Chapter ONE - Weebly

leg aching.
He stepped past her, entered her house, and went
immediately to the sitting room, where a fire blazed. He
laid Holin on a sofa and began pulling off the boy’s wet
clothes.
“He looks half dead!” Elli said, hovering at Ethan’s
shoulder. “How did this happen? What mischief did you
get him into now?”
He whirled on her so quickly that she fell back
several steps. Grief and guilt and the memory of pain
flared in his chest like conjured fire. But though a
thousand angry replies leaped to mind, he bit them all
back. There were tears in Elli’s eyes, and her cheeks
were every bit as ashen as her son’s.
“I didn’t do this,” he said, struggling to keep his
voice level. He could feel Pitch’s wet fur under his
fingertips. His chest burned with guilt, with grief, with
the remembered pain of the conjurer’s relentless
attacks. “And I just … did something to save him—to
save both of us—that I’ll regret for the rest of my
days.”
She said nothing, but nodded.