Page 31 of Autumn of the Witch

“Yeah.” Micah was blushing. “It’s fine.”

Sasha packed up the toy boat and the dragon on his way to the fighting ring, and Viv tried not to let on how tired she was as she waved goodbye. She went to bed as soon as the door closed and heard Micah moving around in the other room, felt the heat of a fire starting.

Micah came in a few minutes later with one of his witch drinks, as Sasha had taken to calling them. Viv grimaced. “How’d you guess?”

“You just croaked those words,” Micah said, and Viv groaned, sinking onto the pillows. “But I didn’t guess, really. I just wanted to make you something, since you seemed tired earlier. Can I check your forehead?”

Viv covered her face with a blanket. “It’s just a cold.”

Micah sighed. “Viv?”

Viv could feel herself shaking. She’d thought maybe she was worrying unnecessarily. The early signs had been so much less severe this time, probably thanks to Micah’s magical cooking, but no amount of kitchen magic would hold off a relapse for long. She’d just… she’d hoped maybe she’d skipped it. That, this once, it wouldn’t happen.

The bed creaked, and Micah climbed under the covers with her. He looked almost ghostly under the sheets, a dim reflection that could disappear at any moment. He pressed a hand to her forehead, and Viv closed her eyes, as though she could banish the fever through sheer will alone.

“You’re hot,” Micah whispered. Viv tried to suppress the sound building in her throat, which felt uncomfortably like a sob, but it wrenched out of her without warning. And Micah, who was always so wary, who Zev said wouldn’t go out to see him unless he warned him first by ringing a string of signal bells, kissed the spot his hand had touched. Then he drew back, eyes wide. “Sorry.”

“I hate this.” It came out as a rasp.

“I think I do, too.” Micah reached for her hand, even though it was damp with sweat, and took it in his. “Do you want me to go get Sasha?”

“You shouldn’t have to. You don’t like crowds, and there’ll be one, in the fighting pits.”

“But you want him here.” It was like Micah could read it on her face. Viv wondered if he’d always been so knowing, or if it was some aspect of his magic that gave him the gift of insight. “I would, too.”

“He’ll be back in a few hours.”

Micah lay there a minute, breathing slowly, holding her hand. Then he sat up, letting the blankets fall back. Viv shivered and let go of him to wrap them around herself. The relapses always happened so quickly. It was like a winter storm, brutal and sudden, devastating in its force. She had maybe an hour left before she started spitting up bile.

“Tell me how to find him.” Micah was trembling, and his eyes were bright, but his tone was firm.

“You shouldn’t—”

“I want to. You need him. Please.” Micah was biting his cheek so hard, she wondered if he might be tasting blood.

“All right,” she said.

ChapterSix

Micah couldn’t stop shaking.

He’d left Viv with enough tea to feed all of Lukos and a circle of chalk he’d made on the floor, recreated from one of the designs in his great-grandmother’s book. It was supposed to be drawn into the inside of a shield to “protect friends,” but Micah figured it wouldn’t hurt to push the boundaries of the design a little.

Viv had been shaking, too. She couldn’t seem to keep warm, even though her forehead was burning hot, and Micah kept thinking of his parents, falling ill one after the other, shivering in their own sick. He hadn’t realized, until that moment, how much that had affected him.

But this wasn’t the same. He repeated that over and over in his mind as he braced himself at the door to the cave, wrapped up in his new coat with his fingers trembling and his breath coming too fast. Viv had been through this dozens of times. She’d survived it then, so she’d survive it now. And Micah had his recipes, his magic.Shehad magic. That had to count for something.

He wished there were a spell that would allow him to communicate with Sasha.

He opened the door. It was almost dark out, and the woods were just visible beyond the field that separated Viv and Sasha’s cave from the Compound. Treetops formed a jagged black scar against the twilit sky. That thing Sasha had seen could still be out there, somewhere, wearing Viv’s face. What was it doing now? Was it waiting for Viv to die, so it could replace her? Was that what it wanted?

Micah had to move quickly. He couldn’t leave Viv alone for long. He dashed toward the entrance to the Compound, which was nothing more than a dark pit in the earth. Sasha said it had been kept unlit to prevent villagers from finding their community, and even after Zev escaped and the secret got out, no one bothered changing it. Micah held his breath as he descended the steps and fumbled toward a distant light far down the stair, away from the entrance.

“Turn left, then right, then right,” he whispered, repeating Viv’s directions under his breath. “Don’t open any doors. Down the stairs. You’ll hear them.”

Someone came running past him along the dark corridor, and Micah pressed himself to the wall, breathing fast. It took him a minute to recover, and he kept a hand on the wall as he turned left, then right, then right again. He passed several doors and another tunnel, and he smelled cooking food and heard voices through the walls. An entire village was here, underground, like a living organism. Micah started imagining it as a puzzle on his old workbench as he moved, trying to ignore the growing sound of voices.

He staggered down the first set of stairs he found. Someone was at the bottom, sitting with a bottle in their hand, talking to someone else Micah couldn’t see. They laughed, and their voices boomed up the stairs.

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