The true memory had come to her in bits and pieces over the years, replacing the hazy period when she and her father had finished conning an insurance company out of enough money to pay for the apartment for a couple months. When she’d been fifteen, she’d left her mother’s house to live with her father. Now, as an adult, Gentry sorely regretted the years spent away fromher mother and sister, her true family. Despite her disloyalty, they hadn’t given up on her. Not once.
“Gentry,” her mother sighed, “where do you go? Baby, I need you to focus.”
She blinked the memories and self-hatred away, and tiredness filled her bones with the same iron weighing down her shoulders and back. The fight for her freedom never ended, but she wanted to pretend for a second it didn’t exist. “Can I eat cake, Mom?” It came out far whinier than she wanted.
Her mother’s face softened. “Have some cake. We finish this discussion at the five-minute mark. Beck, slow down! This is your sister’s cake and it’s already tiny enough.”
“Yes, Mama,” Beckett replied, her cheeks stuffed full like a chipmunk’s.
Gentry hid her grin as she dug into the birthday slice, savoring the sugar for the treat it was. Leave it to her mom to put a time limit on her leniency. Before she’d been committed, the trait might’ve driven her crazy, but each second of mothering held a special place in her heart. Being mothered was a privilege.
For the next fifteen minutes, she and Beck goofed around. Beckett told her about the girl she liked, and all the other girls she hated. The groups of friends who all vied for her attention. Their mother chimed in as a fact checker whenever Beck’s stories took a turn for the fantastical; the school prank to sell a teacher’s car on social media had been thwarted by hers truly, thank you very much.
The time passed far too quickly for Gentry’s liking. It was like reality snapped back to gray and melancholy, the colors seeped from the walls, as soon as her mother said, “Tell me you have a plan to get in good standing, sweetie.”
Tell me you’re not going away. Come back to me.She heard the unspoken plea. “I have a plan.” Not to get in good standing. But technically not a lie. She did have a plan. All shedid nowadays was plan. Nothing was taking her away from her family. Not even vindictive, nasty witches.
Her trickiness didn’t get past her mom. She settled back in her chair, shaking her head with sadness in her eyes. “Your father would get that crazy look in his eyes sometimes. It wasn't until you were locked up in here that I saw the same thing from you.”
“Don’t compare me to him.” The words came out harsher than she meant them to, harsh enough to where Beck gave her a wide-eyed look.
“Then don’t look crazy. If he cursed you like you said he did then I’d think you wouldn't want to be like him. Dial it back.”
“He didn’t curse me. He sold me out,” Gentry corrected sadly. For the past five years, all her and her mom did was fight. For the government to relinquish her involuntary commitment. For the Curse Ward to give her something to do rather than stare at blank white walls. To find where her fucking father was hiding. They’d lost most, won some. This was the first time she’d seen her mother look defeated.
Her mother was wrong. Gentry didn’t get her crazy from her father because that bastard never saw anything through. No, she strived to be half as stubborn as Aya Greenbriar, the woman who’d birthed her and never stopped fighting for her daughters.
A mage announced visitation hour was over as her mother collapsed her face into her hands. Beckett threw her arms around her, and Gentry hugged her back, borrowing her head into Beck’s bony shoulder. She smelled like lilac, like home. Ruffling her baby sister’s hair, she then rose and hugged her mother, who didn’t look up.
“Love you,” she murmured, “trust me, okay? Things are going to change.”
“I love you too. So much,” her mother whispered.
Gentry left with the rest of the patients, the pain in her heart singing as families murmured their goodbyes. The pressure inher throat rose when Jimmy, a ten-year-old boy with strawberry blonde curls, cried as he hugged his dad. His father whispered to him, allowing the curse boy to talk back. A witch had cursed the boy to only speak when spoken to. Even Gentry, who hated the mages with everything in her, hoped the boy was cured soon. They’d already found ways to mitigate the effects.
Entering into the bland halls of the real Curse Ward was sobering to say the least. Like the world snapped back to rules, experiments, probing questions, and yucky potions. Gentry scrunched her nose in disgust.Only another minute,she reminded herself as their line of patients lumbered through the halls, slower than when they came. Justin the mage glanced back at her, and she knew he planned to shove that healing potion pill down her throat as soon as possible.
They trudged up the first flight of stairs, and Gentry slowed, brushing shoulders, until she was at the end of the line. Mykel matched her pace.
“Go away,” Gentry whispered, looking at the high girl who blinked owlishly back at her.
“Nuh-uh,” Mykel slurred, “it’s peaceful back here. Don’t have to listen to you sniffle like everyone else. My family lives four provinces away. Won’t see them till the solstice.”
Then why did you come to visitation?But Gentry didn’t have time to ask the question, because they reached the top of the stairs. Her first opportunity. She looked back. The stairs stretched below them, the blue laminate floors gleaming at the bottom.God, this is going to hurt.Her nerves nearly failed her. This plan was beyond desperate, but she’d told her mother the truth. They weren’t going to transfer her. Not when she was so close to figuring out the truth.
“All my pain meds,” she said breathlessly to Mykel, “you get all of them if you deliver, remember the deal?”
Mykel’s pale green eyes widened underneath her shaggy bangs. “I thought you were just joking about that, Gen. Forget the drugs. That’s—”
Whatever her roommate’s excuses at reneging on their deal, Gentry didn’t hear them. She rolled back on her heel and let the heavy, heavy chainmail do its work. It tipped her backwards into the air. She fell.
She’d like to say each stair blurred into the other, that her head, shoulder, and side bashing into harsh edges bled into just one giant injury, and she lost consciousness as soon as she hit that blue laminate flooring. That her ankle snapping and tooth biting through her tongue were masked by an absurd amount of adrenaline running through her veins.
But that would be lying, and only dirty fucking mages lied.
It’d taken two minutes for the mages to levitate her into the infirmary, and Gentry had been wired throughout, her brain racing as it catalogued each injury, each sharp throb of agony. The infirmary mage cursed as they peeled her chainmail off, the iron interfering with their ability to heal her. They then poured magic into her wayward rib, followed by her ruptured lung. At one point, she heard the Curse Ward director, Lucinda, snap at all involved that they couldn’t lose her, that their patron would be very upset and pull their funding.
Gentry snarled past the bubbling blood in her throat at yet another confirmation that they’d stolen her freedom for a paycheck, that her presence mattered so little as to discuss it openly. They ignored her.
