I hugged the woman back and gave the boy a small kiss on the forehead. “Be well,” I whispered to him.
The woman held her baby close as she looked at the still, silent crowd behind me. “I don’t care what she did! I have my baby back, and that is all that matters!”
From her pocket, the woman pulled out a few coins and left them on the treatment table beside me. Moments later she was past the blue curtain, the bell above the door announcing her departure.
Maria stood up, wiping her hands off on her dirty apron. “I appreciate all your help today, but I think it might be best for you both to leave,” she said, her eyes staring into me.
“I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?” I asked, confused.
I had just saved that boy’s life. Why was I being asked to leave?
One of Maria’s helpers stepped up. “Please leave before you get us all killed.”
I looked at Thea, even more confused. “Thea, what is happening? I don’t understand.”
Thea took off her apron and handed it to Maria. “It’s all right, Aurelia. We should be going anyway.”
I took off the apron and placed it on the bed beside me. I looked at the group of women I had spent the morning bonding and working with, who were now all terrified of me. “I apologize if I did something wrong or offended you in any way. It wasn’t my intention.”
Thea brought over our cloaks and grabbed my hand to pull me toward the door with a sense of urgency I had not yet felt from her. “Thank you again, Maria, for your hospitality.” She whispered harshly to me, “We need to leave. Now, Aurelia.”
A familiar darkness encompassed me as I was forced through the door.
Chapter 32
Once we had gotten outside, I heard the door behind us lock. The curtains were pulled on all the front windows.
“Thea, what did I do wrong?” I pleaded as we stood on the dilapidated steps, the biting winter air nipping at our noses.
Thea grabbed my hand and pulled me down the steps, while Nocturna and Astra made their way across the street. “Not here,” Thea said brusquely as she pointed down the street to where several royal guardians were stationed outside a home.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Just as the words left my mouth, Thalos stepped out of the front door, dragging a woman by the hair. Two guardians followed him, each dragging a person behind him. All three people were screaming and begging to be let go as the guardians hauled them along the ground toward a rough-looking carriage.
“I assume they are rounding up more people suspected of being involved with dark arcana, which is why we need to go. Now.” Thea pulled on my arm, but my body remained unmoving.
“No. This isn’t right.” I pulled my arm free of Thea and looked at Nocturna and Astra. “If something happens to me, I want you both to get away with Thea. Understand?” I turned away and stormed over to Thalos and the guardians.
“Aurelia, this is incredibly stupid. Please stop!” Thea yelled behind me.
The closer I got to the guardians, the more shouting I could hear coming from the home that the guardians were dragging people outof. Two more guardians exited, each hauling another person. They were going to ransack this home and kill an entire family based on a suspicion of dark arcana use by people who possessed no arcana. This could not stand. Someone had to do something.
My anger and arcana escalated, like an out-of-control blaze. The familiar pressure built deep within my chest, while the comforting buzzing crawled along my skin.
“Stop this right now!” I hollered at the guardians as they paid me no mind. “Captain Evergreen, stop this now!” I picked up a palm-sized rock from the ground and threw it at Thalos as hard as I could.
The rock hit him right in the back of his unprotected head. The guardian’s steps faltered slightly as he stumbled forward, letting go of his grip on the woman’s hair. He whipped around, his face furious as he realized who had thrown something at him.
“I knew when I woke up today that it was going to be a good day. I had no idea it was going to be this good, though,” he responded, rubbing the back of his head and inspecting the blood smeared on his hand.
Standing face to chest with Thalos, I looked up at the towering guardian, unflinching. “You know as well as I do that these people are not capable of possessing or using dark arcana. Preying on people like this, who have no arcana, makes your kind look like the truly weak and pathetic creatures that you are.”
Without warning, pain exploded across my jaw and mouth as I fell to the ground from Thalos’s gloved backhand. I rubbed my jaw and felt that my lip had been split and was already swollen. I picked myself up off the ground and stood as Thalos got closer, looming over me in an effort to assert his authority.
“I have wanted to do that for so long,” he taunted.
I stepped forward and spat the blood from my mouth into Thalos’s face. I smiled a bloody smile at the guardian. “You’re going to have to hit me harder than that, kitten.”
