Heart of Glass

Chapter 25

"Ariel, wake up." Emily shook her gently, fear lacing her voice.

"What?" Ariel asked groggily. "The condensation won't fly off the window and attack you, Em."

Glancing at her phone, she groaned. It was only eight in the morning. She'd been up until two helping Amelia with Zeke. It was her third late night in a row. After being distracted by everyone on the first day, Amelia decided it was best to do it when everyone was asleep and Ariel had to agree. After being cooped up with Amelia that first day, the others had thought she'd had some sort of relapse and freaked out. It had taken her hours to reassure them she was fine, and stop them from bringing it up.

She felt a bit weird keeping secrets from them, but she wasn't going to betray Amelia's trust in her. In the last two days she'd learned more about witchcraft than she knew what to do with. Amelia seemed to be charging head on with this apprentice idea – even though she hadn't agreed to it yet – and she took every chance to teach Ariel about different types of magic, herbs and their magical properties, and how to expand her magical radar. The last one involved her using Zeke's body, and finding the areas that were more heavily enchanted than others, which had not been fun. Fortunately Amelia had decided that working after three am was not appropriate and would kick her out before she had to try and practice on Zeke too much.

"Ariel!"

"What?" She cried, rolling over and burrowing into her blankets. "Put a blanket over the window if it's freaking you out and let me sleep!"

"It's not the window," she urged, "it's Autumn."

Ariel sat up, fighting against the blankets still wrapped around her. "What's wrong with her?"

Since the drive in fiasco, Autumn had remained in her room. She had tried to approach Ariel the next day, but Ariel had been so wrapped up in the Zeke business, she'd completely ignored her. Since then she'd been busy helping Amelia and sleeping most of the day away to notice anything happening around her.

"Her legs... they're gone."

"What?" Finally breaking free, she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. "What do you mean, they're gone?"

"They're gone!" Emily dragged her out of bed. "Hurry!"

They ran across the hall and entered Autumn's room. Kestral was sitting up on her own bed, watching Autumn blankly.

Autumn lay on her bed, perfectly still. Her eyes were open, looking out the window at the pale morning sky. The leaves on her face were wilted, all of them curling in on each other, crackling with every labored breath she took. Ariel's gaze moved down her bed, a ball of fear forming in her stomach as she failed to see the outline of legs beneath the blankets.

Hesitantly, she reached over, gently touching the area where her legs should have been.

Crunch.

Her hand shot back to her chest.

"Autumn?" Ariel whispered. Her eyes flickered to Ariel, a mask of calm. It was a front. Ariel knew she had to be scared.

"I-I didn't think it would happen so fast," she said slowly.

"What would happen?" Emily glanced between them. "What's happening?"

"She's dying." Kestral said, as if it was nothing important.

Emily started crying.

"Thanks Kestral," Ariel snapped, and turned back to Autumn. "Your parents?"

Her eyes closed, laced with fear. Not wasting any time, Ariel bolted from the room. Flying down the stairs, she crashed into Samson, knocking his tea onto the floor.