A Witch's Feast

by C. N. Crawford

  Footsteps in the gravel turned his head. Munroe strode toward him, smiling shyly. “There you are. I was trying to catch your eye today.”

  Rubbing a hand across his forehead, he rose. “Were you?”

  She stepped close to him, swinging her pink chiffon skirt as she twisted back and forth. She smelled like a sweet, spiced wine. “I’m going to need an escort. To the fundraiser party.”

  A sulfur butterfly flitted through the tall grasses nearby. Is she really bringing this up now? After my friend was just arrested?

  She licked her glossy lips. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear about Mariana. Though I can’t say I’m very surprised. I got an evil vibe from her.”

  Tobias’s jaw tightened, but he restrained himself from snapping at her. He needed Munroe on his side. “Your mother said this morning that she was committed for a sickness in her head.”

  She sighed. “I think she’s a straight-up terrorist, but Dr. Mellior diagnosed her with circeto…” She shook her head. “I keep forgetting the name. Oh yeah, circetomania. There are new laws since the terrorists attacked. Diagnosed circetomaniacs can be committed against their will. Dr. Mellior helped pioneer a conversion therapy for them. Anyway, her parents have been notified that she’s getting purification treatment.”

  Tobias raised his eyebrows, hoping to convey innocence. “Purification? What’s that like?”

  She waved her hand, half fanning herself. “It’s all very secretive right now. National security. But soon the whole country will know what people like my father are doing for them. After the attacks, Americans want the government to do something.”

  He nodded. “What did you call it—circetomania?”

  “A lust for magical power that drives people to madness. They’ll try to cure her in the institution.” She took a step toward him, placing her hand on his shoulder and blinking, her gray eyes nearly as pale as her skin. “You should join the Brotherhood.”

  Play along, Tobias. “You’re obviously very powerful. And I’d like to help with Mariana’s treatment in any way that I can.”

  “I think Dr. Mellior will take care of that.” She ran a light finger down his bicep. “But like I said, I need an escort to the party.”

  He swallowed. “I would love to be your escort. And maybe you could tell me more about this wonderful institution at some point.”

  She beamed, swishing her skirt. “Perfect.” In the heat, her neck glistened, and she swished her skirt again. “Anyway, I’ll see you at dinner.” She rubbed her fingers over her chalice pendant for a moment and then turned around to saunter back toward the house.

  He exhaled, running a hand through his dark hair. This morning, he’d crept up to the holding room in the attic and knocked on the door, but there’d been no response.

  He strode along the path, heading toward the river and squinting into the harsh glare of the sun. Would it be possible to convince the Purgators that Mariana had actually fought the terrorists? It didn’t seem likely. They thought all philosophers were unified in a sinister plot against Blodrial. Blodrial was beyond a doubt the most irritating of the earthly gods.

  As he neared the murky river, a second set of footsteps came up behind him. He turned to see Fiona’s determined expression. Though her hair was tied up, rogue curls escaped and floated around her blotchy face.

  She rubbed her eyes as she got closer. “I shouldn’t have convinced everyone to sneak around. I’m sorry I thought you were with the witch-hunters.” She was trying to stifle her tears.

  “I told you I wasn’t working with them. I’m not really sure why you thought that.”

  That was a lie—he did know why she thought that. She could tell he was keeping secrets, and she had no idea what they were. Still, this recent catastrophe had only strengthened his resolve to sort out what he could on his own.

  “I know. I should have listened. Mariana said I was being paranoid.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead, her eyes shimmering.

  “Well, now you know I’m not on their side.” He fought the urge to come right out and say, I told you so. I told you that you’d only mess everything up.

  She squinted at him. “What happened at the end? Why were you shaking? It seemed like the guard’s spell was driving you backward.”

  He shook his head. “The Purgator magic was affecting me, I guess.”

  She paced, and he awaited her follow-up questions. It was a lame excuse, and she would know it. But she just let it hang in the air. She still doesn’t trust me. And maybe she shouldn’t.

  “I should have just accepted that we were here and got on with the cult.”

