Chapter Forty-One
Katherine wobbled.
She pushed herself up higher on her toes as she stood on the bed, stretching her arms up as far as she could.
She didn’t know what she would do if she actually did manage to grab the screw on the air vent she was aiming for—Mission: Impossible her way out of the room to find her friends and warn them what Sylvia was doing?
Considering the fact that her body was already shaking just with the effort to try to reach the vent, she doubted she’d have the abs to pull herself up if she did get it open.
It was a fool’s mission, but she couldn’t just lie here and let Sylvia do …
whatever the hell it was Sylvia was going to do next.
She gave up on the tiptoes and tried just jumping for it, springing off the thin mattress and reaching for the ceiling.
Of course, she came plummeting back down, having accomplished nothing except banging her knee on the metal frame on the way.
She cursed, sitting down and pulling her knee to her chest. That one was going to bruise.
She focused on her breathing, holding the tender joint, waiting for the ache to dissipate. All she could do was—
Scream.
The sound was ripped from her throat by the wave of pain, a sharp agony rocking Katherine to her very bones.
Her eyes shot open, revealing a world cloaked in a shimmer of red, lit by flecks of gold where the wards flickered on the walls. Katherine pushed herself up, struggling to move around the fire that burned up her bones.
Her magic was trying to break free.
No, not her magic. Something else.
Something she hadn’t felt in years.
Panic surged alongside the pain. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way, not again. She was settled. This was—
Another wave hit her, and she doubled over in pain.
What was this? Why was this happening?
She could barely get thoughts out around the agony. Trying to ground herself, she dug her nails into her palms until they bled.
Blood. Blood was good. This pulse, whatever it was, was bringing up power in her, and with blood, she’d be able to use it. She rushed to the door as she yanked at her magic and grabbed the handle, trying an unlocking spell. She yelped as the wards flared a bright gold, knocking her backward.
She scrambled up, rushing for the door again as another pulse came.
It was weaker than the first two. Whatever this was, it would be over soon, and her chance to get out of here would be gone.
She gripped the door handle, fighting through the sharp stabs of pain that suffused her body as she called up every spell she could think of.
She tried to time her efforts to the flickering of the wards, but it was no use—no matter how many times runes flashed on her palm, they accomplished nothing.
And then they stopped flashing.
Katherine cursed, trying for that fire in her veins again, looking for that burst of color on her palm, but it wouldn’t come. Her magic was once again out of reach, crushed by the room’s wards.
Whatever had just happened—whatever Sylvia did—Katherine needed to be there to deal with it.
She bent down, ignoring the protest of her freshly bruised knee.
The room had been specifically designed so there was nothing that could be used as a weapon, but the room had also been specifically designed by Katherine.
She had built the cot that was the room’s primary furnishing—had gone to Ikea and spent the weekend figuring out how to put it together after the old bed had gotten so squeaky you could hear every movement from all the way upstairs, ignoring Fiona when she told her she should just use a spell because she was determined to do what any American could do and follow a set of instructions in Swedish.
Katherine went at the screws on the bed with her nails, her suspicions that she hadn’t tightened them as much as she should have immediately proving correct as they started to move. And within minutes, she was holding a bedpost in her hand.
She gripped it like a baseball bat and whacked the door as hard as she could.
The post ricocheted off the door with a loud clang.
Reverberations shot up Katherine’s arms. The wards, at least, hadn’t been triggered by her attack—they only guarded against magic.
Brute force was taken care of by the fact that the door was industrial metal, built by someone who was, unfortunately, much better at handling tools than Katherine was. But everything was fallible—wasn’t it?
Katherine raised the bedpost, sucking in a breath before she slammed it against the door again.
She kept going, ignoring everything except the ringing noise of metal on metal.
Her back tensed, then spasmed. Her arms turned to jelly.
She lost feeling in her hands. Lost her ability to see anything other than the door in front of her.
None of it did a damn thing.
The door still stood there, taunting her, unbothered by her assault. Her arms fell to her sides, her breath coming out in broken heaves. Just a few seconds of rest, and then she’d get back at it, she told herself. And yet minutes went by, and she couldn’t make herself lift the post again.
She choked back the tears that threatened to fall, focusing instead on everything she needed to protect. Aestas. Herself.
She raised the bedpost again, aiming it and slamming it into the door with all she had.
And the door opened.
Okay, she thought, that definitely should not have worked.
Fiona grinned at her from the doorway. “Ta-da!”
It had not worked. Katherine let her makeshift battering ram clatter to the ground as she rushed out of the room and threw her arms around Fiona’s neck, her relief so acute that her legs almost went out.
“You’re okay,” Fiona said, running a hand through Katherine’s hair. “You’re okay.”
