Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,35

really needed to do more research, whoever you are. But I sensed he wouldn’t listen to a word I said if I tried to tell him that I was a magical dud. He wanted this curse off him, and he was willing to do anything to get the antidote for whatever it was doing to his people. Whoever his people were.

He clicked the lighter and the flame erupted, the yellow glow reflected in his dark eyes. The second he found out I was of no use to him, I’d be toast. And this rotting, abandoned fishery would be the last thing I saw before he made me disappear.

Nine

Nathan

“Where is she?! What happened here?” Genie attempted to get some information out of the pixies, but Cynane and Spartacus couldn’t muster a word. The poor little creatures were terrified beyond reason, shaking so violently they had difficulty sitting still, let alone talking. They had managed to engage their neck muscles and lift their heads, but they were evidently weakened. It was as though something had drained the vitality out of them—I only had to observe their pallid coloring to know that.

“I’ve seen this before, I think,” I said, checking Boudicca over. She appeared to be the calmest of the three, but she was still rattled. She had her knees drawn up to her chin, hiding her head behind them. “Or have I? I’ve certainly read about it.”

Genie glanced up at me with desperate eyes. “What is it? Could it be linked to Persie?”

“It’s on the tip of my tongue.” A frustrated sigh escaped my throat. “I know that I know about this, but I can’t remember where I saw it.”

“Then think harder! Wipe your glasses or something—that always seems to work!” she urged.

I did just that, using the familiar motion to try and focus my mind. But the answer simply would not come. There was nothing more frustrating than knowledge that had grown fuzzy over time, drifting out of reach into the abyss of memory. The human brain was not an infallible piece of technology. Much like a computer, it had a tendency to glitch, and could lose files when you least expected. I had seen and studied a great deal, and, on occasion, the information muddled together in my mind, the neurons of my hippocampus unable to fire fast enough to bring the data I needed.

“I’m sorry, Genie. I… can’t remember.” I hated saying that, especially as I knew it would likely come back to me at the most inopportune time. I would be in the shower tomorrow, or eating breakfast, or drinking coffee, and it would pop into my head as though there had never been an issue.

Cynane managed to break out of her terrified silence for long enough to emit a low, disapproving whistle and mimed, with feeble hands, sawing open her skull and letting her brain fall out. She pretended to scoop it back up as she swayed about on Genie’s palm like a zombie, shaky arms outstretched. I would have to make a note that even when the pixies were at their lowest ebb, they still maintained a propensity for humor.

I gave a resigned sigh. “I do feel a little bit like that, Cynane. Thanks.”

She saluted and sank back against Genie’s hand, pulling up the sleeve of Genie’s sweater to cover her shivering body. Spartacus, clearly envious of the warmth, slithered down to join Cynane in the makeshift blanket. Looking down at Boudicca, I lifted the edge of my T-shirt and wrapped her in it. She burrowed adorably into the fabric and chirped with a little more energy, having a good old sniff of the T-shirt as she cocooned. The pixies were sensitive to smell, and Boudicca always seemed to appreciate my particular scent.

“Can you tell me where Persie is?” I asked Boudicca. I didn’t want to panic too soon, in case there was a reasonable explanation. Perhaps this was an unexpected side effect of Persie’s ability that we hadn’t seen yet. Maybe she’d run off out of guilt, or she’d gone into a Purge and the pixies had been caught in the crosshairs. She could be out there, somewhere, trying to catch up to whatever she’d Purged. I consoled myself with the thought that her absence didn’t necessarily mean something terrible had occurred.

Boudicca gestured again to the gorse bushes.

“Did someone attack her from there?” Genie jumped in, in full-blown detective mode.

Boudicca nodded, wriggling her hands out of my T-shirt. She raised them like menacing claws and