A Little Green Magic (The Little Coven #1) - Isabel Wroth Page 0,88

journal entry about Henriette Le Doux being the only witch willing to offer a banished, frightened mother with nowhere else to go a safe haven, and Ivy softened with gratitude she would never be able to express.

“You've completely stumped the school council,” Ivy told him, not sure how she was able to keep her voice calm and steady when she wanted nothing more than to lunge across the table and slam her glass into her father's face, hoping the shards punctured his eyeballs and made him bleed. “How did you kill her with all the wards and spells in place to prevent violence?”

“Violence? My dear girl, surely with all your schooling, one of those silly twits explained the scope of a fertility god's powers?” her father tsked at her, feigning extreme disappointment.

With one hand, he reached over and took a peach pit from where Ilex set it on the table, holding the seed in the flat of his hand.

“I have the power to create life,” he told her condescendingly, demonstrating how a thick green shoot pushed from inside the seed and grew with startling swiftness into a thick branch that produced another ripe, juicy peach. “And I can just as easily take it away.”

That ripe peach withered and wizened to a dead, ugly knot right before her eyes. The whole branch darkened, the spray of green leaves turned black and papery. It took only the barest flex of his fingers before the whole thing turned to dust.

“It was simply a matter of draining her life-force away. No violence necessary. It was unpleasant, of course. I started with her hand to demonstrate, but she refused to speak. It wasn't until after she was practically mummified that I felt the spell she carried shatter like glass. All at once, I could sense you again. A tiny spark in a vast darkness, but there, all the same.”

“Is that how you killed my mother?” Ivy stared straight at her father, but Ilex sat close enough to him that she could see her brother freeze mid-motion, his teeth just about to sink into his peach.

Donnatar rhythmically tapped his fingertips together, studying her silently for a moment before answering.

“No. Her death was... a bit messier.”

Ivy felt herself sliding into something that felt like shock. Her brain stopped processing emotions, and the door to her imagination slammed shut, preventing her from conjuring up all sorts of explanations to her father's slow response.

The warm summer sun did nothing to warm her now. She sat there like a block of ice and was honestly grateful for the chill.

“Please elaborate, Father. I know Mother sought you out to try and bargain with you for my safety and to try and reunite her and me with my brother. In what way was her death messier?”

He made her wait for the answer, the silence stretching out for several minutes. Ivy guessed from the way he was so intently staring, her father wanted to get a rise out of her. She was clinging to Uriah's hand, her teeth clenched together so hard her jaw ached.

When Ivy met her father's stare with silence, he sighed and a roll of his eyes. “Your mother did indeed seek me out. She was a brave little thing, facing me the way she did. Your ancestors were some of the finest warriors in Celtic history.

“I suspect you might even have a little bit of Sun God in there somewhere with how fiercely she responded to my insistence that she hand you over. The mouth on that woman, such vile curses.”

Donnatar huffed, shaking his head as though confused by Ilsa’s refusal. “I asked your mother what she would sacrifice in order to keep you safe. She assumed I meant safe from me, and once again, she said, 'Anything.' I took her at her word and brought her back to the Sumerlands with me then and there.

“My territory was already suffering a devastating drought, and I thought perhaps the blood of a Green Witch might work the same as a Green Man. I was quite angry by then, as I'm sure you understand, and… I slit her throat and let every drop sink into the soil.”

Donnatar spoke of killing the mother of his children without any emotion whatsoever. He wasn't bothered, and he didn't try to sound remorseful in the least. If anything, he sounded bored as hell.

From the pallor of her brother's skin, Ivy guessed he hadn't heard this story before. Somehow, underneath all the ice keeping her nice