Katie
What does she want? Why couldn’t she wait til I’m back at C.S.A.M.M.?
Natalie
I’ll try to figure that out. Just don’t let her get to you before I do.
The lights suddenly feel too bright, like a spotlight is shining down on me. Fragments of the oath I swore and Natalie’s warnings about breaking it come back:trial by jury…imprisonment…
I bounce my knee, my stomach twisting. If Fiona’s here with official authority, she could detain me on the spot. And from the urgency in Natalie’s texts, that’s exactly what she’s afraid will happen.
“You look like you might need this,” Hazel says, offering me a barf bag.
I shake my head. Keeping my voice at a murmur, I force myself to say the harsh reality. “One of the, uh, higher-ups is here. Natalie seems worried about why.”
Hazel’s eyes widen, and she drops the barf bag. “Think it has to do with you setting free all the—” She looks around. “Theyou-know-what?”
Oh, and I told her about that, too. Just that we had to set magic free in order to keep it from some bad people. She had questions when we were driving away from shapeshifting monsters ravaging the city, okay?
“Probably,” I say tightly.
She frowns. “The way Natalie is, she wouldn’t have let you come back if she wasn’t certain it was safe to return.”
“I know, but…” A chill ripples over me. In truth, we were focused on coming up with a plan to rescue her dad, not to mention protectingme from the Madsens. We thought the coven had turned their focus back to the Madsens, too.
Hazel furrows her brow. “Is it possible the others lied to Natalie? Made her think they forgave you?”
I grimace. “Yes. They needed me to come back—easier than flying across the country to hunt me down, I guess—which meant they had to convince Natalie that they’d given up on wanting to punish me.”
Hazel’s face goes ashen. “You think they still want to punish you after so long?”
Time for a confession, now that we’re safely on the ground. “That turbulence was you-know-what. I feel it. Which means they’ve been dealing with the aftermath since February, and they’renotgoing to forget whose fault this is.” I make a flourishing gesture at myself.
Hazel’s mouth falls open.
I rub my face, frustration churning in my gut. I swore an oath to protect magic, and that’s what I was doing. But Fiona thought I was a traitor for releasing the magic they’d worked to contain.
“What’ll they do to me?” I ask. “What if their punishments are like…medieval?”
“Don’t say that,” Hazel says, her voice high. “We just have to figure out how to convince them that you did the right thing.”
We. That’s cute.
I reach over and pat her thigh, grateful for her loyalty, but we both know there’s nothing she can do to help me get out of this.
Crap, what if she gets dragged into this and becomes collateral again? My nerves twist tighter. This is a disaster. I shouldn’t be allowed near her. In fact, she should get a restraining order against me at this point for her own safety.
The seatbelt sign dings off, and people stand.
I sit frozen, my heart doing its best to escape through my throat. “How am I going to avoid her? There’s only one way out of here.”
“Well, the first step is to get off the plane,” Hazel says logically, unbuckling her seatbelt with steady hands. “We can make a plan on our way to the luggage carousels.”
“Right. Yeah.” I fumble with my buckle, and a spark of inspiration strikes. “Wait—our luggage!”
Hazel shoots me an alarmed look. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
“Disguising myself with hats and jackets so Fiona won’t recognize me?”
