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“Freya Faulkner,” Gabi finished in a strained voice.
Gus grabbed Joy’s arm in a tight grip. She threw a panicked look in his direction. The smoke was clearing enough for her to make out his wand, raised and steady. His eyes, bleak.
“Victoriya,” he reminded her in a raw whisper, and Joy’s heart thudded in her chest. He was right. Victoriya was unconscious and vulnerable. And Gabi had given them an order.
“I’ll find us a path out,” she murmured, throwing a glance around the room. The shadows of the filing cabinets were visible now, the smoke thinning above them, but Joy could only make out the vague forms of people many feet away. One tall and broad, the other thin—the elves if she had to guess, but the latter could have been Salma.
It was difficult to tear her gaze away from them, but Joy made herself follow Eilidh around a row of cabinets to where Victoriya was slumped, her hands bound, pale.
She didn’t respond to any attempts to wake her, so the three of them lifted her between them. Joy grunted at Victoriya’s weight, but at least her hands had stopped shaking.
“This way,” Joy whispered.
They managed to get her a few steps before Gus lost his grip with a hissed curse and Victoriya almost slipped from their grasp. If only they’d thought to prepare a spell for this—they could have supported her with a cushion of air. But without a potion, incantation, or tool to guide the witchcraft … raw witchcraft wasnotan option.
Raw magic was seductive; it corrupted and corroded. Anyone who used it ended up manipulated by the power instead of the other way around. Witches had been eaten from the inside out, others melted or turned to stone. Unchecked, the power ran wild and cruel.
Joy took a steadying breath and scraped a plan from the depths of her terrified mind.
“We need to stay low,” she whispered, meeting her friends’ panicked gazes. “Hide behind the cabinets.”
Gus nodded, his shoulders heaving with every breath. “We should stay close to the walls.”
“Guys?” Eilidh whispered. Her eyes were hard as she scanned the rows of filing cabinets around them and then assessed Victoriya’s prone form. Joy had never seen this side of her friend before. “We can’t cast anything when we’re carrying Victoriya. What if…”
What if Katrina found them?
Gus shook his head, looking around for answers.
There was no easy way out, no answers, so Joy said, “We just run. If she finds us, you two take Victoriya and I’ll … I’ll cast something.”
She’d lost the spell sachet, and she wasn’t sure what she had left, but she tried to match the determination in Eilidh’s eyes, tried to feel deserving of the trust in Gus’s.
Beyond them, it was silent. The lack of sound was almost worse than hearing vials smash and Katrina passing judgement. The creaking, rending noise of Peregrine’s magic had gone quiet too. Katrina could beanywhere, but Joy could either allow that to paralyse her or she could get her friend to the clinic.
She had to trust Bo and Peregrine to have Gabi’s back, and had to trust Gabi to protect herself, too.
“Mais?” she whispered.
Maisie made a low sound, her bright eyes fixed on the end of the aisle—empty for now—and her ears swivelling to follow whatever tiny sounds were beyond Joy’s own hearing. “Keep watch.”
Maisie made a sound of agreement, tucking close beside them.
“We run on three,” Gus breathed and counted them down.
One.
Joy was glad he was taking the lead, that he was fighting his fear even though his face paled with every ascending number.
Two.
It was too quiet, her breaths loud in her ears. Where was Katrina? Was she hiding in the shadows, waiting for them to walk into her claws?
Three.
Joy erupted into action, her thighs and arms burning as they bore Victoriya’s weight. She followed the tilt of Victoriya’s body forward and turned it into a run, relieved when Eilidh and Gus caught Victoriya’s falling chest and matched Joy’s speed.
Their footsteps were too loud. Katrina would hear them, find them.
