The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(91)

I’ve got four knives left. I hurl them at the rats. And even though it’s dark and still pouring, I manage to hit each one in the eye. Not enough to kill, but enough to slow them down. I snatch the ax from my belt and rush to them as they lie flailing and shrieking on the ground. I get hit several times with their barbed tails, and although the wounds heal instantly, I feel the effect of the poison anyway. It makes me see double. And through the dark and the rain, I can’t tell one rat from another. I follow their shrieks and keep hacking away at them and getting hit with their tails over and over until, finally, they go still.

I collapse on the ground, letting the rain wash over me, shaking and dizzy from the poison. I consider for a moment that the poison may not be real, that it may be part of the illusion. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Because, like any illusion, it’s real enough. And either way, I need to move. If there are more creatures around, they’ll come for the dead rats. Blackwell could never figure out how to feed these things he created, so he simply allowed them to feed on whatever it was we killed. I asked Caleb once what happened to the bodies of the witch hunters who were killed in training, but he said it was better not to know.

Through the rain, I spot the outline of the hedge maze. I don’t want to go there. I’ve been through it once and almost didn’t make it out. But I also know that if I go inside, whatever else is out here won’t follow me. They’re scared of what’s in there, too.

I roll onto my hands and knees and start crawling along the edge of the forest near the trees, where I won’t be so easily spotted. Finally, the tree line ends at a stretch of open ground that leads to the maze on the other side. I huddle there a moment, shivering and soaking wet, my head still swimming. I need to stand. I need to run. I need to make it into that maze before anything else finds me. But I’m so tired. I lie back in the mud and go still, just for a moment, my breath coming in deep, heavy gasps. Close my eyes against the freezing rain that splashes around me.

“Elizabeth.”

When I hear his voice, deep and quiet, I think that’s the poison, too. That it’s worked its way into my head and is making me hear things that aren’t there. But when he says my name again, I sit up so abruptly my head spins. And I see him, standing in the clearing next to the hedge maze.

John.

I get to my feet, stumbling a little.

“You’re hurt,” he says, a frown crossing his face. He sounds so real.

He’s not real.

Is he?

I make my way toward him. As I grow closer, he flinches at the sight of me: tattered trousers, torn shirt, covered in mud and blood and God knows what else. My hair unpinned and falling in tangled knots around my shoulders.

He’s dressed as he was at the masque: white shirt, black pants, black jacket trimmed in red. Tousled hair, hazel eyes that look at me so intently. He looks so real.

He’s not real.

Is he?

“It isn’t really you,” I say. It comes out a whisper. “I know that.”

John—the illusion of John—glances over his shoulder, a brief shadow crossing his face.

“It is,” he says, turning back to me. “It is me. Why would you think it isn’t?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe because it’s raining. I’m soaking wet and you’re completely dry.”

“It was raining, but it stopped.” I look up. Illusion John is right. It has stopped raining. “And I’m not wet because I just got here.”

I brush this off and continue. “Fine, then. I know you aren’t you because you left. Schuyler told me. You’re on a boat with Peter and everyone else, and you’re going home. You left.” I swallow back the lump in my throat.

“I never left.” His voice is as quiet as mine. “You left me, remember? You ran away and I didn’t want you to go. So I came to find you.” He glances behind him again.

Something seems to bother him, this illusion John. He keeps looking over his shoulder as though there’s something there. Something lurking in the shadows, waiting to attack him. I ignore it. It’s not real.

Is it?

“Why would you leave the others to come after me?” My voice rises, angry because I want it to be true, angry because I know it’s not. “Why would you do that?”

He steps toward me. “Don’t you know?”

I shake my head.

He looks at me. Dark eyes, moonlight. “Because I’m in love with you.”

I close my eyes, the fight draining out of me. I’m so tired. Tired of this illusion, tired of the truth, tired of the lies. Blackwell is a wizard. Because I’m in love with you. I don’t want any more. I want to wake up.

I open my eyes. Snatch the last remaining knife from my belt and drive it, hard, into my leg. “Wake up!” I scream, not at John, or his illusion, but at myself.

He’s in my face before I can finish pulling it out. Yanks the knife from my hand, flings it to the ground. Then he’s got both of my hands in both of his, pinning them behind my back. He leans in close. I can feel his breath on my cheek.

“Stop.”

I struggle in his arms. Try to get away before this illusion changes and he disappears or dies or turns into anything but what he is, dark eyes and soft curls and warmth and safety.

But when he pulls me back to him, I let him. And when he dips his head and brushes his lips against mine, I let him do that, too. They’re warm and soft, as I remember. Slowly, he moves his lips from my mouth across my cheek, then to my ear, lingering there. I can feel him and hear him and smell him, and it’s all so real. For a moment I close my eyes and give in to it, in to the shivers and the thrill he gives me, until I hear his hoarse, ragged whisper.