Page 65 of Song of the Hell Witch
Thirty-Two
They didn’t dare take Puck to the temple.
It was the only safehold left to the Ladies of Leora, and if Paris or Hale had used a psychic connection or some other kind of power to track Puck before, nothing would stop them from using it again.
But Pru wasn’t about to abandon him, not until she was sure there was nothing she could do to wake him up.
And she needed time away. Time to think. Time to heal.
Time she wouldn’t spend constantly staring at Florence, waiting for the right moment to fall at her feet and say I’m sorry I brought all this into your life. I’m sorry I tore Rita away from you.
Arcadie agreed to take Pru and Puck to one of the caverns they’d visited on their way to Stormlash. They thought swimming in Spectabra-enhanced pools might help mend Pru’s wing faster, and if Puck’s power was connected in part to their energy, it might be enough to rouse him.
“I’ll come with you,” Mari offered as they set Puck down in the boat. Farther up on the bank, Florence hugged herself tight, her face a blank canvas that betrayed her heartache. “I know all his least favorite jokes; I can tell ’em over and over until I annoy him awake.”
Pru smiled at the thought—then shuddered as she realized that if Puck woke, he might not know who he was, let alone what jokes he loved and loathed. She fiddled with the ruby pendant, still secure around her neck. The smooth jewel beneath her thumb pad helped her breathe a little easier.
“You need care right now,” she said, dusting a bit of grass off Mari’s ruined dress robe. “You need to be with people who understand what you are. Women who can guide you through this transition.”
“But I’ve already survived transition. I’m a transition extraordinaire,” she teased. “Besides, I’d rather have you.”
Pru looked toward the boat, watching the rise and fall of Puck’s chest. “My hands are a bit full at the moment. And you have a job to do, don’t you forget.”
“Convince a gang of rather hardheaded women we need to go save an eight-year-old girl from the clutches of a man bent on exterminating them and anyone who sympathizes with them.” Mari tensed. “Easy task.”
“Impossible task.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes, kissing Mari on the forehead. “And one I know you’re more than up to.”
“Miss Merriweather,” Arcadie began.
Pru angled her face toward them. “How many times do I have to ask you to call me Pru?”
“At least once more, Miss Merriweather.” Arcadie nodded at Mari. “We really must be going. You said you wanted to avoid—”
“The nighttime cold, yes.” Pru took Mari’s face between her hands. “You can do this, Mari. Charm them, beg them, do whatever you have to do. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“You and Puck together.” Mari sniffed, refusing to look at the boat. She’d barely glanced in Puck’s direction since he’d lost consciousness. “Don’t you leave him behind; he’ll be mad as hell.”
“No,” she said, but she didn’t meet Mari’s gaze. She didn’t know what was possible and what wasn’t. She didn’t know who Puck would be if— when —he opened his eyes. “Never again.”
It took the better part of a day to make it to the cavern.
She and Arcadie moved slowly as they lifted Puck out of the boat, easing him through the passage as best they could.
His wings and her wings were both a struggle, and each time one of her wing tips hit the stone wall, Pru had to stop and wait for the pain to pass.
Eventually, they managed to make it to the first chamber, where they lay Puck in the bed and then stood beside it, huffing out of exhaustion.
“Don’t worry, Pru.” Arcadie took her hand, stitching their fingers through hers. “He will return to you. The Dark Mother would not bring you back together only to rip you apart from each other.”
“Do you really believe in all of that, Arcadie? The Dark Mother and her power?”
“Oh yes I do. Whether she is a real person or a mere force guiding us all, that is yet to be seen, but I know she is real.” They kissed her on the cheek. “Spend enough time with the Ladies and you will too.”
Pru wasn’t sure about that. All she knew was that she was filthy and exhausted, that her inner wounds were nowhere close to healed and her outer wounds only just beginning to scab over.
She couldn’t even trust she would be able to fly again.
The damage Paris’s blade had done to her wing was irreversible.
Her best hope was to teach herself to fly with an extra bit of drag holding her back.
But she would never be as fast as she’d once been.
She was, in more ways than one, scarred beyond repair.
“Oh sod off with that nonsense thinking,” she uttered to herself as she made for one of the Spectabra pools.
Her skin hummed as she stepped into the waters, the energy seeping through her pores, reviving her inch by inch.
She waded in up to her hips, then held her breath, bent her knees, and submerged her entire body.
For a while, she floated in the blissful silence, forgetting the worries waiting for her back in the cavern—and worse, aboveground. The power, dormant for the last few days, stirred within her. Its warmth flickered through her veins, promising to mend what was broken, revive what was dead.
When her lungs begged for air, she surfaced, gasping as her head broke through the water.
When she blinked her eyes open, Puck was there.
He sat on the beach, so still and calm she thought at first she must be dreaming.
But as she swam closer, he was as real as she was.
He’d pulled his knees into his chest, dug his pink heels into the sand.
Behind him, his black wings arched over his head like the back of a throne.
She held her breath, terrified he would ask who she was, or who he was, where his wings came from and why there was no sunlight.
Or worse, where Hale was and how to reach him.
At least, she thought that would be the worst thing.
Until the worst thing came.
“They have her, don’t they?” He didn’t look at her as she approached, dripping water onto the sand as she knelt down beside him. “They have Beatrice.”
“Look at me.” He didn’t. “ Look at me, Puck.”
Finally, after what felt like hours, he tilted his chin up.
“Don’t worry. Not for a second, you hear me?
Because we have the Ladies of Leora on our side.
” She didn’t know if it was the truth or a lie.
But she was about to make Puck Reed a promise.
And she’d vowed to him—and, more importantly, to herself—that she would never again make him a promise she couldn’t keep. “And we’re going to get her back.”