Wild is the Witch (56)

But this single curse is pulling on all the threads of my life, and at any moment, the entire thing will unravel.

I look through my pack and grab the first aid kit, rifling through the pockets, Band-Aids and disinfectant wipes spilling onto the ground as I do. I don’t even know what I’m looking for—MacGuffin needs to be on the steel table back at the refuge, with sanitized instruments and Mom’s steady hands. He needs magic and medicine, and there is only one of those things here.

Wind moves through the branches, picking up pine needles and tossing them into my hair. My pants are soaked through from sitting on the wet ground, and my chest is aching with the familiar pain of dread. There is no way the owl will survive the trek off the mountain; I have to act now, in the middle of the forest, and hope that I can heal him enough to get us more time.

I shove my hands through my hair and try to calm my racing heart. MacGuffin looks up at me, catching my gaze. His wound is still bleeding, leaving bright red streaks along the dirty white towel, and even though his eyes are steady, his breathing is not.

I need to know what I’m dealing with. Maybe his injury isn’t as bad as it looks, and if I can use just enough magic to make him stable, maybe we can get him back to the refuge. I think of my binding herbs, floating somewhere down the river, completely out of reach. I don’t have the tools I need to undo the curse, and if he dies before I can figure it out, that’s it. All of this will have been for nothing. My only choice is to try to heal him now so he’s alive later.

Fog rolls in through the forest, and I can no longer see the treetops moving back and forth or the gray sky peeking through the canopy. It brings with it a welcome chill, cooling my skin and making it easier to breathe. I turn around and look behind my shoulder, the tower of smoke still rising up, a single tree completely overwhelmed by magic.

That’s what happens when there’s a rush of it, too much all at once. It’s what happened to Alex, and it’s what could happen—I force myself to end the thought before it shines too bright a light on what’s at stake.

I close my eyes and connect to my sense, all the magic in the area making itself known to me. I force myself to ignore that Pike is close by and Cassandra is somewhere on this mountain, and how this could be one of the last times I ever use my sense.

I force it all out until all that’s left is me and my magic.

I marvel at the way it feels to have this kind of connection to the world around me, what it’s like being one of the few people who can experience the universe in all its splendor. Magic has been here from the beginning of time, and I get to call it and direct it and feel the energy of the stars from which it came.

I am infinite because of it.

Magic assembles all around me, heating my skin and crackling against me, my own perfect security blanket. I reach for the owl and send magic rushing into him, feeling his unsteady heartbeat and too-shallow breaths. I inhale sharply when I feel the pain he’s in, this deep ache that reaches to his very core.

My eyes snap open and I look at him. He’s watching me, and yet he looks as calm as he has this whole time, refusing to let me see his pain.

But there’s so much of it.

And that’s when I realize he’s been doing his very best to skirt death, staying alive solely so I could find him. Maybe he regrets stealing my curse as much as I regret casting it, forcing himself to survive just long enough for me to make this right, like we’re in it together.

I close my eyes again and send a stream of magic to his system, wrapping his nerves in thousands of particles that absorb his pain. He breathes out, and a small whistle follows his breath, as if he’s sighing in relief.

“That’s it,” I say, giving him as much magic as I can. “You’re okay.”

He’s still bleeding, though, and I have to find the source if I want to get him back to the refuge alive. Magic scours his system, but there’s so much blood I can’t tell where it’s coming from.

“We have to clean you up a bit,” I say, grabbing my water bottle from a side pocket. I remove the towel from around MacGuffin so I don’t drench it, then I pour water over his wound. Red liquid runs from his feathers and into the earth.

He looks so fragile, and my eyes burn. I swallow hard and my throat aches with the effort, but the owl stays calm, letting me clean him up as best I can. Once I’ve rinsed him off, I replace the towel and grab some gauze from my first aid kit. I gently press it into the wound, soaking up as much blood as possible, then set it aside and try again.

Magic rushes back to the owl, and I close my eyes and send it searching for the source of his bleeding. Soon, hundreds of particles cluster around a nick in an artery, and I breathe out in relief. I found it. I cover the cut in thousands of flecks, magic reinforcing the artery and stopping the bleeding until we can get him to the refuge.

I lean on my heels and push back my hair, exhaling heavy and slow. Maybe I can get him off this mountain after all.

Then all at once, the gauze in his wound turns from white to red, and I know it wasn’t enough. I bend over him and send more magic into the area, but the cut is too severe. Magic can only do so much, and MacGuffin needs more than what I can give him.

He needs more.

“Iris!” Pike calls, and I feel like my heart will beat right out of my chest. It’s going so fast.

“Over here!”

I stand up and pace around the owl, waiting for Pike. Trying to figure out what to say to him, but none of the words are right. The curse I wrote is meant for a human, and since I’m not a Stellar, I don’t know how powerful it will be. If I can get Pike off this mountain and far away before the curse is unleashed, maybe it won’t be powerful enough to reach him. Maybe it will die out in these hundred-year-old trees and never find him.