CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Bianca kept her eyes on the seething witch. There was no telling what Sariah would do, but Bianca wasn’t afraid. She braced herself and held Boris’s broken handle out in front of her like a sword.
Carly disentangled herself from her husband’s protective arms and scurried over to Bianca.
“Come on, Bianca,” Carly hissed urgently and tried to tug Bianca away. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay.” Bianca shook Carly’s hand away. “Look what she did to your diner! And to Boris.” Boris’s bristles twitched and Bianca released a shaky breath. She didn’t know if broomsticks could die but she prayed that Boris would survive this dastardly attack.
There would always be bad people who tried to knock them down, but they had to stand up and fight. Bianca wished she had learned this lesson earlier. Her ex had tried to keep her down and trample on her pride and self-esteem. She could see clearly now how insecure people tried to drag others down so they could prop up their fragile egos.
Sariah, that sad, disfigured witch, tried to hide behind her glamour and her rage to make herself feel powerful.
“Well, are you going to clean up the mess you made?” Bianca demanded, glaring at Sariah.
“You...” Sariah’s face twisted. “You will regret this, foolish human. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
Sariah raised her hand and spat a spell at Bianca. Before Bianca could move, Yaya was already in front of her.
“Yaya! Look out!”
But Yaya only shrugged and effortlessly dissipated Sariah’s magic into harmless dust motes.
“Leave the humans alone, Sariah,” Yaya said sternly. “But Bianca is right, you know. You should clean up your own mess. Are you going to make good all this damage?” Yaya waved at the broken windows and spattered walls.
“All this is your fault!” Sariah shrieked. “Your bloody broomstick caused all the trouble, and you’re blaming me?”
Yaya’s eyes flashed with pain and anger. “You broke my broomstick. You’ve gone too far, Sariah. You didn’t have to break him. Boris didn’t knock into your table on purpose. It was an accident.”
“Accident?” Sariah sneered. “Easy for you to say. You don’t look like...this.” She pointed at herself. “You don’t know what it’s like...”
Yaya sighed. “Sariah, you’ve always known that black magic demands a price. The Rule of Three applies to all branches of magic. Whatever energy you put out into the world, be it positive or negative, will be returned to you threefold. So if you do harm unto others with your spells, you will have to pay the price, threefold.” Yaya’s voice softened and she sounded sad. “Is it worth it, Sariah?”
For a moment, Sariah’s red eyes glimmered and she looked away. With her head down, Sariah swore at them and slammed out of the diner.
Yaya watched Sariah go and shook her head slowly. “She’s gotten a lot worse over the years. Sariah...used to be a beautiful woman. She had lush golden hair, lively eyes and a ready, happy laugh. But look at her now. Even her flesh is slowly rotting away. She uses a different glamour every time, but most of the witches and shifters in town can see through her glamour. Some witches think there’s no harm dabbling in dark magic. There are people who are willing to pay a lot of money for a hex or a potion to bring down their enemies. But everything always comes back to the source. Always.”
Carly and Nelson were shuffling around, attempting to clean up the place.
“Leave it,” Yaya told them. “Let me do it.”
It took Yaya less than a minute. She simply spread out her arms and muttered a spell. All the items flew back to their original positions. Tables and chairs were mended and righted, and the windows fixed themselves. The splatters on the walls disappeared, and a small tornado spun round the diner, sucking up all the spills and broken glasses, leaving the place clean and sparkling.
“Can you fix him too? With that spell you just used?” Bianca asked hopefully as she handed Boris over to Yaya.
“That spell only fixes inanimate objects,” Yaya replied, picking Boris up gently. “Boris is not an inanimate object.” Her voice trembled ever so slightly. “He’s...Boris.”
Without looking back, Yaya left the diner, cradling her broken broomstick in her arms.