Page 25 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

25

Prospero

As Prospero and Sondre walked out of the shop, Prospero was relieved that no one was seriously injured. In that moment, Prospero had thought that since Jenn was contained, they had only to teleport back to Crenshaw and turn the unconscious woman over to the chief witch so she could be interrogated. And honestly, if not for how cautious she was being, Prospero would’ve just slipped into her mind now rather than knock her out. A few screams and pointless flailing were not the worst things that had ever happened to Prospero, not by anyone’s standards.

Instead, Sondre was carrying Jenn in a bridal carry—and Prospero was prepared with the “Oh, she fell and broke her leg, the poor thing” explanation if they were stopped by any nonmagical people.

Once they were out of the area, they could pop back home.

No teleportation around nonmagical folks.

Prospero had been between the worlds often enough that it ought not be a huge issue to transport one unconscious woman. So she was unprepared when she heard an unwelcome voice say, “Oh, look, the noble heroine and her lackey.”

“Aggie.” Prospero stepped forward; all good intention vanished at the mocking voice. She’d heard Aggie in Scylla’s mind. She’d seen the woman’s joy in Scylla’s pain.

Fuck the rules.

“Did the other wench wake?” Aggie asked in that same faux-friendly voice. “I wasn’t sure after that bullet carved into her. Allan was too drunk to aim, though, so I wasn’t sure.”

“She’s in recovery.” Prospero tried to catch the old witch’s eye, but Aggie was wearing dark black sunglasses and a hat tipped low, blocking the top of her face to prevent accidentally making the eye contact necessary to use her magic. She was obviously not a witch who typically kept her face hidden, but they were no longer bound by the politeness of both being heads of house.

Some witches lose clarity with age. She could be suffering from…

Prospero shoved the moment of empathy away. She didn’t care why Agnes orchestrated shooting Scylla. Regardless of Aggie’s reasons, a woman nearly lost her life simply because they disagreed. Agnes and her cronies could have left through the barrier. Sure, the law opposed it, but the law opposed murder, too.

And even if Scylla had stood in the way, even if there had been a fight, guns were not the answer. Agnes had tried to take the life of one of the few people who mattered to Prospero. And she did so with cold premeditation.

Attempted murder.

As Prospero tried to angle herself to see the older witch, Sondre was uncharacteristically silent. Out the corner of her eye, Prospero saw him lower Jenn to the ground and step over her. He stayed at Prospero’s side, but he rotated slightly to keep an eye on their surroundings. He didn’t comment or interject himself into the situation. He watched and waited.

Prospero had a stray thought that decades of being adversaries made them slip into partnership with ease. If they worked together, they could solve this. Seeing him, realizing that he was assessing and likely running possibilities in his mind made Prospero realize that she was being careless.

And she was grateful for his more taciturn nature.

Her first impulse was simply to knock Aggie out and drag her ass back to Crenshaw. Liar. Her first instinct was to wish she had a weapon of nonmagical means to mow Agnes down where she stood smirking.

However, their small group was already drawing more attention than they needed—and Aggie’s magic was rolling out to wash over the nonmagical people like a chemical cloud. For a fraught instant, Prospero could feel the undercurrent of agitation, could see it in the way one man shoved another, could hear it as a woman called another person a vulgar word. The crowd was seething with a wave of Aggie’s magic, and violence was coming.

If we can relocate this and—

“Asshole,” one person yelled.

Another man punched a woman, and the crowd churned in rage. Anything would have elicited the wrong sort of reaction from the increasingly agitated crowd, and now that the spark was lit, fights were breaking out everywhere. The smattering of squabbles would surge into a riot if they didn’t get a handle on this quickly.

“Rules?” Sondre asked in a low voice.

“No magic… if possible,” Prospero murmured.

Could I erase all the memories here if it wasn’t possible to resist? she wondered. It was conceivable, but it wasn’t ideal. Nothing about this moment was ideal.

We just need to get her back to Crenshaw.

“We were wrong,” Sondre said, louder now, talking to Agnes. Whatever tactic he had chosen was either logic, trickery, or appealing to Agnes’ better nature. Prospero wouldn’t be successful with any of those attempts, but maybe Sondre could pull it off.

He stepped forward, not quite flanking Aggie now but better positioning himself to attack her if necessary. Agnes undoubtedly realized that, but she let him ease closer.

While it left Jenn’s limp body exposed, it also meant that Sondre was well out of Prospero’s path if she had to throw any stones at Aggie. That surely wasn’t accidental, and Prospero was grateful that he was adept at thinking of both details.

“The traitor speaks.” Aggie turned to face him, ignoring Prospero entirely, as if Sondre was more of a threat than Prospero. The head of House Grendel had always underestimated her, though. Being adept at avoiding physical altercations didn’t mean that Prospero was inept at violence. It was simply not her first choice, not that she ever admitted that.

