Dead Lake by Miranda Kate

Blurb

On a landmass broken by man, a corrupt network grows, and a witch vows to take it down. 

Sometimes it pays to be Tricky

Damn and blast! That rancid piece of excrement, Carter, has had her ransacked out of Clancy! How’s she going to get her obsidian back now?

When new-age witch, Tricky returns to her cottage to find it turned upside down, she knows her time in Clancy is over. After they burned her mother at the stake, Randolf Carter, head of the district, is spreading lies and suspicion about her kind. She has three days to leave or risk punishment. But it wasn’t just an ordinary ransacking – they were searching for something.

Using her gifts to trace the energy Carter’s lackeys left behind, Tricky spies a winged creature among them: a jackdaw. Swift and wily, it pinches her precious gemstone, a piece of black obsidian. But at whose bidding? Communicating with birds is a rare ability and she knows all who possess it.

Determined to get back what is rightfully hers, even though she can’t show her face in the district, Tricky makes a plan. But when it goes awry and she discovers what’s really going on, along with who has betrayed her, it takes all her strength and skill to survive.

Adept at manipulating energy and time as well as communicating with trees, Tricky’s drawn into something bigger than ownership of a gemstone, and learns that sometimes it pays to be a little bit tricky.