Lenesa slunk lower in the copper tub, accidentally inhaling the large pink bubbles on the surface of the water in the process. She scrambled to sit back up, sputtering and coughing while wiping hastily at her face. The bathroom air was chilly on her damp skin despite the steam that rose from the tub and coated the windowpanes, but Lenesa hardly took notice. She was much too focused on what to do about the spellbound hunter in her home.

She wanted to let him return to the city. But no matter which way she thought about it, sending Theiden back could only result in trouble.

The witch took a bar of soap and began scrubbing an arm absentmindedly. She had cursed the hunter with a binding spell out of a mix of being furiously angry with him and frightened for his life on his own so deep in the forest. But then, there was also the matter of her own situation. The black threads that stained her skin were starting to appear more frequently, and it worried her. She had tried everything, from runes to herbs, but nothing had improved her condition.

Admittedly, her decision to take the hunter with her had been a bit impulsive, but she couldn't have just left him—in all likelihood, he would have ended up like the girl, Helaine. Dead.

Lenesa switched hands with the soap and began lathering her other side. Now, it was too late to send Theiden back. He knew where she lived, and even if he didn't have the capabilities to kill her yet—he could go straight to the witch hunters in the city, who did.

No, sending Theiden back would certainly not do.

Yet, if she couldn't keep him, but couldn't send him away, either, what other choice did she have?

You could tell the truth.

The thought slipped into her head with all the feel of a silk ribbon—soft, but strong. It twisted itself around her mind and tied itself firmly in place, refusing to budge no matter how much she tried to think of a different option.

"I can't!" Lenesa hissed, forcefully splashing off the soapsuds and climbing out of the tub, as if she could put physical distance between herself and the idea. Trusting Theiden with such a thing, and laying out her secrets for him to see—it terrified her. But the longer she thought about it, there was no other way. She had to do this, to try to make him see her side of things.

"Fine, then," she muttered, pulling open the bathroom door with a sudden, harsh yank. Steam roiled in the air and flooded out the door and down the hall to the main area of the cottage, where Theiden was sitting on a dining chair that had wandered near the hearth. The hunter looked up at her entrance and froze, wide-eyed.

Lenesa frowned. She had put on a perfectly decent gray robe, yet he acted as though she had on no clothes at all. Was the towel on her head slipping? Why was he staring like that?

In the next moment, Theiden had cleared his throat and quickly turned back to the book in his hand. Reluctantly, Lenesa approached him.

"Theiden," she began, slowly.

"Leave me alone."

Lenesa flinched, but continued anyway. "I need to tell you something."

He shifted on the chair away from her. "Go away."

Lenesa crossed her arms. "If you can't stand to look at me, at least listen." It wasn't like he could really run off anywhere—it was still raining outside, and her cottage wasn't that big. He would have to hear her out, sooner or later.

Theiden closed the book with a brisk thud and looked up to face her. "What?" he snarled.

Lenesa sat down in the wingback armchair across from him with a sigh. "You have questions," she said. "I'm here to answer them."

Theiden's glare turned suspicious. "Truly?"

Lenesa nodded, looking down and tracing the designs of the armchair's upholstery with a finger. The stitching of a flower twitched under her touch, and an embroidered leaf broke away from the stem to drift off across the armrest on an invisible breeze.

"Well," Theiden said, "I suppose you could start with explaining what happened to Helaine. Who exactly killed her? Why? And what did you and Kivirra do to her?"

Lenesa cringed at the memory of the dead girl in the forest. "I tried explaining, earlier," she began. "The combination of fear and hatred combined is deadly to anyone. But here in the mountains, it especially weakens us, and can spread as easily as a cold. My magic and Kivirra's are just as susceptible. We had to send her spirit away and give her a proper burial, before the corruption sets in."

"Corruption? What kind of answer is that?" Theiden snapped. His book slipped off his lap and landed on the floor, ignored.

"Hateful acts will taint our magic, Theiden," Lenesa said, willing him to understand. "Those acts are born of desperation, and if we lose all hope and continue down that path, the pain will turn us mad."

Theiden did not look convinced. "How?"

"That night outside the city, when you followed after me," Lenesa began, "you were willing to do anything to help your daughter."

"To save her, yes."

"Was that not an act of desperation?"

Theiden remained silent, so Lenesa continued.

"You were unable to defeat me then. But if you had a way, no matter how underhanded and inhuman, to defeat me, would you have done it in that moment?"

Theiden crossed his arms. "That's different."

"Is it?"

"You're evil!"

"Simply because I have magic?"

The hunter paused. "If you weren't a witch, perhaps the situation would be different. But you're just like the rest of them. Just look what you did to Em and me. And for all I know, you or that other witch killed Helaine."

"We did not," Lenesa objected, her words striking like flint against the steel in Theiden's tone. Anger sparked in the hunter's eyes, then, and she softened her voice. "Her skin was marked with anger and reeked of desperation. One of the Turned killed her."

"The Turned." Theiden's words were hollow and disbelieving.

"The ones who have given into the pain and hatred harbored in their hearts," Lenesa explained. "The faun last night was one of them."

