The Enchanted Writes Book One by Odette C. Bell Page A

the forest.
    As she ran and wrote, she had to admit
something: the more she wrote, the more tired she became. It was
like cramp or bad RSI.
    Had she run out of magic? Had Brick
neglected to mention that there was a limit on how many spells she
could cast?
    The witch suddenly stopped and whirled on
the spot, her unkempt and greasy hair flying over her shoulder and
slapping into her neck and face. She opened her jaw wide and let
out a keening, screeching cry.
    She balled her fists up, familiar cracks of
red fire splintering over her skin.
    Henrietta skidded to a halt, her boots
snagging on the ground as a surge of fear rushed through her. Her
elegance and agility fell away, and she fell over, slamming onto
her butt and jarring her wrist.
    Terror tore through her, ripping through her
chest. It was the look in the witch's eye. It was the proximity of
the creature as she loomed forward, more and more flame licking
high into the air. It was the horrible promise that kept flickering
in her eyes.
    The wand threatened to slip through
Henrietta’s grip, but she snatched it up in time.
    The witch drove a fireball right towards
her. Henrietta rolled, but not before the fire smashed into the
ground next to her and singed her leg.
    She screamed, a deep, primitive move that
tore through her throat.
    Her leg crackled and burnt, the skin
bubbling like pig fat thrown in a pan. A shooting pain burst up
into her hip and back.
    She scrabbled on the ground, white-gloved
fingers gouging the dirt.
    The witch loomed above her.
    Henrietta, heart stilled, let her head fall
back as she stared at the witch.
    The flame crackling over the witch’s flesh
punched higher and higher, wider and wider, until Henrietta could
feel it seer the unprotected flesh of her face.
    Time slowed down.
    This was it.
    Fight or die.
    She chose to fight.
    Shackle.
    With a shaking hand, she wrote the word as
fast as her sweat-slicked fingers could manage.
    Just as the witch flung her hands back,
readying a fireball, chains appeared out of nowhere and wrapped
around the creature's wrists, shackling her to the ground.
    The witch shrieked, and Henrietta flung
herself backwards, clutching a hand to her burnt leg.
    Brick appeared, just as she stumbled, her
leg buckling from the pain stabbing through it. He caught her,
wrapped an arm around her middle, and pulled her back to her
feet.
    “You fly fast, Warrior Woman Henrietta; I
lost track of you.” He struggled for breath. “But you are now
weakened. You have cast too many spells.”
    Her wrist was stiff and unmovable, her body
a sweaty, burnt mess. Too true she was weakened. It was a struggle
to keep her eyes open.
    “But we haven't yet overcome the witch.” He
took a step back from her when it was clear she could stand, and
tugged his crossbow from his jacket. He aimed it right at
Henrietta's stomach.
    She was still shaking from fatigue and pain,
but she shuddered backwards. “Brick, what are you doing?”
    The witch crashed about in the background,
the clinks and clangs of her chains reverberating through the
forest.
    “Casting a magical magnification field.” He
fired. Blue sparks streamed from the crossbow and thumped into the
center of her chest.
    It didn’t topple her over and send her
tumbling meters over the scorched ground. Instead, a mandala
appeared at her feet, a rush of energy snaking into her legs and
tingling all the way up to her fingertips.
    “Write the word banished,” Brick
bellowed.
    She didn’t hesitate.
    Which was unusual. She was the girl who took
half an hour to decide what to eat. It always took hours to pick a
movie. And last time she went shopping, she’d spent half an hour in
torture over which T-shirt to buy.
    None of that mattered now. She wrenched up
her wand and wrote banished.
    An eerie black light shot out from a dark
symbol at her feet. A powerful, tingling, rushing sensation pushed
through her, sending a sharp shiver dancing up her spine.
    The witch screamed, the black light