“My White Witch side?”
“The side of you that is like your mother. Don’t think of her as a White Witch. I don’t. I think of her as a good person and that can’t be said of many White Witches. Can’t be said of many people at all.”
I look at him and see him differently too. Not as a great Black Witch but just as a person. A person whose father was tortured to death; whose mother, Saba, was chased down by Hunters and killed. A man who couldn’t live with the woman he loved and whose son was imprisoned in a cage.
“Don’t you think you could have been good? Under different circumstances, I mean.”
He laughs and says, “The point of being good is doing it when it’s tough, not when it’s easy. Your mother was a good person.”
*
We all go back to base camp together, carrying as much as we can. Blondine is hooded, her hands tied behind her back. Nesbitt stays with her. I stay with Marcus. At the camp Celia takes Blondine and I wonder if she’ll have a cage fixed up for her. But I really don’t care. I’m just glad that Marcus hasn’t killed her.
We’re all starving and I go to the canteen area with the others. It’s already lunchtime and there’s a lot of people getting food. As I get my stew I hear the complaints. The stew is thin. There’s no bread. There’s no fruit. There’s no this. There’s no that.
Nesbitt joins me. He says, “Do they think it’s a holiday camp?”
Gabriel jokes, “If they find out Blondine got the last of the bread there’ll be murder.”
Nesbitt says, “If that’s true I’ll murder her myself.”
I look around and notice that as usual we, the fighters and scouts, are the only mixed group. Everyone else sits in groups of Whites, Blacks, or Half Bloods. I can hear a group of Whites near us talk about “the prisoner”; some want her tried and executed, others just want her executed.
“That girl’s a problem,” says Nesbitt. “And if we get more prisoners then we’ve got even bigger problems. Feeding them, guarding them.” He finishes his stew and says, “Killing them is simpler.”
“I think Celia will question Blondine and then send her back,” says Gabriel.
“What?” Nesbitt and I both stare at him.
“It’s a logical thing to do. As you say, keeping prisoners is a hassle. If she lets them go, the Alliance seems reasonable, and when this is over people will remember that. Forgiveness is important.”
“Being sensible is too. Blondine will have a gun shoved in her hand and be sent off to fight us again,” I say.
Gabriel says, “Will she? I’m not so sure, and Celia knows how the Hunters think as well as anyone. Hunters kill deserters. They hate any sort of betrayal and being captured isn’t far off that: they’re supposed to die fighting for one other. She won’t get a hero’s welcome, that’s for sure. They may even execute her. I imagine Blondine might rather take her chances as a prisoner with us than back with the Hunters.”
It does sound logical the way he says it but I’m not sure Marcus will see it that way.
*
It’s not until that night that I get to see Annalise alone. She always comes to my spot by the tree when she’s finished her chores and we spend the night together.
This time I want to talk. I have to tell her about Kieran; I’ve waited long enough and Annalise needs to know about her brother. But as usual the opening line is the difficult one. She says, “You’re even more silent than usual.”
“I’m thinking.”
“About?”
“How to tell you something. Something serious.”
She sits back.
“I should have told you weeks ago. But I didn’t. I kept putting it off, waiting for the right time and crap like that. But there isn’t ever going to be a right time and so I have to tell you now.”
She’s looking into my face and I keep my eyes on hers when I say, “It’s about Kieran.”
She waits. I think she must already have a good idea what I’m going to say.
“What about Kieran?”
“You remember I told you that I killed a Hunter in Switzerland? There were two of them at Mercury’s cottage while I was waiting for Gabriel. They found my trail. Followed me. They attacked me and Nesbitt. Nesbitt killed one; he was Kieran’s partner.”
Annalise waits.
“The other one was Kieran.”
Annalise looks into my eyes. Hers fill with tears. “You killed him?”
“I should have told you before. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“And are you sorry about Kieran?”
I can’t lie about that so I say nothing.
Annalise gets to her feet and I do as well. I think she’ll leave. I say, “I had the chance to kill him before then but I didn’t. If Kieran and his partner hadn’t hunted me, they’d be alive.”