Chapter 48
In Which Glenda Now Has Seen Things She Will Never Be Able to Erase from Her Mind, for the Rest of Her Life She Will Close Her Eyes and There It Will Be, the Mad Sorcerer as Nude and Bony as a Dried Fish, and Cameron, She Doesn’t Even Want to Think About Cameron, but Rest Assured Her Urge to Kill Has Temporarily Been Overcome by the Urge to Take a Vow of Celibacy and Retreat to Somewhere Quiet and Pastoral.
They’re degenerates.” Glenda’s tongue felt thick with revulsion. “Sick and twisted, evil, filthy inverts!”
The witch strode along the beach toward her parked carriage, leaving dark footprints in the sand. “Glenda, shut up.”
This shocked Glenda so badly that she did, in fact, shut up.
Domitia’s next actions were salt in the wound, as from the depths of the carriage she withdrew bundles that Glenda recognized as purchases from the last town stop.
The witch sat on the steps of her carriage, uncovering a fresh pie and a sealed jar of sweet tea.
“What are you . . . what could you possibly be doing? We need to go after them. They’ll be jumping through any number of portals. Have you gone mad?”
The witch bit deeply into the pie, releasing the strong odour of ginger. She ate slowly, and with relish, only stopping to answer after her immediate appetite was satiated. “A ten-minute head start seems fair.”
Glenda squawked in disbelief. Water lapped around her bare feet.
Kicking it into a spray, she marched to where her shoes lay in the sand and seized them with a force meant to signal her rage.
“Is this a game to you? These men are foul, and we have them in our sights at last. You’d let them get away? ”
Another hearty bite of the pie. The scent of ginger, mingled with sea brine and heated sand, was not entirely unpleasant.
“I’ll be going against a full-blooded dragon, one with time itself under his command.
To be frank, Glenda, I do not expect to make it out alive. Allow me this final meal in peace.”
“Maybe if you weren’t so preoccupied with eating all the time, you’d be better equipped to fight.”
This got the witch to look up from her meal. Brushing crumbs from her chin, she pointed at something behind the elf, singing faint words. Even in her rage, Glenda felt some curiosity, and so she turned.
“Here, Glenda. I’ve made one of those portals you love so dearly.”
A force struck her back and sent her hurtling through the opening void. As she fell, shrieking, she heard final words from the witch: “Do consider the redhood flower.”
Glenda toppled into dirt and weeds, the portal sealing behind her. “Damn you!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet. “Damn you, you damn witch!”
A sound brought her attention to the trees. The same man they’d seen when the carriage first touched down, all those days ago, stood there again with an armful of collected timber.
“What are you looking at?” Glenda howled. Without a word, the man dropped his wood and turned, sprinting away down a woodland path. Smoke rose from somewhere in the trees, betraying the presence of a nearby cottage.
“Damn it!” Glenda cried, recognizing the location. She’d been abandoned near the outpost village—too far to rejoin the witch, too far to reclaim her prey, completely shut out from whatever would unfold. “Damn you! This was mine! This was supposed to be mine!”
Depleted from her exclamations, Glenda crouched panting in the soil. It was with supreme annoyance that she realized she was hungry.