It all makes a horrible kind of sense. She was right there all along. She must have used one spell to hide her power when she first moved into Winter’s cottage. Then swiped that necklace to make it easier.
Meanwhile, we felt sorry for her. We wanted tobe friendswith her.
Winter is staring at Briar, her eyes wide and not quite focused. “I know you,” she whispers.
“I warned you I’d be back, you crushable, contemptible human slime.” She laughs then, tossing back her head and letting out a scream that I think would level buildings, if there were any left up in these mountains.
Vinca. Inside Briar’s body.
But not for long,I think, and want to throw up.
Savi mutters something, but all that does is bring Vinca’s attention straight to her. “I detest sorcerers,” she snarls with Briar’s mouth. “Nothing but tawdry want-to-be gods for hire.”
“I have never met a god that wasn’t for hire,” Savi replies, and somehow, here, kidnapped by dark fae magic out of a cottage in Jacksonville and delivered to the bottom of a dried-out, desiccated Crater Lake, Savi is herself again. Smooth and impenetrable. “Your tedious, bloody sacrifices? Your tithes and demands?”
“You can call it whatever you want,” Vinca tells her, with the voices of the dead in her vowels. “As your bloody sacrifice will be next.”
She waves her hand and her priests surge forward. I can see them coming for me, but I’m still not prepared to be tackled and slammed down into the earth so hard it knocks the breath out of me.
They expect me to shift, so they wrestle my hands behind me and bind them with thick silver chains. They do this first. Then my ankles, too. I can feel the silver, heavy and dull. The priests are very pleased with themselves, but they’ve mixed up their lore. Silver only killsbittenwerewolves.
It won’t killme, but it does make me less effective. It won’t prevent me from shifting, either, but what it will do is slow my shift down so much that they’ll likely see it and interrupt it. I’m betting they have silver bullets. Those also won’t kill me simply because they’re silver—unless, of course, that bullet hits me straight through my heart. Or any other killshot.
They even manacle me in just the right way so if I do manage to shift, I won’t be able to get my limbs free.
To one side I can hear Savi murmuring curses, but the priests only laugh. I try to look around, but it’s clear they only slammed me into the ground.
“Gag her,” Vinca orders her priests. “I’m tired of her spell casting.”
I don’t hear Winter. I want to sit up and look for her, but I don’t want to call more attention to myself. If I twist my body I can see the full moon above me, so I tilt my head, and I focus on her with all my might.
Then, very carefully, I shift. But only a little. Tiny, incremental amounts and focused only on my head.
It’s excruciating. The silver makes it worse.
I feel my bones slide and snap. I feel my face change. I shiftjust enoughand then I stop, even though it’s agonizing. It’s like a thousand knives stuck ... everywhere.
I pull in a deep breath and I hold it for a moment while the priests are busy subduing Savi.
Then I let out one long, loud, endless howl.
I hear it pierce through the dark, but more importantly, through that bubble of light Vinca has arranged around us.
The noise of a wolf call like this shocks everyone, and I know this because no one moves. For one beat, then another.Fuck it,I think, and I howl even louder—
And then they’re on me. They kick and they strike and I pull the shift back, snapping my human features back where they belong. This hurts a lot more than whatever blows they think they’re landing.
The next thing I know, they’re taping up my mouth as well.
This also feels better than partially shifting, a thing we are always lectured to never, ever do, lest we get stuck that way.
It’s not until they prop me up in a heap with the others that I see Winter is perfectly fine, considering. She looks a little glinty of eye, which suggests to me that she didn’t like being manhandled and tied up any more than I did.
Of the three of us, she’s the only one who isn’t wearing a gag.
“Don’t feel left out, my little fortune teller,” Vinca croons. She’s still in Briar’s body, but she doesn’t even move like Briar now. She’s sinuous, somehow. Long and slithery and terrifying. Where Briar stooped and hunched and hid, Vinca expands.
It’s one of the more horrible things I’ve ever witnessed, and that’s saying something.
