61. Thea
Thea
Are You Scared of Witches? Because I Am
The nail isn’t working. It’s too brittle. B is growing weaker by the second. He doesn’t have long left. I need to be stronger, for both of us. B’s shallow breathing surrounds me as I stand and knock deliberately on the door. After a few moments, it slides open.
“Yes, Miss?” a blonde goblin asks.
“Take us to Grunt,” I demand.
“Grunt?”
“Would you rather I said, ‘take me to your leader’?” I reply with a smirk that would probably be more convincing if I didn’t have a black eye and a fat lip.
He raises an eyebrow but gestures toward B. I bend down to help him up, noticing the confusion in his eyes. He missed the whole conversation.
“What’s going on?” he asks quietly.
“We’re getting out of here,” I whisper as I wrap his arm over my shoulder. Together we shuffle down the hallway. I hadn’t thought this through, my arm is protesting every step. We’re lead to a messy office, Grunt sits behind a desk, his sharp yellow eyes watching us, casually playing with a knife.
“He doesn’t look well,” Grunt observes. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I told you, witch cuffs kill goblins. You need to take it off him.”
“You look like shit,” he comments. And I can feel the other goblins inhale sharply. “Not going to be winning any more goblin favors looking like that.”
“Do you know what I did to get those favors?” I ask him and continue without waiting.
“I defended B when another witch said that all your women chose to die rather than be with one of you.” The room shakes as all the goblins attempt to reign in their fury, causing a small earthquake.
“Tell me who wanted me brought here and let B out or take me to whoever is actually in charge, Grunt.”
Grunt’s lips twitch, his eyes darting between the two of us, clearly thrown off by the directness.
“My name is Varik,” he grits out. “You think you can give me a command?”
I lean forward. Big mistake. Pain lances through my side, and I swallow a wince I know he catches. Still, I mirror his posture with a smirk of my own.
“You wouldn’t have told me your name if I’d asked, and now look at that. A goblin named Varik. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down when we leave.” I offer him an award-winning smile that’s probably terrifying.
Grunt’s eyes narrow.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, doll.”
“No,” I retort. “I’m getting straight to the point. You need to let B go. He’s dying.”
Grunt loses control, standing abruptly and stabbing the knife into the desk.
“I’m the one in charge. You don’t get to make demands!” he snarls. “If you don’t stop testing me, I’ll—”
“I’ve had everything taken from me, Grunt. But I’m not letting you kill him.” I don’t give him the chance to respond. He left an opening, and I take it.
My hand darts out, grabbing the goblin knife.
He jerks away instinctively, but he misreads my intentions and now it’s too late.
In one swift motion, I slice through the cuff binding me.
The enchantment snaps like a taut wire, and a rush of magic floods back into me like a storm breaking free from its chains.
I hand the goblin knife to B so he can free himself as I let the overwhelming energy, ferocious and uncontrolled, surge up through my veins. It pours into me, crashing through every fiber of my being.
I shove aside every scrap of restraint I’ve ever clung to. I don’t fight it. I don’t try to be careful, or small, or safe. I let go.
And in that terrible letting go, I don’t feel freedom. I feel abandon.
The wind screams around me, tearing through the room as flames lick the edges of my vision. The walls shake. The floor cracks. Heat and power ripple outward, bigger than me, beyond me.
I don’t know if I can stop.
I don’t know if I want to.
“Who wants me?” I roar in a voice that isn’t just my own, the force splitting the very air. My body glows with wild, terrible light, fire devouring the oxygen around me. Grunt stumbles back, terror slashing across his face.
“It was some witch! She paid me to take you! Wanted me to scare you off goblins!” he chokes out, shaking.
“You ready to be scared of witches?” I snarl, the flames surging higher with my wrath.
I don’t give him a chance to run. I move without thinking, magic sizzling at my fingertips.
My hand closes around the tether of his soul.
I tug.
Just a little, just enough that he can feel it.
He shrieks.
“Do you want to see how black your soul is?” I thunder. The words splintering across the room, layered with a thousand ragged echoes.
Grunt’s knees buckle. His eyes roll back.
His soul shudders free of him like smoke caught in my fist, a writhing, ugly thing, cracked and rotted at the edges.
It squirms, pathetic and broken. A mirror of everything foul he’s ever done. For one long, quivering heartbeat, I debate it. I could crush it between my fingers like ash. But instead, I throw it back into him like trash.
He collapses, sniveling, the last of his pride pissed out on the floor. A hand grips my wrist: shaky, warm and human. B.
I spin. A dozen goblins flinch, their wide eyes round with horror. The air is thick with scorched ozone and the acrid stink of fear. I reach toward them before I realize I’m doing it; their souls lighting up before my eyes.
“Your souls are gray and corrupt,” I snarl. “Fix them.”
“Enough, Thea!” B’s voice cracks. “Stop!”
I freeze. His hand tightens on mine. Barely, just enough to remind me he’s still here. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, and full of terror.
And in them, I see it: my bones, glowing through translucent skin. A walking skeleton wreathed in fire.
Monstrous.
Panic slams into me. For a second, I can’t breathe. I can feel the souls still thrashing in my grip, my magic desperate to punish.
