Page 44 of A Lady’s Guide to Witchcraft

“He’s mine.”

“He belongs to the moors,” Briar returned. She pulled the chain free of the Black Shuck, his fur matted and snarled with dried blood. “Don’t eat me, if you please.”

She pushed against him with her entire body weight, aiming him toward the door into the garden. With any luck, instinct would carry him in that direction and not toward the others. The chains she carried to Twyla, looping them around her shoulders. Her fingers felt frostbitten already. Twyla cursed at her.

“Briar, don’t let her touch you. Back away from her,” Ethan ordered her quietly. “Now.”

Briar, though current evidence might suggest otherwise, was not a fool. She backed away hastily.

“Behind me,” Ethan said. “Quickly.”

Oliver had managed to finally pull his jet pendant from his neck. It had already cracked, absorbing the wild magic lashing the air. He let a shard fall and ground it into the ivy with the heel of his boot.

Her makeshift spell severed.

The Black Shuck streaked through the open door and leapt over the potted geraniums, and the far stone wall, before the others could fully pull themselves free. The boggarts screeched and fled, leaving a trail of shredded leaves and flattened grasses.

Twyla staggered under the weight of her spelled chains, turning pale. She had no time to wriggle free, no magic left to help her. She went down to her knees. One of the Keepers followed, pressing a jet pendant to her chest. She choked.

“The entrapment of magical creatures without a license is quite illegal,” the man in the buff trousers with a pocket watch said dispassionately. “You’ll be kept until you can be tried for your crimes.”

He was clearly not a Keeper, but they obeyed him as though he was. Oliver snapped an iron collar around Twyla’s neck. Twyla shuddered, going even paler.

When Briar also shuddered, Ethan stepped in front of her. The tearoom was full of the sounds of witches trying to catch their breaths. There was blood on the floor. The acid breath of the Black Shuck lingered, as did the scorched smell of salt and fennel and the sticky sweetness of honey.

And a lady at the back door, squeaking in surprise. There were dahlias on her bonnet.

Briar sent her a shopkeeper’s smile, weary at the edges. “I am afraid we are closed this morning.”