Page 51 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

A creaking floorboard had him cracking his eyes just in time to see Jonelle, still in her blue uniform, slip outside. Fallon resumed playing with his fingers; Owein turned his hand over and knit it with hers.

Moments later, Jonelle returned, this time without taking care to minimize noise. “They’ve found him.” She didn’t yell, yet in the silence, her voice pierced Owein’s ears. He stood first.

“Him?” he asked at the same time Merritt said, “Silas?”

Jonelle nodded, and shivers like October rain drizzled down Owein’s body. Jonelle’s eyes went for Mrs. Mirren and Lord Pankhurst. “They’ve corralled him at Prudence Island.”

Prudence Island was in the Narragansett Bay, west of Blaugdone Island. The traps had worked. Owein dared not breathe, for fear it would somehow break the hope threading through the church.

“Prudence,” Hulda whispered, clutching Merritt’s hand in her own. She unfocused for a moment, contemplating. “Then it must beCharliewho comes to Blaugdone Island in the fog.” Her body visibly relaxed.

Gooseflesh rose across Owein’s arms.

Mrs. Mirren rushed for the door. “Loren, stay with the family, just in case.”

Lord Pankhurst nodded.

“Let me come with you.” Owein stumbled into the aisle. “I can help.”

But Jonelle shook her head. “You’re not in good condition yet, Mr. Mansel, and you don’t have the training. We’ve got him. Please, stay.”

She didn’t wait to see if he’d agree; she and Mrs. Mirren left, leaving a different kind of silence in their wake. A tense silence, uncomfortable with worry yet limned with promise.

Owein’s hands resumed their fists.

“We should leave,” Hulda said. “Not back to Blaugdone,” she stated obviously. “Myra’s home is close by.”

Baptiste said, “Beth and I will go to hermère.”

Hulda nodded. Owein slouched where he stood. It was safer for Beth and Baptiste there, away from the Fernsbys, but he hated being apart from Beth. Like Myra, Beth had always seen him as human and treated him as such, even when their communication had been limited to his flimsy efforts of pointing at a printed alphabet. Perhaps she sensed this, magic or no, because she met his eyes then, carefully stepped around Fallon, and embraced him tightly. He returned the hug, holding on as though it would be the last time he saw her. She always fitso small against him; even when this body was new and only fourteen, Beth had been smaller than him. But her spirit was large, surrounding him like the arms of a mother, one he knew better than his first.

He knew he’d see her again, but anxiety loved to play tricks on the mind, even one as old as his.

Beth kissed one of his cheeks and patted the other. “Please don’t do anything stupid,” she chided him. Glancing to Fallon, she added, “Make sure of it.”

Fallon nodded. The Babineauxs gathered their things and left without fanfare.

Coming to himself, Owein offered the Fernsbys help with the children. Merritt handed him Ellis, half-asleep and sucking on her thumb, and Owein put the babe on his shoulder and patted her back by habit. They filed slowly from the church, Hulda leading the way to Myra’s abandoned home. It would be a long, stiff walk, but Silas had fled Boston. Hulda had foreseen tonight’s dinner early this morning, the lot of them still in their mourning clothes, with no imminent threat.

Still, as Owein passed a sapling beech tree, he reached out and grazed the pads of his fingers over the leaves, pulling inside himself in a way he hardly thought about anymore. Just to know. He needed to know.

The three bright-jade leaves he touched blackened, curled inward, and fell from their branch. His stomach gurgled in protest, but the side effects of the serum remained undetectable.

Blue, blue, blue. Too much blue in a bed of green.

Three men in blue, two in gray, approached him, hands on guns or guns drawn, the threat of magic clicking in the air. Queen’s League. They’d always wanted him. They still wanted him. Silas’s head pulsed with it.

He’d docked his stolen boat a mile away. The island’s rocky coast was at his back: a nine-foot drop into the sea, but one of the blue uniforms guarded that, too, with at least two soldiers in a boat, watching him in the bay. Air burned his throat as Silas sucked it in and out of his lungs. His arms, legs, and back were stiff from kinesis, his brain addled from—

Too much blue in a sea of green.He couldn’t focus. Too many trees. Too many people. Too many eyes, looking at him. They were bars, bars, bars, caging him in.

Grabbing the sides of his splitting head, Silas roared, his flesh pebbling under stolen clothes, his rotting arm smelling sour.

“Stand down, Silas Hogwood,” a familiar and commanding voice bellowed. “It’s over.”

Voice.He knew that voice. Silas turned around, only to hit a wardship spell. He growled and turned back, scanning the fleshy bars closing in on him. His eyes didn’t want to listen to him today. Pushing his fingers to his eyelids, he forced them to open wide, forced himself to take in his pursuers.

He hesitated on one, the oldest of the lot. He knew that man. The man said something else, but Silas didn’t hear it. He was too focused. His fingers began to tremble, his eyes burned, but Silas forced the eyes to look at him until he understood.Blightree.

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