Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser Series) by Meghan Ciana Doidge

start. He leaned into the circle and lit the incense.
    Sienna, her eyes locked to mine, leaned forward and blew lightly into the smoke trailing up from the incense sticks. Then I did the same.
    Many witches had opening sermons or blessings they invoked to begin, but Sienna and I always chose to start our spells with a bit of breath as Gran had taught us. No power words or evocations that we had no hope in hell of controlling. Just a little bit of our magic carried on our breath and offered to the circle.
    Rusty lit the candle at the edge of his side of the circle. He passed the long taper he’d used to Sienna, who lit her candle and the northern one. Taking the taper, I lit the candle in front of me. I felt the magic stirring, contained within the circle. It was familiar and comforting. I could control this … I owned this, no one could take it from me except by killing me. It tempered my wounded pride and bruised ego.
    Sienna bowed her head to the spellbook held open in her lap. She muttered words that spoke to the magic drifting lazily in the incense smoke. I didn’t bother listening to the exact syllables Sienna used. Words only conveyed belief or intention, and this was Sienna’s spell, not mine. Gran could cast a spell without a circle or written words. She called up her magic, focused it, and it did her bidding.
    I pressed my hands into the earth on either side of the candle I’d just lit. Gran claimed that our witch magic was earth-based and -bound, which is why I always sat east where the earth candle was traditionally situated. I’d never felt magic rise and fall from the earth like Gran described, though. I’d never been able to tap into the spirit of the earth, as Gran called it, her voice hushed and reverent. My eyes never shone blue when I exercised my magic like other witches, though I understood that not everyone could see a person’s magic in his or her eyes the way I did. My eyes didn’t shine any color at all. Neither did Sienna’s or Rusty’s.
    Sienna turned her palms toward the broken teacup handle that sat before her, just inside the circle. The handle vibrated in the dirt. This I could feel. This I could see, though I knew the same wasn’t true for Sienna and Rusty. They could see the effects of the magic, as the teacup appeared to grow out of the broken handle and resolve itself into a fully-formed yellow-rose china cup. Gran collected this Royal Albert china pattern. I hoped Sienna hadn’t snapped off a handle of one of Gran’s teacups just for this spell.
    Rusty laughed. Then he reached toward the crow wing placed in front of him. The magic shimmered and shifted. The tea cup reverted to a broken handle — Sienna pouted a little, but allowed the magic to flow toward Rusty — and the feathers on the wing started to ruffle as if touched by a light breeze.
    Rusty’s brow furrowed with the effort but nothing else happened. Sienna reached out and wrapped her hand around his left wrist. He grinned at her, but then quickly returned his attention to the bird wing. It flopped in the dirt as if it might be trying to flap. I was surprised that Sienna and Rusty had enough of a connection to share magic. That was something she and I might be able to do, having known each other our entire lives, but I didn’t know she was close enough to him to offer him some of her power.  
    The magic resolved around the wing and a ghostly image of the crow appeared, but I knew this reveal was too much to ask of our magic abilities. It was one thing to manifest a tea cup, or some other inanimate object, but Rusty was trying to reveal an entire crow — a complete being — from its wing. Actual life force of some sort was involved in this manipulation. He did have the touch with dead things, such as my ever-suffering plants, that he’d inherited from his mom, but —
    “Jade,” Sienna prompted with a snap.
    I sighed, very sure her unarticulated request was useless, but I reached out to wrap my hand around