Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was finding their magic-worker before they all sobered up.
I flew up the steps, not even caring about the pound of my feet, knowing no one could see me in the darkened house.
I knew nothing about magic.
What I did know, though, was that strange… screaming sound that was like icepicks in my eardrums as I moved down the hallway.
The sound pierced into my brain when I finally came to a door.
My hand went to the knob, finding it unlocked, but I couldn’t seem to make myself move forward.
“Hello?” I called, worrying I might be screaming, since I couldn’t even hear myself over that high-pitched racket. “Hello? I’m not one of them. I’m… I’m trying to help you.”
There was one beat.
And then, silence.
The kind of silence that made my ears throb.
That was the magic falling.
The magic they were likely using to protect themselves from the gods.
I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Nerves had my belly flip-flopping as I stepped inside.
“Thank y—“ I started, my voice faltering when I finally saw the person I was looking for.
She was young, maybe only nineteen or twenty. She was painfully thin, her bones poking out through her clothes, her cheekbones sharp. Her blonde hair hung in greasy strands around her face.
“Who are you?” she asked, voice a mix of suspicion and fury, but with a slight undercurrent of hope.
“My name is Nox,” I told her. “I’m here to get you out.”
“Why? What do you want from me?”
My heart ached at that.
So young. So accustomed to being used already.
I wanted so badly to tell her that I needed nothing from her. But I couldn’t lie.
“I want you to help me free Nemesis, so she can stop those assholes downstairs from hurting people.”
“Sh!” she hissed, eyes going huge, haunted.
I didn’t want to know what they’d done with her since they’d gotten their greedy little hands on her.
“It’s okay. They’re tripping out of their minds on Underworld poppy elixir. That’s the only way I got past them. But we have to move. I know you have no reason to, but I need you to trust me.”
Her gaze turned away, looking at herself in the mirror over the dresser, taking in herself for a moment.
“If it will make them pay, I’m in,” she said.
“Okay. Can you take my hand and move close? I, uh, have some powers too. It will make us invisible. Just until we get away from the house.”
With that, she took my hand.
We inched together through the house, silent, barely even breathing.
The second we were outside, we both just… ran.
For our lives.
Because we both knew that was what was at stake.
We didn’t stop.
Not until I literally couldn’t go anymore, my lungs on fire, my heartbeat slamming.
I felt a small bit of comfort that it wasn’t just my waning, draining powers when I looked over to see the witch standing with her hands on her knees, panting for breath.
“What’s your name?” I gasped out between breaths.
“Agatha. Aggy.”
“Aggy,” I said, taking slow, deep breaths. “How long have they had you?”
“I honestly don’t even know. It was… spring, I guess.”
Almost a year.
They’d had their hands on this girl for almost a year.
“You’ve kept that protection magic going for a year?”
“Why do you think I look like this?” she asked, waving down at herself.
So.
It wasn’t just my powers that came at a cost.
“If I was free, I could recharge. But without that, I had to just… waste away.”
“Wait… if that screaming sound was protection magic, then why was Nemesis’s prison screaming?”
“Because… because they were… hurting her. When she was trapped and couldn’t fight back.”
Oh.
So she was going to be good and pissed when we released her.
That was a strange kind of comfort.
“We need to free her,” I told Aggy. “And then I can get you a shower, food, a comfortable place to sleep. Then I can take you home.”
“I don’t have a home,” she said. “But I would love some food. They barely fed me. Wanted me weak, I guess.”
“Yeah. They’re bullies like that,” I agreed. “Okay. Let’s get to the cave.”
We walked then, both too tired to hurry.
As we neared the mouth, Aggy’s hand reached for mine, likely remembering the bears and knowing we needed to hide ourselves.
I reached for the shadows. And, for the first time, it felt like they hesitated, like they didn’t want to come.
Or, maybe, I simply didn’t have much power left to command them.
This is the last time, I whispered to my own mind, to my soul, to my powers.
I just had to do it one last time.
The shadows came, and we rushed ahead, both shivering at the coldness of the cave as we drew deeper.
This time, there was no screaming as Aggy dropped the protection spell.
“How do we get her out?” I asked as we rounded the corner toward her prison.