that’s true, ye’d have undone the curse on him already, and we’d all be free o’ it.”
I shook my head, adding a “tuh” to make it as patronizing as possible. “That’s what I was getting ready to do before you all barged in and started making death threats. Now, I’m not even sure I want to give him this.” I took out the bronze ball and balanced it on my palm. “This is your antidote.”
“More of yer poison, more like,” said the squat man with the anti-chalk-door technology.
I shrugged, determined not to show weakness. “I’m not going to waste my energy trying to convince you that it’s the cure to your problem. Here’s how I see it: you can go ahead and think whatever you want, but if you don’t let me give this to Reid, you’ll keep infecting more of your own kind. More people will die, whether the infection itself kills them or the curse’s effects kills other innocents. I know the extremes of this curse because I saw it kill someone. So, you either trust me and let me break the curse, or you don’t and lots of people will suffer. Seems like a simple choice to me.”
A whisper of suspicion susurrated through the group of witch hunters as they conferred. Some glowered at me, making no attempt to hide their disdain. Just looking at these sour-faced brutes made me want to crush the antidote underfoot, but pettiness wouldn’t win the battle, and my disliking these people didn’t mean that others deserved to suffer.
“I’m sorry, Persephone,” Reid whispered. “I should’ve made sure there weren’t anyone followin’. But I sure ain’t usin’ ye like yer some inanimate bloody object. I know yer a person, and I know yer riskin’ a lot te help. They won’t say it, but I will. I owe ye.”
I looked up at him, meeting his warm eyes. He had Veritas eyes, in the true sense of the Latin word for ‘truth,’ rather than this group of ingrates—they didn’t lie.
The air throbbing with nervous tension, the Veritas clan spread back out into their “V” formation, as though they were flying south for the winter. The ringleader cleared his throat and puffed out his chest—classic defensive behavior, as I’d learned from Hosseini during Monster Training. It wasn’t necessarily what I would’ve expected from someone who claimed he wasn’t afraid of magicals. Rather, it showed that he subconsciously thought that he was the weaker party and needed to make himself appear bigger to compensate.
“Sure, Reid can take that antidote o’ yers. Let’s see what happens.” He smirked. “The way I look at it, if he dies, ye’ve cut our workload in half. If he don’t, then maybe we’ll trust it is what ye say it is.”
It took you that long to come up with that? I turned to Reid. He was the one who’d asked for my help. He was the one who seemed sincere and had those honest eyes. I didn’t owe the other witch hunters anything, except to prevent them from infecting more people. But what if it doesn’t work? The thought came to me, unwelcome. Reid was the first guinea pig, and the stakes of the anti-curse’s success suddenly felt exorbitantly high.
I shook off my doubts, trusting the expertise of the Institute’s staff. “All you have to do is hold this and grip it tight in your hand,” I instructed, passing the hex ball to him. “A needle should pop out and inject liquid into you. It might sting a bit, but it’s nothing to worry about. That’s how the ball works.”
He took the item without a hint of fear. I even checked his eyes, but there was nothing there but trust. Perhaps he had gone over my list of provisos, after all. “Like this?” His hand clenched around the ball and he flinched. “Yeah… I think I feel that needle.”
“You should start to feel the antidote doing its work within a couple of minutes,” I assured him, though I had no clue if that was true.
He nodded, scrunching up his eyes. “Is it meant te feel cold?”
“Uh… yeah,” I fibbed encouragingly.
I waited for the antidote to kick in, observing him closely. Off to my right, I felt the burning stares of the witch hunters, equally invested in what was happening. If I could’ve sank to my knees and prayed for it to work, I would have, but I figured it was best to stay standing with the enemy so close.
At first, nothing seemed