Hexed

north—and the thought turned me cold inside.
    That would lead her past the widow MacDonagh’s house.
    Did she know the widow was my friend? The widow had no protection; she was completely vulnerable, and she was probably sitting on her porch that very instant, open to attack, if the witch had not already paid her a visit.
    I used to try to protect all my friends in the early days, but gradually I realized that the very process of protecting them often painted them as targets—or pointed the way to where I was hiding. It became counterproductive to keeping my location secret, so I long ago fell out of the habit. Running after the witch now, I realized that the situation had changed and I’d failed to see it: I was no longer hiding, so my friends might as well be wearing sandwich boards that said, Hurt me to hurt the Druid .
    I redoubled my efforts and considered drawing on my depleted store of magic to accelerate my progress, but then I caught sight of her and understood that she was hoping I’d do just that. She was purposely running in the middle of the road, which meant she knew I got my power from the earth. She was not about to run anywhere near someone’s landscaping, where I could draw power and never tire; if I wanted to attack her magically, I’d have to remove myself from the earth and risk draining my power entirely.
    That smelled like a trap.
    My options were somewhat limited. I had enough magic left in my bear charm for a spell or two, three if I was lucky; most of it had been burned up creating Granuaile’s talisman and binding her sight to mine.
    I had shoes on, so I couldn’t draw power without stopping to take them off. I couldn’t shape-shift to a hound without getting naked first, and that would not only put me farther behind but would risk exposure in a couple of ways. Another possibility suggested itself to me as I continued pounding down the pavement after the witch, though it certainly carried the risk of revealing my true nature and I’d never tried it before. I reasoned that here on 10th Place, with no windows looking out at the street, I could manage it with minimal risk of witnesses. In my estimation, it was worth a gamble; I couldn’t let the witch get away without answering her blow somehow. If she wanted to pick a fight with me, she had to know there was going to be a price to pay.
    I stripped off my shirt as I ran and tossed it into the street, then triggered the charm that would bind my form to an owl while still on the run. My arms unfurled into wings, and my legs shrank up into my body, leaving my jeans and sandals to tumble after my shirt. I didn’t crash and burn and no one saw me do it, including the witch, so I decided to chalk it up as a good idea.
    Flapping powerfully to gain altitude, I banked northeast immediately to cut off the witch, who was now heading north on Roosevelt.
    She came into view as soon as I cleared the last roof of 10th Place, churning her legs straight up the middle of the street. I climbed higher to get out of her peripheral vision. I lined myself up behind her and saw her check her six to see if I was still pursuing on foot. She didn’t see me closing from above. I dove at her just before she drew even with the widow MacDonagh’s property on the left. I kept my eyes on my target, so I didn’t know if the widow was on her porch or not. The witch saw no shadow as I descended, and when she heard the softest flutter of my feathers as I backwinged, there was not time enough for her to duck. My talons scratched into her scalp, and I clutched them convulsively and pulled away hard to my right, even as she screamed and ducked. I came away with a bunch of her hair in my talons, more than enough for me—or Malina—to do something mischievous with.
    But first I had to get away. The witch knew almost immediately what had happened: Normal owls don’t attack running heads of hair for their nests. She knew it was me and what I could do with a handful (or taloned footful) of her hair. She stopped and shouted a curse at me in German, which hit me just like the last one did. My amulet slapped me hard in the chest and knocked me spinning through the air. I flapped my wings spastically, trying to regain control, but I was at low altitude already and could see that I was going to crash pretty hard—hard enough to break my delicate bird bones if I didn’t do something. I hurriedly unbound myself from the owl and crashed with a whuff of breath onto the