but she was determined to keep me still. She wrapped the long fingers of her right hand around both my wrists and reached beneath her coat.
I could almost feel my heart sink into the stone beneath me when she pulled out a silver flask and began twisting the cap open with cold concentration. When she finally answered, her tone was calm and cold, like a cruel teacher to a misbehaving student.
“What you should have done a long time ago.”
Jazibe leaned forward. Her hand released my arms to grip my chin, but the weight of her stomach against my wrists kept me from pushing her away. I turned my head away from her grasp, but she tugged me back, jarring my jaw and forcing my mouth open. The silver flask hovered inches from my lips, slowly tipping until it threatened to spill its foul-smelling contents.
I struggled to turn my head again, but Jazibe's grip was strong as she poured the potion into my mouth. The thick, bitter liquid slid down the back of my throat and I gagged on it. I coughed, succeeding in ridding my mouth of a small bit of the substance before Jazibe clamped her hand over my mouth and forced it to close. My eyes watered as I felt the potion sit on the back of my tongue like a poisonous toad, the little I had managed to cough up smeared on my chin and cheeks by Jazibe's fingers.
“Swallow,” she instructed.
Again, I tried in vain to wriggle out of her grasp, but whatever she was forcing me to drink was already seeping down my throat, leaving a strange tingling in its wake. Once I could suppress my gag reflex no longer, my eyes spilled over with tears and I half coughed again. I gave up fighting, letting my tongue scoop up the sinister liquid and carry it down my throat.
“Good girl,” I heard Jazibe say.
A mocking smile spread across the face I once considered pretty. I watched her take her hand from my mouth and wipe it on my coat. I tried to say something about how she was a horrid witch, but before I could form the sentence in my head I was more distracted by the fantastic tingling at the base of my skull and how my eyes were not quite focusing.
Jazibe said something I could not quite wrap my mind around before she lifted herself off of me and walked off. I tried to move my legs and they only slowly fell to one side. My addled mind found this incredibly amusing and a soft groan that was