Suddenly, Edwina flew backward. Her coven sisters let out twin cries of shock and surprise.
Edwina landed hard on a small table stacked with glass bottles and stones.
“Oh, my God!” Hattie cried, rushing to her coven sister’s side.
“What just happened?” Holly demanded.
“The spell backfired.” Susanna whirled on Holly. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! I wasn’t trying to fight your spell, I swear.”
“It wasn’t her,” Edwina rasped as Hattie helped her to her feet. “It was another witch.”
“What?” Hattie, Susanna, and Holly blurted in unison.
“There are no other witches in Silver Spruce,” Susanna said.
“I sensed her,” Edwina insisted. “I could’ve seen her face if I weren’t caught so off guard.”
“Where is she?” Hattie said. “We should bring her here! She can join the coven.”
“She’s in the silver mines,” Edwina replied.
Holly’s head shot up. “The silver mines?”
“They’re holding a witch captive?” Johnny clenched his fists.
“I don’t think so,” Holly said. “There weren’t any other captives that I saw.” She turned to Edwina.
“You told me shifters can obtain magic, right?”
“Indeed.”
“I’m willing to bed the new witch is Elise.”
Johnny furrowed his brow. “How do you figure?”
“She was the only woman I ever saw during my captivity,” Holly said. “And when I first met her, I sensed something about her. I knew she wasn’t ordinary. I thought I was just imagining things, but I don’t think that’s the case. What if she found a way to secure magic for herself?”
“To what end?”
“As a protective measure, maybe?” Holly suggested. “She’s working against her brother and the other shifters in the mines. If they ever found out she had helped Loch and me escape, she’d need an edge in order to protect herself.”
“Most non-magic users seek out magic for protection,” Edwina said. “I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve been asked to craft protection spells.”
“We need to bring Elise here somehow,” Holly said. “I know she’ll help us if we offer her protection.”
“We can try to sneak back into the silver mine,” Johnny suggested. “It’s risky, but I don’t see another option.”
Holly’s face fell. “That’s way too risky. I won’t allow it.”
“Set a witch trap,” Susanna said with a nonchalant shrug.
“That’s cruel!” Hattie gasped.
“It’s not a walk in the park, but if it gets her out of a den of dark shifters, isn’t that the kinder option?”
“What’s a witch trap?” Holly asked.
“It’s like a super-strong magnet that pulls the target witch in,” Hattie explained. “It sucks being caught in one.”
“I hate to agree with any of them,” Johnny cast a dark look at the witches, “but a witch trap sounds like the safest way to get Elise to us.”
“That settles it.” Holly nodded. “We’re trapping a witch.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Holly sat ramrod straight on the couch at home. Johnny sat on her left, Garret, on her right. Keller stood in front of them, looking for all the world like a pissed off schoolteacher ready to lecture the bad kids.
The sun had just set. Streaks of orange still lit up the evening sky. The witches would arrive at any moment.
After some debate, Holly, Johnny, and the witches agreed that Pearl’s home would be the best place to set the trap. It was far less intimidating than the witch’s lair. Besides, the endgame was not only to prove Elise was the new witch but to offer her protection as well. That would be easier to do if she were summoned to a location already hidden beneath a powerful concealment spell.
Unfortunately, Keller didn’t react to the news well. At all. “Don’t you think you should’ve run this by us first?”
“By us, he really just means him,” Loch chimed from his seat on the carved wooden chair.
When Loch first claimed that seat, Holly expected Johnny to yank him back onto his feet. Johnny had hand-carved the elaborate high-backed chair for Pearl years ago and guarded it like a dragon guarded its horde. Instead, he only tensed a little when Loch took a seat.
Holly figured this was his way of cutting Loch some slack, as she’d asked. As she sat on the couch, preparing to be lectured, she kept her hand on his knee. His fingers traced the narrow length of bare skin between the hem of her shirt and the top of her pants.
Keller turned to Loch. “This doesn’t bother you?”
“I admit, I’m not psyched at hosting three witches in the house for the purpose of unwillingly trapping a fourth witch,” Loch winced, “but I trust Holly’s judgment.”
“And Johnny’s?”
“Oh, God, no.” Loch laughed. “But he’s not the one in charge. Holly is. If this is what she wants, I’m going to help her get it done.”
Realizing Loch wasn’t going to match his outrage, Keller turned to Garret. “Do you agree with this?” he asked.
“I’m not thrilled,” Garret replied. “Those witches have crazy written all over them, but we can’t dance around the fact that we’re preparing for war. Something like that doesn’t come without compromise.”
“This compromise might get us all killed.”
“A hundred things might get us killed between now and the end of this.” Johnny shrugged. “If we refuse to do anything risky, then we’re basically serving ourselves and Holly to the dark shifters on a platter.”
“If that’s how you feel, have fun with the witches,” Keller said. “I’m going to keep working on gathering the loyal shifters. Hopefully, I can find a few extras to serve as your replacements after you’re pulverized by batshit witches.”
“Keller,” Holly called after him, but he didn’t stop.
“I know that guy is tightly wound, but even that seemed a little extreme,”
