Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,106
body. She hung her head, staring at the floor. “You can’t.”
“What do you mean?” I shifted on the couch, moving to sit on the edge so that I could try to see her expression. “All spells can be fixed or unraveled.”
“You can’t. It’s the nature of this spell. You can only start to unravel it after it’s reached its natural end.”
“Which is?” I prompted when she fell silent.
Sofie sighed and looked up at me. “When they’re all barren. When not one female elf can have a child, then you can start to unwind it. But even then it can only be done slowly, working at the same speed in reverse.”
Shoving off the couch, I paced the living room, moving between the sofa and the kitchen. “You know, if this wasn’t absolutely horrible, I’d say that the spell was brilliant. It sounds impossibly complicated and yet exquisitely elegant. I can’t even begin to figure out how you did it,” I said, half talking to myself. I threw my arms up as I spun to face her. “But what the hell! How am I supposed to fix this?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” I snarled, pacing away again. I didn’t mean to make her feel worse, but I was standing in the same room with the witch who had figured out the most elegant way of killing off an entire race without them realizing that they were being attacked. Neither the queen nor Trixie suspected a spell. They thought their barrenness was a result of something they had done.
“You can think of no way to stop the spell or reverse it?” I demanded, stopping when I was standing in front of her.
“No. I didn’t worry about it because I didn’t think I would ever want to undo the spell.”
“Well, start thinking. We’ve got to figure something out and fast.”
Whatever nervous energy had filled me seconds ago fled my body, leaving me feeling so tired that I was afraid my legs were going to buckle beneath me. Collapsing on the sofa, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I was exhausted in both body and soul. Between my struggles to protect my loved ones, to protect Low Town, and to hide from the Towers, I didn’t think I had it in me to move again even if a warlock suddenly appeared in the room. But I had to move and think and do.
“I’m sorry, Sofie,” I said. Cracking one eye open, I reached for her, holding one hand out toward her. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I’m tired. Every step forward is accompanied by two steps back.”
Sofie stood and walked over to me, rubbing her head against my hand. I scratched behind her ear and along the side of her head until she curled up next to me.
“We’ve changed, haven’t we?” she whispered, sounding as tired as I felt and maybe even a little frightened.
“Yeah,” I agreed with a little laugh. “We’ve changed, but I think for the better.”
“We can’t go back, even if we wanted to.”
My shoulders slumped and I frowned at her words. We can’t go back. What she meant was that even if she resumed her human form, she couldn’t go back because she wasn’t like the witches and warlocks any longer. She valued life. Or rather, she valued the lives of others. Even if the Towers could overlook the fact that she was one of my supporters, they would see this new outlook of hers as a weakness. They’d kill her rather than let her spread the softer mentality that Gideon and his movement were trying to foster.
Until this moment, I think Sofie had always harbored the small hope that she could go back and resume her former life when she became human again. But at some point during her exile, she had changed, and she now had no hope of going home even if she was human.
And that sudden knowledge hurt. I understood that. I hated Simon Thorn and all the other witches and warlocks who tormented me while I was an apprentice. But I loved magic. I loved studying it and using it. I loved getting lost in the enormous old tomes, learning the philosophy and art of what seemed to tingle at my fingertips. I tolerated Simon and the others for as long as I could so I could study, but in the end I had to leave. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t