“Hi?” I said timidly. “Did Ash tell you to ask for me?” I had no other connection to Allwitches, no other idea why one would request me by the wrong name.
“Ash?” Arissa paused for a wheezing cough. “I’ve never met your sister. Ash was never one to . . .” Her forehead drooped against the iron bars and she never finished the thought. “May I touch your hand?”
I looked to Jaxan.
“That’s fine,” he said, “but lest Arissa’s gift be body-transferring,” he said to Leland, “secure the girl. Make sure she can’t leave.”
Both of us hesitated.
Me?Leland secureme?
“Yes, that one,” Jaxan confirmed. “Hold her tightly.”
Leland put a hand on my shoulder like I was contagious. But while his fingers curled reluctantly into my clavicle, I pulsed, wanting more, my skin lighting up with hunger and heat.
“Closer,” Jaxan pushed, flicking his hand until satisfied that Leland was half curled around me.
And in the wake of Leland’s scent, I forgot the sickly smells polluting the air. I forgot we were in a prison entirely. My head fell back, making desperate contact with the hard plane of Leland’s chest. I closed my eyes, a winter’s gale swept me through a pine forest, and without meaning to, I was suddenly envisioning myself in bed with him.
As I was about to cry out with need, he drove his shoulder forward and shoved me off him, the force of it sending my forehead slamming into an iron bar. I wanted to whimper with discomfort. Not at the bruise forming on my forehead, but because I needed him. I needed his closeness. The contact. He was mine, and —
Whatwas happening?
A whimpering sound built in the back of my throat, but Leland tightened his grip on my hip, his fingers digging in painfully. Pain, roughness. It might have been the only thing preventing me from exposing that some part of me did not hate him.
I squeaked when his low voice rumbled against the back of my neck, giving me a gentle reminder that Arissa was waiting.
“Why is this taking so long?” asked Jaxan.
I cleared my throat, and through a small, square opening between the bars, I extended my hand to Arissa. Hers closed around mine, and as it did, I felt something pass covertly through our grip. A smooth, round object like a heavy coin was pressed into my palm. I didn’t dare turn to see if Leland or Jaxan suspected, if they saw.
Arissa’s eyes wandered over my face, revealing nothing about the exchange. We stood there like that for a while, our hands locked, Arissa still and calm. It was why I was so caught off guard when a frantic look raided her eyes and her entire appearance changed.
Her mouth twisted, turning wide and unpleasant as she spat out a frenzy of words. “There’s a prophecy about you. A prophecy the Echelons are trying to hide.”
“That will do, Arissa,” said Jaxan. His dark eyes — always scanning, always subtly and distantly calculating — stilled. “Leland, take Ember home,” Jaxan said. “I’ve seen what I needed.”
It was clear Arissa was going to die soon, so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered, but I knew she’d used her gift to pass the coin to me, and I would not get her in trouble for it. The coin had to be hidden, and to do that, I needed a distraction.
“But what about my last name?” I demanded of Jaxan, contorting my mouth, my face, and my shoulders into big, passionate shapes, so he wouldn’t focus on my fist closing around the coin, my arm sliding down my side, and the coinslipping into my pants pocket.
Leland gave me a strange look, but I ignored it. Jaxan hadn’t noticed, at least.
“That’s right.” Jaxan turned to Arissa. “Tell the girl what you saw in your Vision.”
“In my Vision,” Arissa said, still in a fever-like daze, “I saw fire and smoke and rage. Death and betrayal and waters drained. The sky shook with thunder. And the Circle of Seven cracked into eight — ”
“We’re done here,” Jaxan said.
In the distance, someone banged on their cell bars and let out a piercing shriek. I might not have had Leland’s gift, but Jaxan had been evasive, Arissa seemed scared for me, and maybe it was only because of what the messenger had said in the courtyard, but I did not think Arissa was lying about a prophecy.
* * *
As soon as we left Odessa Hall, Leland Summoned the enchanted flask and thrust it into my hand without a word. I stopped for a long drink on the bridge while he looked over the side of it, watching lazily moving canal boats skim the surface of the shallow green water.
It was dusk, and horses clopped down cobblestone paths through the hills, the preferred mode of travel for witches who didn’t live near a portstop, I assumed. Squirrels rustled the leaves of manicured maple trees, thirty feet in the air. I even heard the distant chatter of witches dining on outdoor patios in the town square. Then my ears popped.
All I heard then were my own swallows and Leland, strolling across the bridge. I looked at him, curious why he thought we needed Privacy, then pinged with a glimmer of happiness when I saw his backpack was gone, hopefully sent back to his pocket realm. He ruined it by speaking.
