Illicit Magic by Camilla Chafer

reinstated and will hold.” He looked shaken and white as he swayed in front of us. I helped Marc manoeuvre him into a chair. Étoile grabbed a cloth from somewhere and was pressing it to his shoulder as she gripped the shard.
    “Don’t do that. He could have sliced an artery,” I hissed.
    Marc was holding my shoulders with both hands. “Étoile knows what she’s doing,” he whispered but I missed what he said next because Steven shrieked as she pulled the shard from his shoulder, dropped it to the floor and pressed her hand over the wound.
    “We should call an ambulance, shouldn’t we?” My voice was almost a wail as I felt my heart beat faster with renewed panic.
    Étoile shook her head and lifted her hand. Steven’s shoulder was bloody but the wound had healed. There wasn’t even a trace of a scar.
    “Thank you. I always knew you were an excellent healer among your many talents.” Steven said as he tugged a pocket square from his breast pocket. He dabbed his forehead with it. “Now run along. More will need your help.”
    Étoile nodded and hurried back into the devastated room. Bridget had staggered out and was leaning against the hallway holding a cloth to her face. Her dress sleeve was torn and her arm bleeding where she had been struck by glass. I guided her to the chair adjacent to Steven and she slumped into it, whimpering slightly. “The Brotherhood have found us,” she heaved.
    “How did they breach our defences?” growled Marc, swinging his head around as if he were looking for the perpetrator. His fists were curled, ready to fight.
    Steven shook his head and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. We didn’t think they had even made it to the States.”
    Marc put his arm about me and his lips were millimetres from my ear as he whispered. “This is one of the most fortified places in the country for people like us. It’s protected by magic, powerful magic that we thought unbreakable. That someone, something, could breach it is unthinkable.”
    I nodded, trying to understand but knowing at least that this was something big and bad.
    “We need to finish this meeting and disperse,” continued Steven, shaking his head at Marc as he prepared to speak again. “We can’t be sure that it is safe here for any of us anymore. I hear the incantation has ended. Will you please come back in so we can finish?”
    I looked to Marc and, despite his obvious anxiety, he nodded and started towards the room.
    “Stella,” Steven’s voice was low as I passed him. He caught me by the elbow and I froze as he pulled me closer to him so he could whisper in my ear, “Find me later. I have something for you.”
    I nodded and helped him to his feet, allowing him to lean against me as we went back into the room. The glass window had been repaired, and the shattered glass and debris that littered the floor had disappeared. Whatever it was that punctured its way through the room to land in the wall had also gone. If it weren’t for the injured moans and the trails of smoke, I would have wondered if I hadn’t imagined it all.
    Robert stood with a woman, Mary, I thought. She had her hands pressed to the crater in the wall but when she turned to the crowd, she shook her head. “There is no trace,” she said with surprise in her voice. Her eyes were narrow and puzzled as if she couldn’t quite work out why she had to say such a ridiculous statement.
    With my back against the wall, I scanned the room trying to register everything. Faces were red, hair dishevelled and the air was thick. In the minutes that we had hidden in the lobby, I could tell, even in my own inexperienced way, that powerful magic had corrected the preceding events. I felt it echo in the air around me like a fog. I had never felt magic like this before; I had never felt anything but my own magic until the moment when Étoile had rescued me. Here, it trailed past me, whispering through my hair and coolly washing over me, chilling me to my core. Then I