Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,87
from being exposed, it didn’t seem like a very wise way to go about it. No, it seemed far more likely that it was retaliation of some kind.
“Then you probably already know who did this to you.” I fought to hide any smidgen of sympathy I might’ve felt for his plight. “I suggest you go through what I’m sure is a list of magicals you’ve been tracking, and circle the one you’ve pissed off the most. That’s where you’ll find your answer, and then you can harass them for a cure instead of me.”
He massaged the back of his neck. “You think I haven’t already tried that? I told you, I’m at a dead end with this. That’s why I’m speakin’ te ye.”
My kidnapper and his witch hunter buddies had done wrong by pursuing magicals, but if a magical had saddled Reid with this curse out of spite, then we weren’t entirely innocent, either. I felt myself wavering, and weirder still, I couldn’t ignore what he’d said earlier, that we were in similar boats. He’d been forced into becoming a dangerous monster the same way I’d been forced into Purging them. Maybe I’d lost the plot, but there was a trickle of sympathy in me that was flowing faster by the minute. Besides, agreeing to help him didn’t mean helping him, per se; more importantly, I would be helping out people who were the subsidiary victims of what had been done to him. That was a far easier pill to swallow… unless I was right about these “innocents” being witch hunters. Still, he’d said they wouldn’t be able to keep it contained forever within the Veritas, and I did not want this curse spreading into the general population. Maybe that was worth helping out the bad guys, for the future sake of the true innocents—the non-magicals who had no idea Chaos and curses existed.
I hesitated, hardly able to believe what I was about to say. “Okay. You’re cursed. I’m cursed. And no, I don’t want a horde of Fear Deargs on the loose, either, bringing death and suffering into the wider world. So, say I did help you—I’d need some assurances first.”
“Like what?” He lifted an eyebrow in suspicion.
“One: if the people who are suffering are witch hunters, you don’t say a word to them about me or anyone else I bring in to figure this out. Come up with an excuse, say you got the cure from a random magical but they escaped afterward, whatever you want. Two: once you’re cured, you don’t come anywhere near this part of the world again. Three: you don’t tell a soul what you saw my friend do to save my other friend. You don’t mention the resurrection, you don’t try to use it for your own ends, you don’t say anything. Four: stop tying me up and kidnapping me to get what you want. Or anyone else, for that matter. From now on, you send word to me in a normal way, and I’ll decide if I want to meet with you. Five: you listen to me and try to educate yourself on magical-kind, and don’t try anything funny. Six: you swallow your pride and learn to respect us and what we do. That means no name calling, and no showing prejudice against us—or else this agreement is off. If you don’t abide by those rules, then I’ll inform my people and have them treat you accordingly. And it won’t go well for you, I can assure you.” I rattled the words out, quickfire, then waited for his response.
I knew the monster hunters wouldn’t actually be able to do much about Reid and his merry men, whoever and wherever they might be, but I needed to make the Institute and its defenses sound formidable. I had to make sure he understood that there were some high stakes in operation here, and if he tried to play me, I’d unleash a horde of ruthless, magical warriors on him and the organization he worked for. He’d used enough intimidation tactics on me; it was time he got a taste of his own medicine.
I didn’t know where I’d even begin, removing a curse like this. It would take some investigating, and trying to convince Nathan and Genie that this was a good idea would probably result in men in white coats running to take me away. But I had the instinctive feeling that helping him would benefit us, if only to stop a bigger, more