Chapter 43: Being Coerced

"What did you do?!" I demanded.

I reached for Imogen, helping keep her on her feet. I felt rage boiling in me. I felt like snarling as though I were Olezhka. My Familiar was a few rooms away, but I knew he could sense my distress and was on his way already.

Imogen coughed but stayed standing. She blinked and took an unsteady breath.

The Elm Matriarch raised her hand, in which she held a piece of paper that had been folded into a delicate origami flower. It was the very same page I had seen her fiddling with when I entered the office, but changed now through her magic.

"You. Will. Do. As. I. Say." Klaeris said, her own breath ragged from the effort of casting her spell.

"What did you do?!" I repeated.

Klaeris gave me a steel-eyed look. "I've connected this paper to her heart," she said, as calmly as if she were relaying the weather forecast. "If I crush it, she dies."