Page 7 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

7

Scylla

Each day before the sun rose over Crenshaw, Scylla patrolled the barrier. As she made her way through the predawn streets of Crenshaw, the residents of her tiny magical village were asleep, so the world seemed silent, as if she were the only person alive. That was exceptionally untrue, of course. The houses in Crenshaw were often overfilled with witches, and in the distance, Crenshaw Castle squatted like a perpetual reminder that things here were not quite like other places. But in this moment, Scylla had the welcome illusion of solitude.

She looked back at the path toward the edge of the magical town where she’d lived for over a century now. The moon was half-full, so there was enough light to turn her path silvered. Not a soul had passed her so far.

As she turned to the gravel-and-dirt path that twisted into the dark wood, she saw a few badgers creeping up behind a chicken.

Scylla pointedly glared at them. “Not a good idea.”

One of the badgers flipped her off, and Scylla flung a spell-loaded stone at the furry menace. The spell stone hit the badger’s side, and the little beast fell sound asleep. The rest of his partners in crime scattered while the thieving badger slept off his attempted crime.

Badgers, like the rest of the citizens, were given food allowances. There was no need to murder a chicken. The hens were for sustainable egg production, not meat. In general, Crenshaw aimed to be a peaceful community. No killing animals. The one exception had been the fish, but now the fish were polluted. The badgers, unfortunately, were those citizens who had trouble following rules in the first place. If they were law-abiding, they would be human. Crimes were addressed by a period of time sentenced to life as a badger. Even then, being a badger didn’t mean that they were left without essential resources or even caged. They were simply… in an alternate shape. The punishment was primarily in the lack of human activities.

One of the badgers stopped beside a nearby well and glared back at her.

“Go on,” Scylla told them. “Scoot.”

The others scurried away toward wherever badgers slept or clustered. At night, they were typically at the tavern, but there was a house where the badgers could all go. Witches weren’t trying to deprive the criminal element of shelter.

Until the political factions formed, Crenshaw was a peaceful community, but then a hundred citizens started agitating to return and “seize power” in the nonmagical world—even though magic was simply not compatible with that world. Everyone knew that. They might not know why, but they knew the law: No one moved between the worlds other than those who went to retrieve either new witches or provisions. Both were quick trips, rarely over a full hour. That was the law, and no matter how much the New Economists argued that the law needed changed, Scylla knew better.

Some rules of magic were immutable. Every witch had a natural magical affinity—one revealed during their time as a remedial witch—drawn from innate character traits. There were magics, basic self-healing and teleportation, that most witches could handle, but the critical magic was whatever trait manifested as their unique skill. Every witch had one, and they were grouped together in houses based around those traits.

Scylla’s affinity was illusion, so much so that she had grown into her power more and more. Some of her illusions even felt solid at a brief touch. She was the witch in charge of House Scylla—which meant her “job” was managing all significant illusions. Her house’s primary responsibility was making sure that Crenshaw was thoroughly hidden from nonwitchy eyes. Obviously, she wasn’t excused from noticing other areas that needed attention.

Scylla made a mental note to mention the badger unrest to the chief witch. Maybe badgering isn’t enough. The witches who were sentenced to badgering were often repeat offenders. That was a problem for the next Congress of Magic meeting.

For now, she continued into the woods. The moonlight illuminated the dirt path that wound from the village to the shadows of the forest. Beyond that was her goal: the barrier to the nonmagical world. The path to the barrier was one Scylla suspected she could walk with eyes closed.

Something inside her seemed to relax when she eventually stood in front of the barrier that was an extension of her magic. Checking the barrier had long since ceased being a duty and become a moment where the world reduced to magic and silence. The trail she followed was a path toward that spot where her magic met itself.

As she walked closer, the magic inside her skin thrummed in tune with the magic that created the barrier that hid Crenshaw.

