Page 62 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
He looks around more pointedly, a firm tug of arms proves that the only give is that of his body. The chains—chains?—have his arms secured tightly behind the chair he’s seated on, and are wrapped around his lap, torso, thighs, and ankles.
Conclusion: He’s really fucking chained to a chair.
He’s having a hard time holding on to panic. The very pertinent thoughts:Where is Ophelia?andOh my God I’m chained to a chair!feel like they’re dripping out of his ears.
He takes a deep breath to clear his swampy thoughts, but the smell assaults him again and he retches, eyes tearing up, and gets to spend a few moments trying not to vomit on himself. The smell is definitely magic, but like every other moment of his life, being able to clock the obvious-magical-bad-thing doesn’t help.
Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia. It’s the thought of her that keeps dragging his attention away from abject misery and back to the room. He can’t sit tied to a chair nearly vomiting and reminiscing because he doesn’t know where she is. Topher too. He’s here to find Topher.
With momentary focus, he spots a brazier on the ground to his right, a lazy stream of yellow smoke twirling from little holes around the rim of its intricate metal lid. This is the thing hurting him and it’s only about four feet away, but it might as well be on the sun.
He strains against his bindings but it’s exactly as ineffective as it was the first time. Whatever. Keep your head up and look around, asshole. Don’t get hung up on the thing you can’t reach. This is when he realizes the brazier is sitting just outside theedges of an intricate magical circle scrawled into the concrete in what looks like blood, salt, and ash.
Following the circumference of the ring like a lifeline, he tracks it to the left, to black shoes, up black-clad legs, to hips, then an arm, and to a masked face.
Mateo jolts—or tries to—the ability to control his body is a dicey thing, so he’s got no idea if he did it. Evil Wizard is right in front of him, and it’s hysterically disconcerting that they might have been standing there the whole time.
“Ophelia?” Mateo says because it’s situationally better than hello, but he’s surprised by the slurring of the name, like he’d barely gotten his mouth open to say it.
Evil Wizard cocks their head the smallest amount, like a dog catching the edge of a sound and trying to work it out, but not cute. And they must work it out, because they step around the circle, careful not to touch it, and walk to one of the gauzy curtains a few yards away. Having never been in a scary wizard’s murder basement before, Mateo’s concerned about what might be behind there. The wizard draws it to the side, giving Mateo a clear line of sight.
Seeing Ophelia should calm the panic clawing for purchase in his sluggish brain, but it only heightens it. She’s so small when not in motion, crumpled on her side on two of the floor pillows, hands bound in silver tape and hair a massive, obscuring mess around her face and upper body. Normal for her hair but upsetting in this context.
“Topher?” Mateo slurs next.
The wizard releases the curtain, hiding Ophelia from view. Not seeing her tied up is worse than seeing her tied up, but the wizard is indicating the ground to the left of Mateo.
“Oh shit.” It’s out before Mateo’s syruped brain fully recognizes the form on the ground. You’d think a second large magic circle with a whole guy in it would be hard to miss … and yet. “Topher!” He’s not sure why he yells it. Topher’s clearly not awake. More raw panic slices through the haze as he struggles like he’s developed bending-metal strength in the past minute.
Topher looks rough.
No. Correction. He looks like he’s been in a car accident.
There’s grime smeared down half of his face and his normally flawless gray outfit is still gray, but now it’s with road filth. Breathing, Mateo’s pretty sure. And bleeding.
While he strains against chains with zero success, the Evil Wizard must have walked back to their original position in front of Mateo. Or they’d moved magically. Who knows? Could have been teleporting all around the room because such feats aslook beside oneselfare difficult for Mateo right now.
He and the Evil Wizard stare at one another. Probably. The end-of-days warlock could be looking anywhere with that full-face obscuring ski mask on, but it seems to be at Mateo. Why did this perfect Cali-bodied suburbs rando do all of this? Why’s she after Topher and his mom?
Except Yoga Wife walks into the room from a door he hadn’t noticed and can’t keep track of once he looks away. Meaning, Yoga Wife isn’t the Evil Wizard. She’s an evil extra in workout spandex.
Smiling a plastic, dead-eyed smile, she moves to the smoking brazier and picks it up. Mateo cringes, expecting her to shove it at him and knock him unconscious again, but she backs up a few paces instead.
It’s like removing a rope from around his neck and a fist from around his brain, the sudden release of pressure so desiredthat an honest-to-God sob escapes Mateo’s lips. The disorientation melts away, not totally, but enough for him to pull in the first full breath in years and have a coughing fit about it. He looks at the Evil Wizard again, eyes hot and wet from strain and discomfort. “What’s happening?”
“That was going to be my question,” the wizard says.
Ethan says.
Even with the mask on, the voice is unmistakable. He’s waiting for Mateo to react, except Mateo doesn’t know how to react because he doesn’t know why a broker from the office of the dad of the guy that hired him is the Evil Wizard. “What the fuck is happening?” Mateo repeats with much more fervor.
Ethan rocks a little on the balls of his feet, like he’s considering this magic-kidnapping-murder-basement situation he’s completely to blame for, and pulls off his goth ski mask. Despite knowing it’s Ethan, it’s still shocking to see his face sticking out of the dystopian garb.
“Your outfit’s ugly,” Mateo spits.
“Be mature,” Ethan says, but fusses with his layers a bit, deciding to take off his gloves.
“You threw me out a window!” Mateo yells and sends himself into another coughing fit.
