Her eyes looked directly into mine, and I understood the weight behind the question. This was the moment when I had to decide whether or not there was a chance that Kirsten was involved in this mess somehow. If she were on the bad guys’ team, she couldn’t hit either of us with a spell, not while Eli was close to me, but she could do any number of other things—lie about the cuffs’ origins, pull out a gun and shoot us, call some co–bad guys to come kill us. If I said Eli would come with me, it was leaving us vulnerable. But if I left Eli with Kirsten, it was like saying that I didn’t trust her, that I thought she was involved. Kirsten would not take that lightly, and she would not forget it.
I hate Old World politics, but I depend on them for my livelihood, so either way, the wrong choice could be terrible. I thought about the crime, about the violence and the use of a null, and I made my decision. “He’ll come outside with me, thank you. We’ll just wait on the porch.”
She nodded as if nothing had happened and started to set out her spell things, which were still mystifying to me. In an effort to curb my ignorance, Kirsten once spent a whole afternoon talking to me about contagion magic and sympathetic magics and hermeticism, and we both finally had to conclude that I have absolutely no aptitude for understanding even the most basic witchcraft. Which makes sense, I guess, since nulls couldn’t perform a spell if the Fantasia sorcerer himself jumped out of the TV and begged.
Eli and I declined her offer of soft drinks and trooped out to the porch. The only place to sit was the blue porch swing, so there was an awkward moment while I faked like I wanted to stand up, leaning against the side of the house. Eli rolled his eyes and sprawled out on the swing. “She’s not what I expected,” he said finally. “She’s so...”
“Wholesome?”
“Yeah, I guess. I was picturing like a hippie with dreadlocks, or maybe a goth girl with Wiccan tattoos or something.”
“I did, too, the first time I met her,” I admitted. “She’s probably the most powerful witch in the city, but she looks like, I don’t know, the exasperated wife on a sitcom.” I bit my lip.
Eli looked closely at my face. “Witches scare you a little, huh?”
I shrugged. “Kind of. I guess....Vampires I get, and werewolves. It’s transformative magic, it’s like a spell that changes you down to your cells, and it’s permanent. Okay. But witches, they’re human, with all the responsibilities of human society, but they have these powers at the same time. When a witch performs a spell in your presence, you’re basically trusting that they’re not willing your ears to fall off or your lungs to implode. It’s a leap of faith, for most people, to even know a witch. It’s not that I’m worried about my safety...But if I were human, I would be.”
“What exactly is she doing in there?”
“A variation of a tracking spell. Sort of an origin spell, I guess.”
He waved his hand impatiently. “No, I mean what exactly does that entail?”
“Uh, the only thing I really understand about it is that a witch doesn’t actually create the magic. She pulls it out of the air, out of the energy in the world. The different ingredients in a specific order—the actual spells—they help direct or guide the magic to do what she wants it to.”
“So when you’re close to witches, it’s pretty much the same thing as when you’re close to us, right? They become human within your range?”
I nodded.
“But there used to be other things, too, right? Elves and fairies and crap like that? What happens when you get close to them?” I looked at him for a beat, and he shrugged defensively. “Shut up. I know things.”
I was swaying on my feet, still exhausted, so I finally gave in and perched next to him on the swing. He moved over to make room, and I tried to relax. “I’ve heard about them, from Olivia.” Her name tasted bad in my mouth. “As far as I know, those things were spirits of magic, the Original beings, and they all died out when conduits—your ancestors—evolved.”
I looked over at him, and was surprised at the look on his face. It was...sad and far away, and I could guess what he was thinking about. “Eli...How did you change?”
This was a very personal question, like asking how someone lost their virginity, only bigger, and I regretted it right away. But Eli answered me.
“I was a paramedic, in New York,” he said matter-of-factly. “I grew up in Manhattan, my mom and dad were there, and I...I was at the Twin Towers when they fell. I was working to free this woman. She was maybe forty, and she was trapped under a concrete post. She couldn’t get an angle to get out, so I was trying to clear some debris. I knew that I wasn’t strong enough, and my radio was dead, but I couldn’t just walk away. Then the floor above us came down.” His fingers tightened on the porch swing, and as I watched, his face just shut down. He was remembering. “A steel rod pierced me in my torso, and I was dying, right there next to this lady. The collapse had moved the concrete post, though, and she’d actually wriggled out, even with all the crap on top of us. I couldn’t believe her strength.”
I understood. “She was a werewolf.”
“Yes. She felt bad for me, I guess. She bit me, on the shoulder, and pulled out the steel rod, and she left me. I never saw her again.” He sat up suddenly in his chair, shrugging. “That’s about it.”
But it wasn’t. It takes about two days to turn into a werewolf—two days of agony. “How long were you trapped, Eli?”