Wicked (The Drake Chronicles Book 1) by Clover Donovan

sent Emma into violent fits of sneezing and she cringed as she passed through a cluster of cobwebs.
     
                  Logan had told her that the room that they were heading to was a very old spell workroom that his father had placed into their new house by a friend. It had been in their family for generations.
     
    He’d only been gone for a few hours, but Emma wanted Ethan back with her so badly that she felt like crying. Logan pressed his hand into a square piece of rock and a large stone wall slid open, the ground shaking beneath it.
     
    Emma walked in first and noticed that the room was full of broken wooden crates and giant glass vases. Everything in the room looked battered, dusty, and destroyed, except for a tall stone table that sat in a far corner of the room.
     
    On the table was a large clear glass bowl filled to the brim with purple water that brightened up the corner. Next to the bowl was a feathered pen and a stack of old parchment paper.
     
    The room looked more like a dungeon than a spell workroom, Emma thought to herself as she walked up to the stone table.
     
                  “So what do I have to do?” Emma said, staring down into the bowl. The water seemed to be glowing, and Emma could feel the coolness rising from the bowl. It was as if she were standing outside in the snow.
     
                  “Write down whatever you want to say on a piece of paper and drop it into the bowl. But there’s one thing that I didn’t mention in the library,” Logan said. Emma turned, raising an eyebrow at him.
     
    Was there blood involved? Because she was perfectly fine with a little pain in order to get this message to her brother.
     
                  “The way he’ll get the message will be painful for him. It’s going to appear on his forearm, written in his flesh. It’s how they used to do it back in the seventeenth century. It doesn’t involve a lot of magic, so that is why I think this is the best way.” Emma turned and stared back into the bowl. Ethan was going to be angry with her, but he’d forgive her for something as small as this, wouldn’t he?
     
                  “Okay, I’ll do it,” Emma decided.
     
    Emma had written her message, carefully picking out words that were small and making sure it was as brief as possible. She didn’t want it to hurt that much for Ethan.
     
    Logan took the note from her and folded it into a square. Making sure that it was tightly folded, he tossed the note into the bowl and Emma leaned over and watched as it fizzed and disintegrated into the water.
     
    Emma smiled at Logan and an instant later felt sharp pain caress her entire spine. She slithered to the ground, unable to feel her arms and legs.
     
    The room grew brighter and Emma’s eyes moved around the room as she lay on the ground. Logan sprang forward, but someone had thrown him into a wall. He landed with a thud on the ground but pushed himself to turn to the entrance of the room.
     
    Two men and a hellhound were standing in the doorway of the spell workroom. Emma recognized the hellhound; it was the one who had come to warn them. She didn’t understand what was going on and she still couldn’t feel her arms or legs.
     
    The pudgy man standing next to the hellhound stuck his split tongue out at Emma and hissed at her. He instantly grew closer, and Emma could see that his pupils were slit and were neon yellow.
     
    His skin was a lighter shade of gray and he had scales on his cheek bones and ears. What the hell is he? Emma said to herself as he squatted down and began caressing Emma’s hair. She winced at his touch and wanted to scream.
     
    “Hoke, stop scaring the poor girl, you sick fool,” the other man said in a thick British accent as he strode across the room and smacked the reptile of a man on the back of his grayish bald head.
     
    Emma got a good look at the other man, his face illuminated by the small lantern he held