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A WAVE OF GUILT HIT Ciara, and she tried to raise her hand to her chest.
Her hand didn’t budge. She wasn’t paralysed. She couldn’t be because she was still standing.
But no matter which muscle she tried to move, nothing happened.
“I’m sorry.” The words echoed around her.
No, not around. They were in her head.
Ciara expected herself to panic, but her heartbeats remained calm. Something was terribly wrong.
“I need to do this to protect you.” The words echoed inside her head again.
“What the hell is this?” she screamed. Her mouth didn’t move, but she could hear her own words—her own voice—in her mind.
She was aware of her surroundings, but she couldn’t move. Trying to lift her arm, she failed. Her body didn’t react.
Had Theo frozen her?
No. His wand was in her hand. She was clinging onto it.
His wand, not hers. She wouldn’t have even needed a wand, but he did.
He didn’t have the gift of wandless magic; she did.
Panic rushed through Ciara, but still her body didn’t react. She tried and tried, but nothing.
“Theo?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop this instant!” She tried her hardest to let go of the wand, but nothing happened. It was a spell—an enchantment of sorts.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Get the hell out of me!” Struggling wasn’t going to help her. She had let him in by trusting him.
He had played her, and she had let herself be played like a fool.
Her body moved. But not under her control. He controlled her body—her every move. Only thing he couldn’t control was her mind.
“I didn’t play you. This is how I’ll help your friend. No one will know it’s me,” Theo said, his voice once again inside her head.
“You will help Bill?” Hope blossomed inside Ciara—not that her body reacted to it.
“Yes.” Theo pulled something out of Ciara’s pocket—with her hand, using her body. Her second pack of cigarettes.
“Will you let me go then?”
“No.” Theo tossed the cigarettes away and then did the same for the other cigarette pack on the kitchen counter. But for once, Ciara didn’t care about them. She had something more important to think about.
“At least you didn’t lie this time.”
“I can’t lie to you now, but you can’t lie to me either. One could say that we share all our thoughts right now. Feelings, more or less, too.”
The guilt. It was Theo’s.
And guilt and secrets were never a good mix.
––––––––
IT WAS WAY PAST VISITING hours. Theo either didn’t know or he didn’t care. As he walked to the front desk of the hospital—in Ciara’s body—she figured out his plan.
He started shaking, acting upset. Ciara didn’t know the healer at the front desk, and the said woman was happy to let her in, even outside visiting hours.
“Guess she didn’t know you.” Theo’s act hadn’t been perfect. It wouldn’t have worked on anyone Ciara knew. She wasn’t the emotional type.
“She didn’t.”
Theo—in Ciara’s body—headed towards Bill’s room. Thanks to Ciara’s thoughts, he seemed to know the way.
“Wanna know how I got control of you so easily?”
“I foolishly trusted you.”
“I enforced the spell for future uses at the warehouse when you stabbed me.” He was playing the long game while she had forgotten all about the reality—the fact he was the enemy.
“In case I would try to stab you again?” Was that why she also had the mark on her?
“You wouldn’t stab me again. I could see it in your face when you first did.”
Theo was right. Of course he was. He knew her inside and out.
“I do, and the spell has nothing to do with the mark,” he said inside her head.
He could sense all her thoughts—or hear them. She couldn’t quite explain how it worked. It was the first time she shared a body with someone.
It was tricky magic. Undoubtedly, Theo had been training his magic during his fake death. Ciara wished she didn’t know how, but she did. Training magic was like training sports. If you wanted to become a better runner, you had to run.
If you wanted to be good at taking over somebody’s body, you had to do that. Again and again.
“I don’t agree with the torture,” Theo said, speaking inside Ciara’s head again. “But we deserve to be a visible part of this world without punishment. Just like non-magics. We should have equal rights.”
Theo agreed with the witch hunters. But he didn’t seem to agree with their methods. Ciara didn’t know what to make of it.
The time spent with the witch hunters had affected him. Yet he was still Theo. Perhaps with more flaws, but Theo nonetheless.
Ciara’s hand—controlled by Theo—reached for the doorknob and opened Bill’s hospital room’s door.
“You won’t hurt him, right?” Her own panic rushed through her mind, but once again, it had no effect on her body. No racing heart, no quick breaths, nothing.
“No, I’ll heal him and then I’ll go.”
“With or without me?”
“With you.”
“You can’t stay in my body forever.”
“I know.”
An image flashed through Ciara’s mind—or rather, Theo’s. An image of Liam’s face.
“What—”
“Don’t finish that thought if you want me to heal your friend.”
She had a hard time shifting her thoughts back to Bill. She focused on Bill’s pale skin and pained expression. He looked half-dead. Perhaps even more dead than alive.
“I’m sorry I did this.”
“Me too.”
Theo moved closer to the bed, Ciara’s body obeying him unconditionally. With one hand, he grabbed Bill’s left hand, and with the other, he grabbed his wand from Ciara’s pocket. It was his wand, not hers, even though she had one too.
Despite being unable to control her own body, Ciara could feel how cold Bill was. She hadn’t lost her senses; she shared them with Theo.
“He would have died within a week. I’m sorry.”
“Is he healed now?”
“Not yet.”
Ciara tried to calm her thoughts, so Theo could focus on healing Bill. She wasn’t sure if it helped, but a bright light blinded her for a moment.
Bill gasped for air like surfacing from below water.
Before Ciara could even see his eyes open, Theo ran out of the room.
“Theo, I need to see him!”
“No!”
Liam’s face flashed through Theo’s mind again.
“Theo?”
He flicked his wand, and they—in her body—appeared just outside the safe house.
Anger and worry mixed in Ciara. “What the fuck are you planning to do to Liam?”