Page 104 of The Witch and His Crow

Like the needle of a compass, I knew she was pointing in the direction to where Arwyn had last stood.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Iwasn’t wrong. Not completely. But as I levelled my gaze, the air seemed to ripple around the person standing between Arwyn and me.

Salem Tanner. The boy whose parents had died as collateral damage the night Witch Hunters killed mine.

I shouldn’t have allowed the relief to disarm me, but it did. After what he’d done to Jordan and the helpless witch during the Culling, I should’ve been more prepared to face him. I expected the sickening horror to follow just by looking at him. But the relief was strange.

Salem stood there, smiling at me, a sick knowing plastered across his face. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even seem to move a muscle. Instead, he just kept still, smiling down at me, waiting patiently for my next move.

‘Is it true?’ I asked as chaos ensued around us. Arwyn was nowhere to be seen. He could’ve been at the pavilion, fighting over weapons, but I didn’t dare look away from Salem to see.

Salem finally moved, proving he wasn’t some elaborate mind game. He nodded. Three drawn out bows of his head.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Jaz shouted, clearly not sorry at all. I refused to look away from Salem, but the promise of dangerwas far too alluring. As I did, I watched as Jaz took her time to prepare another arrow, the whites of her eyes a violent red. ‘Games over, Hector. For both of you, actually.’

Romy stood dumfounded, staring towards Salem like she’d seen a ghost. She was mumbling something under her breath, shaking her head, all without blinking. ‘No. No.No.’

It was brief, but I caught a blur of white hair in the distance, far enough away that I knew it was impossible. Because how could Salem have been in two places at once?

There was a rush of air, and by the time I glanced back. Salem was missing. Like he’d never been there at all. Chaos and confusion blurred into one. The Salem in the distance was fighting his way through the remaining witches with fists bathed in his blue lightning. There was no time to discern how he’d moved so quickly. Not as Jaz loosed the arrow.

Pain lanced across the side of my arm. I clapped a hand to it, feeling broken skin and material alongside the kiss of pain.

‘Oh dear,’ Jaz laughed to herself. ‘I suppose I’ll go again.’

‘Hector!’ Arwyn’s call cut through the bedlam. I risked a glance, to find him holding up a dagger in his hand. The blade was short, perhaps six inches and not that thick. But the hilt was decorative, proving it was not made for fighting.

An athame. A witch’s blade. And Arwyn was offering it to me.

‘It isn’t real,’ Romy mumbled, grasping my arms, putting her back towards Jaz. Her nails sunk into the wound at my arm, making me hiss. Seeing her up close only highlighted just how terrible she looked. But it was through her wide eyes that I could see how broken she was inside. And it was as if she had no concept of what was happening, or the danger behind her. But I did.

‘Whathappenedto you?’ I asked, time seeming to slow.

Romy just gazed deep into my soul, tears pooling in frightened eyes. ‘It isn’t real. Nothing is real.’

Jaz released the next arrow. It cut towards us, fast and sure. I spun Romy around so her back was no longer in the line of sight. Mine was instead. Action came before realisation, but by that point I was helpless to do anything else.

Romy seemed to realise what was happening too. Her fearful gaze hardened to one of fury as she settled her eyes on Jaz. ‘You.’

I pinched my eyes closed, my body tensing as it prepared to feel the arrow pierce my flesh. In the dark of my mind, I was transported to another. Caym stole me into his mind, protecting me from the agony that was to follow. At least that was what I thought.

‘You may be my master, Hector. But even in death, Heather Briar’s commands are far stronger than yours. This is what she asked of me.’

Realisation came thick and fast.

‘Caym!Don’t!’ I bellowed my familiar’s name out across our bond. With my back to Jaz, I couldn’t watch as Caym flew before the arrow. But I saw it through his eyes, swooping down from the red-painted sky, a body peeling back from his shadows with the speed he moved at. Then, I felt it. The thud of the wooden shaft piercing feather and flesh. The blinding pain that overwhelmed my familiar. Then the crashing smash of his body falling to the earth, wings broken.

I tore myself from Romy’s iron grip, ready to do something—anything—to help my familiar. But it was too late. I couldn’t even catch him with my power to lessen the impact of his fall.

Caym laid upon the floor, dark blood soaking the grass, his body twitching as the arrow through his little body kept him forged to the ground like a spike. His wings flapped against the ground, one bent at such an angle I could see his fragile skeleton through patches where his feathers shed.

‘Caym?’ I shouted aloud this time, demanding him to answer me. His presence was weakening, bleeding out quickly as hislifeblood left him. I latched onto him in my mind, the last tether to my mother, and felt him slip through my fingers like sand.

‘Hell wept,’ Jaz barked, not realising the damage she’d done. ‘Whatarethe chances! Lucky number four it is…’

I allowed myself a moment to look away from my familiar. I knew, without the need to see my reflection, that my eyes glowed. My Gift bucked like a wild horse, smashing hooves against the cage that was my flesh. No, not my Gift but the viper that lurked beneath it. Hatred, the need to cause agony and destruction, came so fast it made my head rush.

---