Mine.
She’d laid these bindings into her house, on her path, with her power. But the house had helped me find him. The path had cracked under our combined resistance.
It wasn’t all hers anymore.
I called up a thin thread of Hedge Magic, imagining it as a narrow, thorn-tipped root pushing into dry soil. I gave it one job: find the seam where her magic met the world’s and wedge itself in.
I felt around the edges of the band, not with my hands, but with that root.
There.
A hairline gap.
“Who taught you that face,” Gideon muttered. “You look like you’re trying to do long division in your head.”
“Shut up,” I whispered, not unkindly.
I pushed.
The thorn-root slid into the seam.
The band jolted.
Pain pinged up my arm, quick and sharp, like touching an electric fence. I hissed, teeth clamping down on a curse.
The band pulsed harder, trying to push me out.
“Maeve,” Gideon ground out. “Seriously. Stop. If she feels that—”
“She’s busy,” I said through gritted teeth. “You know. Attacking my town. Multitasking has limits.”
I twisted the root, not trying to rip the band open, that would just tighten it, but tounhookit.
“Who even thinks like this?” he muttered.
“People with grandmothers who knit curses,” I said.
The band flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then, with a soft, uglypop, it loosened, slipping through Gideon’s wrist like smoke being pulled through a ring. It didn’t vanish entirely. Old magic rarely gave up that easily, but it retreated, curling back into the floor sigils, sulking.
Gideon gasped.
His hand spasmed, then went limp.
“Okay,” I panted. “One.”
I moved to the other wrist.
The process went faster now that I knew where to poke.
Another jolt of pain. Another flicker. Another ugly pop.
Both his wrists were bare.
