"'Splain this to me again," said Burton. "How's an elf gonna make me invisible?"
"It's a thing they can do," Alexandra said. "Elf magic. Sees-From-Laurel has some kind of special connection to laurel. They can't actually leave their mountain, because of the Compact you guys made with them, but some of them can, like, project themselves to certain spots, and also use laurel bushes or cracks in the rocks as a sort of cloak from sight…" Her voice trailed off. "You are totally not taking this seriously at all, are you?"
They stood in the woods near what had once been the jimplicute's lair, where Burton had agreed to meet her after she sent a message with Charlie. He was listening with an amused, patronizing smile, and now he put a hand on her cheek. "Now, Alex, did you really invite me out to the woods to talk 'bout elves 'n jimplicutes?"
"Yes!" Alexandra slapped his hand away. "Oh my God, did you think this was just a booty call?"
"A what?" Burton grinned.
"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean, jerk!"
Sitting on the laurel bush behind them, Charlie said, "Big fat jerk!"
Burton's brow furrowed. "You know, that raven really puts a crimpin' on the romance — ow!" He jumped as Alexandra jinxed his feet. "Now stop that, I was just funnin'!"
Alexandra glared at him. "Well, stop 'funning.' I'm dead serious. I need your help if I'm going to fix any of this."
Burton folded his arms. "Alright, s'pposin' I believe there's a jimplicute, an' you can take us to the World Away, an' we'uns need the dwarves now to do that, and these elves feature into it somehow, though I ain't ne'er seen elves in the Ozarks —"
"That's because they were trapped, by the Confederation. And the dwarves."
Burton shook his head. "You hain't makin' a lick o' sense, Miss Quick."
Alexandra gritted her teeth at his condescending "Miss Quick," but forced herself not to show anger. "Fine, supposing you do believe me. Will you help me?"
Burton chuckled. "Sure. Show me."
Alexandra snapped her fingers.
"You will put your life in this one's hands?" The voice came from the laurel bush. "He seems something of an oaf."
Burton walked over to the laurel bush and leaned forward, staring into it until he could make out Sees-From-Laurel's form camouflaged within.
"Well, tie me down," said Burton. "Howdy, little feller."
"Yeah," Alexandra said, "he's an oaf. But he's got the meanest Severing Charm in the Five Hollers. So he says."
Burton turned back to Alexandra, now not looking quite so amused. "That's Dark magic, usin' a Severin' Charm on livin' Beens."
"A jimplicute isn't a Being, it's a Beast," Alexandra said. "You just said you could do it. Are you backing out now?"
Burton scowled. Alexandra knew she was attacking his pride.
"So, I'm gonna sit in a laurel bush, invisible-like, an' the jimplicute's just gonna come by all unsuspectin' an' let me lop its head off?"
"Basically," Alexandra said. "But you should take this Hasten potion." She handed him the little bottle she'd brewed two days earlier. "I'm going to cast Slow Lines, which will probably slow it enough for you to kill it, but just in case, as soon as you see it —"
"You just hold yore horses!" Burton took the bottle but held it as if Alexandra had offered him poison. "A year off'n my life? You don't ask for much, do you, Miss Quick?"
"I know I'm asking a lot," she said. "But seriously, you haven't seen how fast this thing moves —"
Burton snorted. "You admitted yourself you barely saw it atall." He held up a hand before Alexandra could protest. "Alright, alright, if'n I see it, I'll drink the brew."
"When you see it."
Burton's smile was more rueful now. "Whatever you say, Alex."
Alexandra didn't actually have much faith in the potency of the brew, and she wasn't sure about Burton. She was mostly relying on her Slow Lines. Slow Lines were one of the more difficult spells in the Auror's Field Training Grimoire. Not as difficult as the Patronus Charm, which she still hadn't been able to cast successfully, but she'd only just started practicing Slow Lines that morning. She didn't tell Burton this. "Just stick to my plan."
Burton's skepticism was still written across his face, but his expression became a bit more serious. "I still hain't bereckoned what we need the hill-folk for."
"They know where the jimplicute hunts, and they know how to lure it." Alexandra's face darkened. "I think they've left people out for it before."
"Not just people," said Sees-From-Laurel.
Burton shook his head. "If'n I thought we'un're actually gonna see a jimplicute, I'd call this a plumb foolish plan."
"Well, since it's not real, maybe you'd like to be the bait, then?"
"Hain't lettin' no dwarves tie me up. But I'll humor you an' the hill-folk, so maybe they'uns'll stop pesterin' us with this jimplicute nonsense."
