Thirty minutes later, Bryce was sitting up, Hunt’s arm and wing around her, both of them watching as the witch’s glowing, pale magic wrapped around the puddle of venom in the vial and warped it into a thin thread.

“You’ll forgive me if my method of antidote testing fails to qualify as a proper medical experiment,” she declared as she walked over to where an ordinary white pill sat in a clear plastic box. Lifting the lid, she dropped the thread of venom in. It fluttered like a ribbon, hovering above the pill before the witch shut the lid again. “What is being used on the street is a much more potent version of this,” she said, “but I want to see if this amount of my healing magic, holding the venom in place and merging with it, will do the trick against the synth.”

The witch carefully let the thread of the magic-infused venom alight on the tablet. It vanished within a blink, sucked into the pill. But the witch’s face remained bunched in concentration. As if focused on whatever was happening within the pill.

Bryce asked, “So your magic is currently stabilizing the venom in that tablet? Making it stop the synth?”

“Essentially,” the witch said distantly, still focused on the pill. “It takes most of my concentration to keep it stable long enough to halt the synth. Which is why I’d like to find a way to remove myself from the equation—so it can be used by anyone, even without me.”

Bryce fell silent after that, letting the witch work in peace.

Nothing happened. The pill merely sat there.

One minute passed. Two. And just as it was nearing three minutes—

The pill turned gray. And then dissolved into nothing but minuscule particles that then faded away, too. Until there was nothing left.

Hunt said into the silence, “It worked?”

The witch blinked at the now-empty box. “It would appear so.” She turned to Bryce, sweat gleaming on her brow. “I’d like to continue testing this, and try to find some way for the antidote to work without my magic stabilizing the venom. I can send over a vial for you when I’m finished, though, if you’d like. Some people want to keep such reminders of their struggles.”

Bryce nodded blankly. And realized she had absolutely no idea what to do next.

Chapter Sixty-Two

62

Jesiba hadn’t seemed to care when Bryce explained that she needed the rest of the day off. She’d just demanded that Bryce be in first thing tomorrow or be turned into a donkey.

Hunt flew her home from the medwitch’s office, going so far as to carry her down the stairs from the roof of the apartment building and through her door. He deposited her on the couch, where he insisted she stay for the remainder of the day, curled up beside him, snuggled into his warmth.