Page 74 of Hex You

“Xena!” Hunter shouted, drying her face with a kitchen towel.

The familiar padded into the kitchen, Abigail’s bathrobe wrapped around her like a cloud. “I do not smell soup.” She paused, the heart-shaped end of her nose twitching as she sniffed the air. “Or my delicious albacore tuna.”

Hunter fisted her hands by her side and marched to the pantry.

Food?! Mercy was dying and a goddess was on the loose and all anyone wanted was food!

She swiped a can of tuna from the shelf and thrust it in Xena’s direction. Her golden eyes flicked down to the can and back up at Hunter. “I became a mortal being, but I do still have standards.”

Tears flooded Hunter’s eyes, and she pressed the back of her hand against her lips to keep from crying out.

“Hunter?” Xena rushed to her side and wrapped a weak, trembling arm around Hunter’s heaving shoulders. “What is it, kitten?”

Hunter doubled over, her heart an anchor sinking her to the floor. “You said Mag would die,” she managed to choke out between hushed sobs. “That you don’t know when, but—” The can of tuna slipped from her grasp and clattered onto the floor.

“You two need help?” Emily’s voice came from the living room followed by Mercy’s shout of “Try not to burn down the house, H. We’ve definitely had enough close calls for one day.”

“We are well, kittens!” Xena squeezed Hunter a bit tighter as she called back. “Your Xena just foolishly tried to open her own can of tuna!” She pulled Hunter close. “We will not speak about this right now,” she whispered, each word clipped, a sharp gust against Hunter’s cheek. “Not when only a wall separates us from your sister, whois struggling to survive.” She helped Hunter to her feet. “Dry your eyes. Make soup. Have a meal with Mercy.”

It could be your last.

The words Xena didn’t say hung in the air like smoke—a signal of the fire. A symptom of its damage.

Without her sister, would Hunter become ungrounded, float up to the heavens, and give in to the anguish that had already begun to shadow her heart?

Without my sister…

Hunter ripped the corner of her jagged fingernail, wincing as it tore into her nail bed.

No, that couldn’t be her world.

“We have to try to do something!” Hunter kicked the tuna can as she spun back toward the open pantry and its shelves of spellwork tools. It shot across the floor and hit the baseboard with athwack.

Xena stilled, her limbs tense, ready to pounce on whoever dared come check on them.

Hunter scrubbed her wet cheeks with the bottom of her shirt as she, too, waited.

Laughter erupted from the living room and both Hunter and Xena relaxed.

“We have to try,” she repeated, her tone less insistent and panicked as fear and adrenaline ebbed and anger and sadness took their place.

Xena shook her head. It was a slight gesture that Hunter would have missed if not for the faint sway of the cat person’s fluffy mane. “You know as well as I that no tincture or potion from this realm can rid Mercy of the poison from another. We can only purge these creatures from Goodeville, but we cannot undo what they have done.”

“I might not be able to undo it, but I can make Amphitrite pay.” Hunter’s voice was dry gravel, crunchy and rough. “She’s the reason this happened. She’s the reason the Nure-Onna was here.” Heatsurged through her chest, rushed down her arms, and flooded her fingertips. “She has to be! Why else would she have been there?”

Hunter’s spell had only bound the goddess’s body, not her soul, her essence, the core of her power. But what Hunter couldn’t bind, she would do anything to destroy. After all, without Mercy, her heart was gone from Goodeville.

Hunter pulled the folded to-do list from her pocket. The quiet night at her desk when she’d written it seemed like a lifetime ago. Since then, she’d carried the note around with her but hadn’t had time to review it or feel the satisfaction of eliminating two of the remaining three items. Defeating the Nure-Onna wasn’t something worth celebrating. Her next victory, if she survived it, wouldn’t be, either. And then there was number four:

4) heal the gates

Without full use of her magic, Hunter had as good a chance of healing the gates as she did of saving her sister.

She rubbed her thumb along the thin edge of the Post-it. Maybe this list was never meant to be completed. She wadded up the note and tossed it at the open garbage pail. She missed. The paper hit the side of the silver canister and dropped onto the floor. She didn’t need a list. She needed a plan.

“Hunter…”

She needed magic.