A Tale of Witchcraft

The second installment in the A Tale of Magic... series is set in a world of four kingdoms where magic was only recently legalized. Fifteen-year-old Brystal Evergreen, the Fairy Godmother, leads the Fairy Council, a group of young fairies who perform acts of charity. Their efforts have won public admiration and acceptance for the magical community.

In the prologue, 333 men don silver robes and converge on a crumbling coastal fortress. They are the Righteous Brotherhood, a secret society thousands of years old that passes membership from father to eldest son. Their creed, the Righteous Philosophy, holds that mankind should dominate the world and men should dominate mankind. The High Commander, the Brotherhood's leader, recounts how they installed King Champion I on the Southern Kingdom's throne six centuries ago, embedding their philosophy into law. With magic now legalized, the Brotherhood has reassembled. The next king has agreed to restore the old laws as the Righteous King, the Brotherhood's chosen monarch. Beneath the platform lies an arsenal made from bloodstone, a glowing red stone immune to magic.

The Fairy Council travels to the Western Kingdom to repair a damaged dam. Brystal seals the crack, but Lucy Goose, her best friend whose magical specialty is causing trouble, accidentally destroys the entire structure. The council holds back the tidal wave while Lucy summons grand pianos to form a new dam. During the ensuing parade, Brystal hears intrusive thoughts telling her mankind's affection is temporary. The voice comes from inside her own head and feels beyond her control.

Back at the Celeste Weatherberry Memorial Academy of Magic, Brystal suspends Lucy for recklessness. The negative thoughts intensify, insisting nobody cares about her. She confides in Pip, an eight-year-old she rescued from a correctional facility, admitting she cannot feel happy despite her accomplishments and still carries fear and shame from her past.

At her brother Barrie Evergreen's wedding, Brystal reconnects with her mother and meets Prince Gallivant Champion, called Seven because he is seventh in line for the throne. Seven, about 16, bonds with Brystal over their shared love of reading. The ceremony is shattered by cannon fire from the Brotherhood. Their bloodstone cannonballs pierce Brystal's magical shield. Seven leaps in front of her and takes an arrow in the leg. Brystal heals him, but the arrowhead burns her skin.

Mrs. Vee, the academy's violet-haired housekeeper, panics at the sight of the bloodstone arrow, screaming about the Three Thirty-Three, her name for the Brotherhood, before locking herself away. Shortly after, Mistress Mara arrives in a skull-shaped carriage. A woman whose touch kills grass and whose hair ends burn like dying matches, she announces she has opened the Ravencrest School of Witchcraft for those drawn to darkness. Pip joins despite Brystal's protests.

Brystal has been secretly monitoring a site in the Northern Mountains with a special globe. She flies there and finds the Snow Queen, Madame Weatherberry's monstrous alter ego, frozen in a cavern wall. The apparition of Madame Weatherberry, her former mentor, appears. She froze herself to imprison the Snow Queen and separated her consciousness through a detachment spell. Brystal confesses her persistent negativity. Madame Weatherberry advises her to seek joy and discipline her thoughts, warning that her own emotional failure created the Snow Queen. She identifies the Brotherhood but has no strategy to offer. Lucy, who followed Brystal, discovers the truth and is devastated. She causes a cave-in between them and vanishes.

Lucy's specialty for trouble guides her to Ravencrest, a gothic manor surrounded by lynxes that are actually cursed people. She finds her way to Mistress Mara's study and overhears the witch and a mysterious visitor called the Horned One, who claims to represent the Righteous Brotherhood. Mistress Mara promises that within a week, her curse will kill the king and eliminate the Fairy Godmother. Lucy decides to stay and uncover the plot. She and Pip undergo entrance exams and an Enrollment Ceremony under a blood moon, where they drink a potion and collapse while Mistress Mara mutters an incantation. Lucy wakes with a golden necklace the witch insists she not remove.

Brystal accepts Seven's invitation to tea at Champion Castle. His presence makes her negativity vanish, and she develops romantic feelings. That night, they spot a clansman and follow him to the Brotherhood's fortress. They infiltrate a meeting where the Righteous King reveals his plan to destroy Brystal's popularity by engineering a devastating mistake, driving her to surrender. He promises that by morning, King Champion XIV will be dead. They rush back and find the king dead. Prince Maximus Champion, Seven's uncle, bursts in and accuses Brystal of murder. Seven urges her to flee, and she escapes.

At the academy, Lucy arrives with a sack of Ravencrest's jack-o'-lantern Curse Counters, carved pumpkins that track active curses. She reveals that Mistress Mara planted a Shadow Beast inside her during the ceremony, a parasitic entity that kills its host within 20 hours. The fairies create a Circle of Purity, a purification ritual using salt, sage, crystals, and candles, and extract the creature. Among the Curse Counters, Lucy finds one carved with Brystal's face, proving Mistress Mara cursed Brystal too and explaining her weeks of depression.

Consumed by the curse, Brystal writes a farewell letter, leaves her wand, and surrenders to the Brotherhood. At the fortress, she discovers Maximus and his five sons dead. Seven removes the Righteous King's mask, revealing himself. He gained her trust, steered her suspicion toward Maximus, and framed her for murder. Mistress Mara uses the Shadow Beast to animate 999 ancestral corpses as the Righteous Army of the Dead. Seven kills Mistress Mara with a bloodstone arrow, revealing he used everyone to seize power, and traps Brystal under a bloodstone net that stops her heart.

Brystal awakens in the space between life and death. Mistress Mara, also present, confirms she is the Daughter of Death, an immortal who fell in love with living. She reveals Brystal's curse filled her mind with negativity but suspended in Seven's presence, making Brystal mistake the relief for romantic attraction. Death arrives as a towering shadow. Mistress Mara offers to take Brystal's place if Death sends her back to find and kill the Immortal, a woman who tricked Death into granting her eternal life. Brystal has one year; the same enchantment could destroy the Army of the Dead. She agrees. Mistress Mara tells Brystal the curse of the mind can only be broken by the mind itself, then crosses over.

Brystal revives in a grave, a silver pocket watch counting down 12 months at her waist. The negative thoughts return, but she talks back for the first time, countering each one with affirmations. Each time she responds, the thoughts take longer to return. She climbs out as the fortress wall explodes. Lucy, the Fairy Council, and the Ravencrest witches burst in, rallied by Brystal's farewell letter and Lucy's plea to save her. The dead soldiers prove invincible, but Mrs. Vee, having overcome her fear, arrives with flying kitchen utensils that buy everyone time to escape.

Back at the Fairy Territory, Brystal's clarity has returned. She orders the territory fortified, the other kingdoms warned, her family retrieved, and pamphlets exposing Seven's lies distributed. She reinstates Lucy to the council. When the fairies express fear, Brystal declares that the Brotherhood's greatest weapon is not their army or bloodstone but fear itself. Their own secret weapon is hope, something she had to lose to understand. She pledges to fight sadness with laughter, loneliness with friendship, and fear with hope.