It was dark when Essa woke. Something had disturbed her sleep, but she was not sure what. A vague feeling, foreboding and familiar, roiled within her belly.

She sat up in her bed. Alertness came easily. Even years after the war, this feeling never faded. The hut creaked around her, wind and age wringing sounds from the wooden walls.

She listened.

It was silent beyond her own breathing. Almost, Essa thought she had imagined it, that she was being paranoid—but that gnawing feeling would not let go.

Essa moved to the window, her feet gliding over the floorboards with a shadow's touch. She shifted the curtains and peered out. Nothing. Only the night, lit by the faintest glow of moonlight. She tried another window, the one facing the town, and it was there that she saw it.

Light, orange and bright, in the horizon. It flickered and danced in stutters. A fire? She watched its movement, wary. Her thoughts caught on Shani, then Karim, Thema and Amr. She slid open the window, and with the first sliver of wind, she heard the screams threaded into its currents.

Essa burst out of her house, barely stopping to get her Firebolt. She leapt onto it and she was flying. The closer she got, the deeper the orange that painted the horizon, until the horizon was dyed the colour of blood. The wind brought with it terrified screams — and smoke. Stomach dropping, Essa soared higher for a better vantage point over the hills.

Fire roared through the town, plumes of smoke rising into the air.

But worse was the gunfire in violent bursts of light and sound. A group of armed men was storming the streets, pulling people from their homes and shooting down those who tried to run. Bullets ripped through the air, reaching her even at her high altitude. She had to swerve away from one, feeling it whistle through her hair in a narrow slice of pressure.

Then she glimpsed one of the men burst into Shani's house, and the sudden burst of adrenaline broke through Essa's shock. She angled her broom into a dive and swooped down. She scarcely even thought about the Statute of Secrecy, the urgency to reach Shani before her assailant could pounding in her veins.

The man pulled Shani from the house. He pointed a gun at Essa's friend, and for a terrible moment, Essa saw a phantom spray of blood… Shani lying in the dirt, bleeding out… Red everywhere… red, red, red…

Essa's broom barrelled into the man and he was knocked several feet away, his gun firing in a random spray toward the sky. He hit a distant wall hard and slumped, unconscious. Essa turned to Shani, who stood frozen, but unharmed. "GET ON!" Essa roared.

Shani was white as a ghost, her expression one of pure terror and horror, but at Essa's shout, she started. She lurched onto the broom, her arms wrapping around Essa's midriff, a vice grip that nearly choked the breath from her lungs. Essa kicked off, shooting back into the sky. All around her, the violence continued, but she could not save all of them—she could barely even save Shani. She choked back a sob and fled the town. Dying screams echoed in her ears, helpless pleas for mercy… The wind swept them away, but still, Essa heard their terror, and felt each one as a curse laid upon her.

They shot through the skies toward Essa's home. Shani was sobbing in her ear, an incoherent jumble of words pouring from her lips, Arabic too quick for Essa to follow. When they landed in Essa's garden, Shani stumbled off and gripped Essa's arms. "We have to go back," she babbled. "We have to… have to go back — they'll hurt him… they'll hurt her…"

"We cannot," Essa panted. "No — no, take the Floo, we need to go. There is a place in London, we will be safe —"

"You don't understand!" Shani shrieked. "They came for him! They came for him!"

"Who?" Essa demanded.

Tears streaked down Shani's face, covered in grime, dust and blood. "K-Karim — they wanted Karim. They wanted the child of evil — unharmed, they said. They knew, somehow, they knew he is — he is —" Ice flooded Essa's veins. "T-They knew about you too. They'll come. But they went for Karim first — Thema, Allah, Thema —"

Essa swore violently. For a moment, she did not know what to do, except stare at Shani, who sobbed and rambled and wailed. Finally, Essa took a deep breath. "You must calm down," she tried, but Shani had grown insensate to anything but her own panic. The girl clutched at her face and trembled. Essa tried again, more urgently. "Shani. Go through the Floo. I will go back for Karim. Okay? I will get them — Thema and Amr too, if I can… But you must go."

"You have to get them," Shani repeated. "They'll hurt Karim. They'll hurt Thema. They're dead. They're dead — everyone is dead —"

"Listen to me — Shani, listen — fuck!" Essa slapped Shani across the face, and her friend's cries silenced in an instant. "Are you listening to me?"

Shani nodded numbly.

"I will send you to my home in London," Essa said, pulling her into the house. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," Shani whispered.