"Fine. Humor me." Alexandra couldn't really let him be the bait — Constance and Forbearance would never forgive her. She took a deep breath. "Now, I've got to go talk to the dwarves."
"It doesn't have to be so tight," Alexandra said, as a dwarf tied her wrists together.
The dwarf grinned and pulled the rope extra-tight, hard enough to make her wince.
She dubbed him "Jerkass." None of them had given her their names. It was apparently a thing with dwarves — they didn't even give false names, like the elves. They just let humans assign them names if they needed them for dealing with "bigfeet."
"Hey, now," Burton said. He waved his wand, and the ropes around Alexandra's wrists loosened.
"Convincing we want it to be, do we not?" Jerkass said.
"It's convincin' enough," said Burton, giving the dwarf a scowl that momentarily replaced his amused smirk. All the dwarves around Alexandra stepped back.
They were inside the palisade the dwarves had built. Alexandra didn't see Asshole or any of the other dwarves she'd first encountered, but Asshole's friend who had remonstrated with her before was here, along with most of the dwarven population of the Ozarks, it seemed. All of them stared at her and Burton with hostile, angry expressions, and Alexandra wondered if it was only Burton's wand that kept them from skipping the plan and exacting vengeance now.
Alexandra had given her wands to Charlie. Remembering how hard it had been to send her familiar away from Eerie Island, she had coaxed, cajoled, and commanded until Charlie was far from Furthest Holler. She felt Charlie's unhappiness even from leagues away, and tried to think soothing thoughts, which was hard surrounded by angry dwarves preparing to stake her out as bait for the jimplicute.
"We go," said Jerkass, jerking on Alexandra's rope hard enough to make her stumble before she jerked back, almost pulling the dwarf off his feet.
Burton looked Alexandra up and down. Beneath a winter coat, she was in an Ozarker dress and bonnet, though she wasn't sure she believed the dwarves that the jimplicute was smart enough to differentiate between humans.
"Alright, Miss Quick, you ready to be chained to a rock like Andromeda?"
Alexandra managed a small smile. "I'm not going to be chained to a rock, I'm going to be staked out by a rope."
"More like a billy-goat," Burton agreed. "But I still gotter rescue you." He winked. "Traditionally, the hero gets a reward, don't he?"
"First you have to slay the monster, hero."
"Oh, don't you worry none." Burton held up his wand. "Any jimplicutes show up, I'll dispatch 'em like ol' Perseus himself."
"You'd better." Alexandra wished he would stop looking so skeptical. "And remember where I put the Slow Lines."
"Should you hide yourself before we arrive," one of the other dwarves said, addressing Burton.
"Right," Burton said. "Off to sit in a laurel bush an' twiddle my thumbs all day." He Disapparated away.
Jerkass tugged hard on her rope again. This time Alexandra meekly allowed herself to be pulled along, like a proper sacrifice, and tried not to let her annoyance show. There were only five dwarves with her this time — the minimum number, they said, to make it less likely the jimplicute would decide to pick them all off.
There had been a heavy snowfall the night before, so the snow was thicker as they hiked through the woods. Little conversation passed between them; as they walked deeper into the jimplicute's territory, Jerkass seemed less interested in making Alexandra stumble or wince when he pulled on her lead. The dwarves all looked around nervously and mumbled to each other.
Alexandra was alert to the sensation she'd felt before when she was spied on, but she wasn't sure how reliable it was, and she felt no eyes on her now.
Miles from the dwarven homestead, and not far from the mountain that was their former home, they found the copse of trees they'd chosen earlier, surrounded by thick laurel. Alexandra and the dwarves stared intently at the laurel, but Sees-From-Laurel's elfish magic must have been working; Alexandra couldn't see Burton. She was tempted to whisper his name, just to make sure he was actually there, but the jimplicute could be tracking them now, and though she wasn't convinced it was as cunning as the elves and dwarves thought it was, it would still be a shame to spoil the trap after they had gone to all this effort.
The dwarves brought Alexandra to the agreed-upon spot. As they passed through the laurel and entered the little copse, their movement suddenly slowed to less than a crawl. It felt like trying to move through transparent molasses. Alexandra sucked in a breath and realized she could breathe normally, but the invisible Slow Line she had cast between the trees dragged at each of them until they had passed it completely.