  Despite his irritation with her, he couldn’t suppress a wave of sympathy. “We’ll find her, Fiona.” He pulled her in for a hug, and she sniffled into his shoulder, her tears dampening his T-shirt.

  “I’m going out to look for her tonight.” His shirt muffled her voice.

  “Where? Munroe says she’s in an institution.”

  “Is that what you two were talking about?”

  He stepped back, holding her at arms length. “That. And she wants me to escort her to the party.”

  The dazzling sunlight brought out the gold in her eyes. She narrowed them at him. “You’re not going to, are you?”

  “I think she’s starting to trust me. She might tell me where the institution is.”

  Fiona flushed, crossing her arms. “I think I know where it is. I think it’s through the crypt door. Why else would Mrs. Ranulf have been going in there? And we already know they’ve locked someone else up there.”

  Absentmindedly, he rubbed at the scar on his chest. “You said the crypt door was locked. Any idea where the key is?”

  “No, but we don’t have time for Munroe to develop enough of a crush on you that she just hands over a key, unless you’re going to defile her by tonight.”

  “If I must,” he said with a brief flicker of a smile.

  She smacked his arm. “Tobias!”

  She was probably right that they didn’t have a lot of time. He’d seen what happened to Eden when she was imprisoned too long—the shadows under her eyes, her mouth a tight line, the skeletal limbs.

  Glancing back up at Fiona, his hand froze for a moment in the air as he was caught by the impulse to brush a curl out of her eyes. No matter what he said, she was going to plunge into some ill-conceived plan. And with Jack coming for her, he needed to stay by her side. “I’ll help you, if we do things cautiously. Let’s start by finding out what’s in the holding cell. Just the two of us.”

  She chewed her lip. “That’s a start, at least. We’ll find her, right? I mean, we defeated the bone wardens. We can take on a housewife and her psychiatrist.” She swatted away a mosquito. “I’m going to send Byron to spy on Mrs. Ranulf and find out where she keeps her keys.”

  He touched her chin, lifting it a little. “You need to sleep when you can.”

  She ignored his comment. “I’ll find you again when I know about the keys.” She rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment, leaning into him, and then turned back to the house.

  He watched her walk away and then leaned down, plucking a dandelion puff from the ground. The plant’s jagged leaves gave it its name, dent de lion—lion’s tooth. But the Tatters called them clock weeds. Children said that if you stood in the long afternoon shadows and blew the white fluff, the floating seeds would drag you back in time. It didn’t feel like you needed magic to fall back in time here. The spirits from the past were all around, clamoring for recognition through the overgrown ivy and juneberry bushes.

  He puffed on the seeds, scattering them on the thick spring air. He should tell Fiona what he’d done—what he was now. But he didn’t want to. If she knew he’d devoted himself to one of the earthly gods, she would have all the more reason to think that he was just like Jack.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Fiona

  Without Mariana in the bedroom, the ticking of the antique clock rang out even louder. Tobias had suggested she sleep, b
ut she couldn’t will it upon herself. For a few moments, curled up in her sheets, she felt herself drifting off, but her excitement at sleep’s approach jolted her awake again.

  She opened her eyes, sighed loudly, and flipped over to her other side, stuffing her face into the cotton pillowcase. Something chafed at her mind, something besides Mariana. Maybe Tobias wasn’t working with the Purgators, but he was still hiding something from her. He moved differently now, with a feral grace, and he could stalk around soundlessly.

  Still, whatever powers he was summoning, she needed them on her side to find Mariana. And he was right that she needed to rest. She closed her eyes. Imagine something beautiful and relaxing. If all the Harvester madness hadn’t happened, they could have stayed in Boston. They could have spent the summer eating fried fish sandwiches at Sullivan’s on Castle Island, sunbathing on Carson Beach. As she tried to slow her breathing, something tapped on the windowpane.

  She sat up, squinting in the dark. Byron fluttered outside, clenching a metallic trinket in his feet. With a half smile, she unlatched the window. “Is that the key to the crypt?” she whispered.

