I gritted my teeth, feeling the tension well and push down my jaw and hard into my neck.
Jim became silent as he watched me.
I tried to control my breathing in the hope that would help, like a weight lifter exhaling as they picked up a world-record weight. Problem was, that world-record weight was my own measly body.
… But I managed it. Don’t ask me how, because right now it felt as if my muscles and bones had been replaced with badly-set jelly.
I heard Jim let out a relieved breath. “You can do it. Come on.”
I swayed back and forth on my feet, shooting a hand out to the wall beside me. I did a kind of drunk crab walk as I staggered over to it, shoving my sweaty hand against the red paint for support.
“God, what did that asshole do to me?” I managed through gasps.
“The blocking agent is a magical drug used to interfere with your magic. It’s a neuroactive compound made of ground up hearts. It blocks the channels in your brain that can call up magic. It also blocks a lot of motor control, though, leaving you weak and uncoordinated.”
There was only one thing in that sentence that I cared about. I blanched as my free hand hooked into a fist. “Ground up hearts?” I stuttered. “Human hearts?”
“Sometimes,” Jim conceded with a somber look. “But like you said, we don’t have time for this. You’ve got to push past the weakening effects of the blocker and get out of here. Then… just get out of the mansion. Find some way to contact the witches.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said quietly. And yet, though my voice was small, the determination behind it was unshakable.
Jim shook his head. “You’re the one he really wants. Plus, if you get out of here, he won’t have enough hearts to complete the ritual.”
“If he has enough hearts to make this godforsaken blocking compound,” I spat through my teeth, “then don’t you think he can access another witch by tonight?”
Jim didn’t answer, he just paled, his cheeks looking as white as snow compared to the plum-red paint of the walls.
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ve got to get out of here.”
“And I will. But you’ll be coming, too.” I centered myself with one final deep breath. Then I pushed away from the wall. It was absolute murder fighting against the weakness in my limbs. It was pervasive – every part of me nothing more than fatigued muscle and bone.
But that didn’t stop me.
I made my uncoordinated, staggering way across the room, pushing from chair to cabinet to wall as I headed for the spot where the door had disappeared. When I reached it, I turned to Jim. “How do we get it open?”
Jim brought one of his burnt hands up and started counting on it, his badly burnt fingers darting in and out, his dexterity remarkable considering his injuries.
I stood there and watched, fighting against the constant desire to crumple to my knees.
This blocking agent was one of the most awful things I’d ever experienced – which was saying something when you considered I’d been dragged down streets by pixies and kicked about by darklings.
I didn’t make a sound as Jim worked. I just watched.
As his fingers moved in and out, his eyes fluttered closed. He also started speaking differently. His words came out in slurred clumps, and it took me a few seconds to realize that he was speaking with his tongue permanently hooked against the roof of his mouth.
I started to feel a subtle vibration in the air. It felt a little like lightning was getting ready to strike. There was a smell, too, faint at first but growing stronger. It was a weird mix of burnt candle stubs, wet grass clippings, and sulfur.
It was clear Jim was practicing magic, but it was wholly different to the magic I’d seen him conjure in the library. There, he’d thrown around bolts of charged force.
As Jim’s chanting rose and became stronger, I suddenly realized I had no idea what his magic cost him. I could barely remember what had transpired in the elevator at the library, and the fight preceding that was just a foggy clump in my mind.
But all too soon it became abundantly clear what Jim’s magic cost him. He started to bleed. At first, it was just a few flecks filtering down from his nostrils. It dribbled along the side of his cheek, pooled along his jaw, and splashed onto the metal floor of the cage.
Then it started to gush. As his garbled words grew louder and more magic charged through the air, his nose began to bleed as if someone had struck it with a cricket bat.
“Oh my god, Jim – stop. You’re bleeding!”
Jim didn’t stop. His voice simply rose to a half scream as he finished his spell.
There was an almighty click as something opened behind me.
The door.
Jim fell back, banging into the floor of the cage with a rattling thump. By now his face was absolutely covered in blood. It looked as if someone had tried to carve up his cheeks with an ax.
Rather than throw myself through the now open door, I lurched forward.
Though Jim looked terribly weakened, he punched out a hand in a stopping motion and forced himself to open his eyes. “We don’t have much time,” he hissed in the kind of low, quiet voice that wouldn’t be able to carry past this room. “Trust me, a little nose bleed is a lot better than losing my heart to some asshole sorcerer king. Now go, Chi. Find some way out of here.”
I hovered there for several seconds then finally turned with a wince.
