Scylla pressed her hands against her belly, as if she could keep the blood inside.
“It’s not personal,” Jaysen whispered. “We were just getting you out of the way, dude.”
“This wasn’t the plan,” Jenn muttered.
“It was a hope ofmine,though.” A man’s voice was close enough that Scylla could smell fetid breath, a mix of vomit and alcohol. “Never did like you. That feltgood.”
Him.He was the one with the gun.
Nearby, Agnes laughed. The old witch was one of the few people in Crenshaw who would still let slip her racism, her homophobia, her hatred for other faiths or any other difference. Today, though, Scylla could do no more than scowl at the old bitch. Later, if she healed, there would be words to say and charges to bring.
Right now, Scylla simply needed to not die.
Despite the very real danger of antagonism from her attackers, her mouth still managed to say, “Fuck you.”
But Aggie and the others were gone by then, and Scylla was left dying on the leaf-strewn ground. With each beat of her heart, each stream of blood around her fingers, Scylla felt her magic retract into her skin, drawing in to do the same thing it had done the last time a bullet had pierced her body.
Magic would protect its host. That was why witches stayed alive so long. Magic healed the ravages of age, illness, and foolishness. It didn’t undo death or disability, but it cured illness and injury.
Bullets are harder to heal,Dr. Jemison had said the first time they’d met.
Didn’t mean to get shot,Scylla had pointed out back then. She’d done nothing wrong, but innocence didn’t always protect a person. Wrong place, bad time, worse man.Just like now.
Vaguely, it occurred to her that whatever they’d used had fragmented inside her body. Shards of the bullet or shell or whatever it was had scattered, slicing deep into many places at once. The last time, it had been one bullet.
One that woke my magic.
This time, as Scylla’s magic snapped back to her, the barrier wobbled. It was going to fall. She felt it as surely as she felt the ferns brushing against her cheek as she crawled across the ground.
Hand pressed tighter to her belly, as if she could staunch the wound through pressure alone, Scylla fought to stay awake.Moss,a tiny memory that sounded like Dr. Jemison urged. And as the feet of her potential killers crossed into the nonmagical world, headed far away from her, Scylla grabbed a handful of moss and tried to pack it into the wound.
A hob appeared. Then another. Then a third.
“The barrier is down,” she told them. “I need…”
They vanished again.
“… help,” she finished.
Maybe they went to handle it. Maybe they didn’t. All Scylla knew for certain was that she was suddenly alone again in the forest with a bleeding bullet wound.
8Prospero
Not long after sunrise that morning, Prospero jerked open her door to find Ellie standing there.
“I need to check the rift,” Ellie had announced. “What if they undid all my repairs? I almost went in the middle of the night, but I thought you’d overreact. So, come with me now.”
“Good morning, Ellie.”
“Hi. I need you to come in case I pass out again—unless you would rather I ask someone else?”
“Obviously, I’ll be there.” Prospero stepped aside to invite her in, but Ellie shook her head.
“Let’s go. It feels urgent.” Without another word, Ellie pivoted and headed toward the woods.
Prospero mutely followed her, grateful to avoid another session of interrogation but not sure what to do with the brusque way Ellie was acting. In the few days that they had been in their sham marriage, Prospero was already certain that it would not last.
This solution will not work. I need to talk to Walt. There has to be a better way to keep her here!
