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Whatever they gave her, I’m afraid she’s been given too much.

She gags again, and it’s clear that the substance in her system needs to comeout.

Gently, I press a hand to her stomach. “Purge,” I command, pressing my borrowed power into her flesh.

The sunrise-orange magic billows out from beneath my palm, then sinks into her skin.

She lunges forward and retches violently. I try not to make a face at what comes up, but I can smell the tainted magic lacing her vomit.

She throws up again. And again.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, combing her hair back, wincing as I feel a tug in my injured shoulder.

There must be more poison within her, poison that’s entered her bloodstream. It too needs to be removed from her system.

Placing a hand on her chest and another on her back, I grab Memnon’s power and coax it down my arms to my palms.

“Dissolve the poison within,” I command in Sarmatian.

Then I force my power into the girl.

Her back arches, and her eyes snap open. She begins to scream, and I have to grit my teeth and brace myself as magic battles magic within her.

I continue to force as much healing power into her as possible, overwhelming the toxin slipping through her veins. I sway a little, the sustained effort making me feel faint.

A branch cracks somewhere in the distance. Then I hear the crackle of crunching pine needles.

They’re still coming.

Beneath my hands, the girl is shaking, but her cries have tapered off to whimpers. She’s still not awake, not in any real sense. I swallow as worry engulfs me.

She’s defenseless like this.

I lean toward her and whisper an incantation under my breath, one that feels as old as the language I’m speaking in.“I offer you my protection. My magic will defend you. My blood will spill before yours does. This I vow.”

The oath feels like a memory, like déjà vu.

The footsteps draw near, no doubt because the witches heard the girl’s cries.

I can still sense the slick poison slipping through her, but I have to let her go and hope the magic I pressed into her will be enough.

I force myself up on shaky legs, turning to face the approaching witches.

In the darkness I can barely make them out. There aren’t as many of them now, maybe five or six. And the monster is still unaccounted for.

I pull magic up from the earth and draw it down from the dark moon, and I siphon still more from that magical river flowing into me. My power gathers and builds, forming just beneath my skin as I face the witches.

They’re no longer wearing masks, but unfortunately, the darkness hides their features.

“Attack,” I whisper, releasing my magic. It snaps out of me like serpents. The mental visual must be doing something because I see my magic pull back, then strike much the same way a snake would. Witches yelp and cry out.

A spell hits me, one that causes my attack to dissolve. Another follows, striking me square in the chest and knocking me back into the earth. This second spell locks up my muscles, and in mere seconds, I’m frozen; I can breathe but not much else. I can’t even move my eyes.

A third spell hits my hip as I lie there, this one a dirty crimson color. I know just by the look of it that this one is bad. And then I feel it.

If I could scream, I would.

It’s as though I’m being stabbed in twenty different places. Maybe I am. I’m choking on blood, or maybe my lungs are simply seizing up.