The Secret Witch Read online

  It never failed.

  They circled him counterclockwise, and he circled against them clockwise to undo their work. The horse approached, like the moon between the dark tree trunks. Moths, hawks, and roses battled in the air. The Sisters clawed at Cormac, cackling. He squinted through the debris of dead leaves and dust, disoriented. The True Sight amulet in his pocket glowed briefly, fighting to clear his sight. The Sisters keened like a winter storm.

  He knew the exact moment they sensed Colette’s power. She felt it too, and the wind raked at them, filled with flowers and shredded petals. The trees tossed back and forth, clawing at the Sisters. They abandoned Cormac for sweeter fruit.

  He fell slowly, toppling like a ship’s mast struck by lightning.

  “Cormac!” Colette shouted.

  He sprawled on the cold ground, ice blocking his nostrils and sealing his eyes shut. He had to drag his fist across them to loosen the frost. He coughed, pushing himself up on one elbow. The world tilted and spun like a game of tops.

  Colette stood tall, pale but determined. She pushed her magic out, taunting and tempting the Sisters. She focused on Rosmerta, feeding power at the poisonous flowers draped all over her. The nightshade vines tightened.

  “What are you doing?” Rosmerta clawed at the green tendrils bruising her head and crawling down around her neck, choking her. Real plants couldn’t do her harm, but these were connected to her magic, and the lives she’d taken when she’d been just another Greymalkin warlock. The bryony berries burst, leaking juices that seared through her dress, through her flesh and right down to ghostly bones.

  Magdalena shimmered right behind Colette, touching her on the back of the head. Cormac smelled burning hair, just as Colette crumpled. Colette’s hawk-familiar exploded out of her back, from between her shoulder blades, to peck viciously at the Sisters.

  Cormac dragged himself through the grass. Gritting his teeth at the confounding weakness, he crawled inch by inch, the pink ribbon tucked in his pocket. Colette began to convulse, just as Tobias had.

  The end of the ribbon unfurled.

  At this proximity, he could see the tiny letters, hastily written in blurred ink. The Greymalkin Sisters, followed by a string of symbols.

  Talia had sent him a binding spell.

  Cormac fumbled for the iron nail all Keepers carried after their initiation into the Order. It was wrapped in black thread and tucked into a special pocket sewn inside all his jackets. He rolled the ribbon tightly into a little ball, holding Colette’s gaze until he was sure she wasn’t staring blankly through him. Then he flicked his wrist in one sharp motion and sent it unraveling to her hand. Her fingers twitched. The horse’s back hoof slammed into the ground beside her head. Sweat melted the ice in her hair as she forced her arm to move. Finally, finally, she grasped the ribbon. Grass grew over her fist, securing it to the ground even as the tree beside her shed its leaves.

  Cormac drove the nail through his end of the ribbon and into the earth. Colette’s magic seeped through the roots of dandelions, oak trees, and rosebushes. The power of the iron nail shivered through the ribbon, unleashing the binding spell.

  Magdalena and Rosmerta froze and Colette let out a long, ragged breath.

  It wouldn’t be strong enough to hold them there, but combined with the white horse it should be enough to send them away. If they tried to return to the area they’d be sucked into the binding, which was a painful affair.

  Above him, the horse grabbed Lark’s plaid, dragging her into the binding spell. Colette pushed herself up, teeth chattering. Relief flooded through Cormac. He pushed dizzily to his feet, still holding onto the ribbon.

  Confined by iron and magic, the Sisters could only huddle together as the white horse trampled through them until they fell apart like moldy lace. Then it vanished as well, turning back into a handful of banishing powder.

  Which was, of course, the precise moment the Order arrived, finding Cormac holding a pink hair ribbon, with flower petals in his hair.

  Worse yet, Virgil was with them.

  A murderer and three cannibal Sisters were no longer the worst thing he’d dealt with that night.