Then Jerkass was moving normally again, while Alexandra was still Slowed. He pulled hard on her rope until it felt as if he were trying to pull her arms off. She glared at him but could do nothing until she was past the Line, and then curled her fingers to rub her wrists where the rope had chafed and burned.
The dwarves staked the other end of the rope into the ground with heavy mallets.
"Should we bind your arms and legs as well," said one of the other dwarves. She dubbed him "Creepy."
"No," she said. "Get lost. My witch senses say the jimplicute is coming."
She could see they were skeptical, but not skeptical enough to risk the chance that she was telling the truth. They scrambled away without another word, leaving her standing in a copse by herself, wrists tied together, attached to a rope that was staked into the ground.
"Hope you're not talking a nap, Burton," she murmured.
Distantly, but not distantly enough, she heard a caw. Stay away, Charlie.
She supposed, to be realistic, she should be trying to escape. She began trying to work her wrists free, and found that Jerkass had done an exceptionally good job of tying them. She gathered up the rope in her hands and began pulling at the stake. It didn't even budge. She began rocking back and forth, trying to wiggle it loose, but it didn't move. The heavy metal spike the dwarves had used stayed sunk into the ground as if it had been charmed. She didn't think dwarves had any magic of their own, but she found herself frustrated at her inability to move it.
She knelt in the snow and began scrabbling at the dirt around the stake. Her hands quickly became numb, and the ground was hard and frozen. She might have been able to dig enough dirt out to loosen the stake's hold in the ground with hours of work and terrible damage to her fingers, but she had to admit that without magic, she really would be dead meat should the jimplicute actually appear.
Now Burton's skepticism is rubbing off on me, she thought. Her knees were already sore and damp from kneeling in the snow. She stood up and shook her legs and rolled her shoulders. It was chilly, but not as cold as some days. However, if it was uncomfortable for her, Burton was probably not enjoying sitting in the hunter's blind they'd made of the laurel bushes, though at least he'd have Warming Charms and whatever else he'd brought along to keep himself comfortable.
"Just don't fall asleep," she said under her breath.
She was pretty sure she could free herself with wandless magic — doggerel verse, if nothing else. But that might frighten away the jimplicute. The whole point was for her to be a wandless, helpless morsel staked out as a sacrifice.
"That's right," she said, in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice, "I'm just a scared little girl who's been left out as jimplicute bait. I don't have a wand or a gun or anything. I'm just dinner for monsters. Come and get me."
Those dwarves, she thought. They really had been planning to feed her to the jimplicute the first time. So maybe she had gotten carried away with her retaliation. Maybe not all of them were guilty of human sacrifice. Still, she felt like maybe the Ozarkers ought to have a chat with the hill dwarves about accountability too…
It appeared so quickly that it was if she'd summoned it by blinking, and for a moment, her brain didn't register the figure that had suddenly replaced what was empty forest an instant before.
Only yards away, a spiked reptilian head attached to a long serpentine body reared above the laurel bushes to stare down at her. It was motionless, a monstrous life-like statue that could have just Apparated into sight. Transfixed by its gaze, Alexandra found herself unable to move or even breathe, like the stories she'd heard of rats paralyzed looking into the eyes of a serpent. Staring at the jimplicute at close quarters and being truly defenseless was worse than when it had trapped her in its tunnel under the mountain. Now she had no wand, no Charlie —
She heard Charlie caw, and realized with dismay that she must have summoned her familiar to her in her terror.
Charlie, stay away! she thought, managing to seize onto that thought and repeat it with all her will. Her heart was hammering, her pulse racing, and when the jimplicute lunged forward, she found herself pulling at the stake in earnest, panic replacing her rational thoughts.
The jimplicute would have snatched her in its jaws before she could even move, but for the Slow Line. Its eyes turned round in rage and fear as the magic forced it to move at reduced speed, passing between two of the trees ringing Alexandra, but still it came fast, slithering at her like a giant horned serpent, though it had tiny clawed legs that pushed against the snow on the ground.
Up close, Alexandra realized it had fur under its scales, and its face resembled a cross between a weasel and a snake. She yanked against her tether with all her might. The stake came out of the ground and flew into the air. It wasn't some surge of strength bestowed by adrenaline — it was magic. Alexandra swung her arms thinking maybe she could hit the jimplicute with it, but instead the rope wrapped around her and the heavy iron stake struck the back of her head, almost knocking her off her feet.
"Burton," she said dizzily. The jimplicute opened its mouth wide. Like a snake, it could no doubt swallow her whole. Its body was thicker than hers.
