What Happens in Salem

Quentin hits the dirt screaming, fists full of pine needles. Julia's notebook is gone and the silence says Eliot is too. Crude cabins stretch before him illuminated by crimson dawn and encircled by forest.

Moaning slices the silence, and he sprawls sideways, spotting Alice against a sign. Slathered across its "Entering Salem": a damp scarlet smiley face. Proctor's Ledge juts from the hill beyond, pricked with gallows.

Drips splatter Quentin's boots. Alice retrieves Julia's notebook from the mud.

Fumbling through Julia's jumbled desk the day before, he'd felt weightless discovering it, Julia's half-written thesis paper explaining Salem once sheltered Master Magicians-until their non-magical neighbors devised a way to neutralize and execute them. Her notes laid out a plan to steal that weapon from 1692 and bring it to the present-singlehandedly.

So where is she?

Linking shaking arms, they trudge the road, propping open the notebook.

"Guess we know who slaughtered them."

"Us," Quentin answers hoarsely. "The Beast followed Julia here and helped colonists disarm and kill Magicians, murdering generations of threats before they're born..."

Alice flips pages. "Spell misfired. If Eliot came early, he'd be in her registry..."

"Once I told Julia what Fogg said about me dying every time loop, she left. I should've followed..."

"Quentin, trying to do this alone was crazy." Alice slaps the notebook shut. "Unless Eliot's going by 'Prudence,' he isn't here. So where?"

"Fiji? Day-drunk?"

They enter the town square. Vines of luminescent flowers climb a well, crawling with moths. Distant bells clamor and across the square muffled cursing begins. Alice crosses the cobblestones, locking eyes with the hunched shadow pinned into a four-foot stockade.

It cackles.

"Shut it, Eliot," moans the sap strapped in beside him groggily.

"About damn time."

Quentin and Alice cast their hands, prying nails from boards. The stockade and Eliot collapse. They ease him up, and he leans heavily against Quentin's chest. "You idiots..." he hisses, eyes drawing Quentin's to a nearby house, "woke the neighborhood."

Grabbing their wrists, Eliot pulls them into an alleyway. Flickering lanterns slice shadows overhead like strobe lights.

Men shout: "Witches haunt us, freeing their brethren! Find them!"

"Days in stocks listening to that and I about hanged myself," Eliot complains.

"Did you find the weapon?"

"Did you find her?"

Eliot coughs, eyes closing. "Listen to you two. I'm sober, hair in shambles, and all you think about is yourselves."

They apologize, trailing him onto a porch.

"Lost my magic, so I convinced them I'm a preacher."

Quentin snorts.

"But?" Alice asks softly, squinting at his dirt-encrusted face in the blue light.

"Hot blacksmith."

Eliot pushes a door, motioning them in. Quentin conjures a miniature sun. Weary faces emerge through faint outlines of prison bars, bones jagged edges against loose garments. They indicate a snoozing guard.