Page 63 of Board Games and Broomsticks

Nyssa summoned every ounce of physical strength she had left and darted for her broom. As her ball of light started to combust, sending hundreds of tiny, burning sparks towards the warlock, she dodged around his flailing arms to snatch her grimoire from the ground. She stumbled more than once over protruding roots and uneven ground, and by the time she finally reached her broom, her knees and hands were covered in blood and dirt. Nyssa barely registered the pain when she grabbed her broom in her free hand, her grip so tight it turned her bloodied knuckles white. With one final glance at Morven – who had just dispelled her orb of light and was already striding towards her – Nyssa mounted her broom, tucked the grimoire under her arm, and gave him the haughtiest look she could manage.

‘You want my grimoire? Come and get it.’

And then she was off, flying up, up, up into the night sky and out of Morven’s fog. She didn’t need to look back to know the warlock would follow. In all the years Nyssa had known him, Morven Delamorte had never ignored a challenge.

And he wasn’t about to ignore this one.

She felt him before she saw him. The heavy weight of his magic. The press of the fog that seemed attached to him now. A quick glance over her shoulder was all she needed to know he was already gaining on her. Nyssa didn’t know where he’d gotten his own broom, nor did she know how he’d become so adept at flying it (because of course he had). All she knew was that if she didn’t do something soon, he’d be on her, and whatever slim chance she had of luring him to the lake would be as dead as her future with the coven.

Nyssa dropped lower in a sudden arc, diving back down towards the thick cover of the forest. Morven might have been faster than her, but he didn’t know Nighthaven’s terrain like she did. She wove between the trees effortlessly, each path she took conjuring more memories of time spent with her grandma within these very woods. With every memory, Nyssa’s connection to her grandmother only seemed to grow, until the necklace at her throat hummed with power and the magic in her veins began to shift from trickling warmth to the start of a raging fire. A fire that burned hotter the closer she got to her cottage.

Of course.

Lisabeth had always said her home was her heart, and of all the places Nyssa had felt her presence, it had always felt strongest at the cottage. The scent of her grandmother’s magic became almost overwhelming as Nyssa turned sharply in the direction of Hawthorne Cottage, just as a scalding heat seared the flesh of her cheek.

Nyssa instinctively rolled to the left, away from whatever it was that had soared past her. As she balanced out, she saw what it was – a ball of lightning, conjured by Morven, streaking through the air until it collided with an ancient oak tree with a sickening crunch. Nyssa watched in horror as the tree splintered, breaking in two where it had been hit, and she tried not to imagine how the next one might pierce straight through her if she didn’t hurry.

Nyssa had never ridden so fast in her life. The wind bit against her face and fingers, turning them numb, and the bun she’d hastily put her hair in earlier was a mess of knots and loose waves. She could see the cottage in the distance now. Just a little further, and she would—

‘Shit!’

Nyssa was forced to swerve as another ball of lightning – this one twice the size of the first – came flying in her direction. This time, however, her grandma’s magic was strong enough for her to summon a protective shield. It wrapped around her just in time for a third lightning ball to crash against it, cracking the magical energy but not – thank the witches above – breaking through it. Even with her strengthened magic, the shield wouldn’t hold up against many more blows like that. She needed to regather herself if her plan was going to work, but under Morven’s incessant fire that seemed impossible. Panic was beginning to form at the corners of her mind, until the outline of the cottage loomed ahead. Nyssa gripped her broom tighter, realizing that her grandmother’s wards were still up. If she could get inside the boundary, just for a moment, it would give her the chance to recentre herself and her magic. Doubt gnawed at her as she whizzed through the air, fearful that the wards might not do much against someone of Morven’s strength. Still, she’d have to take that chance.

Nyssa burst through the wards on to the cottage grounds just as another blast of magic caused her own shield to shatter. Morven let out a roar that was more animal than human as the wards around the cottage stopped him from following her, firing spell after spell to try to crumble the cottage’s defences.

Nyssa watched Morven’s furious attempts from the garden, breathing heavily as she tried to calm herself down. The wards weren’t going to last long, and now, as she looked out over the lake next to her home, Nyssa could only pray to the ancestors that her plan would work.

With one hand clutching her broom and the grimoire tucked tightly under her arm, Nyssa flew in the direction of the lake, feeling a pulse of Lisabeth’s magic which momentarily slowed Morven enough for her to pass through the wards. Instead of doing the smart thing and going up towards the treeline, Nyssa went down, until she was hovering just a few feet above the centre of the lake, where her grandma had always claimed the doorway to the next realm was located.

She took a deep, steadying breath, focusing on the magic thrumming at her fingertips.

‘Moon above, I seek your aid,

Bestow your divine light, let darkness fade.’

As she recast the illumination spell and launched another ball of combusting light in Morven’s direction, she marvelled at the ease it took to cast. It was almost euphoric, the spell even stronger than before. Nyssa’s pulse thrummed as the light she’d created lit up the entire sky above the lake, burning through Morven’s fog and forcing Nyssa to shield her eyes.

Without her vision, Nyssa had only her witch instincts to rely on. The prickling of her skin. The oppressive swell of energy in the air that always seemed to coincide with Morven’s spells. Breath held, Nyssa forced herself to stay in position until the last possible second. Until she could feel the crackle of lightning inches away from her face.

And then she lunged back into the sky.

The smell of charred hair flooded her senses as she flew up, up, forcing her broom to get as far away from the water as possible as, just as Nyssa had hoped, Morven’s lightning spell pierced the surface and lit up the entire lake.

The sight of lightning crackling across the dark water was as beautiful as it was terrifying, and under any other circumstance, Nyssa might have stopped to appreciate such a display of magic and nature intertwining. But the usually still water was already starting to churn, and there was something moving beneath the surface, its serpentine body thrashing with as much ferocity as the electrified water it called home. The dark, monstrous tail flicked viciously through the water, its scales glinting malevolently as they reflected the splintered lightning. Nyssa couldn’t imagine anything as simultaneously mesmerizing and horrifying as the sight of the creature, and it took everything in her to tear her eyes away, searching the sky for Morven. She spotted him hovering mere feet above the lake, and her heart lurched.

Nyssa had never seen Morven look truly afraid before. But as he stared down at the monster of the lake, its wide, fanged maw opening wide, he looked absolutely terrified.

Years ago, Nyssa might have felt guilty at what she was about to do. She might have even hesitated. Now, all she could think of were her friends crowded into the tavern. Of Morven’s promise to destroy them and everything she had ever held dear.

Nyssa had let him slip through her fingers once before.

She wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

And so, just as she had done against the bear and the wolf, Nyssa let the combined magic of herself and Lisabeth Hawthorne take control.

Light burst out of her in a single, unstoppable wave. Caused the surface of the lake below to roil and the surrounding trees to creak in the gust of magical wind that blew over the cottage grounds. Distracted by the creature of the lake, Morven acted a second too late, and while the magical barrier he summoned to protect himself did stop him from being incinerated, it didn’t stop him from being knocked straight off of his broom.

Time seemed to slow as Morven plummeted towards the lake, the scream he emitted piercing Nyssa. It was one of the worst sounds she had ever heard. Not a scream of anger, or betrayal.