“Go.” Ellie looked back. She couldn’t see Prospero following them, and all she could hope was that a sliver of the woman’s feelings had been real enough that she could let them escape.
46Prospero
The retrieval unit was in North Carolina collecting the Lynch child, but Prospero had felt Ellie’s magic somewhere else as surely as she felt her own heartbeat. “Keep him safe,” she directed.
“You need to sleep. Nothing will wake you up until you hear my voice again.” Prospero had implanted the thought as she spoke.
“And if you were to die?” Sondre had asked, arms filled with the now sleeping boy.
But she couldn’t answer, not unless she wanted to wake the gangly teen. She’d rolled her eyes and vanished.
Only to be caged by Ellie Brandeau.
Prospero was at a genuine loss. Ellie’s magic was no illusion; she literally transformed things, so the cage holding Prospero was as real as any jail cell—one without a door. More impressive, perhaps, was that Prospero’s ability to return to Crenshaw was caged, too. Ellie had created a prison cell Prospero couldn’t escape on her own.
And the people here—non-magical people—were staring at her like she was an exhibit. She’d heard of zoos, of course, from newer arrivals,but in her time the closest thing was a traveling sideshow.Beforeher time, there was the Great Exhibition in London, but in any case, she was neither a sideshow nor a rare animal.
Her glare swept the room. An older woman in the back made the sign of the cross, and the cook walked to the door.
Prospero whispered a muffled word to seal the door. It wouldn’t do to have any of them out spreading tales of witches!
“I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m not—” The cook jerked on the door. Shoved it. Kicked at it.
“Ma’am?” the waitress said, gawping and blinking. She stood outside the cell, hands twisting her apron tightly. “How did you… how did this…? Did that woman make ajailin our diner? How?”
“Magic,” Prospero muttered.
The waitress began to laugh, sounding more hysterical than amused.
The cook pivoted, glaring at Prospero as if knowing she had stopped the door from opening. He stomped up to the tile and steel cage. “This is your fault somehow.”
“Seriously, Lou?” The waitress gestured at the seemingly impervious prison that Prospero was inside. “How in the name of all that’s holy would she do that to herself?”
The cook started pulling on the bars of Prospero’s cage. “Where’s the damn latch? Why are you here?”
“Magic,” Prospero repeated. “Witch.” She pointed at herself and then at the cage. “Magic.”
The cook walked away and lifted the carafe of coffee. Without a word, he tossed the burning liquid on her. She cringed, swallowing a scream of pain.
The waitress was trying to dab Prospero clean through the cage. Another person, a rather wiry young man, handed her a cup of ice. “For pain,” he said.
“Don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this,” Prospero said, biting back the cruel words she wanted to spew.
Despite her circumstances, Prospero was still a witch of considerable strength. She erased the woman’s mind, and attempted to concoct some sort of believable story. The only answers were still peculiar, though.
Prospero settled on: “There was a meteor. No one was hurt, but the building suffered damage. You’ve all been arguing on who to call for help.”
She looked around at the remaining people, quickly adjusting their perception with the same lies.
A reasonable explanation for a mangled cage in the diner was outside even Prospero’s wits at the moment. So was escape.
So she did a thing that she loathed to do: she called for a hob.
“Miss?” Clancy, one of the Crenshaw Castle hobs, popped into the cage. “You appear to be in a pickle, a jam, a—”
“Yes. I know.” Prospero closed her eyes, concentrating very hard on not panicking. “We have escaped witches, and as we can’t let them”—she gestured at the humans, who all needed mind correction—“know that you or I exist.”
Clancy grinned. “Shall I remove you from your cage, Lady Prospero?”
