Page 83 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

Faye stepped back, her hands dropping to her side as she suddenly looked sheepish. “Just a calming spell. It’s one of the first things I learned.”

I licked my lips, feeling the rough texture of them. “You’re the witch, then. The one he talked about.”

“I am.”

“Which means you’re the one who stopped us from leaving? Pick a side, bitch. You can’t say you tried to save me then ruin my chances to escape.”

Her curls shook as she made her way into the room, moving to lean against the bed. “I know you don’t get it yet, but I don’t have that choice, and neither do you.”

“Fuck you.”

Faye shrugged, unphased by my rapidly returning anxiety. “All I’m saying is that we are stuck here together. The very least we can do is help each other out a little.”

“Are you going to help me get Nephesh out of here?”

Faye sighed. “I can’t do that.”

“Then we are not going to be friends, or whatever you think this is.”

“Pity. We are two of the only witch genetics strong enough to actually manifest our own magic. We could work together. We could learn together.”

“To work for the bad guy? No thanks. I’ll keep my shoddy low-paying job way before I’d ever work for someone like the Drude.”

Faye scooted back onto her bed, crossing her legs at the ankles and picking up a book that had been at her bedside. “Your choice, Justine.”

I stared at her, suddenly wishing she’d try harder to convert me or even talk to me. Because I needed to fight with someone more than I needed my next breath. Turning to the door, I leaned my forehead against the cool wood grain and focused deep inside. Where the bond with Nephesh usually hummed with a soft, low note of awareness, there was nothing but a cool brush, like a cloud covering the sun in the heat of summer.

More tears bloomed.

He was still here. But our bond was sealed off. And I knew that could mean only two things. Either I had severed our bond for real, or he had sealed it off from me on his end.

My mind could only imagine what might be happening to him. All because I’d wanted to save two people who didn’t want to be saved.

I had doomed us all.

I shifted, letting my shoulder hit the door as I slowly sank to the floor. “When do they come in to feed you?”

“Feed me? I walk down to dinner like everyone else.”

I swallowed, my throat thick. “Good. I’ll come with you.”

Faye nodded, her eyes not even leaving her book as I settled in against the wall and tried to think of any way possible that I could get us out of the mess that I made.

***

Later, when I was sitting in a small cafeteria staring around the room, it was the most surreal thing I’d ever been in. The soldiers from earlier were sprinkled around. Some were eating and obviously off shift, based on the loosened collars and relaxed posture, while others were still stationed about the room, looking war ready.

“This is really weird.”

“It’s not so bad. Just pick off the green bits. I never figured out what they were.”

I groaned, turning to face my roommate. “It feels like the first day of school or something and no one likes me.”

Faye shrugged. “I grew up here. It feels exactly as it has my entire life.”

That quieted me down. I looked down at the pasta on my plate, poking at it with a fork as I considered the young woman sitting next to me. “You’ve really never known anything else?”

“Nope. My first teacher…. They thought that I was around four when I came here. But I was already in the foster care system when they found me. It was too easy for them to set up some memory blockers and move me into their group.”