Once I was alone, I took a vial from my kit, unstoppered it, and sprinkled its contents on the rocks while I hummed a low song of mourning to cleanse the residual negative energies of the space. The running water would help the process along, but I didn’t want to risk another dryad incident from contaminating the area.
The whole process took maybe fifteen minutes, and it left me winded from the effort. Sweat ran into my eyes and glued my shirt to my spine. The others might think I had decided to go for a swim at this rate. It was one thing to go into this knowing I was less than I once was, but another to experience the shortfall.
“Are you finished?”
I didn’t startle at the voice. I was too tired for that. I think, maybe, I had expected to hear it.
“Yes,” I panted, sloshing toward Asa where he stood on the shore. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Ask,” he said, which guaranteed he would listen but didn’t promise me an answer.
How very fae of him.
“The junior agents were huddled together as far from the scene as they could get.” I hated to show what I considered weakness in that I had been clueless about the problem. “The scene was picturesque, if you didn’t know what you were looking at, so why the revulsion?”
A softening in his expression warned me I wouldn’t like what he had to say, but I needed to hear it.
“The black magic made them ill, mentally and physically.” He hesitated. “You didn’t notice?”
“No.” It sucked having my suspicions confirmed. “Not until I began the counterspell.”
The strands clung to my skin, tacky like cobwebs, rather than sliding off as they had back when I radiated the same negative energy. Then I had repelled black magic. Now it appeared I was vulnerable, to a degree, but not precisely sensitive to it. I had spent too long mired in darkness for it to register, and that was a dangerous liability to discover on my first day back.
The dryad must have been right about me. I still reeked of black magic. I should have known when Marty minded his manners instead of calling me out in front of everyone on my change in diet, and in power.
“How good is your poker face?” I watched for his reaction. “Did it bother you?”
“I was aware of it.” He helped me up onto the bank. “It reminds me of home.”
“You were raised…?” I checked behind us once more. “Or is that too personal?”
“I was raised by my fae mother.” He started walking. “After my daemon father raped her.”
The taste of foot soured my mouth as I fell in step with him. “I’m sorry.”
“That he abused her or that she kept me?”
This conversation had taken a nosedive, and I lacked the skills to right its trajectory.
“That was rude of me,” he said softly. “You’ve never treated me…”
…like a monster.
“I get it.” I pushed out a sigh as we started to climb up to the SUV. “I didn’t know how to act today. Aloof and all-powerful or polite and reasonably sure I wouldn’t blow us all up unraveling that spell.”
He made a thoughtful sound low in his throat.
“I’m safer if the others think I’m still a badass, but I’m not.”
Though my actions would out me eventually, I considered cultivating my stink by wearing a few charms.
“You chose a path few witches in your position would have dared. Fewer still would be walking it ten or more years later with no signs of withdrawal.” He used a sapling to haul himself up the last few feet. “Be proud of who you’ve chosen to be. Not many people embrace change even after they acknowledge their wrongdoing.”
“Change is hard,” I confessed. “I almost caved, with the dryad.”
“I shouldn’t have tempted you.” He hesitated. “The daemon form you’ve seen is me at my most primal.” He helped me up to level ground. “We’re not separate, exactly, but we’re not the same either.”
“I wondered.”