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I grinned. Ashworth could be missing a limb and he’d still no doubt tell them he was okay and to stop damn well fussing. I rose and moved around him. The area where the dark witch’s protection circle had been was scorched, the black stones in shattered shards that lay in forlorn pieces all around the clearing. While the magic clinging to them was only faint, I carefully avoided stepping on any of the bits that lay between me and Chester; though I doubted they’d hold anything that would harm me, I had no idea what was and wasn’t possible when it came to blood magic, and there was no way known I was going to take any sort of chance.
The scorching on Chester’s clothes and skin was far worse, and there were bits of stone embedded also, but he was breathing and I couldn’t immediately see any sign of deeper injury. I swept the knife over his body; as had been the case with Ashworth, the blade’s reaction was weak. If there was magic here, then it was on a much deeper level than either Belle’s or my magic was capable of sensing. I touched his neck; his pulse was a little more erratic than Ashworth’s but still very strong.
“Chester’s also alive.” I pushed upright. “And I can’t sense much in the way of secondary magic on either of them.”
Aiden walked into the clearing. “I’m gathering Chester is the heretic hunter that’s been called in?”
“Yes—and this isn’t exactly an auspicious start to his investigation.”
“No.” Aiden stopped a few feet short of the scorched circle and studied it. “But I guess if the body we have in the morgue is confirmed to be our dark witch, no one else is dead, and whatever spell was here has now been countermanded, we should consider it a win.”
“Let’s just hope his spell has been countermanded.”
Aiden glanced at me sharply. “Meaning what?”
“I don’t know.” I swung the pack off and tucked the knife safely away. “Something about all this just isn’t making sense.”
“Like what?”
I waved a hand toward the blackened earth. “Like why would a spell live beyond the life of its creator? As far as I’m aware, it shouldn’t. And then there’s the whole question of why a dark witch would even leave his circle in the first place.”
“Maybe he trusted whoever he was with.”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I don’t know what to think. I just know we’re missing something.”
He grunted. “Given how often those instincts of yours have proven to be right of late, I’m not about to discount them.” He waved a hand toward the scorched ground. “What actually happened here?”
“Either the deconstruction didn’t go well or, for some weird reason, this explosion is exactly what the dark witch intended.”
“I’m thinking it’s probably both,” Ashworth said.
I spun around. He’d pushed into a sitting position and was rubbing a grimy hand across even grimier features. “Damn if it doesn’t feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
“You shouldn’t move too much—”
“I’m fine,” he said sharply. “Stop your fussing.”
I hid my smile. Aside from the fact he’d reacted exactly as I’d figured, he sounded exactly like my grandfather in that moment.
Aiden walked over and offered the other man a hand. Ashworth gripped it and was easily hauled up. He brushed away the grit and grime from his clothes and then glanced across at Chester. “He alive?”
“Yes. Just knocked unconscious, same as you,” Aiden said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“The bloody protection circle exploded, that’s what happened.”
“Yes,” Aiden said, very obviously containing his annoyance. “But how?”
Ashworth took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I’m not exactly sure. Everything seemed to be going fine and then boom.”
“Did Chester say what sort of spell it was?”
“A multilayered one reinforced with blood.” He glanced at the burned earth and grimaced. “Whose blood is a question that needed answering, but I’m guessing it won’t be easy to get a sample now.”
“That depends on how deeply the blood soaked into the ground and how far down the earth was burned,” Aiden replied. “Did you uncover anything about the witch behind the magic?”
