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“Stop it,” Gabi hissed at herself. “Joy didn’t kill the witch and you damn well know it.”
The girl Gabi saw yesterday, shaking from head to toe, whimpering,thatgirl couldn’t hurt a fly.
Gabi didn’t realise she was still expecting to seethatJoy, the crying, shaking one, when she reached the bottom of the slope, peered into the nearest cell, and saw an unmoving ghost.
“Joy?” she breathed before she could remind herself to be professional.
Joy was sitting on a thin mattress, her knees pulled to her chest, her body only moving shallowly with every breath. Her open eyes, familiar chocolate brown, fringed with thick lashes, stared at nothing. Even as Gabi moved closer, her heart kicking into a gallop, Joy’s eyes didn’t track the movement, didn’t focus on anything.
Gabi knelt, dread uncurling from the pit of her stomach. She didn’t care about the dirt staining her trousers or the brackish water soaking the hem of her wool coat. What had they done to Joy? Scenarios flashed through Gabi’s head, the cruelty of magic added to the cruelty of the human mind…
She shuddered as cold raced down her spine—but red hot rage filled her chest, and it took everything in her power not to race back up the stairs and slam her knuckles into Paulina’s smug face.
“Joy,” she whispered, watching her ex-girlfriend so closely. Her head was facing straight forward, her pink hair no longer the gentle, tamed waves it had been yesterday but a ratty, damp mess of strands thanks to water trickling down the wall behind her. She looked empty. Despite how their relationship had ended, despite the fierce ache and the razor-sharp anger Gabi still held onto, she wasterrified. Utterly petrified that Joy had been broken beyond repair—and it was Gabi’s fault. Why hadn’t she fought Paulina more? Yes, she would have failed her trial by pissing off her boss, yes, she would have lost the job she needed to make her mum proud, but those things were trivial compared to seeing Joy like this. Compared to looking into her unseeing eyes and knowing her soul could be gone, she could be breathing but dead—in her mind, in her soul, where it really mattered.
“Joy,” Gabi tried again, wrapping her fingers around the iron bars even as her elf nature flinched.Please, she didn’t say.Please don’t be gone. I need to … there’s so much I should have said yesterday when I had the chance. I need to tell you that I’m sorry, that you were right, it was my fault you lost those last hours with your mum, that you never got the chance to say goodbye.
The cell was small enough that Gabi could reach out, the tips of her fingers brushing the edge of Joy’s knee, and it must have been enough for her to feel it because Joy moved an inch, just a shudder, but it was enough. She was still aware, still in there.
“Joy Mackenzie,” Gabi went on, strength coming to her voice. The cold seeped into her body through her kneeling legs but she didn’t care. “It’s Gabriella Pride. It’s Gabi. Remember? You saw me yesterday; I told you I’d come talk to you. Can you say something, love?”
Joy swallowed; Gabi tracked the movement like it was a miracle. “Gabi,” Joy rasped, and finally,finallyher eyes focussed on something. On the satchel at Gabi’s side, thrown carelessly onto the floor.
“What did they do to you?” Gabi didn’t mean to ask, but now that Joy was coming around, relief was turning to blind fury. She had no right to it, had no claim to Joy, but still it filled her like lava.
Joy opened and closed her pale hand, staring at it. Gabi expected a number of different things to come from Joy’s mouth but not, “She took my wand.”
The world stilled around Gabi for a moment before that rage came rushing back in. Her voice was calm when she asked, “She took your wand?”
Joy nodded, a tear trickling from the corner of her eye.
The one crime you never committed against a witch—especiallyto a fellow witch. And Paulina had taken Joy’s wand. Thatbitch. “Come here,” Gabi murmured. “Let me get a look at you.”
With no reaction and no change in her expression, Joy unfolded herself to her feet. When Gabi stood too, Joy leaned closer. There was a spell around the cell, Gabi could feel it, but she tested its boundaries by putting her hand through the bars again—and as she suspected, Paulina’s foresight was shit, and the spell only forbade anything passingoutof the cell.
“Can you … can you get it back?” Joy asked, her voice so weak, her eyes finally daring to meet Gabi’s. Gabi’s anger lit on fire at the pain she found in Joy’s chocolate eyes, etched into her pleading face.
“I’ll try,” she replied. She cupped Joy’s chin, tilting her face so Gabi could inspect a scrape on her jaw—it looked a few days old, not inflicted by Paulina or her witches—and her eyes—slowly becoming more focussed. Gabi found she couldn’t let go. She’d never wanted to; it wasJoywho hadn’t wanted Gabi. Gabi let her hand fall from Joy’s cheek the moment Joy leaned into the touch, her heart tripping over itself. It had beenyears; she should have beenoverJoy. She was only going to get hurt again if she let herself get carried away.
“I’m sorry,” Gabi said, and wasn’t sure what she was apologising for—for the touch, for not stopping Paulina taking Joy’s wand, for everything.
Joy’s eyes fell shut; she leaned her face against the bars, as close as the spell would let her. It looked like she was breaking. And Gabi knew—she knew without asking, but she had to ask anyway.
“Joy. I’m going to ask you just once, and I need you to look at me.” Joy’s eyes fluttered open; worried, full of bleakness and suffering. Strands of damp pink hair clung to her cheeks, making her face look thinner. “Did you have anything to do with that girl’s death?”
Joy’s eyes widened with surprise, or shock, or something sharper. She stumbled back and in a low, raw voice said, “No. I just … I just found her.”
Gabi nodded, relief easing her tense shoulders. “I had to ask, Joy.”
Joy turned away to face the water trickling down the back of her cell, her shoulders hunched, and her arms wrapped around her middle. “I know. You thought I did it.”
“No.” Gabi waited until Joy turned and held her gaze. “I didn’t. But I had to ask to be completely sure. I can tell when you’re lying, Joy, so—” Too much, too close—too close to acknowledging their history, to admitting that they had friendship and love and grief and rage between them. “I’ll find whoever killed that girl, Joy. You won’t be here forever.”
“Thanks,” Joy rasped, dropping her gaze. It was nothing like the impassioned rant or the bubbly rambling or the bright laugh Gabi heard like an echo from the past.
She had to get out of here, the memories biting deeper. Maybe it was selfish of her to leave when Joy had to stay, but too many ghosts were between them.
Gabi found herself wordless, just watching the rise and fall of Joy’s shoulder blades as she turned to the water again. She was still in her grey faux-fur coat, the fabric matted and soaked, and she was shivering. Gabi frowned, adding another task to her to-do list. When she came tomorrow—because she had to, she couldn’t leave Joy alone down here no matter what had happened between them—she’d have her bag full of water, food, and the biggest, fluffiest blanket she could find.
