On the back wall of the booth, the board of departures is tacked with timesheets that look like they’ve been cut with paper.
I consider the times.
I feel the sinking weight of the disappointment in my chest before the woman says, “There are no departures for the rest of the day.”
Serena blinks, her lips parting, and she turns down her blank gaze. Her watch reveals the same as the darkness around us.
Seven o’clock.
Desperation clutches Serena’s tone, “What about a charter? Private, paid in cash.”
The woman shakes her head. Her tight bun glistens in the booth’s dim light.
“Then why are you even here,” Serena hisses the accusation.
The woman’s mouth twitches. “One late arrival.”
“Is that a tour?” I ask, and she slides her narrowed gaze to me. “Or a charter?”
She doesn’t answer, not beyond an oily smile.
A surge strikes through Serena and just as she’s about to lunge for the woman, I grab her by the arm and haul her away from the booth.
I drag her back to the street, throwing a look up and down the way, before turning back to her. “Why the port?”
Serena frowns at me, that rage for the woman still burning in her. “What?”
“Why not the airport? Or the train station?”
Her scoff is curt. “Those are the first places they will look for us.”
“How much cash do you have?”
“Thirty thousand.” She shrugs. “It’s not much—but it’s all I could put away over solstice.”
“But that’s enough to get us far from here, right? Say we got a cab down to London, how much would that be?”
“London?” She throws a shrill look at me. “The last place we need to be going.”
“Ok, I know, I just mean down that way—to the English Channel. We can get a ferry from there to France. Or—what if we got a taxi to the west coast, and a boat to Ireland from there?”
She shakes her head, face firm. “We need to get out of the UK in the next twelve hours. That’s how long they need to move through the veils and cover every airport, every major train station, every port, and circle us in. It takes one witch with the sense, or one to read our minds—and we only need to cross their paths to be found.”
The breath I loosen is weighty.
I nod, more to myself than to Serena, then bite down on my bottom lip. It stings, more than it should, then I remember, Asta got some serious hits in.
“Wait here.”
Serena makes to argue, but she silences the moment she realises my direction.
Back to the booth.
My smile is tight as I knock on the glass window.
The woman’s stare is dark—but she slides it open. “Can I help you?”
The sarcasm drips from her the same way the oil glistens through her caked-on makeup.
