“You’ve asked for enough,” Cole said.
Amira chuckled. “What is enough? There is never enough.” She spat again into her palm, mixed the sputum with the green potion from the vial, and rubbed it into the duskwyrm’s exhausted body.
The duskwyrm responded on reflex, opening its mouth wider than seemed possible. An amethyst bigger than a baby’s foot spilled from its jaws and landed in Amira’s hand with a slick, wet sound.
Then, before Willow knew what was happening, the wyrm shot forward and clamped his fangs onto Amira’s wrist. There was a sizzling sound, like oil hitting a searing pan, and smokerose from the twin-prong marks of the bite. Amira shrieked and yanked back her hand. The amethyst tumbled and bounced.
“It burns!” she wailed. “It burns—it burns!”
Her eyes went wide and white as cue balls. Fire filled them, dancing in her pupils, and her flesh began to pucker, blistering from the inside out. She howled and clutched at her face, trying to hold it together.
Around her, the air itself formed flames. The flames gathered into the silhouette of a dragon and roared.
The duskwyrm, freed by the dragon’s roar, slithered across the counter, over the edge, and down the side. It slipped into a crack in the floorboards and was gone.
Amira dropped to her knees, her hands curled against her chest. Her skin was shiny and red, and her mouth was stretched into a grimace. Her hair—what was left of it—had gone white at the roots. She shrieked and sobbed and sank to her knees, patting the ground in search of her scattered jewels.
Cole came back to himself with a shake.
“The oath has been fulfilled,” he said in a voice low with horror. He grabbed Willow’s hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Willow looked back only once, going weak in the knees when her initial impression was confirmed. Amira, burned as if from the inside, looked exactly like one of the Blighted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THEY STUMBLED OUT of Amira’s house as if fleeing a crime scene. They turned right and then left, winding their way back down the mountain path. Somewhere, a family was grilling outside, and the scent of fried meat filled Willow’s nose.
Willow lurched to the side of the trail, bent double, and vomited.
Cole was beside her in a heartbeat, pressing his hand to her back.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You’re not,” he replied. “And you shouldn’t be. Why would you be?”
He stayed at her side as they picked their way down the trail, his hand firm at the small of her back. Willow didn’t protest. She still felt shaky, and her mouth tasted like bile. It took her a moment to realize that they were no longer heading toward Ruby and Brooxie’s place. Cole had taken a left when normally they’d have continued straight.
Willow glanced at him. “What’s up?”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Cole said. “Let’s sit. Breathe. What do you say?”
Up ahead was a public rest area with a single picnic table, two single-sex bathrooms that were probably locked, and a vending machine.
Cole fed bills into the machine, and it spat out two icy bottles of Cheerwine.
“Aw,” Willow said. He opened one for her, and she drank from it gratefully.
They sat on top of the picnic table. Behind them was the dense and fragrant forest. Before them, far off, were the soft peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Between them and the far-off mountains was a great stretch of green.
No more burning meat. No goats. No thorns.
Blue jays bickered. Small animals rustled in the underbrush. A white squirrel leaped from one branch to another, the branch bouncing under the squirrel’s weight.
“Cole, look!” Willow said, pointing.
“The squirrel?” he asked.
“Thewhitesquirrel,” Willow clarified.
