“Prospero!” he said.
“That’s not my name.…” She looked around, trying to make sense of where they were. The people were dressed so oddly. One woman was in trousers that clung to her legs, and that woman…Why is that woman on the ground?
The man put a hand to his chest. “I’m Sondre. We’re friends, Prospero. I’m not whoever she’s trying to make you think I am!”
“He’s jealous. You excluded him, rejected him, refused his touch, and thenshehad caught his eye, too. He looked at her, didn’t he?” Aggie’s voice was so soothing as she explained what ought to already have been obvious. “You saw it. How he looked at her with vile thoughts in his mind. That’s why he killed her. He hated that she rejected him, too.”
Prospero heard a keening animal noise and realized that it was her. Her husband stood there in his arrogance, looking at her as if she were something foul.
“Do you remember how he looked at her all the time?” Aggie murmured. “Were her skirts rucked up when you saw her—”
“Agnes. Enough.” Sondre strode forward, closing the last of the gap between him and the old woman.Who is she? Agnes. This is Agnes. We were coming to see her.
His hand grasped Agnes’ arm.
He snapped his fingers at Prospero. “Ellie is alive, Prospero. She wears denims, for goodness’ sake. Shake this off. Whatever you’re thinking isn’t real.”
Prospero looked at him. He was too far away to punch her this time.
Wait. Sondre. Her husband was different. This was…
“Help me,” Aggie begged, drawing Prospero’s gaze.
The old woman is in danger!She opened her eyes wide, and Prospero remembered that she had wanted to see those eyes for some reason, but she wasn’t sure what it had been. “Your poor face, Prospero. I can see the bone. He did that to you, his own wife. It must ache so. What will he do to a frail old lady like me?”
And Prospero realized that she hadn’t even noticed how fragile Aggie was now. Her body was trembling as she leaned on her cane.Men like him are deadly,Prospero thought. Her hand reached up as if to touch the flesh that was flapped open on her face.Will I lose my eye this time?
Her vision blurred as she stared at the poor old woman.
“You have to stop him. Save me. You couldn’t saveheror yourself, but you can save me.” Aggie’s voice broke in fear. “His sort assaults women. He’s assaulted me so often that—”
“I have not.” Sondre’s sharp voice cut into Prospero’s mind. “You both know better than that!”
The old woman is lying about that.Prospero knew it the way all witches knew when words were false. She held the stone in her palm.A spell stone…
“I swear to you, Prospero. I have not ever sexually assaulted a woman… Agnes! Seriously?” He reached out to grab the woman’s other arm, the one with the cane. “Prospero. Listen to me. I’m telling the truth.”
He was, and the lie in Agnes’ words cracked something in her magical hold on Prospero.Ellie is alive, too.The woman who died was killed by a man.My husband.That man was not Sondre.And Ellie is alive.
Prospero threw the stone, and Aggie lunged forward. Her staffshifted into something reptilian that sank teeth into Sondre’s arm. It clung there as if it were a natural snake, not a magical piece of wood.
Sondre stared at it in horror. His fear of snakes was as genuine as her fear of her long-dead husband had been.
And all that was left of Agnes was the lingering edge of her laughter as she teleported away. The stone had not even glanced off her. Instead, it landed on Jenn.
The unconscious witch began to sizzle like meat on a grill. Her entire body writhed as if she were filled with things trying to get out, and in mere seconds, she was reduced to ash and a scorched mark on the pavement.
The scent of burning flesh lingered even as the crowd started to come back to clarity. The madness of the crowd was not fully gone. Most of the fights were fading, though, and people were pausing to help strangers to their feet. They looked afraid, and Prospero was about to go start adjusting memories until Sondre made a noise.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a strained voice.
“Not really, but it’s not physi—” Her words cut off as she saw Sondre’s hand. It was swollen and ghastly pale. She glanced up to see his expression and noticed that he was dripping sweat. His breathing was labored.
“I don’t think I am okay at all,” he muttered.
“Damn it!” Prospero surged forward to his side. In the next instant, she almost collapsed under the weight of him as he dropped onto her like a felled giant.
Fuck witnesses,she thought briefly as she teleported them to the infirmary.
