Penny swished her hand, creating a motion she knew she needed and speaking the curse spells as she looked at Kreme. When she did it, nothing happened. The toad was still there sitting on the ground and Damien chuckled behind her.
Damien was enjoying it as he had never seen anything like this before. He couldn’t tell how useful Penny’s spell would be in the future when he would take her help.
“Does this work on vampires?” he asked to make sure he wouldn’t be the one turning to a toad.
Penny shook her head to a no, “Piers said it doesn’t work on pureblooded vampires. Just humans, half-vampires, witches.”
“Bless the witches for not finding it. Don’t panic, Kreme,” Damien said looking at Kreme who had turned to a toad. The last one who turned to a toad as gone missing so you better stay put.”
The toad moved away from the clothes that it had been previously wearing when it was still a human.
She frowned, a little more guilt adding up to the existing one as she didn’t know if she had got the spell right. She had made sure to double-check them after she had written them down one after another but Kreme had not turned back to his human self.
Taking in a deep breath, she cast the reversal spell again to see nothing happen. Penny stared at the toad hard, wondering if she was missing something right now or in the spell. Having learned every spell to be engraved into her skin, she doubted that she had got the spell wrong.
She then raised her hands, remembering something that people often did to bring someone out of their trance state. She snapped her fingers and Kreme who had taken the form of toad quickly turned to a human, except that he wore no clothes, and Penny had to turn around to look at Damien.
“It works,” Damien said, giving her a smile, “I told you I could do it. Kreme wear your clothes and eat properly you skinny human,” he commented when his eyes fell on his junior who was scattering around quickly to find clothes to wear. He then asked her, “How did you figure it out?”
Penny shrugged her shoulders,”I hoped it would work from what I heard about the black witches.”
“A true shame that we can’t use you in the council,” he commented even though he was the one who was opposed to the idea of Penelope taking part in the council, “Now we need to find our dear butler.”
“That’s not possible,” Penny commented, “There’s no locator spell in the book of spells. Not a word about it. Not in the black witch nor with the white witches book. We will need to wait for Durik to come back. Taking in the account of time, the spell will be lifted from him at tomorrow’s noontime,” finding a toad was difficult and with the way Grace had chased him out of the mansion while sending some of the maids to kick him far away if they found him before Damien’s orders, there was no telling if he had fallen into the sea or had made his way to the forest.
“What do you propose then?” Damien questioned Penny as she was the one who had cast the spell on Durik and wanted to turn him back.
Penny looked away from Damien, her eyes falling on the lantern as she wondered what to do now that they had the spell ready, “We wait…” that was the only thing they could do. Finding Durik was no less than having to look at the forest for a small creature, unsure of if the creature was still there or not.
“He will be fine,” Damien commented, seeing the worry lines on Penelope’s face.
When Penny’s eyes moved the lantern to the parchments that consisted of her mother’s face, she went to pick it up. Staring at her mother’s picture.
“Kreme was the one who drew her. Does she look like it?” asked Damien, “I met her more than once which made it easier to remember her features.”
Penny gave him a nod, “She does,” she looked just like her mother, but less kind and nice in here. The true face of her mother.
“Has there been any report about her?” Penny asked both the men.
“Nothing as of now, milady,” Kreme responded to her. He then turned to his senior, “I asked some of my friends to keep an eye on anything that they might find odd. They will send the report right away.”
“That’s good,” Damien replied back and at the same time, something hit Kreme’s door that had all the three members turn their heads towards the door, “You have a visitor,” Damien commented to see the human quickly move towards his door and unlock it. When he stepped outside, he saw no one there. The sound didn’t appear to be of a knock and therefore he looked down to find a parchment that was possibly covering a rock.
Picking it up from the ground, he looked around the other houses that were near his house in the village to notice how quiet it was right now. Stepping back inside and closing the door, he started to unwrap the paper around the expected rock and read the letter that was written.
After reading what was in there, Kreme looked up Damien with a sullen look on his face.
“News from the witch?” asked Damien to have Kreme gulp and then say,
“It seems one of the witch hunters was found hanging in the tree an hour ago. The inside of his bodies was pulled,” Kreme informed him, his eyes unblinkingly looking at his senior on the bad news, “My friend sent it…”
Penny’s eyebrows furrowed. Undoubtedly, it was her mother who was out on the prowl, killing people.
“But there’s something else that has been mentioned,” Kreme added to have the couple’s attention on him, “It seems there are a lot of witch hunters who have been swarming around her since two to four days of time.”
“It looks like your mother has turned popular, Penny.”
“Master Damien, I don’t think it is good kinda popular,” Kreme said that had Damien chuckle, “There has been some recent segregation when it comes to the witches who have been working in the land of Bonelake. According to the report, they also said some of the obvious black witches are not being hunted while it is mostly the white witches who are being targeted as they are the ones who had been popping up continuously in the villages and towns.”
“The black witches and witch hunters are targeting the white witches?” Penny asked Kreme to have him nod.
“It must be part of the ritual and making up groups to make sure when the time comes they will able to strike with no one to stop them,” Damien answered, “Funny though how they are targeting the black witch who we know has been working for the other witches in bringing this dream goal alive for years now. Do you think she made a mistake?” The question was directed to Penny.
