The Witch Keeps Time
Thomas exhaled through his nose, not quite relief, more like grim acknowledgement that he had almost been collected.
Mercy’s gaze pinned me. There was no softness in it.
“That,” she said, very quietly, “was pulling.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered.
“Meaning is irrelevant,” she replied.
Thomas watched us both, frown deepening.
“What are you two talking about,” he asked.
Mercy did not answer him. She rarely granted explanations to people who still had the luxury of linear time.
The battle surged closer. Red coats flashed through the trees, not a solid wall but fragments of it, men moving with a discipline that made their violence more terrifying. Thomas’s jaw set. He rose to a crouch and moti