“What if the students need me?”
“There are others in your house, Mae. I’ll have three of them on staff. You aren’t the only doctor here.” Prospero stepped backward until her back was flush with the storefront where the groceries were distributed.Behind it was the warehouse where all the groceries, water, and sundries had been stockpiled.
“You’re right.” Mae nodded, looking calm and resolute. “I’ll send a hob to fetch a few people to mind the infirmary.”
“Starting tomorrow,” Prospero suggested, deftly weaving the detail into Mae’s mind as if Mae had made that decision.
“Correct.” Mae smiled. “You’re not entirely awful.”
“Thank you?”
“I was exhausted and not thinking clearly. This talk helped.” Mae reached out as if to hug her.
Prospero caught her forearm and squeezed it briefly. “Not a hugger.”
“Right.” Mae frowned slightly as if trying to remember a thought—likely one Prospero had erased. Then she turned away and left.
Prospero walked around the side of the storefront, past the guards, and let herself into their warehouse. The old kirk had a feel of age and solemnity that had her occasionally longing for a childhood faith that had died a century ago when she’d been beaten and bloodied by the man who’d sworn before God and their community to cherish her.
“Bernice?” she whispered.
The tiny magical woman who ran Prospero’s house appeared.
“Thirteen dead witches in the infirmary,” Prospero said, not wasting time with politeness just then. “Can the hobs remove them?”
“As always.” Bernice vanished then.
Wherever the bodies of the dead went, Prospero didn’t know—or want to know. Crenshaw had no room for graves or memorial services, and right now, the thought of a mass death was too dire to do anything but create panic.
She’d notify the heads of houses, the chief witch, and Sondre. She’d consult with Cassandra. Then, she’d try to think of a solution that wasn’t “stay and die” or “hide scattered throughout the Barbarian Lands.”
First, she would take a moment to sort through the terror she felt welling up inside her. They might not all need the panic and horror, butshe couldn’t erase the truth from her own mind. Hers was—until Ellie—the only mind she couldn’t erase or alter.
I just need something good to ease my panic,she thought as she straightened her jacket and stepped back outside.
The last thing Prospero expected, however, when she stepped into the cobblestone street outside the old kirk was to hear Ellie laughing. For a sliver of a moment, she thought she was imagining it, but there she was giggling with another student.
Something good.
Ellieis my something good.
Despite every bit of logic, Prospero was fascinated by the librarian witch. Jealousy sliced deep, not in a “who is that other woman” way, but that Ellie was so relaxed. Prospero stayed at the edge of the building where she could see them, but they couldn’t see her.
“Does it bother you that you’ll forget all this?” the other woman asked.
“Why?” Ellie made a sweeping gesture. “Seriously, Maggie? What’s tomiss? I can visit medieval villages in Europe. Maybe the costumes are fun, but I love my life.”
Maggie looked a little less convinced. “I don’t know. I guess I thought this life could be pretty cool. If not for my kid…”
Ellie squeezed the woman’s forearm in a kind way, a way she’d done with Prospero on more than one occasion. “But they destroy families. Plus”—Ellie looked around—“there are secrets. I have no doubt. Every city has them, and add that to the witchy longevity?”
“The doctor slept with the headmaster. I feel like I shouldn’t know that.”
“Ugh.” Ellie shuddered.
“Riiiiight, butI slept with the headmaster, too.” Maggie rushed the words together, so they were something of a blur.
“Oh.” Ellie paused in a way that Prospero had grown fond of. It was her thinking face, her weighing words look. Finally, she said, “I think that’s sort of unethical of him.”
