Margaret reappeared from the portal far away from Janice and Dan. She reentered her own house and started to pace through its halls, devastated at what she'd learned about her granddaughter's plan for her grandson. "Could I have done something different, as a grandmother? Could I have raised Janice differently somehow? Would anything I could have done, have mattered?" she thought to herself in silence. Regardless, there was nothing that could be done now, nothing except to defeat Kat in witch battle once and for all. She had to be strong. She had to be skilled. She had to be ready.
Eventually Margaret rounded a corner and there was Kat. "Where were you grandma?" she asked. Margaret answered, "Oh, just out for a stroll honey, you know how pretty my magical forests are this time of year." She could tell from the weak nod that Kat didn't believe her. Margaret gave a practiced, disarming smile and said, "Why don't you go to the kitchen and prepare us a nice dinner sweetie. I'm sure your mother has taught you some nice food magic you'd love a chance to practice." Kat answered, "Sure, I do have some ideas, but I'll need a little time to make sure I'm up to the task. How about we eat in, say, three hours?"
"That sounds nice, sweetie." Margaret watched as Kat vanished in a beam of light; she felt the ripples in the magical field from Kat's reappearance in the kitchen several rooms away. Margaret sighed. She knew this teleportation, and the dinner that was about to be prepared, was some of the last magic that her daughter would ever cast. But what had to be done, had to be done.
Margaret sent a secret telepathic message to her daughter: "Meet me here for dinner in three hours, Janice. I wouldn't plan on actually eating anything, if I were you. But do be ready for our intervention." A soft, affirmative tinge across the mental link told Margaret her message was received. It had been almost forty years since Margaret had bound a fellow witch. She decided to pass the hours in her sanctum, preparing for the coming showdown.
Meanwhile, Kat could tell something was up. She wasn't sure what, but she confidently suspected that her family suspected that she was involved in Dan's disappearance somehow. Of course, they were right, but she couldn't allow the details to be revealed, not yet. She would have to get back to her sanctum, and release her genie, before she could fully overcome her family's and the witching-world's power and take over the earth. She would bide her time in the kitchen for now. Her mother had indeed taught her to conjure food with magic and cook it with magical heat. She had also read in her magic book how to conjure poisons that even other witches would need powerful psychic abilities to detect. It was just a matter of time now. She would incapacitate if not kill her aging relative, escape from this prison she was being held in (allegedly for her own safekeeping) and quickly return home and unlock her sanctum.
Finally, after three hours of cooking for Kat, and at least several days of training for Margaret, the fateful meal was ready. The dishes were laid out on the table. The pots and pans were in the center, still bubbling with heat from the enchanted pots. A cheery-looking senior citizen shuffled into the dining room. "Oh, my darling Kat, you've positively outdone yourself," said the older witch. Kat's smile at hearing this was as fake as that of a sculpture. "Anything for you, gram," Kat said sweetly. Then her eyes widened slightly when her mother, Janice, also walked in. "Surprised to see me, baby girl?" said Janice. Kat quickly recovered, with well-rehearsed poise, "Not at all mother, in fact I was hoping you'd join us. I made plenty and prepared a few extra seats at the table." It was true.
They all sat down, and Kat served them all by levitating the serving spoons in the air. She tasted her very own tomato basil soup first. She had no qualms about eating it; she knew what she'd conjured and had made quite certain that no harm would come to herself. Janice, on the other hand, poked at her foodstuffs more tentatively, obviously uncertain and worrying that something was amiss. Margaret did a much better job pretending to eat the soup and even the freshly baked bread and seasoned beans that came with it. Margaret knew exactly what was in the soup -- a potent magical poison indeed, for such a young witch as Kat. But Margaret had learned to sense and to create much more subtle and much more deadly substances in her time.
"So, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," said Janice, breaking the awkward and overly cordial silence, "I have good news to tell. Your brother was found -- looking just like he did before he disappeared. But he doesn't remember what happened."
"What? That's impossible!" Kat exclaimed, exposing herself, before recovering, "I mean, um, thanks for telling me, mom. I'm glad Dan's all right." The awkward silence returned. Margaret decided to make things interesting. Time to get this party started.
"Enough of this charade, Kat. We know you tortured him for centuries in your little hellhole. Your mother is telling the truth, though; Dan is back to his human form now, no thanks to you. But of course, you know that we know, don't you. That's why you used toxin magic in this soup and bread. So tell us, Katherine, what do you have to say to yourself?"
"Just that I'm about to be your new master once I'm out of here. All the witches will bow before me."
And immediately it was on. Balls of light shot from Kat's hands toward the other witches. They dodged and launched magical attacks of their own, which bounced against the magical barrier Kat had conjured around herself. The battle was on. If Janice and Margaret won, Kat would be stripped of her magic and made to forget she was ever a witch. If Kat won, only Dan would be able to stop her, if he still retained enough of his genie powers to do so. If no one could stop her, then both magical and non-magical humanity would be her slaves.