A Little Green Magic (The Little Coven #1) - Isabel Wroth Page 0,68
She just lay there in the dark, staring at the salt lamp softly glowing on the bedside table. Her thoughts whirled like a tornado, but she couldn't hold onto them for very long.
She kept remembering that at seven years old, she'd been powerful enough to grow trees from nothing in the middle of the road. Trees big and thick enough to bear the weight of a car and slingshot a forest god.
A forest god.
So what exactly did that make her?
Her whole life, Ivy imagined her mother up on this pedestal of perfection, and to find out Ilsa was as flawed as everyone else, was a crushing blow. It also brought this strange sense of relief to know Ilsa Greene wasn't perfect.
She also thought about how her mother confirmed Ivy needed no spells or incantations to perform her magic. That she only needed imagination and a will to make the plants grow. So much like what Uriah told her that day she'd discovered she could do magic.
The fuzzy memories of Ivy's childhood were returning and getting stronger every day, and she couldn't remember a single moment where her mother hadn't expressed her pride and love for Ivy.
Part of what kept her up was trying to reconcile years of being ostracized by the other witches at school, having her powers bound on purpose, and everything that went with having been lied to, with all the things her mother had done to protect her.
Ivy was deep in thought, trying to weigh what she might have done in her mother's place, what she would do to protect her own child, when she felt a ripple.
She pictured the property in her mind and immediately realized she could sense where the intrusion came from. The riverbank, just a few feet beyond the ring of anemones she'd summoned last night.
She got up, murmuring to Uriah that she had to pee when came half-awake and tightened his arm around her. He let her go with a sleepy grumble, and Ivy wrapped herself up in his shirt on her way to the bathroom, leaving the light off as she tip-toed around the wall, keeping in the shadows until she could see out through the enormous windows.
There was definitely someone out there, a solitary figure wearing dark green clothes and a hood to blend in with the foliage, but he couldn't hide the subtle shine of his skin when the rays of the full moon passed over his face.
A lock of red hair fell forward out of his hood, and Ivy knew to the soles of her feet she was looking at her brother. He lifted his hand almost casually, his long fingers flicking through the air.
Ivy's heart raced as she stood there, rooted to the spot, watching her tall, broad-shouldered brother create another Queen of the Night, encouraging the petals to open so he could write her a message. He finished and glanced up, then did a quick double-take when he caught sight of her in the window.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she refused to let them pool and distort her vision. Even with a long scar curving up from the left-hand corner of his lips that disappeared into his hairline at his temple, the man below was inhumanly beautiful. Ivy could see their mother in his features, in the red hair that spilled down his shoulder in a thick braid when he pushed his hood back.
He looked... sad. Tired. He lifted his hand in greeting and gave a crooked smile. Trembling, Ivy touched the glass as though she could meet his hand, and his smile deepened. He touched his fingertips to his chest, just above his heart. He took one step back into the trees, and vanished before her eyes.
Without thinking, a soft cry of denial passed her dry lips. The next thing she knew, Uriah busted through the door, bristling with aggression like he thought she was being attacked. When he demanded to know what was wrong, Ivy hesitated.
What would he do if she told him she'd just seen her brother? No doubt he'd run out there and try to catch him, or at the very least, patrol the yard to make sure Ilex was in fact gone.
But what if it was a trap? A lure to get Ivy or Uriah to come out into the darkness to face a host of Fae hiding in the trees?
Her brother left her another message, but at this point, he was still potentially the enemy.