The Bone Witch Page 2

  Gretchen narrowed her eyes. “There’s no such thing.”

  Penelope was trapped in a house of bones and teeth.

  Hours ago she had been dancing with flowers in her hair, crowned Queen of the May, like a girl in a novel. Now Gretchen was surrounded by bewitched Greybeards, Emma was allegedly in the Underworld, and Penelope was locked in a house that might, quite literally, eat her up.

  Gothic novels were fine in theory, but she had no wish to be trapped in one.

  Cedric slumped in a gold damask chair with bruises on his jaw. One of Lucius’s Keepers had brought him in. He had blood on his sleeve, ropes around his wrists. It made her want to scream. Ants marched around his boots, disorganized but plentiful. His magic called creatures to him and already the mice and the rats were probably stirring in the walls, even as Greymalkin House transformed around her.

  Outside the windows, the grey and withered gardens bloomed, decades of stifled magic unfurling all at once. Copper urns gleamed, overflowing with lilies. The path of cracked flagstones mended as she watched. Inside, the formerly dingy dusty walls were papered in burgundy silk. The marble fireplace gleamed, white statues of women with wings holding up the mantel. The chandeliers glittered. The only remnant of the toxic magic that saturated the house was the portal hanging in midair, just under the balcony of a grand staircase. It pulsed and throbbed with a violet light, shadows moving on the other side. Bars of violent lavender fire created a gate. Penelope wasn’t keen to test it.

  And Sophie, of course.

  Sophie remained.

  She wore a yellow muslin gown and a necklace of glowing pearls. They formed whips of phosphorescent light, chaining the ghosts of the girls she’d murdered. They trailed behind her like a ghoulish lace train: Margaret York, Alice the seamstress with her pinpricked fingertips, Lilybeth clutching at the leash that burned around her wrist. And Godric. Penelope blinked at the tears burning behind her eyes. Poor Godric.

  Sophie’s skirts rustled as she stepped closer. Penelope wanted to claw at her with her fingernails. “You don’t look strong enough to do anything but eat pastries.”

  Penelope knew the exact moment her spider-familiars rushed out from under her skirts to surround Sophie. The other girl jumped back, squeaking. It was a small, petty revenge, but better than nothing. Especially since Penelope had to fight the instinct to shake the spiders off her as well. She wasn’t any more fond of her blasted familiars than Sophie.

  “She’ll do,” Lucius said, in that soft voice that she had once sent shivers down her spine. It still did, though the shivers were sharp now, and frantic. His magic had bewitched her, just as it was bewitching the Keepers standing guard in the garden. Penelope had magic of her own, a talent for reading the history of any object she touched. And the ability to memorize a thousand words of Shakespeare.

  Neither of which was exactly a sword to take into battle.

  Sophie circled Penelope’s chair. “What if she can’t do it?” She sounded remarkably petulant for a girl trailing the ghosts of her victims.

  Lucius met Penelope’s eyes. “Then we’ll kill the gypsy boy and add him to your collection.”

  Penelope was only a little bit shocked to discover that flying was apparently also in her magical repertoire.

  She launched herself at Lucius so furiously that she cleared the small decorative table between them. A crystal bowl full of roses crashed to the ground, smashing to pieces. She swung a punch at his stupid, perfect face. Pastries and poetry notwithstanding, Cedric had taught her to punch. And she was really good at it.

  Lucius’s nose gave a satisfying crack before she fell weakly to ground, wilting like limp lettuce. “No,” she ground out, even as her muscles felt as if she was floating underwater.

  Sophie was using her magic to revisit the fever that had nearly killed Penelope when she was eleven years old. It had left her frail for days. Frustration fired through her, useless as dead ashes in the grate. Lucius was methodical, removing a handkerchief from his vest pocket and dabbing at the blood on his face. It was red as pomegranate seeds, spilled wine, rubies. Penelope could have written a sonnet about it.

  “I’d forgotten how uncivilized you are,” he said. Penelope wanted to break all the teeth in his head.

  Sophie smirked. “Her father is in trade, what do you expect?” Behind her, Godric’s spirit fought at the end of his chain, trying to reach Penelope. He was barely there, a wisp of smoke.

