I’m standing under the hot water now, eyes closed, letting it work on the tension in my shoulders and wash away the gross, sweaty feeling of being sick. I’m also thinking about Dis’s face when he told me to be careful. The particular quality of it. The way it’s different from the face he makes when he’s being imperious, or amused, or carefully composed. It’s the face he makes when something matters and he can’t do anything about it.
I don’t know what to do with that face. I’ve been not knowing what to do with it for a few days now and I’m not getting any better at it.
I’m also not doing a great job of not thinking about any of the other things that have quietly rearranged the shape of my life without asking permission. I should release him. I know I should release him. The revenge stopped making sense a while ago, and became absurd around the time he tucked a blanket around my feet and quoted This Morning at me about the importance of rest.
Something shifts in the air.
It’s subtle. A change in pressure, like a door opening somewhere in the flat. Except the bathroom door is closed. And this isn’t that kind of shift.
It’s magical. The particular sensation of something pressing against a ward. Something with considerable force. And the ward is mine, and it’s holding, but it’s complaining about it, sending little pulses of alarm up through the channels of magic I’ve had passively running since I moved in.
Something is attacking my flat.
I’m out of the shower before I’ve consciously decided to move. I grab the towel from the rail. Wrap it around my waist without breaking stride. I don’t stop for anything else because there isn’t time.
I run.
The living room is chaos.
Wraith is there. I recognise the feel of him from before and also because he’s unmistakable, tall and wrong and the kind of presence that makes every survival instinct I have stand up and start screaming. He’s at the boundary of the circle, pressing against it, and the wards are blazing, flaring visible in the air, gold-white and straining against the force being applied to them.
Dis is standing in the middle of the circle. He looks furious and controlled and dangerous in equal measure, his shadows massed around him, and he’s holding the binding from the inside, feeding power into the wards I set that are currently the only thing standing between him and whatever Wraith is doing.
“Felix.” Dis’s voice is absolutely level, which means he’s more alarmed than he’s letting on. “Flee.”
“Absolutely not,” I say.
Wraith turns.
He doesn’t speak. And the silence of him is worse than anything he could say. He just turns, and pale eyes find me, white and dimmed. Lanterns through fog. And for a moment, everything narrows to that point of focus.
Then he diverts his attack.
I throw myself sideways as something dark and cold tears through the air where I was standing. It hits the wall behind me and the plaster cracks, a spiderweb of damage spreading outward from the impact point.
Right. Okay. Running time.
I run.
The living room is not a large space in which to be running, but I am motivated, and motivation counts for a lot. I duck behind the sofa as another attack comes and feel it pass overhead. I come up on the other side and fling a protection charm at Wraith, which does not do much but at least makes him redirect his attention for half a second, which is half a second I use to get behind the armchair.
“Release me,” Dis says, very calmly, from the circle. “I can fight him.”
“I’m a bit busy!” I throw myself flat as something crashes into the bookshelf to my left and my books cascade to the floor.
“Release me, and I can end this.”
“I can’t just…” I scramble back to my feet and run for the other side of the room. I can’t just click my fingers and undo a spell weaving that took me months to construct. I’m not that kind of witch.
“He’s your minion! You deal with him from in there!” I yell, instead of trying to explain my failings.
“He is not my minion.” Something in Dis’s voice has sharpened. “Not anymore.”
I process this while running around the back of the sofa for the second time. “What do you mean, not anymore? He set my flat on fire on your orders!”
“He carried out my orders when I held the amulet. I no longer hold the amulet.”
Another attack. I throw myself to the floor and feel it go over my head, close enough to ruffle my wet hair. “What amulet?”
