by Holly Ice
‘Thank you, Ms Nash. Please take your seat. We’ll now hear the opening statements.’
On stiff legs, I left the stand and sat in the defence’s area, a table and two chairs in front of the public pews.
You did well.
I said four words. Still, I smiled.
Julian strode from one side of the courtroom to the other.
So far, so good. I couldn’t see his twitches. Maybe the low light hid them, or maybe the trial ‘performance’ took over, like how some people could sing but talked with a stutter. Long may it continue.
‘Ms Nash is accused of killing Justin Holt, but the evidence against her is slim and subjective. There is no video evidence. Her DNA isn’t at the scene. Neither was her magical signature. And witness accounts are conflicting. I pose that this case is borne largely from the name of her ancestors. Wildes.’
Julian’s arm juddered to the side. I bit my lip, but he quickly got it under control.
‘The first witness I call will be Shane McKee, who will explain Ms Nash’s stranger behaviour. Later you’ll hear from his friend, Cameron Murphy, who will agree with his testimony.’
He raised a finger. ‘The real case against Ms Nash is one of reputation. She is accused of this crime because of her proximity. But it’s also convenient. Who’d question a Wildes?’
He nodded to himself. ‘Ms Nash makes a great scapegoat. But I pose that this trial should be adjourned and the investigation reopened to find Justin Holt’s real killer.’
His cheek twitched, but somehow it added to his argument, like agitation.
Come on, Julian… We’d gone over his opening speech enough times I was mouthing the words with him.
‘Put yourself in her shoes. Do you believe you’d best a highly trained officer of the Wild Magic Containment Force with less than half a term’s magical training? And not a standard officer either. One trained in undercover operations in addition to ordinary duties. Besting a witch like that is asking too much from an untrained nineteen-year-old. Even from the bogeyman that a Wildes has become.’
I blew out my breath and searched the crowd, but my careful study soon turned to a frenzied skim.
One or two witches nodded, but most were dangerously still, staring at Julian as if he’d betrayed the cause.
It didn’t work.
Give it time.
Time wasn’t the issue here.
I looked to the coven. As much as Julian grandstanded to the audience, the coven held my future in their hands. And I couldn’t gauge their reactions past the hoods.
But their archaic uniforms said a lot for them. Rarely worn in recent decades, they’d dusted them off for me. Maybe the guards told them about my nightmares, or maybe they wanted to see me squirm.
Julian took his seat, and the prosecutor stood.
Her blue pantsuit clung to her slim frame, but she filled the room with each sultry step of her clicking heels, the crowd following her every move.
Charismatic, electric, and polished. Everything Julian wasn’t, however hard he tried.
‘We all know what a Wildes means,’ she said. ‘Once, they were the cornerstones of our community. They helped hundreds of us find love, contact loved ones, or navigate business deals and relationships. Until Dougal Aidan Wildes. Whether he went mad from the weight of his gifts, or wilfully eliminated anyone who might challenge him, the threat of a Wildes is clear. They are master manipulators, and when backed by strong spirit ability, they are dangerous. Bianca Nash – Wildes – follows the same pattern. She infiltrated the academy, lied about working for the WMCF, and murdered one of the men trying so hard to keep you all safe.’
My throat tightened at rumbles of assent from the public pews.
I reminded myself we needed to convince the coven, not the public. Though, staring into their shadowed faces, I wasn’t sure that was the easier task.
* * *
The prosecution, the coven, and the defence questioned Shane until he swayed on his feet, but he still came to the meeting room after we’d finished for the day.
I pulled out a chair and tried to push him into it, but he sat on the table instead, stiff and moody, but also sweaty and pale.
This wasn’t right.
I hovered over him until he glared. Then I paced. All the things I thought of to help him relax – taking him to a movie or handcuffing him to a bed for a day – sounded wonderful, but were impossible in here.
‘Shane, you look like shit. Please, will you take a few days off?’
‘I’m fine.’ He stroked my cheek. ‘It’s you I worry about.’
But he wasn’t fine.
I glanced at Julian. He’d put in his headphones and was reading through his notes. I nodded when he glanced up. I appreciated the gesture.
Shane watched me, picking at the already raw skin around his nails.
‘You did everything you could today.’
He grunted, his lip twitching.
‘The prosecutor was always going to twist everything. It’s her job. It’s our job to counteract that, not yours.’
He shook his head but straightened a wee bit. If I kept telling him he did his best, he had to believe it eventually.
‘Is anything else bothering you?’ I asked.
Again, he shook his head, but the thin line to his lips had me wondering. I had no one but him to lean on in here, but he shouldn’t look as bad as I did, even after a hellish day of questioning on the stand.
‘How’s your family?’
‘Uncle Eugene still hates that I’m involved in the trial. He thinks supporting you makes the family look bad.’ He rolled his eyes.
‘What about your dad and the rest of your family?’
‘They’re fine.’
He’d said his brother was flying back for the holidays, but I’d not heard a peep about him since. And they were close. I should have heard something. And they sure as hell wouldn’t be happy seeing him like this. So was he avoiding them?
