formally accepted to Henbane Coven.”
CHAPTER 2
All magic comes at a cost.
For sorcerers, it’s their conscience. For shape-shifters, it’s their physical form. For me, it’s my memory.
I’m a bit of an oddity among witches. For the vast majority of them, the spell components pay for their magic. And if it doesn’t, the rest comes from their ever-replenishing life force. And while my own power follows the same rules, it also takes a few memories while it’s at it.
It wasn’t always this way for me. I had a normal childhood—well, as normal as one can have when their mother’s a witch and their father’s a mage—but ever since I hit puberty and my magic Awoke, it’s been this way.
I step out of Morgana Hall, staring up at the cloudy sky, excitement and gut-churning anxiety twisting my insides.
I pull out my notebook and flip to the first blank page. As fast as I can, I scribble down the important bits:
