Elina

I glanced at him. I wonder how he'd react if I told him the whole truth. Exactly what I did to scare Julia. Would he fear me? Would he try to kill me?

The rain continued to pour. Heavy drops battered the roof, the ground, everything around us. Like the sounds of a thousand pebbles falling, every moment, incessantly.

There was something about sitting together like this. A roof under the rain. You are trapped here, but it wasn't boring like being alone. Time felt different. It's slower, gentler. The clock has gone to sleep with the rest of the world.

I sneezed.

I sniffed and pulled the cape around me. I wonder if this is what it felt like to always have a human body. The cold surreptitiously crawls on your skin, into your body. No magic to warm you.

Salem got up and looked around.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I can't have you catch a cold. We've still got eight days of traveling before we reach Merkelborough."

He pointed at the back of the hut. He said, "There's another room."

He pushed past the shelves and a door in the back creaked open. Then he came back.

Salem said there is a fireplace in the back of the hut. Maybe the private quarters of whoever manned this trading outpost before. There was even some leftover firewood.

He piled a few logs into the fireplace and started a flame using flint stones. His movements were fast and fluid.

I said, "You're surprisingly good at this."

"I camp out more than I sleep in a bed. You learn how to survive outside cities."

"Because you're always hunting witches? To earn money?"

A pause. Then he said, "Yes."

"And your sister, Yulia, is waiting for you at home?"

"Yes."

"Do you miss her?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I never had someone like that in my life. Not really."

He looked at me. I looked at him.

"Do you think of her?" I asked.

"All the time."

"Do you miss her?"

"I do."

I smiled. He didn't have a way with words and sometimes I wondered if he was emotionally stilted, but at least he's honest about his sister.

I breathed out. "And delivering me will get you home to her, hmm?"

He said nothing.

"What does it feel like to travel with a witch?"

He said nothing. Pulled up two chairs and sat down. I did the same.

He looked into the fire, his chin resting on his propped up fist and eventually he said, "I suppose it's nice to travel with someone. I just wish I wouldn't have to worry about my travel companion killing me in my sleep."

"Hmmm? You would rather travel with a human woman? As a lover?"

"Unless she is Julia Abernathy."

"You said Julia Abernathy is a witch."

"Syrus doesn't know that. And that is what matters."

"He probably thinks that he has found the perfect woman. Someone who can literally fight by his side."

"Hmmm..." I stared into the fire. I remembered how she ordered him around. How he wrapped the cape around her. "Maybe he has found the perfect woman. She just happens to be a witch."

Salem said, "I wonder why she hasn't killed him."

I kicked Salem's foot. He gave me a look what said, 'what'.

I said, "She hasn't killed because she must love him."

"And how can you say that with so much confidence?"

"Because she said she could lie to him until the day she dies. Only a woman who is truly in love could act with such resolve."

"A woman or a witch?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"It should."

I shook my head. "Oh Salem, my foolish little hunter."

"What?"

"Witches are women too, hmm? Sooner or later we have to find a lover. Where do you think newborn witches come from?"

A moment of silence. Then Salem's face flushed.

I grinned and laughed. "Did you really think infant witches are delivered by a stork? Or emerge from a cauldron of evil?"

"Uhhh...."

"No, no~ We come into this world pure and true like every other human." I changed my hair and eyes to silver. "We just have a little magic in our blood."

"And that makes all the difference."

"Mh-hmm~"

The fire crackled. The rain drummed.