Years with a husband who spoke his opinion with fists will do that, she thought before shoving the memory of her pre-witch life away. Arriving in Crenshaw with the skin flayed from bone on her face had a way of souring a person on physical conflict. That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn.

After seeing another woman die from his rage, after feeling his rage time after time, Prospero had spent quite a few years learning how to fight. She felt guilty afterward, though. That was—in her estimation—why her magic was mind alteration. Better to avoid the blood and pain, better to simply change their thinking, better to change her own thinking if necessary. Those had been survival mechanisms in her original life.

Now they’re my magic.

Prospero fished in her pocket for the silken bag she’d picked up at Howie’s den. Without looking, she couldn’t be sure which stone she grabbed. It didn’t matter, though. Fatal or not, the stone would stop Agnes or it would slow her down.

If I can grab her, I can teleport her to Crenshaw.

Fuck the witnesses.

Fuck the rules.

“How long were you her lapdog, Sondre?” Aggie’s voice sounded more hurt than angry. “Telling us you were on our side and carrying everything back to that bitch… Tell me: did you laugh at us? Mock us?”

“It wasn’t like that.…” Sondre was telling the truth. Prospero could hear it, any witch could. Lies felt wrong. So that ought to have been enough answer to buy time.

It wasn’t.

The staff in Aggie’s hand writhed like the serpent it could become. A glint of eyes peered through the wood, and Sondre stared at them. He had a strange fear of slithering things, which Aggie surely knew. He’d nearly died from a snakebite; it was how he’d become a witch.

“Just biding your time to steal House Grendel, then,” Aggie continued. “Was that it? You thought you could take what’s mine?”

“Aggie… Grendel is… was… I had no eyes on taking the house.” Sondre had spent his entire witchhood under Agnes’ foot. He motioned to multiple fights in the courtyard outside the shops. “You see the way they react to your magic. You’re leaking it.”

He took his gaze off her, gesturing to several more fights and outbursts. One woman in beige trousers and a blue blouse had picked up a chair. As Prospero glanced at her, the woman tossed the chair into a shop window. Glass and the tower of sunglasses in the display rained down.

“Weak-willed sheep.” Aggie’s mouth twisted in disgust. “It’s no fault of mine that they let their rage out. Violence simply is. Look at this world. Look at yourself.” She laughed, sounding a little crazed. “How many bar brawls have you begun, boy? Violence is a necessity. ”

It’s not, Prospero thought, but she didn’t speak the words. She was willing to let Sondre have a chance at talking to Agnes. That wasn’t Prospero’s preference, but she could understand his urge to do so.

“Come home with us. We can work this out.” Sondre stepped closer, and Agnes pivoted.

“So that old man can badger me?” Agnes eyed Sondre. “Did I teach you nothing? Do I look like I’ll surrender? I won’t go back there to be reduced.…”

Prospero couldn’t disagree with that impulse. Being badgered, being a small mustelid that was left lapping mead from the tavern floor, was no fate for a warrior. She’d rather die than be left as an object of scorn or pity again. Agnes made more sense to her than Prospero liked.

Sondre held out his hands in a placating gesture as he took another step forward. “You know I mean you no harm, Mother Grendel. We were wrong about magic in this world. It’s not harmless… and…”

Prospero rolled her eyes. She still couldn’t get the attention of the older witch long enough to slip into her mind. One moment, Prospero thought as she stared at her. I just need one moment to connect to her mind.

Casually, Prospero rolled the stone in her hand. Not knowing what it would do wasn’t that irresponsible, was it? Agnes had shot Scylla. She was making all these people fill with rage and destruction. Aren’t I entitled to lash out? A lifetime of propriety, of keeping her feelings in order, of restraining herself seemed to be filtering away.

My anger is justified.

Attacking her is better than standing here.

I should just—

Then Aggie glanced at her and winked. “You feel it, don’t you? Remember how he beat you? How he killed her… what was her name? The one you love?”

“Ellie,” Prospero whispered. She could see her beloved on the floor now. Her eyes were staring at nothing. Her mouth was open as if to speak. He’d killed her. Her only crime was that Prospero was falling in love with her. That was the fate of women like them: be miserable or be dead. To be hated for being born as a person who loved women made no sense, and yet that was her fate.

Ellie wasn’t born when I was, Prospero thought briefly, but her mind’s eye saw her there. Her neck was twisted unnaturally, and her eyes were sightless. He killed my Ellie. She didn’t even really love me. We didn’t have time. And now she’s dead.

“You killed her.” Prospero looked at her husband, standing there like he had the right to dole out deaths. “Wasn’t breaking me enough?”

