Witches of Barcelona
Blood Web Chronicles Book Two
Caedis Knight
Contents
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Caedis Knight
Also by Caedis Knight
Verity Knights
About the authors
WITCHES OF BARCELONA
Blood Web Chronicles Book Two
By Caedis Knight
Copyright © 2021,
Caedis Knight.
All Rights Reserved.
The right of Caedis Knight to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Witches before bitches
Prologue
Marbella, Spain, 2008
The man floating in the middle of our dining room looked vaguely familiar. I nudged my sister in the side so she’d stop hogging the keyhole and let me see. Relenting, Mikayla slid a tiny bit to the left.
“Is he that politician running for mayor?” I whispered as we took turns to squint into the hourglass opening.
I’d seen the man on TV, standing at podiums in grainy adverts while making promises to thick crowds. I remembered his flashy ties and sweaty forehead glistening like a glazed donut in the Spanish sun. He wasn’t sweating now, though. Maybe the adrenaline had made his blood run cold.
Being part of a Witch interrogation will do that to a man.
Today, the man’s tie was a ruby red diamond-patterned number. Thanks to the power of the magic being used on him, his tie floated comically alongside his body like a thin red flag – not that anyone was coming to his rescue.
“His name is Roberto,” Mikayla replied. “They’re going to kill him.”
Her tone was icy cold yet indifferent, a thirteen-year-old already far too familiar with murder and magic.
A chill ran from the top of my head to my sandal-clad feet, and I blamed it on the stone tiles creasing my bare knees. I looked through the keyhole again. The senior board members of the Mage Association were surrounding the man in a half-circle, chanting a bunch of ancient words I couldn’t understand. The incantations silently hummed through me like electricity, making the air thick with magic.
Even though my Witching Day wouldn’t be taking place for another two years, at eleven years old I already knew I wasn’t as powerful as my sister. Yet even I could feel the cloying power snake its way out of the keyhole towards us. Back then I didn’t know much about chants, so couldn’t tell by the words alone what the Witches were doing. But I knew whatever was happening wasn’t good.
I turned to my sister and made a face that said, ‘What’s going on?’
“Mom is leading the spell,” Mikayla explained quietly. “The Elemental to mom’s right is making the man float by controlling the air. Mom is using her touch magic to make Roberto answer her, but it’s not working. Tia Maribel looks annoyed.”
Mikayla had a way of explaining things that never made me feel stupid. Unlike my mother or any of my teachers, she never thought less of me just because my magical abilities were embarrassingly meager. Every Mage’s Witching Day takes place when they’re thirteen years old, although by the age of six it’s normally obvious what type of powers they will have. Not me though. Nothing about me was obvious.
“It’s super weird,” Mikayla continued in a hushed whisper. “He must have taken some kind of antidote because he’s resisting her power.”
A flash of pink dashed past the window outside and I turned my head, squinting against the glare of the midday sun. The girl playing under the palm tree was Beatriz, the daughter of Warlock and Mage Association treasurer, Salvador. Our parents had done that annoying thing all parents do, throwing their kids together thinking we’d get along just because we were the same age.
Beatriz was doing something clever with crystals, making them shine and casting their rainbow reflection onto the shade of the tree trunk. Her true powers hadn’t been officially revealed yet, but she was already very good at the smoke and mirror stuff that every Witch could do.
Every Witch but me.
“Should we go and play?” I asked, drawing Mikayla’s attention to the sunny garden.
“I’m not playing with Beatriz,” my sister declared. “She’s been super weird since her mom was placed in the Mage asylum. It’s made her magic really intense. I’m not getting in trouble because of her.”
Mikayla turned her attention back to the keyhole while I looked out the window, unsure whether I disliked Beatriz or simply felt sorry for her.
Our own father had died just a year before, and from what I’d heard Beatriz’s mother was as good as dead. I knew the darkness that kind of loss brought with it.
I pulled at my sister’s shoulder again. “This is boring. Let’s go before Beatriz spots us and tells her dad we were…”
“Hold on. I want to see how this ends.”
A loud crash made us jump, Mikayla’s eyes widening with surprise as I tilted my head to look through the bottom half of the keyhole. The mayor-hopeful had dropped to the floor and was now crumpled in a pathetic heap. And our powerful mother, Solina de la Cruz, perfectly coiffed as always, was standing at the center of the half-circle.
She let out an irritated grunt then cursed in Spanish. “Mierda! Esto no va a funcionar.”
To her right, Salvador examined the fallen man with the