What have I become? I squeeze my eyes shut. Force the storm down. The fire dies first. Then the wind. Silence falls.
When I open them again, the warehouse is wreckage. Goblins lie in sobbing heaps. The walls are blackened. Ash and acid splatter the floor. The taste scorches my throat. I gag again, coughing hard, spit and bile burning on their way out. My hands tremble, still sparking faintly with leftover power.
B sways beside me, still gripping my arm, his body a dead weight. He’s upright, but only just. I shift under him, looping his arm around my shoulders again.
“Come on,” I murmur. “We have to go.”
We stumble through the warped doorway and into the blinding, mocking sunlight.
It’s too bright. Too clean. Like the world has no idea what I’ve just done.
The street is unfamiliar, dead quiet, the warehouse district eerily still.
I glance around. Nothing but broken pavement, rusted fences, and silence.
But under it all, a spark of relief.
We’re out.
We’re free.
I bite down on a cry of pain as we shuffle down the sidewalk.
B laughs or tries to. It comes out choked, brittle.
“I saw you,” he murmurs. “Lit up like bones in fire.”
He sways, legs buckling, and I drag him until we’re a few warehouses away and into an alley. It’s cramped, rank with mildew, but it’ll do.
I lower him gently, propping him against the wall.
He coughs hard, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. His pupils are blown wide, his skin chalky. Sweat beads on his brow. He’s burning up and freezing at once.
Shit.
I glance at his wrist; the cuff is still clamped tight.
“B, I gave you the knife. Why didn’t you cut it off?”
“Kept slipping,” he mumbles. “Fingers wouldn’t… listen. Everything’s slipping.”
Panic I thought I was past returns at full force. I grab the cuff. My broken arm shrieks in pain. I channel my magic into the metal. The force sears my palms. The cuff fights me.
“Feels like I’m falling backward.”
His head lolls.
I snarl through gritted teeth, pulling harder until with a final, ringing crack, the shackle snaps.
B exhales a rattling breath, the tension in his body sagging. But he’s still far too pale. His eyes barely open.
I can’t waste time.
I close my eyes, pushing the terror down deep. I focus on Zair, on the draw of his steady presence in the distance. The world around me blurs, and I let go, slipping into the connection.
My library nook comes into focus; Zair, Mavrik, and Dylan are leaning over the table, books piled high and a scrying crystal hanging above a map.
“Thea! Oh my god, what happened to you!” he explodes. Dylan and Mavrik chorus in, asking what he found, but we ignore them.
“Zair, listen B and I were kidnapped. We’re free, but he’s hurt badly, and we don’t know where we are. It’s a warehouse district. I saw a street sign for Markson.”
Zair’s expression sharpens. He instructs Mavrik and Dylan to find it and then steps towards me.
“Are you okay, you look—”
“I’m fine,” I rush out. “B is worse, he needs to be healed. Get here fast, please.”
“I found it,” Dylan calls. “It’s only about fifteen minutes away. We’re coming.”
I return to B.
“Zair’s on his way,” I tell him. “Fifteen minutes. Just hang tight.”
B leans against the wall, his skin gray beneath the grime and dried blood. His lips twitch, forming a faint, tired smirk.
“Fif—fif—fifteen…” It takes him three tries to get it out. “That’s forever.”
I sink down beside him, letting him rest against my shoulder. His pulse flutters weakly under my fingers, his body trembling from lingering effects of the cuff.
The silence presses in. A breeze cuts through the alley, stirring the mildew-laced air. Somewhere in the distance, a bottle shatters. A dog barks.
Time drips.
I count his breaths, slow and shallow. I whisper his name to make sure he’s still with me.
Five minutes. Maybe less.
His head dips slightly. I shift him upright again, wiping sweat from his brow with my hand.
“Hey. Stay with me, okay?”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” he says, his words disjointed. “Home.”
“Don’t check out on me now,” I tell him.
He blinks slowly, pupils unfocused.
“Your… eyes were on fire,” he murmurs, almost dreamlike.
“I know,” I say softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He laughs one weak, broken breath. “I saw your skull.”
I really hope he doesn’t remember this because I don’t have time to process what just happened. The minutes crawl. I force myself to stay calm, but inside, the dread itches under my skin. I scan the street again. Still empty.
I hear footsteps once; hold my breath. Just a man with a cart, trudging past.
Ten minutes, maybe more.
I wrap my arms around him as I realize he’s freezing, so I channel a trickle of warmth into him. I’m scared to heal him. Between how volatile I am and how bad I am at healing. But I can keep him warm.
“Almost there,” I whisper. Whether to him or myself, I’m not sure. And then finally an engine.
I shift B gently off me, easing him against the wall. I bolt upright, pain lancing through my side as I stumble to the alley mouth. Dylan’s SUV screeches around the corner.
I raise my good arm, waving wildly. The car brakes hard, tires shrieking. I whirl back to B.
“They’re here.” My voice cracks with relief. “You’re going to be okay.”
And then I see Zair’s face and everything in me starts to unravel. I’ve been running on fumes, barely holding it together. I grip the last thread of strength, just long enough to know B’s safe.