“Well, did he order you to ensureIstay out of it?”
“No.” Leland gritted his teeth. “No, he didn’t. I think he wants you to — ” He didn’t finish the thought.
“Wants me towhat, Leland?”
His transmitter buzzed, and he stood after checking it. “Let’s head back. I have to go to the palace.”
On our way back, it only took me a couple more tries asking him what he meant before I realized Leland was never going toanswer.
* * *
Later, Leland messaged before he left for Odessa Hall, asking me to stay indoors.
But I couldn’t.
After he was gone, Helen messaged she needed to speak with me outside the academy, Echelon’s orders.
The moment I stepped outside the hatch, I was struck in the head. I stumbled and fell and when I opened my eyes, a black camera was the first thing I saw in my blurred vision.
* * *
“I’m sure by now you realize that message was from me, not the Echelon. Though I did message what she told me to send, in proper accordance with her instructions. You see what is so unexplainable to us” — Farrah kicked a pebble at my head — “and warrants investigation based on how ridiculous your behavior is — is how an Eight, who should be sick to death with withdrawal symptoms, is rarely seen drinking the moonale that has been proven —factuallyproven — to alleviate those symptoms.”
I cradled my head at her skull-shattering voice, intense pain flooding the space between my eyes.
Who’s helping you?Farrah asked without moving her lips.I know it’s an Allwitch.
I rocked back and forth, screaming, the smell of thickly perfumed iron filling the air with heavy toxicity. I didn’t know how to separate my thoughts from my responses, or whether Farrah could hear all of it, so I thought about the splitting pain, the nausea, the feeling of a rusted scalpel jaggedly carving through my brain matter.
Is it Ash?she asked.Has she been Contacting you?
“No,” I choked. I needed to get inside where she couldn’t get to me. I tried to stand, but the pain sharpened, and my nose started to bleed.
Then it’s the Truth-Teller. You know, you without your flask isn’t the only thing we’ve been witnessing.She spread her hands like a banner.Most Eligible Bachelor in Everden Under Half Witch’s Spell. Is that correct?
No, I said, deciding then and there to lie for the first time in nearly nine months.Leland isn’t helping me. He hates me. Why would he help?
The words tasted like bile on my tongue. I wiped the trickle of blood leaking from my nose and rolled onto my side, coughing up the effect she was having on my stomach.
Then the hatch opened. Slippered feet scuttled across stone, and the strongest iron I’d ever smelled filled the air. I felt the sudden relief of a Shield cutting off the intensely sharp pain of Farrah’s magic.
“Hello there, Farrah!” came the grandfatherly voice of Charley Starvos. “Nice to see you enjoying this beautiful desert evening. Do you know, I don’t often prosecute witches in my jurisdiction — they don’t often break rules that require it. But I do believe, forthatspell, Farrah, if one of my Creators asks you to leave her head, you must oblige her request. So, assuming Ms. Blackburn hasn’t agreed to be interviewed like this, I guess I’ll have to go dig up my law text and look up the appropriate punishment for the crime you’ve committed.”
“She never asked me to leave her head,” Farrah said, sounding like a brat. “If that’s what she wanted, she should’ve asked.”
“Perhaps she couldn’t,” Starvos suggested. “Have a nice night, Farrah — in Hartik’s Hollow or Silverstone or anywhere else you desire, so long as it’s far, far away from here.”
She left promptly, and as I was slowly getting to my feet, Starvos invited me to dinner.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you a few questions,” he said as I fought to hear him over the ringing in my ears. “The most pressing” — he held the three hatches open (at least, that’s how many I managed to count before I went green and my stomach turned) — “howdoesone eat the bacon? Are there dipping sauces for it?”
He prattled on the whole way to the cafeteria as I battled to keep the contents of my stomach down. Mercifully, Rayne found us in the arcade and insisted on taking me to the academy’s Healer.
Leland asked about it when he returned, but I shook my head.
“I just want to go to bed,” I said.
Only, sleeping was no longer a solo activity, Rayne had already lost one night of sleep for me, Dream Interference was out of the question, and because of all of that, I agreed to a Lucid Dream spell that allowed Leland to sleep with me inside my head.