"I will join you there if I can. But if I do not —" Essa swallowed. "If I do not join you, you are to find an owl. You will write to this woman —" She scrambled for a piece of parchment and a pen. "Hermione Weasley. Write to her. Tell her everything — tell her that Essa sent you. She will take care of you. Do you understand?"

"I — I —"

"Shani." Essa gripped her by the shoulders, tight and unrelenting. "Do you understand?"

"Y-Yes," Shani whispered, a fresh well of tears spilling.

"Good," Essa said. She went to the fireplace and tossed in a careless handful of Floo powder. "Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London!" The fire flared green. "Go. Quickly now. Go!"

Shani stumbled into the fireplace and vanished in a roaring flash. As soon as she was gone, Essa sprinted back outside and kicked off her Firebolt once more. This was her fault — the men had come for her… and Karim. Who had told? Amr's face flashed across her mind, but surely not. She'd seen how hard he'd tried to accept Karim, though the fear in his eyes was palpable. He would not betray Karim… not like this. And these men — why did they want her and Karim? To kill? Was this fear of magic at work, or something more insidious? Shani had said they wanted Karim unharmed. That alone struck a shiver of dread in her heart.

The gunfire was still rocketing through the air when she approached the town. Chaos ruled the streets. Dark shadows of blood sank into the dirt, spattered over the walls. The attackers were hauling the townspeople to the square, dividing them by men from the women and children — the ones they did not shoot on the spot anyway. Essa flinched when one husband tried to fight his way to his wife and received a bullet to the head for his trouble. There was something cold in their brutality, almost on par with the Death Eaters' brand of sadism. Some men had dragged women off. Essa's stomach roiled — she knew what they would do. She forced her attention away. Part of her wanted nothing more than to dive down into their midst, wand in hand, and fight. But she couldn't. Her inability — her helplessness — was agonising, but she knew that if she went with her impulse, there would be more dead than the attackers.

Instead, Essa forced herself to focus on finding Karim. He was not amongst the group of children, nor was he anywhere in the square that she could see. Had they taken him already or had Thema and Amr managed to escape with him? Essa dearly hoped it was the latter, but something told her that they had not managed to escape the fight.

"Witch!"

Essa jerked. Below, one of the townspeople had spotted her hovering above. She burst into motion — not a second too late either, as bullets split the air where she had just been only a fraction of a heartbeat earlier. She swerved wildly; in her ears, she heard only the erratic pounding of her heart, the bullets beating like rapid drums. She heard snatches of shouting and screaming too.

"Ho—fire—s—no—!"

She soared over the square, and just as she was about to decide to cut her losses and hide, her eyes snagged on Thema and Amr, huddled against a wall. Her moment of distraction cost her, and a bullet ripped through her thigh in a searing flare of agony. The scream erupted hoarsely from her throat. The momentum of the impact threw her balance, and her broom wavered and flagged — wet blood slickened her grasp. She fumbled to keep ahold of her Firebolt and to prevent her blood from spilling below, teeth gritted against the pain. Then her fingers slipped, and she was falling with a scream.

Fortunately, her panic had taken her low to the ground, and she crashed sooner than expected, bones rattled but intact. For a moment, she couldn't remember how to breath, couldn't even see with black spots dancing over her vision. She only felt the throbbing pain running up and down her left leg, shooting like tiny daggers along her hip and midriff. When she came to herself again, she found five rifles pointed straight into her face. One of the men pushed forwards, shouting in Masri at her.

"Get up!" he screamed, spittle flying. "Get up, witch! Get up!"

Essa groaned, rolling to her knees. She looked down at her bloodied leg. Colour drained so quickly from her face that her lips tingled with numbness. Smeared across the dirt was blood — her blood, crimson, glittering darkly in the twisted lights of fire and moon. "Wait," she gasped. "The bleeding… stop the bleeding…"

"Get up!" the man snarled.

"You don't understand," Essa said, her breath coming in shallow pants. "I need to stop the bleeding — I need to stop the bleeding!"

"Stop mumbling, witch," the man said, but he came no closer. She heard, for the first time, the note of fear trembling in his voice. Beyond him, the townspeople huddled together, fearful of both their attackers and her. Their faces were pale, their eyes dark and wary. How many of them were there? Thirty here? Fifty? Her gaze snagged on a pair of eyes staring widely at her amidst the crowd. Thema. Essa firmed her jaw and darted her eyes to the side, hoping that Thema would understand that this was her chance to run. The man spoke again. "Shut up and stand, or I shoot again."

