I clenched my fists in my jacket and hunched my shoulders.

“Has anyone found Second Wife yet?”

Croix, calmly sitting in the middle of the square with Thirteenth Wife laid across his lap, was talking to one of the warriors.

The warrior shook her head.

“No. But we found all the children, they went where they were supposed to. We’ve brought them home and they’re in the counsel hut.”

“Good. Someone bring me First Wife and talk to Oel about tracking the trolls. We need to eliminate them before they reach the witch’s coven. You, bring me-”

I listened to the endless stream of orders and watched the constant coming and going.

The chaos that had happened before hadn’t been panic, I realized. Everyone had known exactly what they were supposed to do. Which was probably why there’d been so few casualties.

I twisted and twisted my fingers. Staring straight ahead.

Soon, both First Wife and Second Wife were found and standing with Croix. They each cooed and sadly fingered Thirteenth Wife. Then First Wife took her away from Croix. I slowly stood up and cautiously approached as they quietly discussed what to do with her body.

“She’s been cursed.”

They flinched and looked at me. I stared dully back.

“What’s that, our witch?” Croix stood up. His lap was covered in blood.

I looked away.

“I can sense it from here. He cursed her body. I think- I think it’s a subjugation spell. But he’s dead, so it’s paused. Just paused. It should’ve died with him.” I hunched, uncomfortable with their stares. “You need to burn her. So whoever is still connected to it can’t use it.”

I felt them staring but I couldn’t look at them.

Then First Wife left, approaching a hut that was still on fire. I let the ward spell down, and she tossed Thirteenth Wife in.

Tears fell down my cheeks.

They were so… practical that they didn’t even hesitate. Not even when it meant they couldn’t say goodbye properly.

“Is there anything else we need to know, our witch?”

I wiped my eyes. Goblins didn’t get choked up. I don’t think they can even cry, I’ve never seen it. No matter how sad they got. But I was struggling.

“I don’t know- I don’t know how he accessed Gran’s ward spells. But I don’t think I feel anything else…”

“Will you check?” Croix asked.

I took a deep breath. Good. Something for me to do. I nodded and turned away.

I walked the entire village. Saw everything. I saw when they brought a third body but it was the last one. I wiped tears the whole time, my hands shaking.

I’d never seen anything like this.

Even when I had been the one to… to attack them, I hadn’t hurt anyone. I hadn’t burnt anything down. I just put up the wards and used them to move around in safety.

That man had done everything he could to destroy everything he touched.

He must’ve been feeding on the misery, pain, and death. Otherwise there was no reason to do that.

Finally, I returned to the center. Where Croix and his warriors, including all the males, were talking.

“Good, you’re back.” First Wife turned a glare on me. “We can’t evacuate because of you.”

I stared at her. Flabbergasted. “What?”

First Wife grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me up. Dang! She was at least a foot and a half taller than me. I was barely staying up on my toes.

“We can’t leave until you’ve released us! Do it! Now!”

“I never finished the spell!” I yelled at her. Alarmed. “I don’t have anything on you!”

She shook me and threw me. I thought I was going to have to use the last of my healing potions on a broken arm or something, but someone caught me. I looked up at Croix’s bitter expression.

“Enough, First Wife.”

“But-”

“This is not Aka’s doing. You know that.”

I extracted myself from Croix and held my arms as though I was cold.

“What the heck are you all talking about?!”

They stared at me. Like weirdly shaped trees in the dying firelight.

“The old Mistress left a lot of traces. You re-started the one that kept us prisoner on this mountain.”

I felt my head pounding as Croix stepped closer and put a hand on my head.

“The spell wasn’t finished,” I whispered.

“The transfer wasn’t finished. The spell never died because the transfer was started.”

I dropped to my knees, staring at the ground.

So the reason they hadn’t run away from me ten years ago… was because they couldn’t? And when that witch came… All of Gran’s old spells were being activated? The wards had been stronger than before. The goblins hadn’t gotten very far when they were trying to run…

I felt like my head was going to explode.

“What do I do?”

Croix crouched in front of me and touched my wet cheek.

“Finish the transfer. Then you can drop the spells or hide us. Doesn’t matter which.”

I flinched back in horror.

“But I’d have to kill someone! No!” I covered my head in both hands. “No! I can’t! I can’t!”

“Does it have to be you?”

“What?” I raised my head.

“The witch-” He raised a lip in a snarl. “Is still alive. And deserves his execution.”

He was?!

I looked around to the spot where I’d last seen him. How had he survived Ghana’s fangs? Oh… I thought about some of the nastier spells in Gran’s old books and shuddered.

That man wouldn’t die under natural circumstances. But he was probably in a lot of pain right now.

“Croix-” First Wife hissed, throwing distrustful and… fearful glances at me.

“Aka’s our witch,” he said simply. “Do you have to be the one to kill him?”

I was hyperventilating, my breathing coming in gasps.

“I- I don’t have the cere-ceremonial knife anymore-”

“Do you have to be the one to do it?”

“I just need to activate the knife and the spells. But-”

He stood up and walked away. I stared after him, shivering uncontrollably. Second Wife paused only long enough to give First Wife a helpless look, then she crouched next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

Making First Wife growl and take a few steps back.

When Croix returned, it was with the ceremonial knife.

The one I’d dropped and left here when I realized the full truth about what Gran had wanted me to do.

It took two tries because my native magic was severely depleted, but I activated the spells on the knife. Which automatically activated the spells already lying dormant all over the village.

Then Croix took the knife away to somewhere else.

I didn’t see the intruder witch die.

I did feel the power of the goblins being bound to me like a crack against my spine. I cried out in pain at the unnatural, horrible feeling. I threw up again.

Dang it! Just when everyone was forgetting their original nickname for me. Puke Mouth. Ugh!

The thought made me giggle. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as Croix returned with the bloody knife.

He held it out to me, and I shrank away from it.

“Hmm. Very well.” He wrapped the knife in his cape and held it.

“Now release us!” First Wife bared her fangs at me.

“I- I don’t know how. I’ll have to-”

“Lies!”

“Enough, First Wife. We don’t want that just yet, anyway.”

“What?”

I stared at Croix as he tiredly crouched.

“This gives us a small measure of protection from other witches.”

“But that means we’re stuck here!” she shouted at him. “What if he brought a coven? He sent the child to them! They know we’re here!”

“Which is why we want the protection until we’re ready to run. We’ll remain hidden completely now that all the spells are reactivated.”

I stared at both of them. I felt myself paling.

“What about the baby?”

They looked at me as though they didn’t know what I was talking about. Which was madness because First Wife was just yelling about him.

“Your son. What about your son?”

There was a long, heavy silence. Croix closed his eyes, grief in his features but no tears.

“I… cannot risk the lives of everyone for a single person.”

I felt cold.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand.

He was responsible for all of them. And they’d been nearly destroyed by one witch… twice.

A child witch ten years ago and an adult tonight. People who could kill them, use them, make them bow to their whims… and they’d have no defense at all.

Goblins, unlike humans and other magical creatures, have no immunity whatsoever to a witch’s power. The spells to bind them and harvest them were so simple that even a half trained witch with very little magic could do it.

Going after a witch of the same power level as that man earlier… was suicide for them.

“Maybe you can’t.” I stood up, hugging myself as I looked him in the eye. “But there’s nothing stopping me.”