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I needed a plan and I needed it now.
A berserk shout echoed through the forest, and I glanced back. Shadows pooled between the trees, cutting off all view of the fight, though I knew it was there. I couldn’t have gotten far, not in the state I was in.
“Malcolm,” I whispered, praying to the Maker the man would survive.
There was a rustling further along the path and fear gripped me. Whoever it was, they were running, heading toward the fight, and there was no way to tell if they were friend or foe.
Lurching forward, I sprinted in another direction, fleeing blind, praying the Maker would be merciful. Malcolm’s words spurred me forward, “Don’t thank me yet. We’re being hunted.”
An unpleasant prickling sensation bore into the space between my shoulders, as though a needle had been lodged there and periodically someone was flicking it, sending spikes of panic reverberating through me. My foot came down onto nothing and my body dropped, the air leaving me in a gasp as I fell, propelled forward by the headlong run. I had a heartbeat to wonder how far the fall would be before I slammed shoulder-first into a tree.
There was a sickening crunch as bone snapped on impact and a giddy wave washed through me. I slid down the length of the tree, my knees unable to hold weight any further, and collapsed onto the dirt.
My mind was a swirl of images: Derrick on my home step, looking casual and pleased, Cade peering through his microscope at the runestone in my hand, Maureen at the lakeside as she handed a little boy an apple, and Delilah watching me over her delicate teacup. I saw the aether, or I thought I did. Ribbons of magic twirled through the air around me and I reached for one with weak, bloody fingers, not altogether sure what I was seeing was real.
I needed magic, needed to think clearly, needed strength of mind.
So I drew a rune, letting magic tingle against my fingertips as I fought for coherency. And in fact, that was the rune I was drawing: coherency. It flickered pink in my view as it came to a finish, and I drew it toward my chest, praying it was real.
All at once I was thrust out of the aether, plunged into waking. I sat up, gasping, nearly knocking heads with Elliot Cade in the process.
The man was kneeling beside me, his tattoos still glowing green from whatever magic he had been using. He leaned back before our foreheads could collide, his expression pinched.
“Nora? What happened?”
I shoved him away and scrambled to my feet, dimly aware that my shoulder was sore, but not to the point that it should be. The crunch I’d heard when I hit the tree suggested serious injury and for a confused moment I stared.
Whirling, I took in the dark forest around us, the dirt pathway. Trees loomed tall on either side, shadowy and foreboding, whispering amongst each other. Deciduous leaves and debris littered the path, clung to my clothes and hair as I staggered to lean against a nearby trunk. My skull throbbed, but I recognized where we were. This was where Derrick and I had encountered the witch light.
We were on Witches Walk.
“Where’s Malcolm?” I felt for the torchstone in my pocket and nearly sobbed in relief when I found it. I grabbed the torchstone and pulled it out. “Whatever you are, you stay away from me!”
Cade’s eyebrows rose and his gaze flicked back to a shape behind him and off the path. Those twilight eyes of his seemed to do some calculating. “Nora,” he said as he rose, hands outstretched, placating, “I need you to listen…”
I touched a shaking hand to the back of my head and pulled it back, so sure I would find blood that it was startling when my fingers came back clean. Cade tracked my movements, his mouth tightening into a grim line as he continued to speak in calm, hushed tones, as though he were soothing a frightened deer.
“Nora, I don’t know what happened here, but I am trying to help you.”
Confused, I stared at my unstained fingers and tried to make sense of the last moments. “I was dreaming. I was dreaming in the aether…”
“You were drugged,” Cade said. He remained unmoving in the path, but I could see his tattoos slowly fading. “I got most of it out of your system.”
That caught my attention.
“Delilah,” I said, fury gripping me. “Delilah drugged me. She wanted to talk to Brock alone…”
“Brock and Delilah left the manor hours ago. Nobody has seen them, or you, since early this morning.”
“Hours?” I stared at him, fragments of memory trying to fit together, but most were hazy and when I tried to focus on one, it seemed to slither away from view.
“When he couldn’t find you, Derrick had me start a tracking spell, but wherever you were was warded against magic. It wasn’t until ten minutes ago that I sensed you in the forest.” Cade’s gaze was steady on my own, but he made no move to touch me. He kept his hands open and wide, peaceful. Or as peaceful as a Constable could seem standing in the dark. “Nora, I need you to think back. Can you remember anything of the past few hours? Anything at all?”
Something in his voice made my stomach knot. “Malcolm. We have to help him! We’re being hunted.”
His expression was calm and clear, and he gave me a small nod. “Hunted by what?”
“I don’t know, but it scared him. He turned wolf and told me to run.”
