I thought I might be ill. “A test subject? For what?”
He leaned away. “That’s all I care to say for now. We’ll summon you when we have a new iteration to try.”
“A new—?” I glanced at the old women working away behind him—his hex makers. And now breakers, apparently. He was going to keep experimenting on me with cures until he found one—or more likely, one wound up killing me.
“Why are you doing this? If you want to kill me, just get it over with now. I’m not coming back down here to be experimented on like a lab rat.”
“Jolene!” Neo hissed.
I darted a quick look at his panicked face. Yeah, probably not the smartest to taunt Ludolf with the option of killing me, but I was furious. I hadn’t consented to being tested on.
Ludolf bristled and somehow seemed to grow taller and wider. He loomed over me, face red and blotchy. “You will do exactly as I say!”
I recoiled, pressing against the wall.
Spit flew from his pale, thin lips. “I am the law! If you don’t obey, you will suffer, as will everyone you care about!”
I trembled.
“I will summon you.” He softened his tone to deadly quiet and adjusted his tie. “And you will come, Jolene.”
34
TOGETHER
I barely slept, despite how exhausted I was. I woke in the late evening and lay in bed, ruminating on my shipwreck of a life until the sun set. I dragged myself up, ate the last of the cheese crackers in my cupboard, then dashed down to Will’s clinic.
Heidi opened the door and stuck her head outside as I slipped in.
She peered up at the dark sky. “Ew. It’s gross out.”
A steady rain pattered the roof. I glanced around at the lobby and gave a half-hearted wave to Will. He sat slumped in a chair, golden chests littered around the room, a pile of empty glass vials on the coffee table in the middle.
If I’d come here looking for a pick-me-up, I had a feeling I was out of luck. I fished out a clean rag from the cupboard behind the front desk and wiped off my wet face, then tousled my damp hair.
“What are you—erp—up to?” Heidi hiccupped and swayed on her feet, her eyes unfocused and glassy.
Ah. That made sense with all the empty vials. I came around the tall front desk and leaned my back against it. “How many of those potions have you guys had?”
Heidi lifted a half-empty vial of pink liquid and downed the rest of it in one shot. She tossed the vial over her shoulder and it clinked to the floor, then rolled around the linoleum until it stopped under one of the chairs.
Will shrugged. “Who cares, sister? We have like a thousand of them, and they’re all worthless.” He grabbed a folded-up newspaper and held it out to me. I reached over and opened The Conch.
The front page read “Potent Potions or Deadly Draughts?” A magically moving photograph of Pearl Litt being hauled off by the police, soaking wet, took up half of it. I skimmed the first few lines, then handed it back to Will.
“You don’t look surprised.”
I shrugged. “Who do you think helped drag her out of the ocean?”
Will chuckled, but Heidi’s eyes grew wide, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth as she hiccupped again. “Wow—hic—way to go, Jolene! We should—hic—celebrate.”
She fished a green vial out of the nearest golden chest and held it up to me. “Ooh. This one’s pretty. Want it?”
I shrugged. “It might turn me into a lizard, but at this point….”
She giggled as she stumbled over and handed it to me. I eyed the swirling green liquid inside. “What’s this one do?”
“Mm.” Heidi pulled a glossy pamphlet out of her pocket and ran a finger with a painted gold nail down the page. “Ah! Says it’s calming.”
I popped the cork off with my thumb. “Beautiful. Cheers.” I downed the liquid. I grimaced—it burned my throat on the way down and warmed my stomach. “Is it supposed to burn?”
“Who knows?” Will threw his head back and cackled, and Heidi, between hiccups, giggled along.
I shook my head at them. “You guys are toasted on potions.”
“Catch up!” Will chucked a vial at me. It flew past, hit the wall behind me and shattered. The potion foamed and burned a divot in the linoleum.
I curled my lip. “Snakes!”
Will slumped lower in his chair. “Sorry.”
I shot him a half-hearted grin. “We spoke with Madeline L’Orange, the reporter, not long before we arrested Pearl Litt. Sorry her exposé hurt your chances of selling this stuff.”
Will barked out a humorless laugh. “We got caught and cleaned, lady. We weren’t going to have a fireball’s chance in the sea.”
Heidi nodded. “Duped.” She let out a wistful sigh. “I’ll probably never move out of my parents’ house. They’ll be doing my laundry and cooking my dinners till I’m eighty.”
Will and I exchanged looks. Didn’t sound so bad.
He rolled his enormous eyes. “Yeah, well I’m a—” He sniffed. “Mature man, shall we say, barely eking out a living, and I just lost what little I had saved on tiny amounts of worthless liquid.”
I slumped into a chair next to Will and leaned my head against his beefy shoulder. “Well, if it makes you two feel any better, Ludolf summoned me again last night.”
Will stiffened.
“And he decided it was cool to test potions on me against my will, so there’s that.” My chest grew tight as I stared, unfocused, at the coffee table littered with vials of potions and old magazines.
Heidi gasped.
“Um.” Will leaned away and grabbed me by the shoulders, searching my face. “Are you serious? That’s messed-up, Jolene.”
I sniffed. “He’s ‘the law,’ so I guess I have no choice.” I shrugged it off, but it felt nice to have friends who could at least sympathize with me.
I
