Page 27 of WitchCurse

“So heavy,” Toby whispered.

The bonds or the magic sifting through him? His human side reached out to touch a bubble that had appeared from the spread of magic, and it became something else, a butterfly? He let out a gasp as it landed on his hand. His wolf looked on with disinterest. It didn’t bleed so it meant nothing to the wolf. I felt his thoughts, both the human and the wolf as if they were an echo of each other. But the human put his hand to the ground and the area surrounding us erupted into wildflowers as he grabbed a hold of my magic and wove it to suit him. That easily he became a weaver or spinner of magic, taking the structure of this world and turning it wild. I watched in fascination. The chaos in my gut easing as he used the magic of this world to heal.

“Are you in pain?” I asked, trying to see both inside his inner world and the real world beyond. His physical body was healing, ice melted, and damage from the battle vanished. That had to be a good sign, right? Maybe we had made the right choice? If there was such a thing.

“Fire, warm, sleepy,” Toby said. The world in his head filled with sunshine on both sides of the shore, though the divide in the center remained. But the distance had lessened, and each side was filled with green as far as the eye could see.

His gaze landed on me, seeing more than the human form as his gaze glowed a little. “You’re ice? You shouldn’t be ice.”

It spun at my core, tied in a thousand ways trying to extinguish the kitsune fire. Tying up that inside well of power and heat until I sputtered to find warmth on the hottest days. For centuries they’d done everything they could to keep me from rising, and I’d long forgotten what the true heat was. The cold delivering only numbness.

I was a creature of fire. The ice had begun with the blight. As I suspected, bonding to the wolf wasn’t going to remove my blight, but his ability to spin the magic soothed the chaos, added minor thumps of strength. I sat up, the sting from the iron vanishing, maybe due to having a magic anchor in this world?

Was there another way out? Nick had studied more structured magic; would he know more about this cage? I gazed at the walls with kitsune sight, looking for a break, but how we’d been delivered had to be magic, which meant the only way out was magic.

“I hate structured magic,” I muttered.

Toby panted beside me, human and exhausted, as it seemed the magic continued to cycle through him, not settling, but a constant wave of shifting energy. His human side sorted through it, examining the waves of color like he was trying to understand it. I needed to get us out of here. If I changed to my kitsune form, could I break through the walls? That was a lot of power to yank through the boy.

“Not a boy,” Toby snarled.

“Why is everyone in my head,” I asked, irritated that I couldn’t seem to keep my scions out.

“Do it. Change. Just don’t leave me here, you promised, and the fae can’t lie. Promises are binding. If it’s my time to die, kill me and bring me home. I should have been mourned and buried long ago.”

“Me too, wolf,” I said. He wasn’t wrong about lies and promises. But I’d have not left him anyway. He was my scion now. My responsibility, and bound to my magic.

I shifted, letting the kitsune form blaze free in a wall of heat. It awakened nerves I’d long forgotten still hurt, but warmed my gut even as the ice tried to find purchase again. I realized then that the iron had begun to burn me, creating blisters along my side. My feet on the floor no longer ached with pain. Was it a perk of bonding the wolf, like some immunity to the damage the earthen metal wrought? Staring down at Toby, I felt as though this were my normal change, not the too large and out of control version I’d gotten from the power Ari had fed me.

Toby blinked up at me, reaching out a hand to touch my side. “Warm,” he sighed softly. “So warm. Why are you hurt?” He frowned at my side peppered in burned fur and blisters. It was healing.

Iron. I thought as I licked his hand and left his side to pace the walls and study the space. Cold iron. Magic of this world, intertwined with wild magic. Barrier on barrier. Overkill for any normal fae, but I sought out the link with Nick, wondering if he had ideas other than brute strength. Would the tie to Toby help me reach him since the iron was no longer an obstruction? The bond found Toby first, his gaze focused on me, studying my kitsune form, his breathing steady, heartbeat strong, even while magic churned and writhed inside of him, not all that unlike his wolf. More chaos.

I looked his way,Sorry, wolf.

Nick’s touch ran up the strands of our bond, finding Toby, and finally me. He flinched as if burned by the idea I’d taken another scion, or because it had been the wolf he liked. But bonded wasn’t a fate worse than death, even if it meant delaying the inevitable.

What have you done?I heard Nick’s voice, faint but clear.

What I do best,I told him,survived, saving random mortals.I shut down the words and showed him the cage, elaborate layers of wards and magic clear in my kitsune sight.A puzzle to freedom.

He sent me back an intricate web of thought to create a door, not out of this court, as the magic didn’t expand that far, but at least free from the cell? I hunched low beside Toby.

We must go.

Toby rolled over, trembling as the wolf slid back into place. Beast untouched by the ice, but war still in his eyes. He looked small beside me, but that was okay. I’d pick him up and take him through a doorway myself if I had to.

The structured magic pulsed in irregular waves, unfamiliar and strange, like putting a round peg into a square hole. It could work, but took more energy than the wild magic I was used to. A door appeared in the stone wall, handle elongated. I pushed it down with my paw and it slid open. The darkness giving no indication of where it led to, only that it was a way free of the cell. Nick had been very good with doors before we’d come into the new world.

Still good with doors,he told me with a bit of annoyance.Just didn’t have the right mix of magic before. Now move. Best you bring him back in one piece.

My scion was very worried about the wolf.

I’m fine,Toby growled through the bond, irritated.

Everyone was angry with me, some semblance of normality, I supposed. I headed through the door first, planning to divert any attack that might be directed our way. There was a moment of confusion and shifting through magic tunnels as was common with a portal or a doorway, and then I burst free. Toby on my heels, we leapt into the middle of a world of lost time and memories, crafted like castles and fantasies only found in storybooks now. The darkness of the world the same as the mortal one, cold, yet not icy, more like a brisk autumn day, but filled with fae. A buffet of bounties as I hadn’t encountered in centuries.

There was a startled gasp as I landed on a stone floor surrounded by dozens of lesser fae, and a handful of sidhe. Everyone’s gaze turned my way and movement began in a flurry of those trying to escape. But it wasn’t the lessers I craved. Nor did I ever aim for the little ones. It was the sidhe that deserved an end. Too long being the captors, invaders, and villains hiding behind masks of beauty. Didn’t matter if they were seelie or unseelie, it was all bitter magic to me, and in need of destruction.