“Sorry I’m late,” shouts a voice from above.
Aggie lands her broomstick so close to where I’m lying that the stones at my back tremble under the impact.
“Fuck,” she cries. “What happened to her?”
“Blood magic.” Grandma’s words are clipped. “Along with tiny fissures in the wards leading to the goddess knows where.”
Aunt Klara huffs again. “If you had listened to me when I told you to bind her magic—”
“That’s enough,” Grandma snaps.
Nausea rises to the back of my throat, tightening my airways so I struggle to breathe. Aunt Klara sounds so triumphant that I’ve screwed up.
I almost don’t want her to fix my broken body.
“Let’s focus on healing poor Alienor,” Grandma says with a sigh.
“Should we start with a levitation spell to get her inside?” Aggie’s magic wraps around my shoulders, waist, and hips.
“Don’t move her,” Grandma yells.
As the magic lifts me off the ground, white lightning explodes across every nerve, making my muscles seize. The pain is blinding, all-consuming, and fills my inner ears with a searing scream.
Aggie’s magic releases its hold, and my mind collapses in on itself, dragging me into unconsciousness.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but my mind teeters on the edge of awareness. Light flickers through my eyelids, and I inhale the scents of must and mold and mildew.
A cool draft blows through the thin sheet covering my skin, which does nothing to stop it from tightening into goosebumps.
It feels like I’m in a basement.
I try to open my eyes, but my muscles won’t move.
Light footsteps echo across what feels like vast, stone walls. I try to tell myself that this is not a crypt. My pain has gone, but that doesn’t mean I’m dead.
The air around my body shifts, and the light flares, bringing with it the scent of burning incense. This has to be some sort of ritual, but why is it taking place in a basement?
I try to curl my fingers and wiggle my toes, but they’re bound with bands of magic. My pulse kicks up a notch. I focus on breaking out of my restraints, but they tighten.
“We’re ready to begin the extraction.” Grandma’s voice echoes across the chamber.
“Wait,” Aggie says. “I thought we were only binding her magic.”
“It was never hers to begin with,” Aunt Klara mutters.
My stomach drops with a boulder of dread. If I could furrow my brows right now, they’d pull together into a frown.
What does that even mean?
Every witch is born with a certain amount of magic, which needs to be bound until they’re mature enough to practice it without hurting themselves or exposing our kind to the humans.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Aggie says as though channeling my confusion. “How could she not have her own magic?”
I send my cousin a silent word of thanks.
“Why don’t you tell her?” Aunt Klara’s voice drips with so much venom that I can’t believe Grandma hasn’t yet noticed that her only surviving daughter is such a rattlesnake.
“It wasn’t just Faye who died the day Alienor was born.”