Nasty Little Witchling

Maisie and Andria’s lack of questions about my whereabouts and new treasures was a relief, but the reason left me feeling guilty. They were too occupied with Darine's care to worry about an old gauntlet or hefty satchel. Nonetheless, they did find time to point out my lack of shoes and rough appearance.

We had made the quick and easy decision to leave for the abbey once Darine woke up. The problem was that she’d been given a slumber potion that would have her mistaken for the dead till at least the morning.

That left an inordinate length of time for me to sit quietly in the corner and watch Andria pace back and forth, chewing on her thumb. Maisie was less active, lying on the floor while turned away from us. She was supposedly sleeping, but her breathing was too uneven.

I was stuck between wanting to comfort them, asking insensitive questions, or being silent. This was our first incident since Darine had almost fallen off the rooftop, and there hadn’t been a severe injury to contend with there. We knew every journey outside the safety of the wards came with danger and close calls, but we recounted those with sly smiles and indifference at dinner.

This was also the first time something horrible had happened since I’d arrived, and I was baffled by my response. I sat huddled in the corner, my head tilting from side to side, following the path of Andria’s pacing, staring at the damage to Darine’s leg.

I felt guilty for what had transpired. If I’d been there, I could have helped stop the ghouls before it came to this. It would have taken exposing my magic, but that felt worth it.

I wasn’t used to being the person with the ability to change the happenings around me, and I already didn’t like the added burden. Usually, I would shift wherever the prominent personalities pushed me, content with their decisions. I occasionally pushed back, but that wasn’t out of any firm convictions.

The guilt that ate at me wasn’t that I could have stopped the injury. It was about whether I would choose to. It scared me that I wasn’t sure about the answer. To save someone who had done no wrong to me from unimaginable pain or keep my secret safe for some vague future plan I didn’t fully agree with.

The constant lessons revolving around the evil societies that existed outside their abbey had perhaps poisoned my mind about the original plan. I hadn’t been counting the days, but I was sure I’d stayed with the witches longer than the duke. My loyalties hadn’t changed during that time, nor had they stayed the same.

I’d been too quick to call the castle home and go along with everything and anything in order to keep it that way. It wasn’t that I regretted any of the actions I took to get here, but there were plenty of choices I should have thought more about at the time. The entire mess with the gambling house and animals was a good example, one that I’d left in a bigger mess than I’d found.

All the time I spent thinking in circles wasn’t good for my fraying sanity, and it didn’t provide any new answers to all the times I remembered making hasty decisions.

“Should we leave as soon as she wakes or wait till the evening?” Andria asked without looking at me, chewing on her other thumb. “Do you think they’ll send Ulia to come find us?”

I took the opportunity to do some poisoning of my own. “Do you think they care to send someone after us, or are the wards their only concern?”

That grabbed Andria’s attention enough to stop her pacing. “What?”

She startled herself with how loud she was and settled on whispering. “What?”

Maisie had given up on pretending to sleep and rolled over to look at me.

“I don’t see how we were supposed to get through this unscathed,” I said. “With the gate, the number of ghouls, and how they look like they can throw us about with a hand behind their back.”

“They wouldn’t have known how dangerous it was,” Andria countered. “We didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“Darine tried to bring up the possibility of something going wrong, and the elders didn’t let her speak,” I said. “Now look where she is.”

“Don’t talk like you were here to help,” Maisie snarked. “This was your plan. We could have just as easily waited for nightfall. Don’t talk about matters you’ve only recently stumbled into. We’re the ones who’ve lived here.”

“Oh? Getting into the safe right next to the gate was my idea now?”

“Stop,” Andria hissed. “It’s no one's fault. We should have been more careful and brought more potions than usual. We’ll know better for next time.”

“Can you really see us coming back out here again?” I asked. “Leading everyone else here safely without the ghouls being at a different gate?”