  The older Keeper was a stranger, but the scars on his hands proved him to be a veteran of the Order. He took one look at Colette and the grass dying around her and her frantic hawkfamiliar, and handed her a piece of jet dipped in rivulets of silver. It cracked to dust the minute she touched it, absorbing the residue of dark magic contaminating her.

  “No need to worry,” Virgil announced. “We’ll take care of this for you. Unless you wanted to keep this for your hair?” He yanked the pink ribbon out of Cormac’s hand before he could say anything.

  Magic spent, the white horse had fallen apart, but the binding ribbon hadn’t completed its work quite yet.

  The Sisters whirled back into spirit form, blasting frigid air so sharp it left bloody nicks on exposed skin. Virgil stumbled back a step, knocking the third Keeper, Prescott, off his feet. Magdalena made a grab for him, singeing through the sleeve of his coat. The odor of charred wool mingled with the wet mist. Prescott’s teeth chattered as his magic leeched from his body. Virgil looked ill. The older Keeper swore under his breath, shoving between the Sisters and the others. He tossed iron shavings into the air, muttering in Gaelic and resecuring the ribbon with a spelled dagger.

  There was a crack of violet light and the Sisters were gone.

  “Good thing your little sister was here to help you,” Virgil said with the kind of sweet politeness that made old ladies seem downright rude. “Wouldn’t you say, old chap? At least someone in your family has power.”

  Cormac didn’t reply. It wasn’t the first time Virgil had insulted him and it wouldn’t be the last.

  It might be the last time he had his own teeth though. The image of his fist plowing through Virgil’s face was deeply satisfying.

  “I came out looking for the Sisters,” Colette declared, shielding him the way he’d tried to shield her from the Sisters. “I cast a spell to summon them. So actually, Cormac saved me.” To underscore her point, an oak branch slapped Virgil across the face. He stumbled, letting out a thin shriek. Colette burst out laughing.

  Cormac shook his head. “Never mind, Colette,” he said gently. “You don’t have to lie for me.”

  “But it’s rather funny to hear him make that noise,” she said. “And I do feel dreadful,” she added. “I could probably throw up on his shoes. They look new.”

  Cormac only smiled and turned to the other Keepers. “Tobias is two streets over,” Cormac said. “They nearly drained him.”

  “I’ll go,” the older man offered, loping away. Virgil and Prescott remained.

  “Cormac saved Tobias’s life.” Colette taunted Virgil with all the maturity of a three-year-old after too many sugar biscuits. “What did you do tonight, you pompous ingrate?”

  Cormac grabbed her arm when she wove on her feet, still exhausted despite her temper. He didn’t bother to hide his grin when Virgil avoided Colette’s glare the way he’d have avoided an escaped asylum patient.

  “The Sisters,” Prescott whistled through his teeth. “Rotten luck, Blackburn.”

  “We banished them,” Colette pointed out crisply.

  “They’ll be back,” he said, shrugging.

  “Probably,” Cormac agreed. “But not tonight. And that’s good enough for me.”

  “The Order wants to talk to you.”

  “Yes,” Cormac sighed, running his hand through his hair. “I imagine they do.”

  “They’re waiting in the carriage around the corner.”

  “Of course they are.”

  Chapter 9

  Emma knew full well that being caught sneaking into bachelor apartments in the middle of the night would ruin her utterly. She would be cast out of society, shunned, and very likely locked in the cellar by her very irate father. All that, without even taking into account the dangers that lay in the dark streets between here and there.

  So she’
d just have to make sure she wasn’t caught.

  She was wearing her most voluminous cloak, her face tucked back into the deep shadows of the hood. There wasn’t enough money in the world to bribe her father’s coachman to run her out in the family carriage, even if her father had owned an unmarked one, which he did not. He thought it only proper that he be recognized wherever he went. He could travel between gaming hells, Parliament, and brothels with impunity since earls were accorded special allowances.

  Earls’ daughters were not.

  Emma stopped long enough to slip a small paring knife from the kitchen into her reticule. The newspapers were forever reporting on people getting robbed at night—even in the glittering neighborhood of Mayfair. Sometimes especially then.