"Burton!" she repeated, staggering back. She couldn't think of any doggerel verse, and the jimplicute's lower half was almost past the Slow Line. It glared at her with cold-blooded ferocity, and its front claws, while tiny compared to its body, were much larger than a man's hands. It could disembowel her while its jaws closed around her head…
"BURTON!" she screamed. She stared wide-eyed at the gaping jaws closing, and heard another voice. She thought it said, "Diffindo!"
The jimplicute's head slid off its neck and fell to the ground. Its jaws snapped shut as a spray of blood arced across the space Alexandra stood, spattering her and all the nearby trees and bushes.
The long, half-reptilian, half-mammalian body spasmed and convulsed. Alexandra took deep breaths as wet droplets of blood and snow flew everywhere. Charlie flapped around with great alarm, and Alexandra finally raised her hands, which were still tied together. Charlie landed on her outstretched palms, and with a word she released the Sticking Charms that held her wands to Charlie's talons. When she gripped her wands, her ropes fell away from her wrists. The skin there was red and sore.
Burton staggered into the tiny clearing, stepping over the jimplicute's twitching tail. He held his wand and looked wild-eyed, as if in shock. His movements were accelerated and jerky.
"It's a jimplicute!" he declared. "It's a goldanged jimplicute, hide me if it ain't!"
"Yeah," she said. "Well done. I mean, you could have been a little quicker there, you know? But —"
"ARE YOU OUTTER YORE MIND?" he roared.
Alexandra blinked and took a step back. Charlie cawed angrily.
"You are insane!" Burton yelled. His words spilled out, too fast. "You are the craziest, most hazardous witch I ever met in my life, and you're lucky to be alive thrice over, prob'ly a hunnerd times over if'n I believe half the tales my sisters told, which now maybe I ought! What vexatious madness passed through yore mind to pull a cymlin-headed stunt like this, girl? Where'd you get the damfool notion to use yoreself as bait for that thing and expect me to kill it?" He pointed at the jimplicute. "There wasn't a single sane or sensible thing about this idee!"
Alexandra's mouth hung open. Even when he stopped yelling, she was so stunned by his outburst that only seeing a pair of small, elfish eyes blinking from the laurel behind him allowed her to collect herself and answer him.
"Why are you so upset?" she asked. "It worked."
"What if I'd nodded off?" he demanded. "What if I'd missed? What if I din't see it in time or the Slow Line din't work or I din't take yore dangnabbed potion quick 'nough? How'd you even know for sure I was actually in the laurels, hidden by your li'l friend?"
"I had faith in you."
"Well you oughtn't've!" Burton yelled. "I din't even believe in jimplicutes! I thought this was a farce, a jakey notion of yourn I was gonna humor! An' you knew that! You knew I wasn't takin' it serious!"
"You mean I knew you were just hoping to get laid?" Alexandra smirked. "But it worked, didn't it? Everything went according to plan." She stepped toward him, and laid a hand on his chest. He was so agitated, his chest was heaving nearly as much as hers had been when the jimplicute appeared. "Good job, hero."
He stared at her a moment, then grabbed her hand, and to her surprise, pushed it away from him.
"You," he said, "are a dangerous, doleful calamity! If'n one thing'd gone wrong, yore blood'd be on my hands, an' my sisters woulda lost a friend they cherish dear, more dear'n you deserve, you reckless, high-headed lunatic!" He shook himself off, as if trying to banish chills. "They ain't lyin' when they'uns say you're Troublesome."
"Troublesome!" Charlie said.
Alexandra felt her own temper beginning to rise.
Before she could say anything else, Burton said, "I reckon you done took a year off'n my life an' then some. I think it's best if'n you don't call 'pon me again, Miss Quick." With a pop, he Disapparated away.
Alexandra stood there in shock for a minute, until she heard Sees-From-Laurel's voice. "Well done, Troublesome."
Alexandra turned to look at him with a blank expression, unsure if he was being sarcastic. Blood ran down her face and dripped on the snow. She must be a ghastly sight, she realized, covered in gore.
"I, too, ask not to be called upon again," the elf said. "May the next time we meet be the fulfillment of our pact."
"Greedy-guts!" said Charlie. The raven stood on the jimplicute's severed head, and began to peck at its eyes.
Sees-From-Laurel looked from the raven to Alexandra, and then faded from sight.
Standing there bruised, sore, and cold, in a blood-soaked dress, Alexandra felt like her triumph had been trodden on, and wondered why everything had to be so hard.