Using the little strength remaining, I released myself from the chains.
Zephyr had already recovered and was back in his pants and helping Beck off the ground. I slowly bent over, fighting through the pain as I snatched my pants from beside the chains I’d been locked in.
I looked one last time at Clarence Goody. “I’ll be waiting over at the Edwins,” I told him, then turned to where Phoenix was lying and pushed my legs through my pants before lifting him off the ground, supporting his weight.
“Is it over?” Phoenix asked, unable to open his eyes.
“For tonight,” I told him, clutching his waist. “Until next time.”
And the four of us exited the barn into the cold storm, together.
The Edwins lived in a small cabin on the opposite side of the Norse Woods between my home and the Goody plantation. They were recluse members of the Norse Woods Coven and keepers of the Parish bloodline. They lived in the way other people had forgotten, eating resources from the land and not from in town, no electricity, only using water from the spring. Victor Edwin was a good man, built everything around the chair I was sitting in—including the chair.
We waited in the living room, the only source of heat came from the fire burning in the fireplace. Zephyr was sleeping over the couch, Phoenix in a bedroom. Mrs. Edwin tended to our wounds. We knew better not to refuse after the first time many moons ago. She’d always been like a mother to the four of us.
“You poor boys,” Mrs. Edwin cried, pressing a wet towel to Beck’s side. I caught Beck’s low hiss, the wince in his eyes. He hated to be touched. “I hate to see you go through this.” A small tear slipped from the corner of her eye. I blinked away, pretending not to see.
“It’s Josephine,” I told her. “She matters to us. All of you matter to us.”
“But it still doesn’t make it right,” she whispered, applying ointment from Agatha’s shop over Beck’s wound before taping it closed. “It shouldn’t be like this.”
“This is what we do,” Beck reminded her, tilting his head to catch her eyes. “This is why we were created, for people like you. Mrs. Edwin, I’d do it a thousand times over for your family.”
Josephine, Mrs. Edwin’s daughter, coughed from inside the bedroom as we waited for Clarence to arrive with the decanter. I pulled myself up from the couch to my feet. “I’m going to check on her.”
Mrs. Edwin nodded. Her expression held a world full of guilt.
I clutched my side as I walked through the dark hallway. Josephine’s door was cracked, and I knocked twice with my knuckle before pushing it open. Josephine was lying on her back, her face glistening from the sweat.
I pulled up a chair, sat beside her. “Jojo, it’s me,” I said, grabbing her hand.
It seemed it took much effort for her to crack her eyes open. Her face was pale, her long black hair wet and sticking to her neck. When she smiled a small smile, another cough came up from her chest. I couldn’t believe someone so small could produce a sound so painful.
I closed my eyes, squeezed her hand again. “It’s coming.”
“Julian?” she whispered.
“Yeah?”
“What did you have to do to get it?”
I forced a laugh, trying to play it off. “Well, that’s not really any of your business, now is it?”
Josephine was fourteen, two years younger than Jolie, and Mrs. Edwin was very adamant about not telling her everything. I respected her mother’s wishes. We all did.
“You don’t look so good,” she told me.
“I’m fine.”
Her body shook, and I touched her forehead. She had to be at least a hundred and five degrees. Where the hell was Clarence? I grabbed the rag from the side table and dunked it in the small bucket beside the bed, wrung it out.
“We have to get this fever down.” If Clarence didn’t show, I doubted Josephine would make it through the night.
“How is she?” Beck asked from the doorway.
Shaking my head, I folded up the towel and laid it across her forehead. She reminded me so much of Jolie, it was hard to see her like this. Beck walked in, took a seat at the edge of the bed. When he laid his palm against her chest, his head jerked to mine. I lifted my brows.
“It needs to come down,” he whispered, talking about the fever.