  Penelope’s breath rattled in her chest. Lucius moved slightly, stepping on her hair hard enough to pull her head down towards the marble floor. “Stop, love,” he said to Sophie. “We need her strong enough to read the bones.”

  Sophie’s magic retreated abruptly, leaving the taste of lemon balm in Penelope’s mouth. She no longer felt as though she was drowning, but Cedric was still unconscious, and now she was pinned to the ground by her hair.

  Not exactly an improvement.

  Lucius dabbed at his raw nose.

  And yet somehow still entirely worth it.

  “Prepare yourself for the Sisters,” Lucius told Sophie. “Without the sacrifice, we’ll have to move quickly.” He bent to whisper in Penelope’s ear, “Come along, pet.” His magic brushed against her, tangling up her will to move. Now that she knew what he was doing, she tried to fight him, tried to shield against it. He caught her chin, wrenching her face towards his. His glass-green eyes flared. “None of that now.”

  He hauled her to her feet, even as she tried to remember all of her classes at the Rowanstone Academy. Gretchen was quite right, they ought to have been taught more useful things. Something more than just hiding their gifts from potential suitors. They should have taught them how to fight.

  Never mind, she was a Lovegrove, after all. And a Chadwick.

  She already knew how to fight. And it had nothing to do with practiced punches or pistols. It went deeper than that.

  Not that her mother’s rhymes were much help at present. Salt for meat and salt for defeat. She wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to get Lucius and Sophie to stop for a moment and let themselves be salted. Regardless, charms weren’t likely to do much. Warlock magic was too clever and devious.

  She’d simply have to be more devious.

  And quickly.

  Lucius forced her down the hall, away from Cedric, shoving her down a set of narrow steps leading into the cellars.

  The damp was touched with lemon balm, as was all warlock magic, and the smoke of burning torches. The hall twisted and turned until it deposited them under a medieval arch. For a moment all thoughts of shielding magic fled. There was no room for anything but horror, and Lucius’s whispered command that she step inside.

  The bone cellars of the Greymalkin House were legend.

  Some legends, unfortunately, were also true.

  The ossuary vaulted overhead, all carefully placed bones and broken mirrors. The Greymalkins had been hiding their bones down here for safety for centuries. It was part of the reason they could never be truly successfully banished.

  A chandelier made of teeth and dangling leg bones cast strange shadows. Skulls painted with a small face on the brow or engraved with names, sat in rows, staring with empty eyes. A full skeleton was set into one wall, over a long table of glass jars with bone shards. Magic shivered over Penelope, even though she wasn’t touching anything. She had flashes of Tudor-style doublets, long kaftans from faraway places, ostrich plumes in debutante hairpieces.

  “You’re not squeamish, are you?” Lucius asked, all feigned concern. The bones didn’t bother her, not really. It was the dark magic that clung to them like fungus. She didn’t want to experience the spells that left that kind of taint behind. “I can whisper that away, if you behave yourself.”

  She had absolutely no intention of behaving.

  Why he thought she’d start now made him sound like an idiot.

 
She didn’t quite have enough personal will left to tell him so. She sorted frantically through classes and lectures and charms, fear nipping at her every breath. She didn’t have the jet stones Keepers used in their wheel pendants, or a witch bottle in which to trap Lucius’s spirit. Not that she even knew how to. The students at the Ironstone Academy had executed several defensive spells in a demonstration that was meant to make the Rowanstone girls feel safe.

  Penelope didn’t feel particularly safe.

  She did recall hours of Miss Hopewell and Mrs. Sparrow drilling them in energy shield spells. They’d ended up covered in beets. Gretchen even made a turnip talk, though she had no idea how she’d done it. At the thought of Gretchen and shield spells, Penelope could have sworn the hagstone charm Gretchen had made for her warmed. It was pinned inside her stays, like a tiny coal.

  Gretchen’s magic gave her the spells spoken by witches over the centuries, some that even the Order didn’t know about. She could create new ones, adjust broken ones. Penelope chose to believe that the charm pulsing under her dress was a sign.