  He glided inside, dropping it in Fiona’s lap. “No. This one unlocks the holding cell in the attic. I’m afraid she’s begun wearing the crypt key between her breasts.”

  Crap. Well, the holding room would have to do for now. Unless Tobias was going to defile Mrs. Ranulf, too. “Thank you, Byron.” She grasped the key.

  “Guards are patrolling the hallway. They all have vials of that red powder.”

  “Dammit.” She chewed on the tip of her thumb. “I’m going to fly through Tobias’s window. We’ll have to find a way into the attic from outside.”

  “Shall I come with you?”

  “Keep an eye on things on the lower levels. Let us know if we need to rush back.”

  As Byron flew out, Fiona placed the key on her bed and chanted the transformation spell. Her arm hair rose while she spoke, and then she felt the bone-wrenching jolt of the transformation. She flapped over the bed, darting down to grasp the key, then glided through the open window toward the southern wing of the house. In response to the aura, the crypt creature was already howling, more distantly this time. That should divert the guards’ attention, at least.

  It took a few minutes of circling outside windows before she found the room that Tobias shared with Alan. He’d left the window open, and she fluttered into the room, circling over his bed.

  He slept on his side, his hair in his eyes. Fiona dove toward the floor, bracing herself as she allowed her muscles and skeleton to snap back to human form. Her lungs and intestines swelled. A sharp pain screamed through her head for a moment, and she dry-heaved as Tobias stirred.

  Tobias jolted awake. “Fiona. Are you okay?” He rubbed at something on his chest.

  “Transforming is supposed to get better over time, isn’t it?”

  “What’s happening?” Alan sat up, gripping his sheets to his chest.

  “It’s just me. I have the key to the holding room.” She held it in the air like a trophy.

  “Nice.” Alan threw off his sheets. “Are we going invisible?”

  “I think Tobias and I should fly into the attic. Mrs. Ranulf has guards patrolling the hallway tonight with revealing dust.”

  Alan crossed his arms. “So I’m just supposed to wait here and do nothing?”

  “You can be lookout. Signal Byron if we need to hurry back.”

  “Nobody likes to be lookout.” He threw himself backward on his bed.

  Tobias stood next to his own bed in a gray T-shirt and underwear. He looked… stronger, somehow, his arms more thickly muscled, and she caught a glimpse of his toned abdominals when he stretched his arms over his head. She could see why Munroe was so eager to get his attention. He rubbed his hair, still waking up. “Are you ready to transform?”

  Fiona rose, trying not to stare. “Yeah.”

  She whispered the spell. The pain seared her head again as her body compressed on itself, and her arms burst into wings. She swooped down to the floor, grabbing the key. She circled by the ceiling, orienting herself until she sensed the flapping of Tobias’s wings outside the window, his movements more fluid than hers. She followed him into the humid night air, the howls still rising from the cemetery. On the third floor, windows jutted out from the sloped black roof, but they were shut tight. Fiona swooped in an arc. Sound waves formed an image of vents between the windows—just large enough for a bat to fit through.

  She slipped through a vent and flapped over the crib they’d seen yesterday. She swerved closer to the floor, hovering for a moment, and then burst into her human form again. On her hands and knees, she gagged in the pitch-black attic. After catching her breath, she stood up. She stepped carefully on the precarious attic floor toward to the window where Tobias flapped outside. After she unlatched it, he glided in, landing quietly on a floorboard.

  There was a tearing sound as he transformed, and then a few moments of quiet while he caught his breath.

  “We made it in,” said Fiona, straightening. “And I’ve still got the key.”

  Tobias chanted the light spell, and an incandescent sphere of foxfire appeared between them. He tiptoed across a plank. “Watch that you don’t fall through the ceiling this time. ”

  Fiona frowned at the note of accusation in his tone. He might as well have said, “Try not to screw everything up like you usually do.”

  The holes she and Mariana had created had been plastered over. The floorboards creaked beneath her, but they arrived at the holding room door without punching any more holes into Mrs. Ranulf’s room.