The protest died on her lips. She could not afford to spill more blood. Even now, a steady, sluggish flow bloomed from the gunshot wound. She stood slowly, silently, the pain sharpening again when she put pressure on her left leg. One hand remained clutched over the wound, in a desperate, futile attempt to hold in spilt blood.

"Take her," the man barked. The others wavered, afraid to approach.

"No," Essa murmured. Magic crackled under her skin, roiling and thrashing against its shackles. Beneath her sleeve, she saw a dim flare of light, as the enchantments on her bracelet fought to keep her magic at bay. "Don't come closer. Please… please. I can't control it, I can't control it, please…"

"What are you waiting for?" the man said furiously. "Take her! Put her with the boy, and finish up with the rest so we can leave this fucking village!"

The boy. Who? Her thoughts were growing dazed. Blood loss, she recognised dimly. Then she was being grabbed, and she almost wept in despair. "Don't touch the blood," she babbled. "Don't touch my blood… Don't…"

"What is she saying?" It was the leader again.

A voice, closer to her, spoke. He sounded young. Uneasy. "She says not to touch the blood."

"Burn it," Essa rasped.

The boy's voice switched to a different Arabic dialect, one Essa did not know. But she did not need to understand it to hear the panic underlying it.

"She's lying," the leader snapped. "Put her with the boy, you foolish coward."

"It's witch's blood," the boy said fearfully.

"Then give her a cloth to stop the bleeding. Maybe she'll shut her whore's mouth too."

Unconsciousness tugged at the fraying edges of Essa's mind, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to stave it off. "Burn the blood," she mumbled. "Burn the blood. Burn the blood…" She found just enough strength to lock eyes with the one who held her. What she saw nearly made her weep. "Do you hear me, boy?"

The boy was young — no more than fourteen surely. He stared down at her, looking pale and small and frightened. "I'll burn it," he stumbled out.

Essa relaxed fractionally. "Good." She paused. "I'm sorry." They took her, dragged her stumbling body, she knew not where. She only knew when they tossed her into the truck. The boy gave her a cloth, a ragged, filthy thing that he tossed at her feet before turning on his heel and fleeing. A moment later, the truck started, and she felt the roll of the tires on rough, uneven ground as they moved out. She grunted, pulled her body up against the wall of the truck. If she used that cloth, she would probably get an infection — but she didn't have many options exactly. She cleaned the congealing blood around her wound as best as she could. The bullet was still buried in there, she could feel it, wedged between flesh and bone.

"Miss Essa?"

Essa flinched so violently she almost cracked her head open. "Karim?" she whispered. That was right. They said to put her with the boy… Karim.

"You're bleeding," he said, sounding very afraid. He was sniffling — crying.

"Stop," she threw out harshly when he tried to approach. He cowered back, and she softened her tone. "No closer. My blood is… poisonous."

The shadows were nearly opaque, shifting ever so slightly when a sliver of light seeped through the truck's backdoors. "I want my Mama," Karim whimpered. "I want Baba."

Essa swallowed. "You will be all right, Karim," she said. She could not promise him more than that—could not promise him that his parents were okay, when the last she'd seen of them, they were about to be executed by the gunmen. She tried hard not to think about how the people of Masika were perhaps all dead. "Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so," Karim said.

"Good." Pain flared again, and with it, Essa's magic burnt, bright and furious. She looked down at her bracelet and managed to make out a small crack that had begun to form in the iron. "Shit," she muttered in English.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force herself to calm down. She withdrew a box from her pocket, something she kept on her always. It was coated in her blood, so slick that it took her a full minute to open the latch with one hand. The other continued to press down hard on her wound. The rag was soaked through already.

There were rudimentary healing potions in the box, stocked for emergencies. She picked out alcohol to clean the wound, a Blood-Replenishing Potion and Skin-Knitting Salve. With very little care, she opened the bottle of alcohol and dumped its entire contents directly into her wound. A rough scream tore from her throat, guttural and muted through sheer will. "Sorry," she panted to Karim, barely even sparing him a glance. She fumbled for the Skin-Knitting Salve next, cursing when her blind hands couldn't find it.

A moment later, however, a small light bloomed from Karim's corner of the truck. She blinked. The boy was holding a ball of light in his hand, staring at her with his wide doe-eyes. "Is that better?" he asked hesitantly.