Katherine let herself stay in the hug until she believed it. Until the loneliness that had threatened to drown her over the last couple days finally ebbed away.
She pulled away, wiping away some of her tears with the back of her hand.
She saw Tess standing behind Fiona, with Byron slumped against the wall next to her—they must have used him to unlock the wards and open the door, although it didn’t seem like he had been entirely conscious for it.
His breathing was shallow, his eyes barely managing to stay open.
“Did you actually find a way to shut Byron up?” Katherine asked. Her voice was shaky, her attempt at a joke barely landing.
“Yep.” Fiona held up a vial of what looked like brown sludge. “A little sleep potion I’ve been working on slipped into one of his coffees. He had himself warded to the gills against rune magic, but he didn’t even think to check for old magic.”
Byron groaned. Katherine walked over to him, nudging his crumpled body with her foot. His head fell to the side, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“Inspired work,” she said.
“That’s the kind of thing that can happen when you work as a team,” Fiona said. “Instead of, you know, pushing everyone away and doing it all yourself.”
Katherine flinched. “Listen, Fi, I’m really sorry for everything I said. I was mean, and bitter, and—”
Fiona waved a hand. “I know, I know. And I was the bitch who questioned you when you finally did get the stones to come to me for help. We were both in the wrong. Let’s split some Porto’s potato balls when this is all over and call ourselves even.”
“Deal.”
With that weight off her chest, Katherine stepped back, taking her friends in in full.
They were all, thankfully, in one piece, although the bags under their eyes suggested they had been as restless as she had over the past couple of days.
Fiona’s braids were thrown into a haphazard bun, and Tess’ usually perfect graphic eyeliner was missing.
“Sorry we couldn’t get you out earlier,” Tess said. “Sylvia hasn’t left Sunspot at all.”
Fiona clenched her jaw. “As soon as her ass was out the door, we were here.” She took in Katherine’s red cheeks and bloody hands. “And not a moment too soon, it’d seem.”
“I owe you a lot of potato balls.”
“Damn right.” Fiona started off down the hallway at a fast clip. “Now come on. We should get you out of here before she gets back. You can hide out at my parents’ house in Phoenix until we figure out something more permanent.”
Fiona paused as she finished speaking, then turned back when she realized that Katherine wasn’t following her. “Come on,” she repeated.
“I can’t,” Katherine said. “Sylvia … whatever she just did, it wasn’t good. I need to—”
“No,” Fiona said. “You don’t need to do anything, okay? If anything’s being done, we are doing it. Teamwork, remember? Porto’s potato balls? The lesson we learned but moments ago? You’re not going to one-woman-army your way through this.”
Katherine slipped her hands into her pockets, pressing her nails back into the cuts there.
Warm blood ran over her fingers, fresh bursts of pain on her battered body.
She felt bits of her magic coming back to her, fighting against the remnants of the wards.
It would be hours before she got her magic back in full, but there wasn’t anything she could do.
She needed it now. Fiona and Tess had rescued her, but she wasn’t going to let them put themselves in more danger for her.
“I can’t let you do that,” she said. “It’s not—”
“It’s not what, Katherine? It’s not safe?” Fiona said, her tone rising as her cheeks turned red. “It’s not safe for you either! But that’s okay, because you’re a bad person, right? You have to take hit after hit to make up for how much of a piece of shit you are.
“Well, news flash, that’s not true. All those other unsettled witches you’ve helped? They’ve let themselves have normal lives. Moved on. Forgiven themselves. Gone to fucking therapy! Why don’t you deserve what you’ve given them?”
Fiona paused, her brown eyes meeting Katherine’s. “You are a good person,” she said. “You need to get that through your thick skull before your self-sacrificing ass gets yourself killed.”
Katherine blinked. “That might be the meanest way anyone has ever complimented me.”
Fiona let out a huff of air. “Thanks. I’ve been working on that speech for ten years.
” Fiona paused for a beat, catching her breath before she rested her hands on Katherine’s shoulders.
Their foreheads fell together, Fiona’s face inches away from Katherine’s.
“You’re not alone in this,” Fiona whispered. “Let us help you.”
Katherine stayed there for a moment, then pulled away. She paced toward the end of the hall, keeping her back to her friends.
She was so exhausted. Not just from the past few days, but from the last thirteen years.
From the moment she first felt unsettled magic run through her veins, she was alone.
It was an isolating power, one that encouraged secrets and lies and solitude.
It had taught her in those key formative years that being close to other people was dangerous.
Trust was dangerous. Love was dangerous.
Those were lessons she’d never been able to unlearn.
But here, in this moment, weren’t they true? Letting her friends help her would put them at risk. Could she live with herself if one of them got hurt because of her?
She turned back and looked at them, the question rattling around in her brain.
And she made a choice.