She saw no shadows in the dim light following her as she charted the path into the woods. No branches cracked to alert her to unwelcome companions deep in the woods. All was as it should be. The only thing of note was the soft slither of ferns as they brushed against her boots. It was a familiar feeling, a telltale sign that she was nearing the edge of Crenshaw’s territory. Here was where the magic of the barrier began, her magic, her creation.

Despite appearances, the wall that protected Crenshaw wasn’t solid. If it were, it would mean they were cut off from supplies. The barrier was an illusion with repelling magic woven into it. Nonmagical people would see a slick mountain face lined with briars. Scylla saw the truth: there was no mountain, no briars, nothing at all. Her magic maintained the illusion for Crenshaw. It protected the nonmagical from wandering into the city of witches. It protected the witches from discovery.

A whisper from the dark said, “Foolish Scylla.”

“Hello?” Her hand went to the dagger on her hip. Being confident in one’s security did not come with carelessness. Since she’d nearly died so many years ago—which was the way all witches discovered their magic—Scylla had carried at least one weapon on her at all times. It felt foolish some days, but not today.

Scylla looked around and saw nothing but shadows. “Is someone here?”

Had she imagined that whisper?

Her hand stayed loosely on the hilt of the dagger she wore on her right hip. All she’d used it for in years was cutting an errant branch or bit of twine, but she, like most witches in Crenshaw, was increasingly aware of the conflict between the two political factions—the New Economists who wanted witches to return to the nonmagical world and the Traditionalists who thought that was a terrible plan. To date, that conflict had mostly been petty magic and angry words.

There was the rift, of course, with its seeping ooze of poison into their home, but no individual had been targeted. If one witch were, the common belief was that Prospero—the most vocal of the Traditionalist witches—would be the logical target. Perhaps Walter, acting chief witch, would be targeted. Lord Scylla, the head of House Scylla, had no reason to believe that she was a likely mark.

But within the next few steps, something caught her around the ankles. In the next moment, Scylla was trussed at the ankles, suspended wrong side up over the forest floor and clutching her dagger with the intent of sawing through the snare currently cutting into her skin.

“Utter bullshit,” she muttered. Louder she said, “A bad idea. That’s what this is.”

A hunter’s trap ought not be in the woods near the barrier. The guards could be injured or—

Where were the barrier guards?

“Hello?” she called out, trying to remember which members of the community were on patrol.

Is it better to saw at the snare or prepare to defend myself?

Scylla gripped the hilt of her dagger, peering into the darkness for the whisperer as she spun in almost a full circle from the rope around her ankles. Is this more pettiness or is there an attack forthcoming?

Someone would come to her aid. She just had to stall until they found her. Louder now, she yelled, “Who’s on patrol?”

As she tried to recall the roster, she twisted on the trapline. No one had appeared or spoken, and since bound women were easier targets than she had any intention of being, Scylla decided that freeing herself was the wisest next step.

With a strain she felt in every inch of her abdominal muscles, she folded nearly in half, bent upward in the most unpleasant sit-up ever, and sliced the rope around her ankles.

She rolled to her feet as she dropped to the forest floor with a whump, scattering leaves and other detritus. She had several spell-loaded stones in one hand. They weren’t fatal spells, just more of the sort she’d tossed at the badger. In the other was her dagger.

Scylla scanned the dimly lit area. “Show yourself.”

Several witches appeared: the town stoner, Jaysen, stood beside Agnes. Slightly in front of them was a witch, Jenn, who hadn’t the sense that God gave a turnip. She was one of those perpetually unhappy people who complained nonstop about everything. In reality, she was the exact opposite of the perpetually cheerful Jaysen, who always seemed to either be getting high or sleeping off his highs.

“Agnes… what are you doing?” Scylla stared at the witch she’d traded barbs with at Congress for decades.

Agnes looked uncertain. She glanced behind her at a witch who remained hidden. Then she told Jenn, “Just do it.”

