Page 8 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

8

Prospero

Not long after sunrise that morning, Prospero jerked open her door to find Ellie standing there.

“I need to check the rift,” Ellie had announced. “What if they undid all my repairs? I almost went in the middle of the night, but I thought you’d overreact. So, come with me now.”

“Good morning, Ellie.”

“Hi. I need you to come in case I pass out again—unless you would rather I ask someone else?”

“Obviously, I’ll be there.” Prospero stepped aside to invite her in, but Ellie shook her head.

“Let’s go. It feels urgent.” Without another word, Ellie pivoted and headed toward the woods.

Prospero mutely followed her, grateful to avoid another session of interrogation but not sure what to do with the brusque way Ellie was acting. In the few days that they had been in their sham marriage, Prospero was already certain that it would not last.

This solution will not work. I need to talk to Walt. There has to be a better way to keep her here!

The Congress of Magic wasn’t pleased with Ellie Brandeau. They didn’t want her to be so obstinate, so outspoken, so argumentative. They certainly hadn’t wanted her to escape Crenshaw. Ellie had broken the first and foremost law of Crenshaw: no witches may travel to and stay in the Barbarian Lands.

And I wasn’t reason enough for her to stay.

Only a few days ago, Prospero had been pursuing Ellie and Margaret in the Barbarian Lands. Now, she was Ellie’s jailer, trapped in a sham marriage, a forced punishment for Prospero and a way to keep Ellie under observation after she had escaped Crenshaw. It was the sort of ingenious torture that the Congress could impose.

Ellie stalked through the woods. And though Prospero understood why Ellie was angry, she couldn’t quite erase her own feelings of betrayal.

She left me.

She hadn’t cared enough to fight for me.

She hadn’t even tried to talk to me.

Prospero watched her faux wife cut through the forest with the anger of a rampaging bear. It was as if trees bent out of her way and the path unfurled in front of her, sweeping itself of debris. Maybe Ellie didn’t notice what she was doing, but Prospero did. Her heart quickened at the sight of the beautiful, powerful, furious witch who held Prospero’s heart.

Even angry, Ellie would still do what she agreed to do.

Prospero caught up to her under the shadow of the trees where the rift was. If not for the foul scent and deadly consequences of the rift, their walk through the forest would be lovely, if a bit gloomy. The rift, however, was the source of the toxins in the air and water of their magical home. The New Economists had carved furrows deep into the earth. The furrows cut so far down that they spilled the toxins in the ground from centuries of their own decaying dead and refuse mingled with toxic runoff from factories in the nonmagical world. The result was a virulent sludge that weakened witches, and unless they had enough magic to heal faster than the sickness grew, killed them slowly.

At Prospero’s side, Ellie wound through the trees with surety. Maybe her sense of direction was particularly good or maybe the trace of the magic she’d used there at the rift worked like a summons. Either way, Ellie slipped between trees, away from thorny undergrowth and over rocks and divots with a sure stride.

Prospero was nowhere near as fast or agile. She was sure of foot, but not at this speed. “Wait, please.” Prospero tugged her sleeves away from a briar. “I am not—”

“The witch who can fix this?” Ellie finished cruelly.

That, of course, was not the sentence Prospero intended to say. She caught up to Ellie again and corrected, “No. I am not, but I am the witch you asked to join you here.”

“Fine.” Ellie sighed. “I’m just… pissed off.”

“I know.” Prospero couldn’t change the past; even magic was useless there. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, then un-fucking-complicate it, or get out of my life.” Ellie met her gaze again. She never seemed afraid to do that, even though she knew what Prospero was capable of doing.

What I did to her…

She couldn’t explain that since Ellie did not choose this marriage, did not choose her, Prospero couldn’t bring herself to touch her. To do so would be criminal.

And maybe, if she were wholly honest, Prospero could admit that part of her hesitation was also about protecting her own battered heart. Ellie recalled only the days before her departure—their time together intimately, their flirting, Ellie’s decision to stay in Crenshaw to be with Prospero. She no longer remembered her escape or imprisoning Prospero. She no longer recalled that she had demanded to be siphoned, even if it meant death, rather than be in Crenshaw with Prospero.

And yet here we are.

The guilt was eating at Prospero as much as the hurt over being so easily dismissed.

Ellie had widened the serpents’ nest and created a cage of sorts around them to protect any witch from getting too close to the rift, to inadvertently poisoning themselves. Now she stepped through the bars of that cage as if they didn’t exist. The bars were solid under Prospero’s hand, but to Ellie, they might as well be no more than smoke. Overhead, the hissing serpents undulated as if they were alive, and Prospero wondered briefly if she ought to approach or not. Ellie’s creations were an extension of her will and magic, and right now, Ellie was obviously still angry.

The tallest of the serpents had begun to grow branches, as if the tree it had been when Ellie shifted it into something terrifying decided to push back. The wood-wrought creature vibrated in the air, body shivering with small motions. Its fanged mouth opened to flick out a forked tongue that was coated in the purple slime from the rift. Now, however, the serpent’s swaying was accompanied by a rustling noise as the branches sprouting from the creature whipped through the air like an exclamation.

The ground around the serpent started to mound up as Ellie stared at it. Like water from an underground spring, it burbled to the surface around the place where the serpent’s coils were resting on the ground.

After more than a century, magic had long since stopped seeming overwhelming. Prospero moved between worlds, lived with hobs as staff, aged technically by years, but her body remained as it had been a century ago. Magic simply was. Yet when Prospero watched Ellie create, the awe that had long since vanished returned with a vengeance. Ellie bent reality to her will with nothing more than her belief that it ought to be reshaped. To a casual observer, it might look like she was making things out of nothing, but Ellie had so far transformed existing items rather than creating from emptiness. The transformations, to date, were permanent. Not illusion but complete reformation.

“You’re a frightening woman, Elleanor Brandeau.” Prospero gazed at her with awe, letting the twist of fear and wonder show in her voice and face. Power was sexy, and Ellie was power personified when her magic rolled through her.

Ellie paused and sent a flirtatious smile over her shoulder at Prospero. “Don’t you forget it.”

Before Prospero could reply, her head hob appeared in a flour-dappled apron. “ Bernice?”

“Scylla is in the woods,” Bernice interrupted. “Near the barrier.”

A feeling of dread settled over Prospero. Something in Bernice’s expression was ominous, though Prospero wasn’t certain what it was yet.

“Scylla shouldn’t be in the woods at this hour.” Prospero took a too-deep breath. There were few people she counted as friends. Scylla was one. “Take Ellie home.”

“No! I can help you. Whatever it is, I’ll help,” Ellie said, moving away from the interrupted reparations around the rift.

Prospero glanced at Bernice, and then looked at Ellie. She was the person who mattered most to Prospero, the person who was integral to saving Crenshaw. “I need to know you are safe. Take her to the castle, Bernice.”

Before Ellie could reply, Bernice took Ellie’s arm and transported her away.

Away from repairing the rift.

Away from any possible threat lurking in the wood.

Away from whatever had kept Scylla in the forest this late.