Chapter 142

Dominic

The witch was hard to convince.

When we arrived at No Man’s Land, the tavern-owner was welcoming but wary of our proposition. But we had helped her before, and she would not leave a debt unpaid.

“What makes you think I can even get you in?”

Beatrice leaned low over the end of the bar where I sat with Wyatt. Julian stayed in the car with Lucas, not wanting to draw attention to us by bringing a minor into a bar.

“Blind faith,” I said with a wry smile, “and the fact that my wife trusts you.”

“She clocked me pretty fast, didn’t she?”

The bartender smiled, the way that most people did when they thought of Mira. That familiar ache in my heart flared, and I squeezed my clasped hands harder together on the top of the bar.

Beatrice looked at the tension in my hands and then back at my face, reading me. Something shifted in her eyes as she came to some conclusion about me.

“You have sad eyes,” she said without judgment.

“I am sad,” I said, judging myself for her.

“Aw, pup,” Beatrice said, draping ring-covered fingers over my hands.

“There are few people for whom I would do this.”

She paused, placing her hands on the bar and standing up straight.

“Mira is one of them.”

“Oh thank the gods,” Wyatt whispered to himself.

“I like this one,” Beatrice said, eyeing him up and down.

Wyatt actually blushed, and Beatrice giggled, and I wondered what was going on.

“So,” I said, trying to bring us back on track, “we’ll need to leave immediately. I understand that you have patrons, but is there someone who can cover for you.”

Beatrice stared at me, her eyes defiant and cocky. Then the dozen or so people in the bar all stood at the same time. Then they all walked out the front door.

“Guess we’re closed,” Beatrice said with a wink.

“Don’t you worry they won’t pay you back?” Wyatt asked, always the empath.

She smiled at him, like she was looking at a puppy.

“No.”

And then she walked away.

A few minutes later we were back in the van and on our way. Julian sat in the front seat, allowing him to navigate us when he could. I also think he admired Lucas, and an odd fraternity developed between them.

Beatrice sat beside me in the other middle seat, Wyatt in the back. We were all leaning forward and engaged as Julian told us about his escape.

“I was sure they would catch me,” he said, his voice sounding distant as he waded into the waters of his memory. “I was sure that they would catch me and kill me. Finally I remembered…”

He held up his arm, drawing attention to where he had ripped an implant out of his bicep.

“I was so hyped up, I barely even felt it,” he said, almost excited about the gruesome experience. “Thank gods Mira left me a knife, she’s so smart.”

There was that ache again, radiating through my chest.

I just kept moving, only stopping for water or to reorient myself. And then, that night, I started shifting.”

Beatrice took a deep breath in and out. I could almost hear her calculating her next moves.

Julian continued.

“It was scary, at first,” he said, his youth coming to the surface. “But then, once I understood, once I could control it…”

He trailed off, off on a journey that only he could understand. The rest of us tried to imagine what this boy had been through. Even with my own side effects from Malachi’s care, Julian’s story was a spectacle unlike any other.

“And I just knew where to go,” Julian said, as if he had learned how to ride a bicycle not shape-shift at will. “Birds are the best, obviously. The raptors are so so cool, like I feel like a dinosaur but also like a machine? Does that make sense?”

“It does not, but I get it,” Lucas spoke from the driver's seat, making Julian beam from the approval.

“Well, I just know which direction to go in, and I can see forever,” the teenager said, feigning nonchalance seeming comical in one so young. “And honestly hunting mice is super fun.”

Beatrice laughed. “What an enchanting child,” she said, her eyes bright even in the darkness. “What animal was the first?”

“A bat.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Transformation,” she said in a voice that sounded different than usual. “Ha, this is getting better by the minute.”

I didn’t want to waste any more time. It was getting dark, and from what I could get from Julian we still had a few hours to go on this drive. Luckily Lucas was skilled at driving just fast enough without being reckless.

I let myself lean back, closing my eyes. It hit me how tired I had been, unable to truly rest since Mira left. A good deal of time passed before I was roused by a hand gently shaking my arm. I inhaled deeply to bring oxygen to my brain, remembering where I was.

“Julian says we’re close,” Beatrice said, her hand still resting on my arm.

“Dominic,” the witch said, “do you have anything of Mira’s? It makes it all much easier.”

Now I felt useful to the plan. “I had thought you might,” I said, pulling a hairbrush from the pack at my feet. “One couldn’t be married to Mira and not hear about spells and rituals.”

“I look forward to discussing more with her,” she responded with a smile, not a scrap of doubt in her mind that we would be successful in this endeavor. “Julian, love, keep talking. I like to hear the youth in your voice.”

Beatrice looked like she might be in her late thirties, but it occurred to me that it could all be a magic facade. Pulling a book from her bag, she flipped delicate pages and trailed long finger nails over words in a language I did not speak.

Satisfied, she left the book open in her lap. Then she began pulling strings of hair from Mira’s hairbrush. She wound them around her fingers, like rings on the first knuckle of each finger.

It felt like an intimate ceremony, so connected to her own body and the power she could wield.

She whispered incoherent words to herself, fingers energized on the pages of the book.

“There is a road soon.”

Seven minutes later, Lucas turned onto an unmarked road. It was nearly invisible because of tree coverage, but Beatrice had no trouble finding it. We let Julian out to fly overhead and scout for us.

“There will be a guard,” Beatrice said, her voice grave. “Leave him to me.”

Lucas seemed nervous about getting so close to the main compound, but Beatrice insisted. Indeed, a man came forward when we approached at a slow speed. He put up a hand for us to stop, and then Beatrice slid open the back door and got out.

No words were spoken, or at least none that I could hear. But the guard turned and walked back into his hut. He pressed a few buttons, turned a key, and open the gate for us. I could tell some cameras or sensors or other surveillance has also been disconnected.

Then the guard put his head on his desk, and fell asleep.

We drove far enough to see lights through the trees up ahead, then parked off the side of the road. We were silent as we walked.

Beatrice seemed to be in a trance, her hands stiff at her sides. Her palms were facing forward, like she was holding something heavy.

“There is strong magic wrapped in this place,” she said to the air.

A sudden pain jolted through my brain, and words came crashing into me. I knew immediately it was Mira, reopening the link that had seemed to be blocked between us. She just kept repeating and repeating the same two words.

“Rescue me."