Footsteps pound closer. I jump to my feet, adrenaline surging.
“Katie?” Sebastian’s voice cuts through the hum of the chimeras in my head. He races over from the trees, breathless, his face gaunt and exhausted.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“It’s the bio magic. It didn’t happen like it was supposed to.” His voice quavers as he drops to his knees beside Millie.
“What didn’t? Embodying it?” The image of the chimera dissolving into shimmering particles flashes through my memory—and the way she screamed in pain as it fused with her.
“It’s battling for dominance inside her,” Sebastian says, combing his fingers through her soaked hair.
It hits me then—her hair. She was bald the last time I saw her.
“Did it work?” I ask. “Could she use the magic to cure her cancer?”
He frowns, his eyes hollow. “We don’t know. As she was learning how to use it, she started having problems. Acting funny. Talking to herself, forgetting what she’d been doing for hours at a time, losing control of her magic and hurting herself or me…”
Millie stirs, making us both inhale sharply. “Seb?” she croaks, her voice barely audible over the crashing waves.
He lurches closer, cupping her face with two hands. “I’m here. What do you need?”
She turns her gaze onto me, staring for a moment before her eyes widen with recognition. “Katie. The bio magic. I shouldn’t have…”
I suck in a breath. I never considered that consuming bio magic might be a dangerous process. There was only the danger that the coven focused on—the potential to abuse its power.
“Do you feel its presence?”I ask.
She dips her chin. “Like having two minds. We came here hoping the other chimeras could separate us. It was my magic’s idea.” She looks around with wild eyes, which glow an eerie purple in the moonlight. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell the coven, Katie…”
“Of course,” I whisper. The coven still has no clue she absorbed bio magic to try and heal herself—though they might have an inkling, given that she and Sebastian helped us set it free and then disappeared. Either way, if they’re found out, they’ll probably face a similar punishment to mine for breaking the coven’s laws. As if she hasn’t been through enough hell.
Sebastian kisses her hand and cups it between both of his. “Shh. It’s okay. You only did what witches before us have done.”
My heart thuds. Of the witches who’ve consumed bio magic in the past, how many actually survived? And looking at the creatures surrounding me… I can’t help wondering: is it even meant to be consumed at all?
“How long have you been here?” I ask, trying to piece together what’s happened to them since February.
“A few days,” Sebastian says, not taking his eyes off his wife. “We came when it was clear something was wrong.”
“And they will be here for many more,”Lucy says, cutting through my thoughts.
I flinch as her voice fills my head, spinning around to face her. “What did you do to her? Fix this!”
She gives me the sort of disdainful look that only a cat can give.“The better question is ‘what did she do to us?’ What do all witches continue to do to us? You trap us, consume us, weaponize us…”
Images flood my mind, blinding me to my surroundings—memories that aren’t mine. Being trapped beneath a golden net, forced into a cage, afraid and desperate to escape… Millie, palms out, screaming in agony as she absorbed a chimera into her blood… Witches I don’t recognize making others cry in pain without touching them, tearing enemies limb from limb on a battlefield, shapeshifting until they’ve taken on a new identity…
Nausea fills me. My mouth goes dry. “Why did you invite me here?”
“To show you what awaits your coven if you continue your hunt. We will not be caged or consumed.”
I swallow hard. My survival instincts scream at me to run, but that familiar pull toward magic keeps me rooted. As terrified as I am, I need to know more. Natalie told me chimeras are mindless forces, but that’s not what I’m seeing. “Help me understand. I came here to find the truth about what you are.”
Sebastian lifts his gaze from his wife to stare at me. “Katie, is it talking to you?”
I nod.
His eyes widen. Millie turns her head on the rocks to stare too, her chest still rising and falling rapidly.
