MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The smoke alarm screamed for the third time that morning.
Cathy Johnson swore under her breath and waved a dish towel at the ceiling detector. Her hands glowed faintly gold, the anxious shimmer bleeding through her skin like a warning she couldn't suppress. Another batch of protection charms had burned to ash in her cast-iron skillet, and the cramped apartment kitchen reeked of burnt sage and failure.
"Maybe if you stopped panicking, the magic would cooperate," Turnip said from his perch on top of the refrigerator.
The opossum was the size of a small, judgmental watermelon. He knocked over a jar of dried lavender with one pink paw and didn't even pretend to look sorry.
Cathy grabbed the jar before it could shatter. "Thank you for that incredibly helpful observation."
"I'm just saying. The glow thing makes you look radioactive."
She shoved her traitorous hands into the pockets of her threadbare cardigan and glared at him. The golden light seeped through the fabric anyway. It always did when she was stressed, which was constantly these days.
A shimmer of magic rippled across the counter.
Cathy froze.
A cream-colored envelope materialized between the dirty coffee mugs and unpaid bills. The paper was thick, expensive, and sealed with the intricate wax stamp of the Johnson family crest. Her stomach dropped like a stone into cold water.
"Oh no," Turnip whispered.
Cathy's fingers trembled as she picked up the envelope. The enchanted paper hummed against her skin, heavy with authority and old magic. She broke the seal and pulled out two folded sheets.
The first was an invitation, written in her Aunt Drusilla's sharp, elegant script.
The Johnson Coven cordially invites all family members to the Grand Harvest Feast at Blackwood Manor. Petitions for land redistribution will be heard by the High Council on the seventh day.
The second page made her knees weak.
Only established heads of household may submit petitions. Petitioners must be married or bonded by the opening ceremony.
Seven days.
She had seven days to get married, show up to the Feast, and convince the Council to return her family's orchard. The land her father had lost in a card game three years ago, though Cathy had never quite believed that story. The orchard that contained the Johnson family's ancestral wellspring, a source of magic so potent it could supercharge even the weakest spells.
The orchard that Aunt Drusilla had seized the moment Cathy's father died.
"Your kitchen magic is peasant work, Catherine," Drusilla had said, her voice dripping with disdain. "The land deserves a proper steward."
"You could just marry an actual warlock, you know," Turnip said, breaking into her spiralling thoughts. "Like a normal desperate witch."
Cathy barked out a laugh that had no humour in it. "With what dowry? My collection of scorched spell books and crushing student debt?"
She worked at a supernatural temp agency answering phones for divination witches and filing paperwork for combat mages. Her domestic magic, the cooking and preservation spells her mother had taught her, earned exactly zero dollars in the modern magical economy. The eviction notice from her landlord was already taped to her door. Two months of unpaid rent, and she was out.
This invitation was her last chance.
Turnip waddled closer, his tiny black eyes worried. "So what's the plan?"
Cathy crossed the kitchen and yanked open the drawer where she kept her mother's old grimoire. The leather-bound book was water-stained and falling apart, but the summoning circles in the back pages were still legible.
"I summon something to play the part," she said, flipping through the yellowed pages. "A low-level demon. Just strong enough to glamour as a respectable warlock fiancé and keep its mouth shut for a week."
"That's a terrible plan."
"It's the only plan."
Her finger traced the faded ink of a summoning circle labelled For the Conjuring of Minor Infernal Assistants. The spell required sulphur binding, demon-tongue root, and consecrated salt. She had none of those things.
What she did have was a half-empty container of table salt, a jar of paprika that was probably expired, and a stub of a candle shaped like a birthday cake.
Good enough.
"This is how people die in horror movies," Turnip muttered.
Cathy ignored him and started gathering supplies. Her hands were glowing brighter now, gold light spilling across the counter as her anxiety spiked. A minor imp would be manageable. Easy to control. It would demand minimal payment, maybe some food or a shiny object, and then she could send it back to whatever hole it crawled out of.
She could do this.
The apartment lights flickered.
Cathy looked up just as a jagged crack of golden energy spiderwebbed across the wall. Her protection charms, the ones she'd spent all morning trying to reinforce, burst into flames.
No.
The magical eviction wards activated with a sound like breaking glass. Aunt Drusilla had placed them in the apartment as insurance, set to trigger the day before the Feast. But Cathy still had seven days. The wards shouldn't be active yet.
Unless Drusilla had moved up the timeline.
"She knows," Cathy whispered. "She knows I'm going to try."
The wards burned hotter, consuming the cheap spellwork she'd layered over the walls. Gold cracks spread like lightning, and the air tasted like ozone and rage. Cathy's magic responded in panic, flaring so bright her hands looked like they were on fire. The drain was immediate and vicious, pulling power directly from her core.
She gasped, staggering against the counter.
If the wards drained her completely, she'd be powerless. Magicless. Unable to even attempt the summoning spell, let alone reclaim the orchard.
Turnip shrieked.
The kitchen cabinet exploded in a shower of sparks. The wards latched onto Cathy's magic like a parasite, and she felt something inside her start to crack.