“Do you typically?”
“Typically?”
“The two times I tried,” Prospero clarified.
“Obviously.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “Implant it or tell me.”
Erasing the minds of almost two dozen women was exhausting, but Prospero tried to slide into Ellie’s mind. Suddenly, it felt as if she had bodily entered Ellie’s head. Prospero knew she was standing in the foul-smelling laboratory surrounded by formaldehyde, decaying wine, vomit, and corpses, but she could suddenly smell lilacs.
“Hi.” Ellie was wearing a goldenrod-yellow dress, not modern in its cut or style.
Prospero reached out and poked her arm. “This feels real.”
“I was researching if we could connect here,” Ellie said simply. “If there are no rules here, I thought maybe we could date in ways that would… make you love me.”
“I already do.”
“I didn’t know that, did I? I was going to charm you, seduce you, and make you mine.” Ellie twirled, the skirt of the dress flaring out like a bell.
“Already done, love.” Prospero smiled. “I need to rest soon, though. Can we—”
“Show me how to get us home.”
Prospero thought through the process, taking Ellie’s hand and then letting go of the way she resisted the pull back to Crenshaw. She put her hand over Ellie’s stomach. “Feel that hook. Right in here. And then stop fighting it.”
In the next moment, Prospero was back in the ruins of the lab. She missed the smell of lilacs and the dress Ellie had been wearing, but then Ellie put her arms around Prospero and said, “I hope I get this right.”
And they were standing outside the castle. Prospero felt like she was swaying on her feet with exhaustion. “Thank you.”
“Are you okay? I didn’t do anything that made you sick or—”
“Just tired.” Prospero gave her a wobbly smile. Over the last few weeks, Prospero had hunted down and erased Ellie’s mind and the Lynch woman’s mind. She’d slept insufficiently as she was trying to figure out how to live with Ellie, and then she’d been left to deal with Scylla’s injury,Aggie’s attack on Sondreandon Prospero. And now this debacle with Allan.
“I just want to hide away in our house,” Prospero admitted. “But first…”
They approached the main door of the castle, which swung open silently as they neared. Prospero didn’t slow her stride. She never did.
“Don’t use extra magic,” Ellie murmured.
“I don’t. I was briefly headmaster, and whatever hob or magic hides in the castle seems to welcome my visits.” Prospero smiled to herself. She liked the fanciful notion that it was the castle, but in truth, she suspected hobs. They were the embodiment of magic, an unstoppable force at the best of times.
They headed to the lower level of the castle where the infirmary was housed, and Prospero felt a glimmer of pride as Ellie took her hand. No one they passed likely cared, but Prospero had felt uncomfortable about the fact that she was unable to stand with Ellie as equals, as partners, as beloveds. Even though Ellie claimed to have wanted that, it hadn’t been until the night prior that they were truly able to move forward. Now, she felt permitted to touch Ellie in public.
When they reached the infirmary, Prospero was unsurprised to see Scylla in her infirmary bed again.
“Did you tear open your wound with that stunt?” Prospero asked.
“Psh.” Scylla gestured over at Allan, who was straining against restraints. “I punched the jackal that punched me. I am fine with a bit of bleeding. Plus, Mae has a theory we’re going to test now that you’re here.”
Trepidation crawled over Prospero. “Dare I ask?”
Scylla chuckled. “That boy is a siphon. That’s why I’m not healing. Why Mae’s draining over and over. If that’s the case, it’s not poison we’re dealing with at all, just miscategorizing the waifish one.”
“Monahan?” Prospero thought about it, the side effects of boosting energy if Monahan was not an amplifier but a converter. It made sense.“So he wasn’t boosting. He was draining it from somewhere, and then when he added energy to help heal you… he drained from Scylla’s magic. Then drained you and whomever else.”
Everyone watched her as she thought it through, and it occurred to her that she was validating or invalidating their theories from before she arrived.
“What’s the experiment?” she asked.