‘But are they okay with you being here?’
His jaw tensed, and I nodded. That was the issue.
‘They want you to keep your head down?’
That was logical. People were angry he took my side. Now that he’d testified for me, that resentment would grow.
He shouldn’t put himself at any more risk for me, facing the protestors’ anger every time he visited, battling past the jostles and shoves of the public on court days, the only one fighting my corner.
Tears pricked my eyes, a sharpness in my throat. He deserved someone who wouldn’t ruin his chances at a life in his community.
‘If you need to take a step back, that’s okay. I’ll be okay.’
‘Not a chance.’
He said it so quick I couldn’t argue with him. But today was gruelling, and we hadn’t got to the worst part yet.
Julian’s slow post-court dissection of what worked and what didn’t would salt my wounds, but Shane would hear those criticisms for weeks. He’d see them as ways he’d failed me.
From his stiff insistence he was fine and his reluctance to talk, the prosecutor had already got to him. He didn’t need friendly fire, too.
‘You’ve done more than enough for me today. Your family will want to see you. Go home. Maybe talk to your brother? Catch up?’
‘I’d rather be here for you.’
‘We’ll be going over our strategy. Nothing new. You’ve done everything you can. Go get some rest before you keel over.’
I pushed him to the door. The fact he let me showed how tired he was. And when the door shut behind him, I collapsed into the chair, completely spent.
Julian removed his headphones. ‘Ready?’
I blew out my breath. ‘Give me a minute.’
Shane was one scrap of bad news away from falling apart. And I wasn’t far behind him.
* * *
Going over our strategy in minute detail grated at the best of times. After a full day and endless accusations, it was hell. But a warm glow filled me throug
h each leaden step back to my cell. By now, Shane was home with his family and far away from my problems.
‘Hands!’ PE Teacher said.
She checked the security of my magical bonds, then nodded for me to enter my cell.
The familiar smell of bleach and concrete dust wore away the last of my energy.
I fell onto the hard bed, closing my eyes before she finished securing the door.
Within a minute I was drowsy, on the edge of sleep. And then I wasn’t in my cell anymore.
Instead, I was in a dark room with close, damp walls. A heavily pregnant woman dwarfed the small space, sitting on a bed much like the one in my cell.
Even under the muck on her skin and her matted, greasy black hair, she had an ageless quality to her delicate face.
Her wild green eyes stared at me. She looked right into my soul.
‘Help me. Please,’ she rasped. She reached out a hand, as if grasping for mine.
I reached for her but didn’t see my hand. I tried to ask where she was, but no sound came out.
‘Help us.’
The edges of the room darkened and drew in, to the edges of her, obscuring her features until I Saw nothing but darkness.
I jolted upright, breathing heavily. My hands shook.
I gripped the blanket and took long, slow breaths. Was that a dream? I hadn’t smelt or tasted anything, like I had when I Saw the other captive woman when I’d first met Russell. But it seemed just as real. More so, in many ways. More direct.
Bad dream?
I Saw something. Someone.
Lyall waddled around my feet. And your senses? Was it a vision?
I Saw her and heard her. No other senses.
Hmm. Did you touch anyone new today?
No.
I hadn’t been let close enough to anyone to try for a new vision.
It didn’t feel like I was behind someone’s eyes like last time. It felt like I was there myself. At least in spirit. And the woman… She looked directly at me, like she saw me. Saw into me.
Interesting. Lyall turned away, adjusting his wings.
You ken something.
I suspect something.
What?
I need to be sure.
No, you need to tell me. She begged for help, Lyall. And I couldn’t say anything.
I already felt bad enough the WMCF weren’t investigating throwback witch anomalies or the captive woman after Justin’s death. Now I was Seeing a second woman. Was aether telling me, imprisoned or not, I was their only hope?
He stilled. If I tell you what I suspect, you can’t take it to heart. Not yet.
Well?
Was she human?
I frowned. What kind of question was that?
She looked human.
She hadn’t been furry like the barghest, and I hadn’t seen a familiar.
You didn’t see anything unusual?
In that desperate glimpse, I wasn’t sure I’d have noticed much unless it was an extra limb.
What should I be looking for?
An aura or façade. Magic that hides her otherness.
I didn’t think I’d seen anything like that.
What do you think she is?
I think she called you. Summoned you.
I swallowed hard.
How can she do that?
If she’s fae. Specifically, a fae who shares blood with you, however small.
So this woman was connecting to me through my fae side? Witches were mostly human, but we all had a certain amount of fae blood, going back. Of varying bloodlines and more demi-fae than fae after so many years since the fae left the human world. But I never thought someone could talk to me through that faint connection.
Those dusty old textbooks I’d read when I’d searched for my witch family came back to me. Witches with strong visions descended from spirit fae. Our most recent ancestors were likely to be powerful demi-fae, like banshees.
But if she was a banshee, Russell was mad to hold hostage a force of nature like that. Banshees saw into death, into spirit. If she ever got loose and back to her full power, she’d make his life a living hell.
