“Oh….there was something I wanted to ask you.”
“I gathered that. If it’s about the locket, it’s going to be a no. You can have literally anything else.”
“I can?” she asks in surprise.
“Anything.”
“It’s not that…It’s something they would say behind the Wall. I wouldn’t believe it, especially seeing as the mylings weren’t what I thought they were, but if everything else has turned out to be…right, maybe it does have some merit after all. And with the Bonewalker—and you said it’s not the first time something has tried to eat you—“ Her words come out in a rush, and I still can’t make heads or tails of what she’s trying to ask.
“What are you saying?”
Several beats of silence pass before she asks, “Do you…eat people?”
I bark out a laugh. “What?”
“Behind the Wall, they said witches were known for…eating people and using them in their potions.”
“We don’t eat people.” She lets out a soft sigh in relief. “I suppose it doesn’t come from nothing. Anthropophagic magic is real.” Her body tenses. “But it’s been illegal for several hundred years, and even back then, it was somewhat of a rare thing. EvenIdon’t dabble in that.”
“That’s good,” she murmurs.
“Actually, the only one of us that’s tried to eat anyone here is you.”
She groans and I let out a laugh that seems to soften the edge of the theurgynate’s effects and I note once again how strange it feels to be laughing at all.
When we reach the edge of the Blood Wood at last, I hold out a hand, and she begrudgingly hands the locket off to me so I can toss it. Thankfully, we’re far past the threshold of the Bonewalker’s magic.
“But what if someone else comes here and is affected by the Bonewalker?”
I snort. “No one else is stupid enough to come to the Blood Wood.”
Her hold on me tightens as we near the under city. I tweak my appearance with a glamour, tugging my cloak low over my face and instruct her to do the same. “Tuck your hair in.”
“Why?”
“You have a very defining feature.”
I look back to make sure she’s obeyed before heaving forward. We near Magi in the streets in varying states of the ichor’s affliction. If I weren’t in such a hurry to get her back, I’d take my time going around them. Some are so dosed they lie there in a hazy bliss. I cross the street to avoid one in the throes of withdrawal. Rats scramble around his form, and he grunts and twists feebly to fight them off. She shrinks in closer to me with a sharp breath.
“It’s okay.” My hands tighten reassuringly around her legs. “It’s not real. They’re only a manifestation of his magic.”
“Why is it doing that?” she whispers.
“It’s an after-effect of taking a certain kind of potion.”
“Why do they take it...if it does that?”
“Because it increases their magic, and it feels good.”
She gasps as another man drifting down the street suddenly staggers into us.
“What the fuck, man?” His eyes are rimmed red, and he glares at me like it’s my fault he’s walked into us and starts forward, chest puffed.
“Oh, fuck off,” I snap, throwing up a cloak shield that roughly shoves him back several paces. He lifts his hands in surrender and stumbles off, muttering under his breath. Her arm is wrapped so tightly around my neck that it’s starting to choke me. I tug at her arm to readjust her slightly, and she loosens her grip. “It’s okay.”
“Sorry,” she mutters.
It’s only minutes later when her head drifts down and taps my shoulder. She immediately jerks it back up. “Sorry,” she gasps again.
