Chapter 5: Reunion

Vix remained where she was for several seconds, breathing hard, the knuckles of her right hand throbbing. Across from her, the witch lay in the back of the wagon, unmoving.

Slowly, Vix looked down at herself. The red cloth ropes which had been writhing around her moments ago were now lying still.

Vix brushed them aside, feeling half in a dream. If not for the raw indentations where the living ropes had cut into her arms, she would not have believed that any of it had really just happened.

‘Magic.’ Once again, the thought drifted to her mind. Vix put a hand over her mouth shakily. It was the only explanation. She had been attacked, twice, by people who could use magic. It was too impossible to believe.

Vix looked around, desperate to understand. Where was Eva Cassidy? Who was this new magic user who had driven Vix to this wilderness? And, most importantly, what had happened to Caine?

Vix got unsteadily to her feet. ‘Caine, first,’ she thought. The other mysteries could wait. She had to find out if he was safe.

She cast a glance at the unconscious witch laying a few feet away. Vix hesitated. What was she supposed to do with her? If left her alone, she might regain consciousness and escape. Then Vix would lose her only chance to get the answers she needed.

Indecision sunk its roots into Vix. She bit her lip as she tried to think what to do. In the distance, the sun sank all the way below the hilly horizon, plunging the red land into gray gloom. Every second that ticked by stuck into Vix like needles. Her legs burned, as though desperate to be up and running, to be doing something instead of just sitting there, alone in the dark.

A branch suddenly cracked somewhere out in the dark behind her, as loud as a gunshot. Vix whirled around, heart hammering, eyes flicking left and right to find the source of the noise. Footsteps came from the shadows, coming closer.

Vix hauled herself up. “Who’s there?” she called, her heart feeling like it was trying to squirm its way up her throat and out her mouth.

The footsteps stopped abruptly. “Vix?” a deep voice answered back. “Vix?”

Her fear evaporated the moment she heard the voice. “Caine!” she cried. Vix vaulted over the wagon bed just as Caine came running into view, his handsome face pale and drawn. He caught her before she landed and wrapped his arms so tightly around her that she could barely breathe. She hugged him back twice as hard.

“Vix,” he murmured into her hair. “Thank the Ancestors. Oh, thank the blessed Ancestors...”

Vix buried her face in his shoulder, fighting back hot tears before they could form. Relief, sweeter than wine, flowed through her, chasing away the shadows. They remained where they were for several moments, rocking silently in place, neither saying a word. Vix could have stayed there forever.

At last, they broke apart. Caine’s eyes were like two pale lighthouses, shining out from the shadows that fell on his face. “What happened?” he whispered. “When I looked for you at the menagerie, everything was in shambles and you were gone. And people were talking about a witch abducting some girl in plain daylight...”

He stammered himself to silence and shook his head, breathing hard. “I was afraid, Vix.”

Vix’s heart went out to him. She touched his cheek with one hand. “I’m all right,” she assured him softly.

He nodded, seeming overcome for a moment. “What happened?” he asked again.

Vix told him everything that had happened.

“The Al’Vidar,” Caine murmured. “You were right, Vix, I ought to have listened.” He hesitated, his face suddenly agonized. “But why would that Cassidy woman target you, instead of me? I never thought I would be putting you in danger as well by...”

“Stop it,” Vix told him firmly. “I put myself in danger, not you, Caine. I don’t care about the risks so long as we’re together. That always comes first.”

Caine blew out a long sigh. “I know. I’m sorry. But still, what would make the Al’Vidar so interested in you all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know. But there’s something that worries me even more.”

“What?”

Vix glanced back at the wagon. Just out of sight, the nameless witch was still lying there. “When I fought Eva Cassidy, I couldn’t so much as touch her. It was magic, Caine, I’m telling you.”

He shook his head. “It must have been. Just like that orb you used on the Riverman. Ancestors, who would have guessed it?”

“This woman had magic, too,” Vix said, jerking her chin toward the wagon. “But nowhere near as strong, clearly, if even I could overpower her.”

Caine nodded. “Thank goodness that you did.”

“But why?” Vix persisted. “Why would Cassidy have captured me, only to leave me with some subordinate, someone far weaker than her, and totally unguarded?”

She bared her teeth. It felt like there was an itch on the inside of her skull, frustratingly out of reach. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Caine scratched his jaw. “You’re right,” he said. “It is odd.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Perhaps this Cassidy was called away on other business? Maybe she thought that she could leave the rest of your capture to a lackey and left. You said that this other witch was shocked that you had recovered, didn’t you? It sounds to me like some spell didn’t work the way they had planned.”

Vix nodded. “Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?”

“It’s all just too bizarre. Too... convenient.”

“Whatever it is, let’s not knock it. You got away, and that’s what matters.”

Vix attempted to agree. But the words died in her throat. All her questions, those persistent mysteries still scratching away inside her head, would not go away.

Vix could not take it any longer. “Help me to get her out of the wagon,” she said to Caine. She did not even wait for him to respond before jogging over to the wagon bed. She looked inside. Her heart stopped; it looked completely empty.

But then her eyes adjusted to the dark and she saw the huddled shape of the unconscious witch, her dark cloak making her nearly invisible in the cloudy, moonless night. Vix let out a rattling breath. She realized that she had been afraid that the witch had disappeared somehow while she had been distracted.

‘With magic, who knows what she might be able to do?’ Vix thought.

Caine came up on her other side, looking a little bemused. But he did not object. “I only wish we had some rope,” he muttered. “Even witches seem less dangerous when tied up.”

Vix’s eyes wandered to the red strands of clothing still strewn about the wagon bed. “We’ll have to make do.”

A few minutes later, Vix and Caine stood above the witch, who lay in the grass on the side of the road, her ankles and hands bound together. The strips of clothing, no longer magical, were a poor substitute for rope or chains. But Vix had wound the strands together as best as she had been able, and hoped that it would be enough.

“Ah!” Vix gasped suddenly.

Caine started. “What is it?”

“I only just remembered. She spoke some kind of strange words before she used magic.” Vix took one of the discarded pieces of fabric from the ground, balled it up, and crammed it into the unconscious witch’s mouth as securely as she could.

When she straightened, she found Caine staring at her. “Just in case,” she said with a shrug.

Caine nodded and let out a shaky laugh. “Just in case,” he agreed.