Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Rest was brief and very far between.
Fiona made Joan cycle magic repeatedly, bringing her right up to the brink of blacking out before letting her go. Joan had long since hit her limits—magic was pain now, scraping against her skin. Her body was being poisoned, but Joan was in a delirious haze of reoccurring memories.
Fiona watched, at first, with a look of concentration, placing magicked glasses on her face to see the results.
Then she started to cast on Joan. Little spells. Joan was too out of it to parse their exact implications, but she felt them work or fail. Magic would shift around her, and in her, depending on the variable parameters Fiona placed on her.
One made magic funnel through Joan faster, but with less force.
Another dimmed the pain of magic, at least temporarily.
But then they broke, they all broke, and the pain was back, and magic still churned through her, and each draw was a fresh wound, her skin developing sores that trickled blood as magic poisoned her, slowly, slowly.
Joan didn’t know if Fiona was making progress, but the empty bottles of cold brew were stacking up. Fiona was racing against something. Maybe Joan’s impending death. Her fingers still hurt. She couldn’t quite gather her thoughts well enough to care.
They’ll come for me, she repeated to herself, over and over. They’ll save me.