Read To Make A Witch for Free Online Page A

remade Excalibur, like, the Excalibur?”
    “Rhi,” I corrected automatically as I sat up, pushing the hair out of my bleary eyes. “And yes. I mean, no, I don’t hate her exactly, but yes, that’s what she did. I didn’t find out everything firsthand, but the Crone connected me with witches all over the world using the Darknet. News travels fast in the magical world. What time is it?”
    She ignored my question. “And this Rhi basically threw you out of your own town?” The girl’s voice was indignant.
    I turned the alarm clock on the desk so I could see the time; it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. “She had her reasons. She only wanted me gone until she and Peter joined Taliesin in Nevada, but I decided I needed a more permanent change.”
    “I can’t believe Peter would chase after that fairy slut Miko all the way to Las Vegas!”
    I flopped back down onto the bed and suppressed a sigh. Ava seemed to have only two speeds: on and off. Now that she’d adjusted to the idea that magic existed, she’d transitioned into complete acceptance of everything I’d told her—and obviously I had to be the heroine of the story. I probably should have, but I couldn’t tell her I was actually one of the villains.
    Maybe it was because I didn’t feel like one. It was true that Peter was blind to Miko’s real nature. It was also true that Rhi had her own agenda and couldn’t be trusted. The whispers all over the Darknet—even those surfacing onto the mainstream Internet—were that Rhi was a leannan sidhe . No one really knew what that was, but the consensus among witches was that it was something old and monstrous.
    If there are no heroes, how can those on the opposite side truly be villains?
    I escaped that question and the rest of Ava’s by promising to answer everything I could, but only after I’d showered and had breakfast. She agreed and only tapped her foot and sighed a few times as she waited for me to belt a sweater over my denim skirt.
    The morning air was moist, but mild. Stradford Hall had disappeared into fog, but I could see a black town car parked in front.
    “I wonder who’s here.”
    Ava shrugged. “It takes a lot of fundraising to keep a place like this going, even with the tuition they charge us. There’s always a politician or local celebrity being shown around by the dean.”
    As we passed through the foyer into the dining hall, I noticed a security guard going through some paperwork inside one of the offices, but otherwise the building seemed quiet.
    The entrance to the kitchen was behind the currently empty serving stations. Ava was already pulling down cereal boxes from one of the upper cupboards.
    “Are there any baking supplies?”
    The girl looked at me as if I had two heads. “How would I know?”
    I rummaged through the kitchen until I found a cast iron pan and all the ingredients for pancakes. Baking was something my mom had showed me how to do before I was tall enough to reach the counter.  It didn’t take long to whip up a stack of pancakes. The fridge produced a bottle of syrup, but Ava refused to try anything that wasn’t pure Vermont maple and dropped a small slab of butter on top instead.
    “So what should we do?” she asked between quick bites.
    I shrugged. “Well, I didn’t expect the school to be so dead over the holidays. I even thought I would need to wear my uniform the whole time so I didn’t bring a lot of clothes, mostly skirts. I should probably pick up a couple of pairs of pants.”
    Ava put down her fork and stared at me. “That’s not what I meant. I thought maybe we should go back to the cemetery.”
    “Why?”
    “If there were bodies in Marie Laveau’s tomb—recent ones—shouldn’t we do something? Let someone know? Somewhere in the city, people are waiting for their loved ones to come home, but they never will.” Her eyes were moist with tears.
    Shame made my cheeks hot. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Maybe we could call the police and leave