  Besides, she was enjoying the thought of brandishing it at Cormac.

  She kept to the hedges, darting from cover to cover as she made her way down the street to the nearest ball. Luckily, she didn’t have to go far to find the road clogged with carriages, ladies in diamonds, and men in crowned hats. She used the crowd as a shield, dashing between the horses until she found an empty hansom cab for hire.

  She tossed the driver a coin and an address, slamming the door behind her. The seats were squashed and the dim interior smelled like rosewater and cabbages. She bounced along the worn cushions, holding onto the edge of the window when the carriage turned sharply. Peeking out between the curtains, she saw gentlemen laughing together outside a tavern, the windows of her father’s club lit with oil lamps, and a woman wearing a very questionable gown standing inside a doorway. Torches and gas lamps gave everything a yellow glow, like gold coins at the bottom of a very deep wishing well.

  The carriage stopped in front of a large house with a clean front step flanked with burning torches. She jumped out, unable to make the steps lower properly. The coachman was huddled in a greatcoat, yawning. “If you wait for me, I’ll double your fee,” she said.

  He grinned. “Aye, miss.”

  She hovered on the pavement, trying not to imagine what he must be thinking of her and what she was doing here. She certainly had bigger problems than that. For one thing, this particular street was most disobliging. There wasn’t shrubbery anywhere in which to hide; there were only lampposts and paving stones and the clatter of wheels on the cobblestones behind her, none of which were especially helpful. Also, a formidable butler now stood in the open doorway, eyeing her.

  Blast.

  She crossed behind the carriage, hiding behind its bulk. She hovered there uncertainly, running through curses under her breath. The coachman, overhearing her, gave a startled guffaw. “I didn’t know goats could do that,” he said.

  She smiled at him weakly. Her mind raced as she tried to imagine a way past the butler. If he was anything like Jenkins she would need nothing short of magic.

  A carriage pulled ahead of her hired cab and disgorged young gentlemen and ladies who should’ve known better. They were a riot of colorful silks, all hats askew and crooked cravats. They stumbled across the sidewalk, arm in arm. They headed toward the bachelor apartments like a flock of geese constantly changing leaders mid-flight.

  Finally, a little luck.

  Emma crept close enough to smell the port from the open bottle the young man with red hair swung negligently from his fingers. One of his friends was singing a song about a sailor and his sweetheart. It put her poor cursed goats to shame. She trailed after them, trying to appear part of the festivities without actually drawing their attention. The butler nodded to the gentlemen and politely refrained from noticing the women at all.

  Oil lamps burned in the foyer, casting wavering light over the marble floor and doors opening onto rooms down the hall. The balustrade of the staircase was shaped like a buxom mermaid. She’d never drown with proportions such as those. The party trampled up the steps. Nerves had her palms tingling. She rubbed them on her dress.

  That was when she noticed the light spilling out from the front opening of her cape.

  Light spilling from her, in fact.

  She gasped, holding up her hands. She squinted at the flare of light, as bright as the Pickfords’ curtains when they caught fire.

  Something was very wrong with her.

  “What’s that, eh?” Someone slurred at the top of the stairs, blinking owlishly. “Bloody girl’s on fire.”

  Emma gasped and leaped into the potted ferns and ficus trees grouped together on the landing. It occurred to her that she was spending a lot of time hiding in shrubbery lately.

  “You’re foxed,” one of his friends laughed, slapping him so hard on the shoulder they both nearly fell headfirst down the stairs. The mad flailing to regain their balance distracted them from Emma. She stayed huddled behind the leaves, trying not to hyperventilate.

  Her left palm was glowing.

  She rubbed it hard on her dress and the glow dimmed but didn’t fade away completely. Her hands, all evidence to the contrary, felt perfectly normal. If her eyes had been closed, she’d never have guessed anything out of the ordinary was happening.

  The glow weakened, the light like molten iron boiling in a blacksmith’s shop. It poured and ran into new lines, like the blade of a newly forged sword under a hammer. The pattern was simple, curving into a four-leaf clover minus the stem.