"Er — yes," Essa said, surprised. She shook herself. The salve was easily found thanks to Karim and she applied it in great smears over the ragged edges of her wound. Slowly, skin and flesh knitted close.

"Wow," Karim whispered.

Essa chugged down the Blood-Replenishing Potion next, finally relaxing as the fog over her mind lifted just a little. "Potions," she said to Karim wearily. "This one replaces the blood I lost."

"Healer Said gave me some at the hospital," Karim said shyly. "But it was different."

"Ah. Of course." Essa shook her head, trying to dislodge the remaining tendrils of disorientation wrapped around her mind. "He most likely gave you a fever reducer." She could feel an influx of blood warming her body. She sighed, glancing around. She tested the door, ignore the twinge of pain as she shifted her legs. Locked, of course. There was a small window that gave her a slim view outside, and she saw that there was at least one other car trailing behind the truck.

"C-Can you fight them?" Karim asked. Essa looked over to the boy. In the dim light they had, the whites of his eyes seemed to almost glow a faint blue. "With your magic, I mean."

She swallowed, glancing down at her bracelet again. The crack was larger than she'd thought, a full five centimetres wide at least. She could almost feel her magic hissing and spitting, trying to slither through the new vulnerability to taste the air. "No," she murmured.

"But why not?" Karim said, earnest. "Couldn't magic fight them off? Make them forget we were here?"

Essa thinned her lips. "It could," she conceded grudgingly. "But I cannot. I cannot use my magic anymore."

He deflated. "Did you lose it?"

The drying blood on her thigh itched. "It died."

Karim flinched back, and she knew the sort of horror he must be feeling. The boy had a strong connection to his magic — one that she suspected he was, at least on some level, constantly aware of. There were few children who boasted the ability to make animals do what they wanted — Tom Riddle had been one of them, but he had forced his will over the animals. He had been deaf and insensate to the perversion of the act, denying the very nature of the magic that he had been gifted with. Karim, on the other hand, had a deeper connection, for instead of seeking to control the bond through pain, he had nurtured it and cherished it. The thought of his magic dying, even if he only had a vague conception of what that meant, repulsed him in an instinctual, visceral way that only those with an intuitive grasp of magic could comprehend. "Does that happen a lot?" he said, terror in his voice.

"No," Essa assured. "Not like this at least. My case is… unique, I suppose. It has only ever happened twice before."

"So what are we going to do?" he said quietly.

Essa shifted. "What happened?" she said instead. "Shani said that they knew."

The silence lingered too long, and when she glanced over, she saw that Karim was hiding his face in the shadows.

"Karim?"

A sniffle. "I think it's my fault, Miss Essa."

Her heart sank. "Tell me," she said, trying to keep her voice gentle. "What do you think happened?"

"I — Mama and Baba said not to, but I was so excited! So I… I told Akil about… about what I am."

"Who is Akil?"

"He's my best friend," Karim said miserably. "I showed him too, and he thought it was amazing! I made him promise not to tell anyone, not even his father — and he promised. He promised he wouldn't tell."

"Oh, Karim," Essa sighed.

"But he must have." Anger and resentment twisted Karim's sweet voice, turning it bitter. "And now it's my fault that you were — you were shot, and everyone… Mama… Baba… Shani… even Omar…"

"It is not your fault," Essa said, shaking her head. "Hush, Karim. You did not know. You trusted a friend, that is all. Perhaps it was not Akil. Perhaps someone else found out somehow." She did not truly believe that. But Karim was so young and so full of guilt.

"But how else would they have known?" Karim cried.

"Hush," Essa said again. "Keep your voice down, yes? They can hear us." Karim nodded, biting his lip. "We may yet find out. But for now, let us not point fingers at anyone. Including ourselves."

"Okay," Karim mumbled. He wiped at his eyes, the tender skin there red and swollen.

"You should rest," she said gently. "I do not think they plan to stop anytime soon."

"I'm scared, Miss Essa."

If she could, she would have hugged the poor child. But she was caked in her own dried blood, staining the skin of her palms, her belly, her thighs, her calves. "I will stay awake," she promised. "You sleep. I will… I will protect you."

Some of the tension left his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around himself tightly and shut his eyes. After a few minutes, Essa heard his breathing even out, turning slow and deep. The toll of the night was etched in the folds of his brow, his small, shivering body.

Essa settled in for a long journey. She only hoped that she would not break her promise.