Andria shook her head but didn’t respond and went back to pacing, slower this time. Maisie rolled back over, curling in on herself for warmth. My stomach twisted and turned at making them upset with me, yet it needed to be done for their sake. Because we wouldn’t survive being out here again, and I wanted them to come with me or at least help them escape this desolate city when I left.

Leaving wasn’t a matter of possibility for us, but willingness. If we press ahead into the interior, we could easily exit through the outer districts. I didn’t have a plan for getting past the remnants camped outside, but there was a city I could head to after—if I learnt which direction Drasda was in.

These girls weren’t as isolated as I’d been, still having the settlements to visit occasionally, but there was still a cage around them. Perhaps I was making the same mistake with them as I had with the animals, worrying about how to free them and take care of them afterwards.

I brought my legs up to my chest and let my head fall against my knees. I enjoyed being away from Mother, but it felt wrong to impose that sentiment on them. Maybe they didn’t care for what I considered freedom.

…

Andria uncorked a vial of potent herbs capable of scarring someone’s sense of smell for hours. She held it far from Darine’s face and wafted the stench towards her. When Darine didn’t wake, she held it increasingly closer until the girl bolted upright, face twisted in disgust and pain.

Andria recorked the vial and pushed Darine back to lie down. The muscles in her legs couldn’t behave properly with all that was missing, causing them to move sporadically.

“Are we back?” she whined.

“No, we’re in the same building,” Andria said.

Darine stilled at those words and stopped moving about as much, but her gaze went to every window and stuck to the entrance. “Oh…I’m surprised you stayed…not that I’m ungrateful, but you should have left while it was night.”

“The plan’s still to leave,” I said, keeping track of the more active ghouls creeping around the building. The morning had seen more of them return from the other gate, so they surrounded our manor in greater numbers. The three of us had decided it was better to wake Darine up and move before the rest had a chance to return or one stumbled upon us.

Darine tried to stand, waving away our help. She propped herself up against a mouldy couch and looked like a newborn dear, trying to control their limbs for the first time. Andria and Maisie were concerned about the display for an entirely different reason than I was.

I was worried about getting back to the abbey with her injuries slowing us down. The other two were worried about her ever walking again. I hadn’t wanted to ask and sound insensitive, but my assumption was a healer could fix that quite easily. I’d watched a group of them try to attach a head back onto a body, so a little muscle must be a quick fix.

However, there were no mages in the city, and I wasn’t at all knowledgeable about who could heal her in the settlements outside. But I couldn’t see that being a big enough ravine to stop us from healing her legs indefinitely.

Darine finally held out an arm for help after being unable to wobble away from the couch. Andria ducked under it to give her someone to lean on and we all eyed the door, anxious to leave.

I hurried to open the door and go first, more confident in my ability to lead us around any obstacles. If any ghouls were unavoidable, I would still have my gauntlet to use before relying on magic.

I skipped down the steps, sure there was nothing nearby to hear me and poked my head out the nearest exit. The girls came down gradually, getting used to Darine between them with her arms around each of their shoulders. I pressed on into the overgrown garden, already making a detour to avoid the ghoul waiting near a dense hedge.

We stayed in the tall grass for as long as possible, avoiding the wide-open streets and weaving around stragglers. It wasn’t going well from my standpoint. There were too many ghouls to stay on the edge of their senses, especially when I didn’t know where that ended besides a vague understanding.

Some were already noticing the humans making a void in the mana and converging on us.

I weakened the base of a slender tree we walked past, attracting more attention with the overly ambitious use of mana. The ghouls weren’t in a frenzy yet, but their interest had been piqued. I manipulated the trunk for as far as I could, only a dozen steps, before letting go of the mana.

I stepped back to replace a fatigued Maisie to drag Darine away, pulling Andria along. We double the distance between us and the now creaking tree trunk. It splintered under the weight bearing down on it, the length of the tree slowly bending to the side. I grit my teeth, worried it would make too much noise and that my hasty decision would do more harm than good.

