Page 27 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

“Magda, how could you?” she hissed.

“How could I what?” Magda replied, a penciled eyebrow arched high on her forehead in a way that made Jory’s pulse pound with fury. The old crone was going to make Jory say it.

“How could you host him? You—” She lowered her voice even more, as if it would make a difference to Callum’s ears. “I told you what he did to me. And you gave him a place to stay?”

Jory had been on the run for so long.For lifetimes. She’d never been able to stay in one place longer than a decade or so before people began to notice that she never aged, never fell ill. And whatever meager savings she’d been able to accumulate always went to securing a new home, a new identity, a new place to feel safe. Until she’d stumbled upon World’s End and Magda fifty years before. Magda, who’d taken her in and given her the money to start her business, who’d promised her that she could be safe there, that she could stay. There were a lot of people like them in World’s End, after all. And besides, there were spells that would prevent people from even considering her age.

Magda had been her lifeline. But what was more, Magdaknew. She knew what had happened to Jory. Magda kneweverything. Even the things she shouldn’t have. The betrayal stung all the more for that simple truth.

She pulled on Jory’s hands, drawing her close enough and cupping her cheeks in her palms. Magda’s hands were warm despite the cold.

“Cal’s on a journey, my lo?—”

“Cal?” Jory scoffed. “Cal?You really must have taken him under your wing if he’s got a pet name.”

“He’s on a journey,” Magda continued, more insistently. “So are you. And those journeys were meant to intersect. It’s a quest now.”

“Stop speaking in riddles, Magda,” Jory said impatiently.

Magda held her hands up in surrender. “Look, girly. That man is not the man you think he is. He’s?—”

“He’s a faithless piece of shit!” Jory interrupted.

Magda’s hand snapped out, and she gripped Jory’s wrist in her strong fingers, her nails digging in lightly through Jory’s coat. “He’s not the man you think he is. And he doesn’t know who the hell you are either. Too many secrets. Aren’t there, Marjory?”

Jory glared mulishly at Magda. “I owe him nothing, Magda.”

“You’re right, honey,” Magda said, but the way her sentence ended made it sound as if it hadn’t really ended.

“But?”

“But you owe each other everything at the same time.”

“I can’t do this,” Jory said, turning to walk away.

“You’ll never get it back if you don’t talk to him,” Magda said quietly, stopping Jory in her tracks.

“What?”

“You’ll never get it back and you’ll never go home again if you don’t talk to him.”

The air sizzled in the air around her like a prophecy, and Jory felt the truth in Magda’s words hanging like snowflakes in the air.

“How do you know that he has it?” Jory whispered.

“Don’t worry about how I know, my love. Just trust that I do.”

“And let me guess. You want me to forgive him.”

“I want you to be well, Jory,” Magda said, reaching up to cup Jory’s cheek again. “I want you to bequenched.”

Jory looked up at the sky above, her teeth clenched tightly. “Goddamnit,” she said, and Magda chuckled.

“You could be on a quest with a worse person, you know.”

“Oh, really? Worse than a monster?”

Magda squinted at her and tilted her head to the side, as if examining her closely. “Oh, honey. What you don’t know could fill the sea.”