  As she stood next to Jolly Jasper, Fiona inserted the long silver key into the lock and turned it to the right. The lock clicked open. She exhaled, pushing the door inward. Tobias sent the light forward, and they slipped inside a small, musty room.

  It looked like an old office. A spindle-legged oak desk abutted the wall opposite the door. Above it, paintings crowded the wall, their red tones standing out against the black fleur-de-lis wallpaper. The images all depicted the same scene: a woman tied to a stake, burning to death while she appealed to the heavens for mercy.

  A shudder ran down Fiona’s spine. “This is awful.” She inspected a representation of Joan of Arc, who was burned for witchcraft in the 15th century. A horrible thought sent a stab of fear through her chest. “They’re not going to burn Mariana, are they?

  Tobias shook his head. “Munroe said they’re giving her some kind of medical treatment. I don’t imagine it’s burning.”

  To the right, dark wooden cabinets lined the wall. On the top of the cabinets, glass panes showcased shelves of faded books, while the bottom half comprised rows of drawers.

  “What is this?” Tobias was pointing at something to her left.

  Fiona’s breath caught in her throat as she glanced at the canvas strips and buckles hung from a wooden board. So this is why they called it the holding cell.

  She felt sick. “That must be where they kept Mariana last night. Then they must have transferred her somewhere else.”

  “What about the crypt key? Did Byron tell you anything?”

  “That one Mrs. Ranulf keeps around her neck.” Fiona crossed to the drawers, pulling one open near the bottom row. She yelped. A twisted, charred human hand lay at the bottom, and a small, yellowed note lay on the top. Lady Glamis, purified in 1537.

  Tobias moved closer, peering over Fiona’s shoulder. “One of the Purgators’ noble victims.”

  She swallowed. “But Jack said women weren’t philosophers in the old days. They weren’t allowed to learn Angelic.”

  “Jack isn’t an expert on everything,” he muttered.

  She straightened. “So is he wrong?”

  He ran a hand over the bronze skin on the back of his neck. “He’s right in this case. Women weren’t philosophers in the old days, except a few in secret. But despite the Purgators’ magical powers and charmed pendants, I think they’ve always been terrible at catc
hing the right people. They burned anyone they didn’t like.” He bent over and opened another drawer, pulling out a small, leather-bound book. He turned the pages. “The Pappenheimer family,” he read. His face paled.

  “What does it say?”

  He shook his head, frowning at the book. “It describes the execution of a family in Germany, but—you don’t want to know the details. Suffice it to say that medieval Purgators were creative with their brutality. But I don’t get the impression the Pappenheimers were actual philosophers either. Just outcasts in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s page after page of scapegoats, tortured and burned to death.” He shot her a pointed look. “But this was all a long time ago. They’re not doing this anymore. They’re still bound by modern laws.” He closed the book and returned it to the drawer.

  She shivered, pulling open another drawer to find a dark brown book, its surface embossed with vines. An etched title read, The Malleus Maleficarum.

  Tobias peered over her shoulder.“The Hammer of the Witches. The witch-hunting guide.”

  “This is like a museum of torture.” She rolled the drawer shut.

  Tobias crossed to the glass bookcase. He rattled the doors. “Locked.”

  “There must be a spell book in here that can help us.” She yanked open a drawer in the top row. Inside was a large, royal blue book, embossed with gold stars and letters. Scrapbook, it said in an ornate font. “This is odd.”

  Inside, paperclips affixed browned papers to the pages, and on their surface was the looping Angelic writing. She smiled, feeling a sense of relief for the first time since Mariana had been captured. Spells were a rare find, and the right one could help them free Mariana. “Tobias. These are spells, hidden in an old scrapbook.”

  He edged toward her, surveying the book. But something in Fiona’s peripheral vision caught her attention—Byron fluttered into the room, circling over their heads. “You need to go, now,” he said in her head. “The guards heard the wailing outside. They’re investigating the gardens, but they’re going to search bedrooms next.” He flew out the door.