Visions of Magic by Regan Hastings Page A

other things more scary. There’s being snatched from your home in the middle of the night and locked away without a chance of even speaking to your own child. There’s fearing that you’ll never get out.”
    â€œWe really shouldn’t be talking about this,” Shea whispered, glancing up at the closest guard tower. The man wasn’t looking in their direction, but that didn’t mean a thing.
    â€œThey’ve already locked me up,” Terri said firmly. “They’re not going to shut me up, too. You know, before this happened, I was like anyone else, reading about magic and the witches and how BOW and the MPs were doing their duty to protect the people . . .”
    Shea took Terri’s elbow and started walking. She wasn’t sure why, but somehow she had the feeling that it would be more difficult for their jailers to overhear them if they kept moving in and out of crowds. And she tried to subtly warn her student’s mother that being outspoken in prison wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “Terri . . .”
    She walked and shook her head before giving Shea a half smile. “I know. I know they listen. I know they watch.” Her gaze slid to the side, where two female guards stood together, watching over the prisoners. “But I’m still a citizen. I still have rights.”
    â€œNot really,” Shea told her.
    â€œThere’s a sad statement.”
    â€œYou have to be careful,” Shea said. “No one here is concerned about your ‘rights.’ To them, we’re less than human. They’d like nothing better than a chance to take us all down. So if you want to see Amanda again—do what you can to stay unnoticed. Don’t stand out in this crowd, Terri. Blend in. Don’t make waves. You might drown in them.”
    She huffed out a breath. “Seeing Amanda. What’re the chances of that, I wonder.”
    â€œProbably not good,” Shea admitted, then added, “but you’ll make it worse for yourself in here by not being careful.”
    â€œI know that, but underneath all of the fear, I am furious ,” she said softly and her voice toughened up as if to prove it. “I’ve met a few . . . interesting women here and the thing is, they’re no different from me. Not at the bottom of it, you know? I mean, we’re all just people. Some good, some bad.”
    Oh, Shea wished she had met Terri under other circumstances. They could have been friends. Instead, they were prison mates with definite dates of expiration. “Yeah, the problem is, that doesn’t seem to matter.”
    â€œAll I’m trying to say is if people would just talk to witches, they wouldn’t be so afraid.”
    â€œYou’re right. But at the moment,” Shea told her, keeping her voice low, “fear’s in charge and logic didn’t even get a seat at the table.”
    They walked through the yard, the breeze off the harbor carrying the smell of the sea and the illusion of freedom. Off in one corner, a lone woman sat with her knees drawn up, back against the wall, quietly crying to herself. Just seeing the emotionally beaten woman stiffened Shea’s spine.
    She wasn’t going to be afraid. Not anymore. She was through being the helpless victim, racing through the dark, trying to avoid her enemies by disappearing into an uncaring crowd. Talking to Terri had helped, too. Terri had allowed her own sense of injustice to trump her fears and Shea could do no less.
    Dropping one arm around the other woman’s shoulder, Shea said, “We’ll find a way out.”
    And she realized she believed it. She wasn’t going to be locked away here forever. She’d find a way out even if Torin didn’t come for her. Damned if she’d let these bastards win. She and Terri would get out. Somehow. She wouldn’t be a statistic and simply disappear.
    She wouldn’t lie down and die without a