Page 22 of Board Games and Broomsticks

But instead of a reassuring tingle, she felt a sudden bolt of magic fly from her, completely uncontrolled. And Nyssa could do nothing but watch on as everything around her descended into chaos.

The enchanted tap began gushing even more furiously, water pooling around Nyssa’s feet, icy and unforgiving. More enchanted teapots and teacups began shattering, spraying shards of china across the room as customers sheltered behind their seats or under tables. A shrill whistle pierced the air as the kettles which had been gently warming on the stove began to boil over simultaneously. Liora was yelling something, grappling desperately with the enchanted tap, as Alaric raised his hands to cast a protection charm so that scalding steam and pieces of china couldn’t injure more customers.

Wild-eyed, Nyssa took in the scene her uncontrolled magic was causing. She knew she was the only one who could stop it, but the terror of somehow making things worse meant she couldn’t summon even a whisper of her magic to her fingertips.

Unable to do anything else, she hurried into the safety of the back room and shut the door, locking herself – and her magic – away. She just needed a second to compose herself. To hide away from all of the expectant eyes on her and just breathe. But the wave of anxiety that she’d managed to tamper down all morning was rising even more ferociously, and the more she tried to calm herself the harder it became to get air into her lungs, and soon the familiar setting of the small kitchen-cum-break room turned into a blur of shapeless colours.

Nyssa was so focused on trying to calm herself down that she barely heard the click of the door.

‘Hey, it’s all right,’ a voice – Elowen’s voice – whispered. She appeared in front of Nyssa, eyes soft. Nyx had followed her in, and was currently nuzzling Nyssa’s calf with her head in an attempt to soothe her. ‘I’m going to take some deep breaths, and you’re going to do it with me, okay?’

Nyssa managed a shaky nod and put all her attention on copying Elowen’s movements as the elf drew in a deep breath through her nose, held it, and let it out in a long puff of air that caressed Nyssa’s face. Her breath smelled of cinnamon and something slightly earthy, a scent that was so uniquely Elowen that it calmed Nyssa almost as much as the breathing did.

‘That’s it, good. Now tell me what’s going on.’

‘I … I don’t know. One second everything was fine, and then my enchantments just …’ Nyssa took another deep breath. Closed her eyes. ‘It could be because Samhain is only a few days away. A witch’s power and emotions are always heightened around this time of year when the veil is at its thinnest …’ She trailed off, thinking about how, in the past, she hadn’t needed to take precautions. But that had been before her magic had started going awry. Almost immediately, the memory of Edith’s letter appeared, the words ‘I am certain you will be grateful to have more time to prepare’ repeating over and over in her head. No, it wasn’t Samhain …

‘… It was the letter,’ she said, more to herself than to Elowen. She’d let it get to her. Let it eat away at her all morning, until any triumph she’d felt over passing the first trial had withered away.

‘The letter?’

‘From a member of my coven. It said … It doesn’t matter.’ Nyssa sighed, not sure that she was ready to go into details about the trials right now. ‘What matters is that I let it get to me, and now I have to fix it.’ Ideally before Clara decided to have the place shut down. Or, her inner voice mocked, before you hurt someone else.

‘We …’ Elowen said. ‘We’re a team, so tell me how I can help.’

Warmth cut through the cold in Nyssa’s gut. Elowen wasn’t a witch, and she wouldn’t be able to help with the actual magic itself, but just having her there for support was already helping Nyssa’s magic settle. ‘I just need you to stay by my side and keep me calm. Enchantments are usually easy to break, but ones that have gone awry can be stubborn. I’ll need to fully unravel them from their core, which is … tricky.’

She’d have to use a similar spell to the one she’d used to unweave the curse around the ring, a task that, before she’d scalded Clara and destroyed most of her crockery, she’d be confident in undertaking. But if even her simple enchantments were going wrong …

‘None of that,’ Elowen gently scolded, clearly seeing the direction of Nyssa’s thoughts on her face. ‘Just give it a try, and if it doesn’t work first time around, we’ll close early and give it another go without so much pressure.’

Ancestors, when had she become this person. The Nyssa Hawthorne of a few months ago, the one who had imprisoned Morven Delamorte and become the youngest head mage in the Sacred Owl’s long history, wouldn’t even recognize herself now.

Get it together.

Nyssa steeled herself and scooped Nyx into her arms, holding her close both for comfort and for the boost a physical connection with her familiar always provided. Her magic flowed beneath her skin like a river before settling in her fingertips, soothing and gentle this time. When it did, Nyssa reached for the imprint of magic her enchantments had left in the other room.

Sweat beaded on her brow almost immediately, followed by a surge of nausea and weakness that left her legs shaking. She braced a hand against the wall, jaw clenched, and slowly began pulling the enchantments apart. She focused on the feeling in her fingertips, willing the fizz of her magic to build there before she cast.

‘Magic cast and magic bound;

I will you now to be unwound.’

There was a moment of resistance, a moment when Nyssa feared the awry magic of the enchantments would manage to overcome her spell. But then, slowly, the haze of magic over everything Nyssa had enchanted began to disperse.

After a second of no more screeching teapots or frantic yelling, Elowen said, ‘Well, it sounds like it worked.’

Nyx gave an encouraging headbutt against her chin. Nyssa cradled her to her chest, took a deep breath, and slowly opened the door to the back room just enough for her to be able to peer into the shop.

The kettles were blessedly still and silent, the steam coming from them a leisurely wisp rather than a scorching stream like lava. The shards of teacups were slowly knitting themselves back together before returning to their original positions on tables and, although the floor of the shop was now rather damp, the tap that had been relentlessly spouting water had trickled down to nothing more than a quiet drip, drip, drip.

None of the other enchantments had gone awry (yet), but Nyssa carefully disenchanted them just in case. Thankfully the fairy lights were still hanging, but the almost fog-like lights inside of them had blinked out, leaving them dull and lifeless once more.

Nyssa breathed deeply, focusing on how, for now, at least, the crisis was over. And as she closed the door with a sigh of relief, she realized that perhaps Liora’s theory was right: whatever was going wrong with Nyssa’s magic was connected to her emotions. The second she’d gotten them under control, she’d been able to undo her enchantments.

Thank the ancestors.

‘So?’ Elowen asked. ‘Did it work?’