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She woke up for the second time with a pounding headache and a rage so deep in the face of her impotence that she could barely draw breath.
At least this time, she wasn’t moving. She swallowed and opened her eyes.
Nothing changed.
I’m blind,she thought, panic threatening to swamp the anger.
Temper leads to stupid,she repeated angrily. What was more likely: she’d gone blind or the lights were off?
She took a deep breath. Her hands were still tied behind her back, and she was lying on her side on a cold floor.
She seemed to be alone.
Take her to him.Those had been their words. Who washim?
She closed her eyes and, in her mind, wrote carefully:Break these bonds on me, so mote it be.
The ropes loosened and split, and she pulled her hands forward with a groan.
She bit off the sound and froze, waiting, but the only thing she could hear was her heart pounding in her ears and her breath rasping in her throat.
She rolled over and rocked up to her hands and knees. Nausea spiraled through her, and her head pulsed. She had a bit of healing magic, but given her careful need to write out spells, she hardly ever used it. Words were too blunt an instrument to experiment on herself. Still, when she moved her head and herhairhurt, she considered letting it loose.
Instead, she sat carefully on her heels. In her mind, she wrote,Illuminate me, so mote it be.
A ball of light ignited above her head, and her headache pulsed, but she forgot the pain as she looked up and screamed at the towering monsters around her. She bit down hard on her tongue when she realized they were just tall shelves, and she was alone.
She sent the light up higher.
She groaned. After a remarkably bad day, she’d landed in her worst nightmare. She was on the floor of a library, all four walls stuffed top to bottom with books. The universe was just rubbing it in at this point.
She climbed slowly to her feet and braced her hands on her knees for a second while the world spun.
The only other thing in the room was an overstuffed chair in front of a curtained window. She took a step toward the window and tripped over her feet. She looked down to see that the laces of her hiking boots were busted. She had to sweep her hair out of the way to see them and realized her hairband had also snapped.
“I didn’t mean those bonds,” Goldie muttered as she tied her blonde hair into a knot and stepped out of her now-useless boots. Her magic had a mean streak of malicious compliance.
She knew in reality that magic was not out to get her or even sentient. It was just an extra sense and a way to affect the world. She knew her problems were her fault because she had to keep her spells so short and simple. She’d seen what other witches with talents like hers could do. Her aunts and cousins could craft gorgeous, sophisticated spells that seemed to twist the world into exactly what they wanted. She was stuck on, “See Sally run.”
“See Sally run,” she said and shoved aside the drapes to reveal total darkness. How long had she been out? Where the hell was she? She dimmed the spell, realizing she was broadcasting to the world that she was awake and up.
When nobody popped out of the darkness, she jiggled the window latch. It didn’t move. Painstakingly, she wrote in her mind:Open this window-y, so mote it be.The magic gathered but then sparked out.
She frowned.
Open this latch thing, so mote it be.Nothing happened.
“I know ‘thing’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘be,’ but work with me here.” Technically spells didn’t have to rhyme to work, but she needed all the help she could get.
“Let me free, so mote it be!”
The latch grew hot, and one windowpane fractured, but they stayed closed.
“What on earth?”
It felt like she was going against another witch’s magic. It was almost as if someone had warded the window.