“Prospero…” Sondre reached out. “Come on. She’s lying. Shake it off.”

“Because it’s so hard for you to think someone could love me?” Prospero felt tears on her cheeks, or maybe it was blood. Sometimes she couldn’t tell. He beat her so often that it could be either one. She stared at him as he menaced her and said, “Just because you couldn’t love me, that doesn’t make me unlovable.”

“I’m not him.” Her husband’s voice sounded wrong.

Prospero closed her eyes tightly. Her head throbbed, probably from being hit so often.

“Prospero!” he said.

“That’s not my name.…” She looked around, trying to make sense of where they were. The people were dressed so oddly. One woman was in trousers that clung to her legs, and that woman… Why is that woman on the ground?

The man put a hand to his chest. “I’m Sondre. We’re friends, Prospero. I’m not whoever she’s trying to make you think I am!”

“He’s jealous. You excluded him, rejected him, refused his touch, and then she had caught his eye, too. He looked at her, didn’t he?” Aggie’s voice was so soothing as she explained what ought to already have been obvious. “You saw it. How he looked at her with vile thoughts in his mind. That’s why he killed her. He hated that she rejected him, too.”

Prospero heard a keening animal noise and realized that it was her. Her husband stood there in his arrogance, looking at her as if she were something foul.

“Do you remember how he looked at her all the time?” Aggie murmured. “Were her skirts rucked up when you saw her—”

“Agnes. Enough.” Sondre strode forward, closing the last of the gap between him and the old woman. Who is she? Agnes. This is Agnes. We were coming to see her.

His hand grasped Agnes’ arm.

He snapped his fingers at Prospero. “Ellie is alive, Prospero. She wears denims, for goodness’ sake. Shake this off. Whatever you’re thinking isn’t real.”

Prospero looked at him. He was too far away to punch her this time.

Wait. Sondre. Her husband was different. This was…

“Help me,” Aggie begged, drawing Prospero’s gaze.

The old woman is in danger! She opened her eyes wide, and Prospero remembered that she had wanted to see those eyes for some reason, but she wasn’t sure what it had been. “Your poor face, Prospero. I can see the bone. He did that to you, his own wife. It must ache so. What will he do to a frail old lady like me?”

And Prospero realized that she hadn’t even noticed how fragile Aggie was now. Her body was trembling as she leaned on her cane. Men like him are deadly, Prospero thought. Her hand reached up as if to touch the flesh that was flapped open on her face. Will I lose my eye this time?

Her vision blurred as she stared at the poor old woman.

“You have to stop him. Save me. You couldn’t save her or yourself, but you can save me.” Aggie’s voice broke in fear. “His sort assaults women. He’s assaulted me so often that—”

“I have not.” Sondre’s sharp voice cut into Prospero’s mind. “You both know better than that!”

The old woman is lying about that. Prospero knew it the way all witches knew when words were false. She held the stone in her palm. A spell stone…

“I swear to you, Prospero. I have not ever sexually assaulted a woman… Agnes! Seriously?” He reached out to grab the woman’s other arm, the one with the cane. “Prospero. Listen to me. I’m telling the truth.”

He was, and the lie in Agnes’ words cracked something in her magical hold on Prospero. Ellie is alive, too. The woman who died was killed by a man. My husband. That man was not Sondre. And Ellie is alive.

Prospero threw the stone, and Aggie lunged forward. Her staff shifted into something reptilian that sank teeth into Sondre’s arm. It clung there as if it were a natural snake, not a magical piece of wood.

Sondre stared at it in horror. His fear of snakes was as genuine as her fear of her long-dead husband had been.

And all that was left of Agnes was the lingering edge of her laughter as she teleported away. The stone had not even glanced off her. Instead, it landed on Jenn.

The unconscious witch began to sizzle like meat on a grill. Her entire body writhed as if she were filled with things trying to get out, and in mere seconds, she was reduced to ash and a scorched mark on the pavement.

The scent of burning flesh lingered even as the crowd started to come back to clarity. The madness of the crowd was not fully gone. Most of the fights were fading, though, and people were pausing to help strangers to their feet. They looked afraid, and Prospero was about to go start adjusting memories until Sondre made a noise.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a strained voice.

“Not really, but it’s not physi—” Her words cut off as she saw Sondre’s hand. It was swollen and ghastly pale. She glanced up to see his expression and noticed that he was dripping sweat. His breathing was labored.

“I don’t think I am okay at all,” he muttered.

“Damn it!” Prospero surged forward to his side. In the next instant, she almost collapsed under the weight of him as he dropped onto her like a felled giant.

Fuck witnesses, she thought briefly as she teleported them to the infirmary.