Maisie had taken the lead and flinched as it crashed to the ground, confident it was a ghoul that caused it. She hurried through the tall grass towards a back entrance, stumbling over hidden obstacles we tried to avoid.

The back gate was small, with a cracked pathway leading up towards the estate. A wooden frame built as a covered archway for the path barely peeked out from beneath layers of vines twisting through the structure.

Maisie stepped through an opening in the side of the natural awning, clasped a hand over her mouth, and stepped back. I unwrapped Darine’s arm off my shoulder and let Maisie take over.

I peeked inside and looked up and down the shaded pathway and found the ambling ghoul that had scared her.

It was at the end near the estate, looking towards the fallen tree. It must not have realised how flimsy old wooden posts and vines would be if it decided to bash through. The ghoul paced within the tunnel of vines, unsure how to get out. I waved the others through, urging them to move towards the back gate while I kept an eye on the ghoul.

I was beyond tired of how perceptive these creatures had been today but kept myself from sighing as its head snapped towards us. I retreated, keeping it in my sight as the girls hobbled towards the exit through the cramped footpath. The ghoul shifted into a sprint, and I glanced behind me before coaxing a vine to untangle from the frame.

I stretched the vine across the passage, untangling it more when the end didn’t reach. It was around the height of the ghoul’s neck, elevated enough for me to run underneath without issue. I wrapped it around the wooden posts and between vines before grabbing the end to keep it tightly in place.

If the ghoul was confused or cared why I wasn’t running, it didn’t show. The creature rushed into the vine that caught under its chin. The impact almost broke the plant in half, yanking me into the frame instead. The ghoul spun around the vine, almost flipping over to land on its back beyond where I stood. I detached more vines to tangle its limbs and neck as it struggled, unwilling to use the mana to kill it.

I stepped onto the arm that reached up for me and ran after the girls waiting at the entrance. The ghoul’s strangled cries died down as a vine wrapped around their mouth while the others tightened before I lost control.

We crossed the single street between us and the gatehouse, whose portcullis had been pushed aside the day before. My gaze swept across the dark corners of the tunnel through the gatehouse, making sure all the iron wasn’t messing with my senses.

After a moment of blindness, as my eyes adjusted to the light again, we skidded to a halt. Darine grunted in pain as she almost fell from our grip. The wards on either side of the street had done what they were supposed to: keep ghouls from crossing them.

That left a swarm of them loitering within the street, unable to escape to the sides or push into the area with their stronger brethren.

We had just enough room to duck into the nearest building, the same one in which we’d started this whole mess. The marginally less observant ghouls turned in our direction but quickly lost interest as we entered the coverage of the wards. Darine pulled herself from our grip and slumped against the desk in the lobby as soon as the door closed behind us.

“You almost ripped my arms off,” she complained.

“Better than the alternative,” Andria said, catching her breath. Maisie was craning her neck to see if anything followed us through a grubby window while I surveyed above for any stray ghouls that may have strayed inside.

“Haven't we made the supposedly safe passage more dangerous than ever?” Darine asked after a long stretch of silence.

“I think that was more our doing than a problem with the plan,” Andria said, but she didn’t sound so sure of herself.

“Or?” I asked, trying to provoke them like the night before. I wasn’t confident whether using the warding to find a new place to live was terrible planning and naivety or a complete hoax. Yet, I was sure it wouldn’t work. The wards wouldn’t help everyone get through unscathed, and being in the same area as the ghouls in the castle was a disaster waiting to happen.

“They wouldn’t do that to us,” Andria said. “We can send Ulia over with a strong enough attraction ward to get them out, and everything will be fine.”

Darine looked between us with raised eyebrows but didn’t bother asking what we were talking about. She was too busy massaging her legs, attempting to get the remaining muscle to stop convulsing and behave as she wanted.

“Did we ever check the safe?” I asked, eager to get Andria’s glare off me.

