“Yeah, there’s unicorn suckers, unicorn stickers, unicorn folders, unicorn erasers…” Marcus rambled.
“And a unicorn nightlight,” Charlie finished.
I gave a tiny smile. Charlie was the only one who knew that I was afraid of the dark.
“Are you happy you’re finally twenty-one?” Chancey asked.
“I don’t think I’ll be going on any crazy bar hops any time soon,” I said as Charlie helped slip the unicorn sweater over my head.
My Christmas joy was interrupted when three guards carrying noxite guns entered the room. My stomach churned. The guards usually stayed out of the infirmary. Something was wrong.
“Can we help you?” Kallie asked scathingly, and Oberi growled. Both of them were looking to pick a fight.
One of the guards rummaged in his pocket. “Warden’s orders,” he began. “The four of you are to start wearing noxite cuffs immediately.”
“Excuse me?” Marcus yelped, while Charlie immediately stiffened.
“Kalina Nowak, Marcus Taylor, Ava-Marie and Charlie Wahkin are all to receive noxite cuffs,” the guard rattled off. “You’ve proven to be disruptive to the prison system, and therefore, have to be more carefully monitored. You’re required to wear these noxite tracking devices until further notice, to observe your movements and put a restraint on your magic.”
“I don’t think so,” Ivy hissed. “You ain’t doing a damn thing.”
“Yeah, we ain’t gonna take this lying down,” Chancey threatened.
“You want to interfere, and you’re next,” the guard snarled.
Chancey backed off, though Ivy didn’t look like he was going to. Chancey’s hand on his arm was the only thing stopping Ivy from pouncing on the guard and draining him of his blood on the spot.
“My wife can’t wear a noxite cuff! It’ll hinder her recovery!” Charlie argued.
“You looking for a ticket to Cellblock 9?” the guard snarled. “Because I have orders to take you down there for non-compliance if you refuse to put them on, and rest assured, the Warden will sendbothof you down there, whether your wife is stable or not.”
Charlie fumed, but there was nothing any of us could do. I wasn’t strong enough to be out of the hospital, let alone be thrown into Cellblock 9 with the rest of the thugs and murderers.
The guards slapped the cuffs on our wrists. My stomach churned once the cuff was on me, and I immediately knew that whatever was in this bracelet, it wasn’t noxite. From what I observed once the bracelets were on, there was no way to get them off, no gap in the metal that we could use to break it. I didn’t think the metal could be cut, either, due to the magical qualities.
Once the guards left the room, Charlie scowled. “These cuffs aren’t noxite. They’re filled with inferichite.”
“The Warden must’ve used the last of what he had to make these cuffs for us,” I mumbled. I couldn’t really tell there was inferichite in the cuffs, because I felt pretty shitty already, but I knew the others had to be experiencing side effects.
“I already feel nauseous,” Kallie moaned, putting a hand to her mouth. Marcus looked similarly green.
“That’s bullshit. Inferichite is poisonous to you guys! He’s killing you slowly!” Ivy protested.
I closed my eyes, because I felt dizzy. “I think he put enough in the cuffs to keep us sick, but not enough to kill us. He needs to keep us around, so he can siphon our magic for himself.”
Kallie cast a small illusion spell, one where a miniature carousel horse floated around the room. It faded quickly, and Kallie snapped her fingers twice. She shook her head and added, “I can still cast regular fae spells, but I can’t stop time.”
“So it blocks our demigod powers, but not standard magic anyone can do,” Marcus said in a choked voice.
“That doesn’t help. This is going to make us weak. If we can’t use our demigod magic, we can’t defend ourselves, and we can’t find a way out of here once Ava gets better,” Charlie moaned.
“Yeah, and since these are tracking cuffs, the Demigod Guardians won’t be able to break us out even if they wanted to,” I said hoarsely. “The Warden would just follow us wherever we went unless we can get these off, and as far as I can see, they’re impenetrable.”
“Do you think we can find a way to overpower the inferichite, like we did with the noxite?” Marcus asked, before he gagged.
“That’s going to take time,” Kallie said. “For right now, we aren’t going anywhere.”
The rest of Christmas was kind of ruined, with how crappy everyone felt due to the inferichite cuffs. My family didn’t visit for long, because they could tell I needed even more rest than usual.