Theiden frowned at the memory. "The faun today was different. It wasn't as...dark."

"But still just as deadly," Lenesa warned.

Theiden stood up, then, and looked down at her with a glare of frost and needle ice. "Just like you."

"They're predators," Lenesa growled. "For a hunter, you have a difficult time understanding that. Would you blame a wolf for killing? It's in their nature."

"And you don't kill, is that what I'm supposed to believe?" Theiden shot back.

"That's right."

The hunter scoffed and turned towards the fireplace. For just a moment, Lenesa closed her eyes and fought to keep calm. This was not going as she had hoped.

"I won't pretend," she started again. "There are witches who do kill. Those are the ones that your town has made stories about. The kind who creep in the night and steal livestock and kill children like your daughter or Helaine. But the witch hunters do not distinguish between those kinds of witches and those like me and Kivirra." Lenesa took a shaky breath. "Maybe one day they won't need to."

She shouldn't have said that.

She raised her gaze to the hunter, who had turned his back to the fireplace and was looking at her with a fairly blank expression. At best, he was surprised at her words, but it was more likely that he was horrified. Lenesa hurriedly looked down to the unfurling petals of an azalea on the right armrest.

"If that ever happens, you can kill me then," she said quietly, trying to smooth over any fear her words might have brought with a consolation that Theiden would be unaffected by such a turn of events.

Silence reigned for only a heartbeat.

"That's why you had me spar with you." Theiden's words were stated calmly enough for someone who had been so full of cold fury just moments earlier.

Lenesa did not answer.

The hunter continued. "No matter how I thought about it, it didn't make sense. Why would you want to help me improve my fighting, when you knew how much I wanted to kill you?"

His voice drew closer, and out of the corner of her vision, Lenesa could see him slowly approaching her.

"You were training me."

Lenesa jumped to her feet. "Only so you could defend yourself if I wasn't around!" She looked up to face him, ready to fight, prepared for the next slew of hot-tempered words that he would fling at her, bracing for his argument of just killing her now and getting it over with.

Instead, she was met with the same gaze that he reserved for the books in the loft. He was studying her, taking in the information he saw and heard and formulating some unknown conclusion behind unreadable eyes.

"How long?" he finally asked.

Lenesa blinked in surprise. "How long?"

"How much time do you have left?" Theiden clarified. "Until you become...more evil."

Lenesa heaved a sigh at his choice of wording. "I'm not—"

"You know what I meant," Theiden interrupted. "Turned, whatever. Don't avoid the question."

"I don't know," Lenesa replied, insecurity making her tone as brittle as shards of ice. She wished to take back that insecure statement that had slipped out, spurred by worry and a half-wish to confide in someone. "Maybe never. Hopefully never."

Lies, her heart whispered. If she wasn't able to reverse her ailment, it was only a matter of weeks or months.

The hunter gave her a wary look at that answer, but continued with his questioning.

"How do you fight them, then?" Theiden asked. "If the Turned kill and steal and spread malice, wouldn't you just become like them if you tried to beat them back? If you slay one, wouldn't you just end up taking its place?"

His question struck close to the matter Lenesa and Kivirra had been dealing with, and his words settled in her heart like a heavy stone at the bottom of a river. They were outnumbered and overpowered.

"I must not use magic to carry out the act," Lenesa replied slowly. "If I kill one of them, it must not be through any spell or illusion. It is difficult, but not impossible. That way, the cruelty of my actions does not infect my magic." Since she was a healing witch, it was especially difficult to keep her actions separate from her spells. Killing was the exact opposite of her calling, yet she had thought of it so often, it had almost become a desire...

Unthinkingly, she brought up a hand to trace her scar. It was a memory she could never forget.

"Train me, then," Theiden said. His sudden statement drew Lenesa back to their conversation. "I'll help you fight the Turned creatures and in exchange, you'll let me go back home."

Blood pounded in Lenesa's ears, and she suddenly felt lightheaded.

"Very well," she managed, and plopped back down in the armchair. "We have an agreement, then."

"I can't vouch for the witch hunters, though," Theiden said, and his voice seemed distant to Lenesa. "Whether or not they decide to go after you is completely out of my control."

"Yes," she answered, her voice dull. "I understand."

Was this what she had wanted, to bring the hunter into this mess? Technically, he had made that decision for himself when he had gone after her that night. But somehow, making arrangements with Theiden suddenly made the dangers all the more realistic to her. Was she actually only making things worse?

Again, Lenesa was reminded of her scar.

It won't happen again. It must not.

~~~~~

Hi, happy weekend!  I've had a really busy past few weeks, but after a long train ride and spotty wifi (aka nothing to procrastinate with), I was able to get this chapter fixed up and ready to post.  Hope you enjoy!

Any questions about the magic system here?  I hope I explained it okay but after several revisions through different plot changes it's a bit difficult for me to tell anymore XD  Any guesses what Lenesa's scar reminds her of?

Please vote or comment if you enjoyed or would like to leave some constructive criticism!  Feedback feeds my writer's soul and is much appreciated.  <3