  “Go on,” Lucius said impatiently. His familiar emerged, a brown stoat, quick and innocent-looking but sharp-eyed and sharp-toothed. “You have a lot of bones to read.”

  “I don’t know what you want,” she said, trying to buy herself a little more time. Her energy spells always glowed blue, shaped like an old-fashioned shield. Not exactly subtle. She needed to create that shield inside her head, to block Lucius’s magic from her thoughts.

  “Of course you do. You’ll find which of these bones belong to the Seven Sisters. You’ll find Agnes and Anabelle and Cressida. And then they’ll help us bring back Sophie’s sister from the dead.”

  “To put her spirit in my body,” Penelope pointed out. She didn’t think her energy shield was strong enough. She could barely visualize it. She was stronger with her cousins. It was true with magic, Society, everything. “Why on earth would I help you murder me?”

  He smiled, slowly, the charming smile that had once made her hear poems in her head. “You die well, or you die screaming. That much is your choice, Lady Penelope.” He shoved her hard enough so that she stumbled against a wall of bones. An open jaw leered at her. “Read the bones.”

  She saw blue light inside her head, described it to herself like poetry. It shone like the stars, like moonlight on snow, like lightning hitting the sea. It was soft was water, but just as insurmountable. Water went everywhere, given enough time.

  Lucius’s magic pushed against her, but the shield continued to glow.

  “Read the bones. Now.”

  She wondered if her eyes were turning that same eerie blue. And if she would describe it as cold lake-blue, or the unflinching blue of the sky.

  She did not wonder how to go about obeying his commands.

  It was working.

  She pushed away from the wall of eye sockets and teeth. “No.”

  “Penelope Chadwick, do as I say.”

  “No.” Frothy malmsey-nosed haggard. Shakespeare always helped.

  His eyes narrowed, green as venom. She had no trouble describing them. “How are you doing that?”

  She did not reply. Sweat pooled under her stays. She was out of breath, as if she’d run a long distance. Her shield went misty, before she focused on it again.

  Dread crawled under her skin when Lucius turned on his heel and left the ossuary. She was alone with the quiet malevolent bones. She’d miscalculated. Lucius didn’t need hypnosis.

  He had Cedric.

  And Cedric was awake.

  Lucius returned with two ensorcelled Keepers, one of them the enormous man who had carried Cedric out of Sophie’s carriage. He pushed him now, knocking Cedric to his knees in the bone cellar. Her shield dissipated like mist. She didn’t need to defend against hypnosis. This was so much worse.

  There was a fresh bruise on Cedric’s cheek as he struggled to sit up. His hands were still bound in front of him. He spat blood. “Don’t do it, Penny.”

  Lucius laughed softly. “Of course she’ll do as I ask,” he said, nodding to Keeper. Blank-faced, the Keeper stepped forward, holding a dagger to Cedric’s throat. “Won’t you, pet?”

  If only her magic had been a physical thing. Lucius would have burst into flames, or died choking on his own blood. Instead, he waited, eyebrows raised. She nodded once, her throat clogged with curses. Her voice, when she finally spoke, didn’t falter. “Leave him be.”

  “That’s up to you, isn’t it? More choices, Penelope.”

  “I can’t concentrate if you’re hurting him.”

  Lucius waited a long moment, as Cedric fought to take a breath without pressing his throat deeper against the blade. Everything inside Penelope was screaming. Lucius finally nodded and the Keeper lowered the dagger but did not step back. Penelope’s released breath was louder than Cedric’s. “Stop playing now,” Lucius snapped.

  Penelope stepped closer to the bones. She didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t let Cedric be killed. Surely, if she found the missing bones, there would still be time to stop the Sisters She was gambling for time, that was all.

  Mostly, she really didn’t know what else to do.

  The puzzle of vertebras, jaws, and knuckles assaulted her with stories. There was a woman with white hair, burning the liver of some beast. A boy choking on salt. Another woman slashing at a man and collecting his blood in jars. Someone weeping.

  “Not here,” a woman said impatiently, startling her.

