As she watched, smaller trees leaned toward the faux serpent like baby rattlesnakes trying to cuddle close in a nest. Ellie pictured them with sealed mouths, hoping that would help trap the poison.
“You can’t useallof your magic at once, Miss Brandeau.” Prospero swept Ellie into her arms again. “You’ll pass out, and I can’t teleport you if you’re depleted.”
“So I’ll try again”—Ellie yawned widely—“maybe later tonight. Smells better though. Jus’ needed a bigger snake.”
Her eyes were heavier than they ought to be. She forced herself to stare up at the serpent, and its mouth curved in a smile that looked a lot like the one she saw in her mirror. “I can make snakes, I guess…”
“I see that.” Prospero shifted Ellie more securely into her arms and strode through the forest toward the town.
15Dan
Dan leaned against Axell as they traipsed along the path to the castle. They had passed the barren meadow between village and woods. He was no longer at wow-those-badgers-and-tables-are-all-spinning levels of drunk, but he wasn’t sober either. Axell, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine.
And maybe part of it was the stench around everything in Crenshaw, and part of it was the shadows dancing under the trees, as if there were creatures in there after all.
Or people.
“How did you almost die?” Dan blurted, voice sounding overly loud in the eerily quiet forest. “I told you mine. Hiked my way right off a ravine. Yours?”
“A needle.” Axell shrugged. “A bad day.”
Dan stumbled to a stop. “A what?”
“Overdose, Daniel.” Axell stopped and looked back at him, as if they were not at the edge of a creepy dark forest. “I was not good with limits. I was tired of being me, and the needle had more than my heart liked.”
Dan gaped at him. “Youkilledyourself?”
“No.” Axell backed him into a tree just past the path, a step or three into the woods.
“Are youstupid?”
“No.” Axell was so close that Dan could feel Axell’s exhalations, like the words were warm tactile things falling on his face. “I had a bad day. I did not die, though. I became a witch. This is better than fame and tours.”
Now, Dan knew he was drunk, and he knew his brain was not following everything quite right because of the copious amount of booze—by which he meant four drinks—sloshing around in him. Had he been sober, perhaps the fact that a gorgeous man had backed him into a tree would filter into his brain. Instead, he fixated on the idea of someone with such a perfect fucking life wanting to die.
“Weak,” Dan muttered. “I spent my life trying not to die, even when I was in pain, and you…” He pushed against Axell’s chest as if he could dislodge him.
Axell didn’t budge, and now Dan was standing there with both hands flat against the Norwegian man’s firm chest. Dan closed his eyes.
“I was trying to find death, and you were trying to escape it,” Axell said softly. “Now we are both here. Better.”
He moved even closer, so there was no space separating them. Axell’s thigh pressed against Dan’s crotch, and Dan’s eyes popped open in surprise.
Axell leaned closer for a kiss.
In a moment of bravery Dan wasn’t sure he understood, Dan turned his face to the side.
Axell’s lips landed on Dan’s jaw. Dan heard as much as felt a laugh against his skin, before Axell asked, “Are you rejecting me?”
“Maybe?” Dan managed. “I don’t know why you want me. Is it just that I am the only gay guy you met so far? Or you have a death thing, and since I was dying—”
“Truly? This is what you think?” Axell stepped away slightly, giving Dan enough room to duck under his arm and stand at his side.
Then Dan saw something in the woods, movement between the trees as if a shadow were running.
“Axell?” Dan whispered. “We aren’t alone here.”
Axell followed Dan’s gaze into the dark woods. He moved so he was between Dan and whatever was out there.
