Lucy sits, puffing up and swishing her stubby tail.“We are the first magic. Before—mouse!”
A little brown mouse scurries over the dead leaves between us, and she scampers after it with her claws out, trying to catch it.
I watch, confused, as she chases it into the woods.
“Uh…” Sebastian says.
A moment later, Lucy trots back to us.“My apologies. After spending so long trapped in kitten form, I often find my instincts at war.”
“Oh. N-no worries,” I stammer.
“As I was saying,”she continues.“Before mortals built their stone walls and iron cages, we roamed free.”
I furrow my brow. “None of this matches what the witches told me.”
“They have suppressed their history for a century. We have the power to heal a dying bird, to refill a parched wetland, to help an injured human. And yet, the witches see us as weapons to becontained.”
“But—but you destroyed the city,” I splutter.
“When cages break, the caged lash out. It is the nature of living beings.”
“And when you were my kitten, you—”
Lucy’s eyes narrow.“When I was bound in the confines of a curse, my magic became unstable. You tried to bottle lightning and got struck. That is not my fault.”
I shake my head firmly. “It wasn’t me who trapped you. I’m not a witch.”
“Your kind did—and now you follow in their footsteps, chasing us with nets and weapons. Why not let us exist freely? Why must you harness us for your own selfish desires?”
I don’t know what to say. Can I honestly look at what’s in front of me and say that I believe these creatures should be in cages? Beyond those surrounding us, more chimeras glide across the shore, their forms flowing from one shape to another. A deer becomes an otter that plunges into the water. A great horned owl soars toward the trees, becoming something with too many limbs as it latches onto a long branch.
Millie stirs on the rocks, grunting in pain. While Sebastian presses a kiss to her forehead, murmuring words I can’t hear, several rats edge closer.
A chill rolls through me, and I fight the urge to shoo them away.
“To the witches, you’re just a vessel that holds the most powerful type of magic,” I tell Lucy. “And containing you is the only way to keep people safe from those who want to use you as weapons.”
“We are not weapons to be wielded or forces to be tamed,”Lucy hisses, flashing her little fangs.“We are spirits of the wild, keepers of ancient magic. We are the force that awakens a bear from its winter sleep, the quiet power that knits your wounds closed, the pull that guides birds across continents. We are a hive’s collective consciousness, a tadpole’s growth into a frog, a whale’s song as she migrates to give birth. We flow through everyliving thing, upholding the balance between life and death, growth and decay. Without us, the natural order simply would not be.”
The rats scamper over Millie’s body. Sebastian doesn’t push them off, which makes me think this has happened before—that this is supposed to happen. He sits up to watch, breathing fast, as purple light crackles like lightning over her skin. She gasps, arching her back.
Their voices are faint in the back of my mind, barely there unless I focus.“Stay still… We will try to separate you… Do not struggle…”
They’re helping her—or helping the chimera trapped inside her.
I meet Lucy’s eyes. “Why am I the only one who can speak to you?”
As she looks back at me, something foreign ripples through me—an emotion not my own. My breaths come faster. My hands shake, and I ball them into fists, unsure if I should turn and run.
“Wh-what are you doing to me?”
“You feel our suffering?”Lucy asks, tilting her head.
I furrow my brow, trying to think past the terror rocketing through me. This emotion belongs to every chimera who’s been trapped, and it’s filling me like water being poured down my throat. “Why am I feeling this?”
“Few humans possess this gift anymore.”
“Anymore?” I press. “There used to be more people like me?”
