Becoming a monster to hunt a monster wouldn’t fix anything. Letting her baser urges reign would only bring more trouble. Randomly roaming would mean spilling more wild magic in the Barbarian Lands.
But I’ll be there the moment you slip, you bastards.
12Ellie
When Ellie returned to her spartan living quarters, she did not expect to see her wife pacing outside her door.
“Hi…? What are you—” And then Ellie saw the blood. “Are you hurt? Should we go to the infirmary?” Ellie’s hands slid over Prospero’s bloodied cheek.No cut there.Then Ellie felt her sides and stomach.Not even a tear in the fabric.She couldn’t stop herself. “Where is it? Seriously? Where are you in—”
“Scylla’s blood. Not mine.” Prospero caught Ellie’s wrists, still standing on the threshold of the room. Her voice was more vulnerable than Ellie recalled ever hearing as she added, “I need your help.”
“Scylla?Lord Scylla? Is she dead?”
“So far, no.” Prospero’s expression shifted into something terrifying in its grief, and any doubt that Ellie had about her wife’s ability to love deeply vanished. “If she dies…”
Ellie dragged Prospero into the room and closed the door. “Look, whatever else there is between us that’s fucked up, I am still here.” Sheshoved the cloak from Prospero’s shoulders and stepped back. “What happened?”
“She was shot,” Prospero muttered, not quite focused. “She is near death. I thought… I couldn’t find her pulse.”
At a word from Ellie, the tub started filling.
“She’d not dead, though, right?” Ellie said, half question and half statement.
“She can’t die.” Prospero’s jaw tightened. “I have to—”
“You have to wash away the blood.” Ellie started unfastening her wife’s vest. Prospero didn’t object. That alone was proof that she needed Ellie’s kindness just then. “Is that a rash? Are you allergic toblood?”
“No. There was poison ivy, too, after… after I delivered Scylla to Mae.” Prospero’s voice wobbled. “I had to go retrieve one of them, the witches who hurt Scylla, and when the next witch slips—”
“You can’t go anywhere in this shape,” Ellie said gently. “Let me get Bernice to—”
Prospero’s hob popped into the room. She took one look at Prospero and vanished again. No more than a moment later, some of Prospero’s clothes appeared as if they were falling from empty air.
“… get you some clean clothes,” Ellie finished as she scooped up Prospero’s unbloodied clothes and put them on a nearby chair.
Without another word, she unbuttoned Prospero’s blouse.
Prospero made a pained noise and stepped backward, out of Ellie’s reach. “I need to handle the fallen barrier, and talk to Walt, and—”
“Yes, and I’ll help you after you aren’t dressed in blood,” Ellie said, thinking about how horrible it would be to wear clothes soaked in a friend’s blood. “A quick rinse. That’s all. Just wash away the blood. Five minutes won’t make or break the world.”
Prospero bowed her head, so she wasn’t looking at her. “I need privacy, Ellie. I don’t need help with bathing.”
Ellie froze. It stung. She took a washcloth, dipped it in the water, andwiped the blood from Prospero’s cheek. “I’m not going to take unfair advantage of you.”
“I don’t ever want to take advantage of you, either,” Prospero said, voice somehow even more raw. “I want to, but I will not.”
And something about that admission sliced to Ellie’s heart.
“Turn so I can be sure your back is okay,” Ellie insisted, not looking anywhere but Prospero’s face. Then she motioned to the tub. “Get the blood off. I’ll change clothes. Then we’ll go see Walter. Unified front and all that. Maybe he needs a reminder that I can leave here if he’s not going to let you tell me what I’ve forgotten.”
“Ellie…”
“He ordered it, didn’t he? Ordered you to make me forget things?” Ellie pressed. Maybe it was time to remind all of them that she was not, in fact, a remedial witch now. She might have been areluctantwitch, but she was not someone to be trifled with.
Afterward, when Prospero was dressed in something not soaked in blood, Ellie reached for her arm. “Let’s go. Off to see the wizard…”
“Chief witch,” Prospero corrected absently.