“Do what?” Scylla glared at them. As far as she could recall, Jenn and Jaysen were both so low-level in magic that they could be returned to the Barbarian Lands easily. She met both their gazes. “Go home. All of you.”

Aggie said, “That’s the plan, isn’t it?”

“Hey, Scylla?” a raspy voice said. A fist hit her from behind. “You should’ve stayed up there until we left.”

She turned, and hot fire speared through her back and into her belly. She felt the pain before she heard the rifle. A bullet lodged deep in her gut.

“You shot me?” Scylla managed to say. Pain radiated in so many directions that she couldn’t say where she’d been shot.

Neither Jenn nor Jaysen held the gun. Aggie didn’t either.

Who pulled the trigger? She struggled to find the witch responsible. Owning or using guns was unheard-of in Crenshaw aside from the guards, who only carried them at the barrier, where they watched for any cougar or bear that might wander into Crenshaw. Animals saw through illusion in a way that humans didn’t. Sometimes, that meant needing to carry a weapon for safety on the rare occasion that magic wasn’t deterrent enough, but shooting another witch ? Not in Crenshaw. Not ever in the history of the town.

Until now, Scylla amended, trying to push to her feet.

“You picked the wrong side,” a voice— Aggie —said. The head of House Grendel had her trusty staff in hand, and Scylla cried out as it slammed into her stomach. The impact of the club-like stick added more agony to the waves of pain already rolling over her. “Stay down.”

Scylla pressed her hands against her belly, as if she could keep the blood inside.

“It’s not personal,” Jaysen whispered. “We were just getting you out of the way, dude.”

“This wasn’t the plan,” Jenn muttered.

“It was a hope of mine, though.” A man’s voice was close enough that Scylla could smell fetid breath, a mix of vomit and alcohol. “Never did like you. That felt good. ”

Him. He was the one with the gun.

Nearby, Agnes laughed. The old witch was one of the few people in Crenshaw who would still let slip her racism, her homophobia, her hatred for other faiths or any other difference. Today, though, Scylla could do no more than scowl at the old bitch. Later, if she healed, there would be words to say and charges to bring.

Right now, Scylla simply needed to not die.

Despite the very real danger of antagonism from her attackers, her mouth still managed to say, “Fuck you.”

But Aggie and the others were gone by then, and Scylla was left dying on the leaf-strewn ground. With each beat of her heart, each stream of blood around her fingers, Scylla felt her magic retract into her skin, drawing in to do the same thing it had done the last time a bullet had pierced her body.

Magic would protect its host. That was why witches stayed alive so long. Magic healed the ravages of age, illness, and foolishness. It didn’t undo death or disability, but it cured illness and injury.

Bullets are harder to heal, Dr. Jemison had said the first time they’d met.

Didn’t mean to get shot, Scylla had pointed out back then. She’d done nothing wrong, but innocence didn’t always protect a person. Wrong place, bad time, worse man. Just like now.

Vaguely, it occurred to her that whatever they’d used had fragmented inside her body. Shards of the bullet or shell or whatever it was had scattered, slicing deep into many places at once. The last time, it had been one bullet.

One that woke my magic.

This time, as Scylla’s magic snapped back to her, the barrier wobbled. It was going to fall. She felt it as surely as she felt the ferns brushing against her cheek as she crawled across the ground.

Hand pressed tighter to her belly, as if she could staunch the wound through pressure alone, Scylla fought to stay awake. Moss, a tiny memory that sounded like Dr. Jemison urged. And as the feet of her potential killers crossed into the nonmagical world, headed far away from her, Scylla grabbed a handful of moss and tried to pack it into the wound.

A hob appeared. Then another. Then a third.

“The barrier is down,” she told them. “I need…”

They vanished again.

“… help,” she finished.

Maybe they went to handle it. Maybe they didn’t. All Scylla knew for certain was that she was suddenly alone again in the forest with a bleeding bullet wound.