Maisie bolted for the staircase while we helped Darine up the multiple flights of stairs. The headstart didn’t help, as Maisie was still attempting to leverage the handleless, scorched iron door open without much luck.

Andria shooed the smaller girl out of the way and stuck a metal bar into the damage made by the dragon’s breath. The mechanism inside groaned at the meddling before giving way, spilling broken gears and iron fragments blown apart by the multiple explosions.

The safe, taller than I and double my breadth, was occupied by a disappointing amount of mouldy paperwork. It lay in congealed piles along the shelves to the point where I could only separate chunks of it rather than pages. The partly charred piles of bronze, silver and electrum coins that had sat in the way of the blast were enough to elicit murmured excitement.

But the real prize was the glistening gold bars neatly stacked on the highest shelf.

Andria reached up for one to heft between her hands, marvelling at its weight. “Enough to make up for being out late. And maybe to bribe a decent healer outside the walls.”

Darine nodded absently at that. “Just need to figure out a way to carry it.”

…

We had to prioritise moving Darine over the shiny blocks of metal, which I found insane that we had that conversation to begin with. All the books I’d read, my mother’s comments and my time in Drasda had all beaten the importance of roe into my skull. However, the worst scenario I could think of if I had no gold was living alone in the woods, surrounded by trees and creatures.

I could understand that the outcome wasn’t favourable or even a possibility to others, but the obsession surrounding the lumps of metal still eluded me.

We’d retrieved the knapsacks the girls had left on the rooftops to haul our find across the city. Mine was still in the interior, shredded to pieces, which meant one less bag for the gold bars to almost rip through with their weight.

Andria and I helped Darine walk a few rows of buildings at a time before she needed a break from rushing between groups of ghouls. In a similar state, Maisie also needed the respite from being forced to take the bulk of the gold we carried.

She dumped her bag on the ground, the heavy clink distracting all the witches crowded around us at the entrance to the abbey.

Pitying looks were cast towards Darine’s legs, but none contained any more emotion than that.

My gauntlet was back to its regular size inside Darine’s knapsack, which I now wore, along with the jewellery I’d taken. I didn’t have a chance to dump it beside Maisie’s as something brushed against my senses. My chest tightened as the crowd around us slowly dispersed, uninterested beyond learning our outing had been successful.

A mana signature strolled along near the head building of the abbey, side by side with a lady I couldn’t guess the age of like most of the elders. A few people remained to pat Darine on the shoulder and assure her the Ambuya would take care of her legs.

That gave me my first guess of who the straight-backed woman walking side by side with the mage was. The Ambuya’s eyes were sunken, but her face was youthful, with rosy cheeks from the winter air. Her clothing was akin to something Janette would wear in the palace, a flowing deep green dress that barely scraped the ground.

I made sure not to look at the mage she talked to for too long, but I recognised Zara regardless. The tall walls of the old barracks felt like they were bearing down on me, that at any moment, he’d notice me and the lack of void in the mana.

I couldn’t decide if being outed as a mage amongst so many witches was worse than him suspecting me of infiltrating his tower. The fragment of a mana crystal still sat empty in the rushed patch of cloth near my chest, but imbuing it would make me stand out, not blend in like intended.

“Are you that tired?” Maisie asked, noticing my hurried breaths. “Darine isn’t nearly as heavy as all this.”

“No…do you think we could take Darine outside the city for healing?” I asked, keeping Zara in the corner of my eye. Some of the people consoling her had mentioned such, and I now wanted to jump on that idea for more than simply healing a friend.

The duo turned a corner, and I let myself relax to listen to Maisie’s rambling non-explanation.

“We’d need permission…and then find the right clothes; they’re always different. The gold isn’t really ours anymore, and the last time my grandmother needed help from one of those freaks outside, they made her pay triple for being new to town.”

The heartbeat thumping in my ears drowned her out as I worked out my own way to get out of the abbey before Zara laid eyes on me.