Witch Bound (Twilight of the Gods) by Eleri Stone

rebounding into the circle. It arced between the witches’ hands as they dropped the contact. The dark-haired woman to Lois’s right hissed in pain and shook her hands. The teenage boy, who’d gotten walloped, glared at Raquel openly.
    “I didn’t think I’d need to tell you not to interrupt the circle,” Lois snapped.
    I didn’t think I’d need to tell you not to destroy the town. Raquel tried for something more diplomatic. “It’s not prudent to direct so much energy toward the portal.”
    “I block it from reaching the fault.” Lois’s brows rose and her mouth slid into a supremely smug little smile. Raquel had the uneasy feeling that she’d walked into a trap. “Your wards are only twenty years old. I helped to place them. Ours were placed over a century ago. If we don’t strengthen them regularly, they will fail. Which is, after all, the reason we need you.”
    Ah. It had been a trap so that Lois could chastise her in front of the coven, prove to everyone that she was still the head witch. Raquel managed to not roll her eyes. She wasn’t here to play power games but fine, she could do that too. “The wards you’re refreshing—they’re stonebound?”
    “Of course.”
    That happened to be a specialty of hers, mostly because runes didn’t require one to have control over one’s own magic. They pulled directly from the ley lines and not from the person. Raquel could work rune magic like nobody’s business, all day, every day and twice on Tuesdays. She stood and brushed her hands on her pants. “You have warding stones here, I assume?”
    “What for?”
    “You don’t need to keep pouring your own energy into the wards. I’ll set up a secondary ring to power the first, drawing from the ley lines instead of the circle.”
    “We’re an agricultural community. Drawing from the ley lines will weaken the land.”
    “Not fast enough to do any damage so long as it’s only temporary. It’s winter now. If we remove them by January, it shouldn’t even affect the next harvest. And this way there’s no risk that any of your magic accidently aggravates the fault line. I’ve done this at home, I can have it up and running within a day or two.”
    Raquel held her breath, waiting for Lois’s reaction. Would she cut off her nose to spite her face? If she did, there’d be no working with her anyway. Lois hesitated—or maybe she just had to work that hard to unclench her teeth—then gave a sharp nod. “Top of the stairs, turn right. There’s a closet halfway down the hall. They’re in the box at the bottom.”
    The teenager scrambled to his feet. “I’ll show her.”
    Raquel followed him toward the stairs but paused when Lois called her name. “I’ll want to check your work before we place them.”
    Raquel schooled her features into a neutral expression. It wasn’t polite to gloat. “Of course.”
    Reaching the top of the stairs, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a minute while the boy went to grab the box. He was smiling when he came back to set the crate on the workbench. “That was awesome. I’ve never seen anyone stand up to her like that before.”
    Raquel shook her head. She really didn’t want to fight unless she had to. She was following the advice Kathy had given her— go in strong and stand your ground , or she’ll bulldoze you.
    “I didn’t say that to hurt her. I don’t like being bullied and I want to help.” The boy’s expression fell a bit so she said, “You’ve a good bit of power.”
    He shrugged. “Not enough to do anything more than feed a circle.”
    “That depends on what you do with it. This—” she grabbed the first stone out of the box and set it down on the scarred wood, “—doesn’t require much in the way of personal energy, but it’s incredibly powerful when used properly.”
    She pulled the cap off the Sharpie with her teeth. He hopped onto the stool next to her and craned his neck to see what she was doing. “What if we do