Going Your Own Way, but with Magic

Chapter 23

"Are you okay?" I ask, and then laugh. He smiles weakly.
"No. But it's alright. Can't talk much." His voice is a rasp and those words leave him gasping for breath. We interlock fingers, and watch.

The only people that look completely unruffled are the men that arrived late. The mystery of their identity is quickly solved when I realise that I've seen them all before. When they were patronising me to death from a high table. Bastards. Where were you when people were fighting and getting hurt and dying. At least they joined in the end. And I'm too tired to hate anyone else right now. I have to centralise my hate, burn it onto Cecelia. Otherwise it'll slip, and I'll forget why I did any of this. Nikki holds up her hand for silence and even the elders obey.

"Cecelia Moran." There is only the slightest wobble in Nikki's voice to indicate how badly she's hurt. They found out her last name. Moran. Very plain. Bet she hates it. "Cecelia Moran, you are here to face judgement for your crimes." Cecelia doesn't answer, her head lolling on her chest. She's breathing, though. For now. One of the elders, with a beard that nearly reaches his knees, steps forward. There's an obscenely inappropriate twinkle in his eye. He's either oblivious to the glares or a good actor.
"Miss...Nicola. Would you let us take it from here?" Nikki fixes him with a look so furious he shrinks away from her. I want to laugh, but I'm scared I'd end up coughing blood.
"Where were you?" I barely have enough dignity to stop myself from making a hand gesture at him. "You could have stepped in, but you let people die. You let her kill innocent civilians. You let people die in this battle. Good people, who were braver and stronger than any of you." No one's contradicting the woman covered in blood with a murderous look on her face, but a couple of them bristle at that. One of them steps forward but Nikki cuts him off with another spectacular glare. "We weren't blameless, either. We were so scared of becoming like you that we let too teenagers try and fight her alone. One of them barely escaped. But in the end we came and we fought, which is more than I can say for you." There are scattered cheers, exhausted and breathless but nowhere near defeated. "Get out. This isn't your fight." She raises her staff threateningly, and they get out as fast as they possibly can without all-out running. Nikki almost smiles, and then her façade cracks. She looks very young and very ill. Miranda, who's swapped her suit for a similar jumpsuit to Nikki's, takes over. Nikki sits down, hugging her knees, and someone I don't recognise starts to patch up the wound.

"We are not a court." Miranda's voice is clear and carries perfectly. "We have no sentencing power, and the ones that do made their desire not to be involved clear." She's stalling, I realise. Dismissing the elders, while incredible and badass, leaves her with awkward decisions to make. We're not an army. We're a group of weirdos with magic and seven equally weird not-leaders. Cecelia jerks her head up and Miranda doesn't quite stop herself from flinching. She's lost the anger, and the terrifying smile. She looks scared. And old. Nothing tangible has changed in her face, but she looks about ninety. She's completely still, apart from the shaking. "Obviously, killing people is bad. I don't know, Nikki's the one with morals. We'll put it to a vote. Remember, if we don't we need an alternative that prevents her from ever hurting someone else again." Killing her. We're discussing killing her. My first thought, that comes from my stomach rather than my head, is an angry good. A life for a whole bunch of life. Revenge, for everything she did to me. To us. To all the people lying on the floor now, to all the people with their lives sucked away. She'd be dead and gone and this part of my life could be parcelled up neatly.

Minutes later, I am shocked at myself. Killing people is bad. That about sums it up. Don't kill people. I look at the destruction, and I don't want to add to it. Not even with the body of someone who deserves death. I put my hand up to speal, like a moron. Miranda half-smiles at me.
"Yes, Max?" All heads turn to me. Great. Lets tell the people who have fought, who have fought and lost and been hurt, all for me, that I actually want to let off the person who did this to them.
"I have a- a kind of idea. For- So we can keep people safe but avoid killing her." My voice is hoarse, but it echoes in the silence. That is a barefaced lie. I have precisely zero ideas. Well, I better think fast. "She is- or I think she is- very old. And using magic to appear young. There are rituals to take magic away, I know because the elders offer me one. If we take her magic, she can't hurt anyone. And she can...quietly die of old age, I guess." There is total silence, and I worry for a second that people are going to start booing. They don't, and Miranda nods slowly.