But if she was real, she’d have no reason to call to me. In here, I was almost as bound as she was. So was this vision my guilt talking, or was I her only choice?
Maybe it was just a dream.
I hoped so, because whatever spirit fae she was, if she called to me through my blood, she was powerful.
If I did nothing to help and she escaped… I clenched my hands against the dread prickling my skin. Some spirit fae could predict your every move or manipulate your mind into doing their bidding. They could convince you the ocean was dry land and make you smile while you drowned.
Chapter 3
Guards met me at the door to the meeting room after Julian, Shane, and I finished dissecting Kaylee’s testimony.
I hadn’t met this pair, and their cocky grins drew me up short.
‘Are you taking me to my cell?’ I asked.
They nodded more to Shane than me, with a brief man-to-man stare-off.
Shane squeezed my shoulder and whispered in my ear, ‘See you tomorrow, trouble.’
I leaned back into him, loving how his eyes crinkled with his smile, and wishing I could spend more time with him. Then I waved him off.
Once he’d almost gone, the guards eyed each other, grabbed an arm each hard enough to bruise, then carried me to the stairs, only my toes sweeping the floor.
‘Let me go.’
One of them snickered, and I closed my eyes. They were like Frog Face, taking guard shifts to play with a Wildes.
Julian was long gone, but Shane was still within yelling distance.
I twisted around to see his retreating back, his strong muscles bunched with tension.
But if he knew how bad things were, he’d never rest until I was out of jail, his heart in his mouth the whole time we were apart, wondering what had happened since he last saw me.
My call for help died in my throat. I couldn’t do that to him.
The guards released my arms over the stairs. My feet hit the edge of a step and slid.
I scrambled but couldn’t regain my footing. My heart jumped and I imagined my neck broken at the bottom, but I caught the banister and clung to it, wrenching my arms and slamming my knees into the wall in the process.
I gasped in a breath. I was okay. It was okay.
Lyall squawked and circled the guards’ heads, diving as if to peck out their eyes, but they just laughed.
‘Close one.’
‘Almost had an injury.’
‘Would’ve been a lot of paperwork.’
They snickered, and I bit back a curse.
As much as I wanted to call them out, they’d milk a reaction, and it’d encourage them to do worse.
One slapped my hands off the banister. ‘Why are you not moving? We don’t want to spend time with you.’
I hurried downstairs before they shoved me, hating myself for giving in. For not fighting them or saying anything.
They wanted me to cower and flinch when they yelled or made sudden moves. But these two wouldn’t allow an ounce of rebellion. They had their vision of what I should be and how I should be treated. Like pretty much everyone in this system, they’d swallowed the lies and the history, whole.
But I reached my cell without further incident, and a sigh slipped out.
Damn it. I shouldn’t have done that. I bit my tongue and braced for trouble.
‘Wildes looks happy,’ one said.
The second unhooked his handcuffs. ‘Best be extra sure she doesn’t escape.’
Like that was a possibility in this magical fortress… crap. That glint in the wankstain’s eye wasn’t at all professional, and his buddy was nibbling his lip like he was imagining me naked.
Nope. No. Not happening. They were not cuffing me. I backed right up to the bed and pulled it from the wall, placing it between us.
‘I do love a feisty one.’ He advanced ar
ound the side of the bed.
I flipped the bed into him.
He caught the metal frame but fell with it, smacking his head on the concrete floor.
His partner was on me in a flash, wrestling my hands into his cuffs and tightening them until they pinched my wrists.
I broke free the moment he was done and retreated to the far wall. But neither had eyes for me anymore.
The guy who cuffed me was helping his friend to his feet.
He wasn’t walking straight. He’d need to see a doctor, but at least that kept them out of my cell tonight.
My wrists were already red beneath the metal cuffs, but that was a small price to pay. Shift change was around midnight. The new guard would check on me then and hopefully release my wrists.
* * *
The courtroom was full, a low bumble of conversation among the coven and the crowd pulling at my eyelids, willing me to claw back a few minutes of lost sleep.
I covered my yawn.
Julian scribbled in the margin of his notebook. ‘Night owl?’
‘Bad dreams.’ At least that’s what they were when I finally got to sleep.
The new guard hadn’t bothered to check on me until gone two. Then it took another thirty minutes to get full feeling back in my hands. I’d barely kept the yawns at bay around Shane.
Julian squinted. ’Is there anything else?’
I tugged my sleeves over my hands to hide the raw rings around my wrists. ‘No.’
After Russell’s visit, I’d told him about Frog Face, but crying to my lawyer hadn’t changed anything. Frog Face had been replaced by the latest guards. And they were worse.
‘Well, nightmares are understandable.’
No kidding.
This medieval trial and its overhanging threats could keep dreams and sleep from anyone.
I might lose my familiar, my intentional magic stripped with his loss. I’d never admit it out loud, but living without his sarcasm and unhelpful silences would leave a gaping hole.
And death… I shivered. I’d told Shane and Julian that I didn’t want to ken how the coven would go about that sentence, if it came to it. My imagination was bad enough.