  Ice was slick on the flagstones. Penelope’s breath was a cloud between her and Magdalena, the eldest of the Sisters. Spirit-moths clung to her hair. She was edged in violet light, almost complete corporeal, but not quite. Not without the bones and the rest of the spell. The cold chapped Penelope’s cheeks and frost clung to her eyelashes, making prisms. Magdalena pointed to the furthest corner, dark and lacy with cobwebs. “We’d be somewhere back there.”

  “I’d work faster,” Lucius said dispassionately. “He looks cold.”

  The other Sisters, Rosmerta and Lark, stood behind Cedric, icing his hair and turning his lips blue. His teeth chattered when Rosmerta’s snake-familiar wound around ankles. Lark wept tears that turned to ice and shattered when they hit the ground. The bottom of her plaid was soaked in blood. She moved so quickly, Penelope staggered back under the force of the unnaturally frigid wind. “You will find my love,” Lark hissed. “You will bring him back to me.”

  Magdalena snapped her fingers and Lark’s head snapped back. Moths made a rope around her neck, tugging her further back. “Soon,” Magdalena murmured. “When we’re stronger.”

  “If you let them put Sophie’s sister in my body, I won’t be able to read the bones to help you find him,” Penelope said quickly, before Lucius could stop her. Lark’s gaze was considering.

  Lucius kicked Cedric in the stomach. “Ah, ah,” he said coldly as Cedric doubled over, choking. “Don’t be clever.”

  Real spiders joined her glowing spirit-spiders, rushing around Cedric as if they could protect him. A few froze instantly, ice turning them silver. A rat chittered angrily from the archway.

  Penelope pressed her hand to an intact spine set into the corner where the walls met. Nausea churned in her belly. She saw spells, curses, burning feathers and shattered evil-eye beads.

  Claudius Greymalkin¸ she thought. Stealing gargoyles from the rooftops and setting them on the Witching families, watching stone mouths bite into skin and flesh and bones.

  Penelope snatched her fingers back.

  “Try again,” Magdalena insisted, watching her carefully.

  She was Isla Greymalkin, digging fresh bodies out of the graveyards on which to conduct experiments. Hearts in jars, loops of intestines, flesh sewn to rotting flesh. Penelope dry-heaved, cold sweat freezing at the base of her throat.

  Cecilia was too ill for magic, Jonas too lazy
. Bathsheba only wanted more cake.

  And then there was Agnes.

  Penelope knew as soon as she touched the finger bone, but it was too late to pull back, too late to school her features. She couldn’t pretend, couldn’t do anything but feel the stories trapped in the bones.

  The abandoned castle was falling into ruins, tapestried with dust and spider’s webs and curtains of ivy. No one dared approach, not even the animals.

  In the central courtyard, the twins lay on heaved-up cobblestones. They stared up at the bright sun and the dancing shadows of the bodies hanging from nooses in a circle around them like the petals of a corpse flower.

  Anabelle giggled. “Go on, Agnes,” she urged. “I’ve made them ready, just how you like it.”

  Agnes counted the shadows, found shapes in their gentle swaying. Divination worked as well on the patterns of clouds or birds or spilled tea. But this was so much better.

  Agnes and Anabelle, the Greymalkin twins.

  Their bones weren’t just made of memories, they were a beacon, as much as the spell Sophie was working in another part of the house. They called the Sisters to them, linked by magic and blood. One moment Penelope was snatching her fingers away, and the next she was pressed into a wall of bones and teeth by the searing spirits of Agnes and Anabelle themselves. Anabelle smiled. “Finally, finally.”

  Agnes blew frost on a puzzle of bones, studying the pattern.

  Only one Sister left.

  “Let’s go exploring,” Anabelle begged her twin. “Agnes, let’s find something truly interesting for you to read.”

  Penelope knew Agnes liked to read intestines best of all, along with the screams of her victim. She shuddered when Agnes smiled, consideringly. The twins vanished.

  Lucius was triumphant. It radiated it off him like heat. She wanted to drown him in a lake. He used a dagger to chip bones from the wall. “Again,” he ordered Penelope. “Keep going.”

  She didn’t have to feign fatigue. The witch knot on her palm burned as though she’d been holding a live coal. “I need to rest.”

  “You need to do as I say,” Lucius corrected. “Now.”