“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Prek asks, looking from Rogan to me and back again, obviously perplexed and irked.
“I fell,” Rogan grumbles, and with great effort, he pushes to his feet. He dusts off his dark wash jeans and the emerald-green shirt he’s wearing, but when his eyes meet mine, I discover it’s not revenge or fury that I see in his stare. No. His moss-green gaze is filled with agony, with loss. The torment he fixes on me when his gaze connects with mine is so visceral that I can feel the ache of it to my very marrow. It shocks me. Catches me completely off guard. Before I can respond in any way, Rogan blinks, shuttering his stare, and then he turns and steps out of the room, the heavy solid-wood door closing behind him.
I ache from what I just witnessed, and I hate that I’m just as confused as I always am when it comes to him. I can never find my footing with Rogan Kendrick, I’d be stupid to think I ever will. I touch the side of my neck where a needle was shoved into it and let the sting of pain ground me. It doesn’t matter what Rogan shows me now, what he tries to convince me is true about him. I’ve seen enough to know where caring about him gets me. I look around the room and shake my head in disgust. It gets me here, in an interrogation room, alone.
I’m not sure how long I sit, waiting, stewing in anger. I feel too full of magic. It’s as though I went too hard at a power buffet and am now stuck in public and can’t unbutton my pants to make room for my ever-expanding stomach. I’m uncomfortable as hell, but the only way to relieve myself of this feeling is to give some of the intense amount of magic I’m holding back to Rogan, and I won’t do that. So instead, I sit in this chair, shifting my weight every couple of minutes like a kid who has to pee, growing more and more irritated and worried by the moment, and wondering why no one has come in to talk to me.
Did my magic suck set off some kind of alarm? Did my temper get the best of me and give me away? Are they fixing the wards on this room as we speak so they can leave me as powerless and weak as Rogan is right now? My mind shoots off in a dozen different directions, each imagined scenario worse than the one before.
I put my head on the table and sigh. It’s a good thing I’m not actually guilty of something. I’m clearly the kind of person who would crack like an egg, confessing to shit I wasn’t even in trouble for until I spilled every deep dark secret to the authorities in a fit of tears and panic. Ugh, I’m pathetic.
As though that were the magic word to make the door to the room open, it unlatches and swings open, allowing four witches to file into the room. I blink a couple of times as though I’ve been stranded in a desert and I’m trying to make sure they’re not a mirage.
Note to self, too much magic in your system makes you a little batshit.
I clear my throat and sit up, trying to get a hold of myself.
One of the witches is rockin’ a severely tight ponytail and harsh angular facial features. She sits in a chair away from the rest of us and pulls out a tablet, as though she’s this meeting’s minutes taker. Two witches sit across from me, a male with long wavy blond hair and gray eyes, and a Judi Dench-looking woman—if Judi Dench dyed her cute pixie cut black and wore too much eyeliner. The seat next to me is pulled out, and a beautiful woman with black eyes, bantu knots in her hair, and skin a shade darker than mine sits down. She’s just a little too close, and all at once I feel like a cornered cat that’s being threatened with a bath.
My magic pulses in my chest, restless and responding to my discomfort. I feel it start to crawl up my throat, begging me to tell it where to go and what to do, but I swallow it back down and keep my mouth shut.
“Hello, Miss Osseous. My name is Eleanor,” the Judi Dench-looking witch introduces. “This is Orion,” she continues, gesturing to the man across from me. “And this is Fiona.”
I look next to me and nod at Fiona in greeting before looking back to Eleanor. I expect her to introduce the witch sitting against the wall, tapping away at a tablet, but she doesn’t.
“We’ll be asking you some questions today and taking notes for our case. It shouldn’t take too much time, and as long as you’re honest and forthcoming with answers, everything should be easy peasy,” she declares, scrunching her nose and smiling wide in an overexaggerated expression of friendliness.
It immediately puts me on guard, and I watch the trio warily.
“What does the name Nikki Smelser mean to you?” Eleanor asks me casually, her stare cryptic and watchful.
Well, okay then, I guess the pleasantries are over.
I shrug, not sure where she’s leading me. Marx told us that he was questioned about his involvement with the search and my grandmother’s dream, but I don’t know if the Order is aware that he told Rogan and me that. Maybe this is some kind of a test?
“I know that the bones gave me the name Nik Smelser when I was at Elon Kendrick’s house,” I tell her, working through how I can answer truthfully but not provide context and details that will give away that I might know more than they realize. “I assumed it was a man’s name, but your use of Nikki is either some kind of weird aim at familiarity or Nik is a woman,” I add, hoping my suspicion is right and I didn’t just get caught in any kind of trap.
“Yes, Nikki Smelser is a woman. An Animamancer at that,” she offers, the look on her face conspiratorial, like we’re just two girls gossiping while we get manis.
“She’s a Soul Witch?” I repeat, confused, and she nods enthusiastically in answer. I pause for a beat, trying to work out what this could mean. “But...not the Soul Witch that was reported missing with the other Osteomancers?” I query, placing this new nugget of information with the other kernels that I already possess.
Why would someone take three Osteomancers and two Animamancers? What’s the connection between the Bone Witches and the Soul Witches?
The vision I had the day I was at Elon’s house of him leaving with a pack on his back and his familiar, Tilda, in tow reminds me that thetakenstatus for all of these people is still unconfirmed, but I don’t say anything, instead wanting to see how much I can get out of the Order before they realize I’m fishing.
“Okay, and you think she’s the one who took the others?” I ask, looking to the witches around me as though the missing pieces to this puzzle will be written all over their faces. I glean nothing.
“Well, it’s too early to say that, but she’s most definitely the person who wrote the note asking to trade them for you,” Eleanor states, tilting her head to the side and scrunching her brow in a comical display of bad acting. “Now why would she do that?” she queries, staring past me as though the empty space behind me will whisper the answer to her.
“Do what, write the letter?” I ask, fighting the urge to look behind me and see exactly what the old witch is staring at.
Eleanor tsks. “No, not that, my dear. Why would she trade them for you?” Her blue eyes focus back on me, and she waits patiently as though she expects me to answer.
“How would I know?” I defend, starting to get irritated. This is a waste of time. If Nik Smelser is the one who took the other witches, why are they talking and acting like I might have had something to do with it?
Orion conjures a picture out of thin air and slides it across the table to me. The woman staring back at me has brown curly hair, glasses, and a kind smile. She’s pretty and has a small dimple in one cheek. Her eyes are almost the same mocha brown as her hair, and there’s a clear and perceptible happiness in her gaze.
“This is Nik Smelser?” I ask, feeling even more confused. This does not look like the kind of person who kidnaps other people. I mean, what do I really know, lookscanbe deceiving, but this woman...yeah, I just don’t see diabolical or unfeeling written anywhere in her features.
