slowly and carefully as she retreated to the door. “Ophelia, honey, I think I know what’s wrong with your magic. There’s nothing actually wrong. It’s just some bad habits. We can fix this. But first you need to calm down and sit for a little while, let Henry take care of you, and then maybe take a nap to recharge.”
“Henry will what? What are you talking about?” I shook my head, trying to wiggle my way around Henry’s bulk so I could get off the bed. “I’ll hurt him or he’ll go crazy. I can’t do this. I need to go…away. Somewhere safe. Somewhere…else.”
I choked on trying to explain I needed to hide somewhere small and dark. It shouldn’t have felt safe, to lock myself in a hole, but the urge to retreat into the smallest possible closet in the house remained.
She lowered her voice and waved away someone on the other side of the door. “He’s protecting you from your magic. Well, he thinks he is. It’s hard to explain. You’ll be fine, just sit back and focus on breathing and…meditate or something.”
“Meditate or something?” I repeated. What the hell was she talking about? “I’m too dangerous! I might catch the house on fire. I can’t stay here, you should kick me out and—”
Henry made a grumbly noise and rested his head on my leg; the massive wolf head felt like it weighed a ton, though it was almost a comfort with the chills racing through me. I didn’t dare touch him as magic crackled through me. But Henry watched me with those golden eyes, unblinking.
Deirdre smiled and retreated another step. “See? It’s going to be fine. I would stay, but Miles is going to murder Nola and I’m needed as a referee. I’ll send Mercy up in a little bit to check on you guys. It’ll all be fine, Ophelia, I promise.”
I wanted to flee. I didn’t trust myself, not when I’d already hurt Henry twice. Maybe three times, if I counted that first night when I zapped him already in his wolf form. A knot formed in my throat as she disappeared and left me alone with the giant wolf who curled up next to me on the bed.
My heart still raced from the unintended magic, but with Henry’s heavy weight pressed against my leg and silence echoing from the rest of the house, it gradually slowed. Deirdre thought she knew how to fix my magic, so maybe there was a silver lining on zapping Henry in front of her. Some of the adrenaline receded and left me cold and shaking.
I curled up on my side in the bed, burying my face in a pillow that smelled like human Henry.
Wolf Henry whined again and flopped closer until he lay pressed against me, and the even rise and fall of his breathing started to work its way through my panic and the clammy feeling of my shirt against my back. I couldn’t look at him, though, too ashamed of what I’d done to him. My voice escaped in a whisper. “I hate it. I hate being…broken like this. I’m sorry I hurt you again.”
He grumbled and rested his chin on my hip, one massive dinner-plate-sized paw nudging against my arm.
The fact that he couldn’t talk but still understood what I said made it easier to keep talking, to confess all those dark secrets. Not that that made it easier to look at him.
I choked on a sharply-drawn breath and turned toward Henry, and my fingers worked into the fur on his chest. I needed something to anchor in the present, to hold against the dark drag of bad memories. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault—if I could control my magic, my parents wouldn’t have had to move so much. And I wouldn’t have driven all those covens to throw me out and send me away, and I wouldn’t have ever gone to Rocko to ask for help. Even when I wanted to escape, when I was so afraid...”
I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face against his side, listening to the steady thump of his heart. “Even when he hurt me and I needed to escape, I couldn’t get my magic to work right. I’m just…worthless. I have one special thing—that damn magic—and it doesn’t work right and causes more trouble than it should and it won’t even save me from being hurt.”
My eyes burned as tears threatened, and even though I fought to keep them