Page 50 of Mud

“We will interrogate her,” Eric insisted.

Footsteps—they were about to leave.

“Do what you will,” my grandmother said, and she was moving toward the door. “And when you’re done, you hand her over to me. I’ll deal with it myself.”

By Iris…

She couldn’t see me there, not under any circumstances. I had to get out, run, all the way to the city.

And that’s exactly what I planned to do, except I’d forgotten one tiny little fact—Icouldn’trun. I could barely stand on my good leg, and it was going to take me a good minute just to get to that door.

Then I saw movement.

Jim and Jam had stood up from their chairs, and their staffs were between them. Each had their hands wrappedaround the wood below the green crystal at the top, just like they always did when they were doing spells.

And they were both looking at me.

I had no hope left. I didn’t even try to turn around and make it before they came to the door. Before Madeline saw me there and killed me on the spot.

After all, I was no use to her now—no use toanyone, apparently. She would be glad to get rid of me while she was still pissed off.

But then I could have sworn that either Jim or Jam nodded at me.

I could have sworn either Jim or Jam winked.

Then there was magic.

At first, it surprised me. I usually saw the green flames that wrapped around their staffs, coming from both the top and the bottom of the wood.

But this time it was more than that. This time, I felt the charge in the air. This time I felt it pressing against my skin like a physical thing, like a hand, like a piece of fabric wrapping around my shoulders.

This time, I saw the color of their magic twice as clearly even in the state I was in. Iheardthe magic as if it was whispering words in my ear.

And the footsteps stopped coming.

Jim smiled at me, just a slight curl of one corner of his lips.

It took me but a second to realize what had happened. He and Jam had frozen time inside that infirmary room, and I had a minute, if not less, to disappear from the hallway.

A brand-new energy came over me, though it wasn’t much. I moved forward, hopped too fast too far, and almost fell on the floor again. Luckily, I caught the frame of the door on the wall right across from them in time.

But I saw the inside of that room only for a split second, and my heart all but stopped.

Madeline wearing a red suit, her silver hair done in a perfect bob, her big round golden earrings balancing her square jaws, as perfect as ever. Her eyes were a cold amber brown and if I moved just a bit to the left, she’d be looking right at me, though she was stuck in limbo at the moment and wouldn’t be able to tell or remember.

Jim and Jam were very thorough with this spell. It was their special party trick, they said, and I’d witnessed its efficiency too many times to fear it would fail now.

At least fifteen people were in the room with Madeline, including the team leaders and agents who’d been wounded, as well as a healer, two nurses, and a man in a black suit that I hadn’t seen before, following my grandmother outside.

Or at least he was before Jim and Jam, standing by the door, froze him. Froze everyone—froze time itself.

They could get in trouble for this. If anyone saw or noticed what they’d done, they would be labelled traitors. They would be interrogated, put in jail within the hour, and part of me wanted to stay, just to make sure they didn’t.

But that part of me was squashed to death within a split second by my survival instincts. Jim and Jam were grown-ups. They knew what they were doing. They’d chosen to do nothing when Michael and Erid tried to kill me in the woods, but now they’d chosen to act. I was going to take it, be thankful, and hopefully able to pay them back someday.

I moved.

The door in front of me opened with ease and I hopped into the dark, empty infirmary room without breathing. I pushed it closed behind me as fast as my arms allowed andstopped with my back against the wall right next to it, all my focus on my ears.

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