𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐫 || 𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐓𝐀𝐑 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐂 ||

5. Fire

Meira:

"You're so pretty." Leila suddenly announces, which brings me back the the present.

"Thank you. So are you, though." I playfully tap her nose and she laughs.

Leila awoke a couple of hours after I healed her, awake and energetic. She's now helping me make up some of the remedies, adding chamomile and lavender into a tea bag, meant to help with stress, which I normally take once a week, simply because the lavender helps me sleep.

I never really thought of myself as pretty, sure I've had attention, but so has everyone else.

I'm paler than all the Illyrians. When Devlon first found me, I was almost Snow White. Now I suppose I'm a bit more tanned, I don't look deathly pale. But still pale.

My bright blue eyes and almost white blonde hair are what i like most about myself though. I've never met anyone with hair like mine, and it reaches my waist so I always wear it in a long intricate braid.

"What's your name, then?" She asks bluntly. "I've told you mine-"

"It's Meira." I laugh, "Come on, let's take a break. I've got a hidden stash of biscuits out in the back..."

But before she can reply, I smell them.

Their vulgar scents at the foot of my door, their shadows filling in what once was light.

Malark.

And countless others.

shit, shit, shit, shit-

"Witch spawn. Come out, come out, wherever you are." He coyly chants. "We're impatient, Mia, so why don't you come out. I promise we won't bite. Not."

This goaded a laugh from the others.

But all I do is try not to freeze from terror.

"Leila." I whisper, a small plan forming in my mind. "Can you grab the glass vial with a big red sign on it please. On the shelf on your right, third from the top."

She obeys, and her small hands engulf mine as she hands it over, the bottle already unnaturally warm.

I know the risks, the danger of using raíz de fuego, which I import from the Autumn Court, and I normally only use if I have to quickly close up a wound, which in the worse cases I use fire to close the flesh.

"Come on, witchling, I am growing impatient! I will knock this door down!"

"Leila. I need you to fetch the jug from the counter."

She obeys, but all I can do is stand at the door and I can't snap out of it.

Terror races down my veins, my body, paralysing me in a way that makes me powerless.

I hate it.

"Now what, Meira?" The little girl asks carefully. I do not let my gaze sway from the door, the iron handle rattling as Malark curses.

"Pour it all over yourself."

"But why?" The little girl asks, fear now apparent in her voice. She has no idea what's going on, and she shouldn't. It's not her fight.

"Leila, look at me." I bob down to her height, confusion written all over her face.

"I'm going to do something risky, but when I say when, there is a trapdoor, over there-" I indicate to the rug by one of the shelves, "Which will take you to the shop over the road, which is your Aunt Emerie's shop. I have no idea if she is home, but you must wait on there. Don't let anyone in, okay? Apart from your parents."