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“I’m sorry, but with a binding this strong, she’ll need to seek help in order to get herself completely unbound. The core of the binding won’t dissolve on its own, even if the edges fray. She may in time be able to do some magic, but she will never reach her full potential—which I believe is considerable—until she is completely unbound.”
“Well, then—how do we go about unbinding her?” Rath asked, frowning. “She’s been under this spell most of her life—she needs to be free of it, Madam Healer.”
“I am sympathetic to her plight,” the Naga said. “But I’m afraid that since I didn’t cast the spell myself, I can’t help with the unbinding. In fact, with magic this strong, you need to go right to the source.”
“The source? What do you mean?” Rath asked. I was so glad he was asking the right questions—I didn’t have to say a word this time.
“You must go to the witch who placed the binding in the first place,” Madam Healer told us. “You must go to Baba Yaga.”
Rath sucked in a breath and his skin went a paler shade of green. I looked at him, alarmed and mouthed,
“Who is Baba Yaga?”
For once, he didn’t answer me. He kept his eyes on Madam Healer.
“Are you sure there’s no other way?”
“There is not. And as the little witch’s power is bound, she’ll need a champion to see her through the woods.” She raised one silver eyebrow at him. “Are you prepared to take on the task?”
Rath lifted his chin.
“I am,” he rumbled. “I’ll see Sarah safely through to Baba Yaga’s hut and back again.”
“Very well. Then I wish you good luck on your journey,” Madam Healer said. There was a noise in the background and she cocked her head to one side. “I’m afraid I need to end this consultation—my next patient is here.”
“Thank you for talking with us,” Rath said.
“Any time. I hope to see you again, Rath—if you get back in one piece. A pleasure seeing you as well, Sarah. I hope you’re successful in getting your magic unbound.”
She nodded briskly at us both and then the phone screen went black.
But though what she’d said had shed some light on my situation, somehow I now had even more questions than before.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“So who is Baba Yaga and why is she so scary?” I asked, looking at Rath.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“Haven’t you ever read any fairy tales? She’s the strongest and oldest witch alive and she doesn’t always use her power for good. It’s one reason she lives outside the barrier that surrounds Hidden Hollow.”
“So she lives out in the woods past the, uh, magic bubble?” I asked, frowning.
“Yes, but not these woods, exactly. She lives in a realm of her own making.” He got up and started pacing. “Fuck! Your mother must have been really serious about getting you bound if she got Baba Yaga involved.”
I shook my head.
“I just don’t understand why my Mom would do this to me. No matter how bad the family curse is, I don’t see how it could be worse than this binding. I mean, I used to come home from school crying every day because of the other kids teasing me and the teachers yelling at me because I couldn’t talk!”
Just the memories of my awful school days had my stomach in knots as I remembered the taunts and jeers…as well as the many times I’d been sent to the principal’s office for “being uncooperative” in class.
“Hey, I’m sorry, baby.” Rath put one long, muscular arm around my shoulders and squeezed comfortingly. “I know how it is, in a way.”
“But you can talk to everyone—you’re an extrovert,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t always. I was the only half-Orc in my tribe growing up. The other kids used to tease me for being so scrawny and for being a ‘half-blood.’”
“Scrawny?” I looked up at him. “But you’re freaking seven feet tall!”
