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There’s a warble to her voice. She looked away again, blinking rapidly. My own eyes stung for her, thinking about the mother who was probably worried sick over her daughter.
Velez took a long breath and blew it out slowly, head falling back to look at the ceiling.
“They’ll kill us if we talk, you’ll kill us if we don’t. There’s no winning for us. I tried to figure out how we could work around it or any deals we could make, but there’s nothing, so.” She shrugged. “My coven has someone here tagged. I don’t know who it is, but they were a catch-and-release, so they probably don’t even realize what happened.”
“A catch-and-release?”
I felt dread building in my gut when she gave me a brittle grin.
“It’s kinda like… magical sleight-of-hand. We have to touch them and make eye contact to do it, but the average person just carries on with their day, never knowing we’d placed the tracking spell. Bumping into them, reaching for the same book, hooking up off a dating app—there are a thousand ways to do it.”
The idea that I could have been subject to one of these spells made me a little woozy. Witches were known for being crafty and creative; magic was generally only limited by the imagination, which made for dangerous opponents.
“And you have no idea who it could be?” Marilyn’s voice was like a whip. Even I winced a bit.
“No clue. We don’t ask questions, Ansen; we just go where they point us. I only knew about it because it was my coven's spell. The bragging was insufferable.”
I didn't care about witch politics, and from the grimace on both women’s faces, they didn’t either. Their constant trying to one-up each other had finally worked in our favor, at least.
“We have to tell the Head and come up with a counter-spell,” Marilyn said, ready to bolt up the stairs, already plotting from the look on her face.
“So you were able to track a Resistance member,” I suddenly spoke up, “but how did you even know who they were to tag them?”
The words gave my friend pause, and she looked back down at Velez, who had drawn her knees to her chest.
“I couldn’t tell you.” Velez was crying—silent tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as she put her forehead to her knees. “I work offense, not recon, just like everyone else you kept.”
Marilyn pursed her lips and spun on her heel, headed for the stairs. I hesitated, watching Velez’s shoulders shake.
My first instinct was to try and comfort her, to let her know everything was going to be okay now that she was working with us, but I couldn’t promise that. That was all up to Auren and his circle.
“Aria,” Velez called out when I also headed for the stairs. I faced her again, hoping the tears stinging my eyes weren't visible. “My mom—her name is Maria Velez. Will you tell her I love her for me?”
Unable to speak, I nodded instead, and she tried to smile before I turned and hurried up the staircase.
I didn't know how I was going to find the woman, much less deliver her daughter's message, but as I wiped my eyes and stalked out of the building, I knew I would do it anyway.
Three days later, all of our captives were dead.
Nobody had warned us that they had the ability to kill themselves, but apparently, one of the foot soldiers Zuzanna had been watching finally gave up, and then the others all started to follow.
It made me think back to Aster, still in her corner the last time we spoke to Velez, and wonder if she’d already been gone. Surely not. Surely, we would have noticed if she’d been dead.
I was the only one bothered by this fact, from the way Auren’s circle carried on the meeting as expected.
“I don't know a counter-spell that’s widespread enough that it could clear everyone,” Zuzanna said, looking disgruntled. “Even if I did, they already know where we are. We could start evacuating this compound and clear people on their way out, maybe?”
“We can’t afford to move people right now,” Atlan argued. “Our other camps were at max capacity last time we checked in on them.”
“So we just do nothing instead?” Kiran drawled, arms folded over his chest.
“We beat them last time,” his brother shot back, leaving Auren to take it all in with tense shoulders.
Ever since he’d been caught unawares by the Upper Council, he’d seemed… unapproachable. More than usual, anyway. The warmth that had been slowly growing the longer we were all together had died out, leaving behind the cool shell of a Leader that Johnny said was his norm.
“We’re not running,” Auren decided, voice cutting through the budding argument gruffly. “We can have the witches work on clearing everyone, and we’ll tighten up security, but we can't afford to move right now.”
“It’ll take days,” Zuzanna informed him, deadpan.