  Floorboards creaked as the party made its way into one of the rooms. A voice carried up the stairs from the back of the house. She couldn’t stay here. She curled her fingers into a fist, trying to hide the strange glow. It made her feel vaguely sweaty to look at it, as if she’d climbed too high up a tall tree and couldn’t find her way back down.

  She forced herself up to the first floor, which was sectioned off into bedrooms with small attached private parlors. She knew Godric had a room overlooking the street, as he’d told them stories of hiding under the bed when he saw his parents’ carriage pull up to the curb.

  However she had no idea which room belonged to Cormac.

  This seemed so much easier in novels. And the Times made it sound as if housebreaking were as easy as buying muffins from a cart.

  She forced herself to stop sneaking glances at her palm and concentrate. The door at the end must be Godric’s since it faced the street. The voices of the group she’d followed inside were a dull roar at the other end on the right. She moved slowly to the room beside her, listening at the door for a moment. When she reached for the doorknob, it turned easily. She craned her head inside.

  And promptly slapped her hand over her own eyes, nearly blinding herself.

  Subterfuge was a dangerous business.

  And she could have lived a full, happy life without ever seeing William Purejoy’s backside.

  She pulled the door shut hastily with a smothered apology. Well, it was meant to be an apology. She couldn’t help the laugh that choked out of her. Something thumped against the door and she leaped back. It sounded like a shoe. Or a chair. If he was that peevish about his privacy, he really ought to use the bedroom and not the parlor rug.

  By process of elimination, Cormac had to be behind one of the other two doors, assuming he was at home. And unoccupied.

  If he was with a girl, she really would have to stab him.

  She pushed the next door open an inch, half-afraid of what she might see. She released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding when she saw nothing more exciting than embers in the fireplace grate and the outline of a chess set on one of several tables. The faint glow from the mark on her palm gave off just enough light that she could move about without running into the furniture. There were books, a tea tray, and a crystal on the windowsill. But no convenient letter addressed to him, or portrait of a family member on the desk.

  As it turned out, subtle hints weren’t necessary.

  She was pushed against the door, secured by a steady iron grip.

  “Well, now, what have we here?”

  Chapter 10

  The Chadwick town house was rather grand from the outside, boasting to Mayfair that a duke�
�s granddaughter was in residence. The boast was deliberate, a poke at those who still whispered, nearly twenty years later, that said granddaughter had eloped with a man with no land and no title, and against her father’s wishes at that. That he was wealthier than most of the aristocracy was both a balm and a sting.

  Behind the white Grecian columns was a snug home with all the warmth of a country cottage. In fact, the Chadwicks vastly preferred their country house to living in London but had insisted on being in town for Penelope’s first Season. They were a small family but a close one; case in point, Penelope went straight to her mother’s upstairs parlor. It was a haven where corsets were denied, shoes kicked off, and the art on the wall was courtesy of her mother’s own talent with absolutely no historical value whatsoever.

  “Maman, you’re still awake at this hour?”

  “I was waiting up for you.” Lady Bethany sat on a settee piled with embroidered cushions, the most prominent sporting a lopsided swan with three feet. It had been Penelope’s first attempt and she’d been so proud of it, despite the crooked stitches. Her mother had never allowed it to be tucked away or replaced. She was currently drinking from a pot of chocolate and reading a salacious novel full of doomed maidens and ruined castles. Or was it doomed castles and ruined maidens? Penelope was desperate to find out. She leaned against her mother with a small sigh.

  “Was it dreadful, my darling?” Bethany asked, slipping a ribbon into her book to mark the page. “Dancing debutantes and fortune hunters?”

  “Worse.”

  She raised a dark eyebrow. “Worse? Goodness, how did you manage that? I remember those horrid balls.”

  “Mr. Cohen called me fat,” she replied, wrinkling her nose. “I didn’t even know I was fat until this wretched Season.”

  “Mr. Cohen is a sad young man who does not deserve you.” “That’s what Emma and Gretchen said.”