Harrow. Short for Harrow-On-The-Hill, a village full of Reformists, of witches, of magic. It’s hidden away somewhere in Anglia, only its inhabitants know where. It became a refuge once the Inquisition started, and if you had any magical power or Reformist leanings at all—and didn’t go into exile or prison—you went there. It’s the nexus of the Reformist movement, and Blackwell would give just about anything to find it.
Gareth gives me a curt nod before turning back to his book. Apparently, I’m not interesting or impressive enough for more than that. I’m glad he thinks so.
Peter turns to me. “Now that you’re here, we can eat. I hope you’re hungry.” He gestures to the platters of food piled on the cabinet against the wall.
There’s the standard fare: chicken, bread, a simple stew. But there’s more exotic food here, too, the kind I used to make at court: roast peacock, redressed in its feathers; a platter of quail in what looks like fig sauce; a stargazer pie, the tiny fish heads poking out from under the crust. A platter of fruit, cakes, even an assortment of marchpane: roses, shamrocks, and thistles, all fashioned out of sugar.
I feel my eyes go wide.
“I thought you might be.” Peter laughs. “Shall we?” he says to Nicholas.
Nicholas nods and gives his hand a little wave. At once, the platters rise and begin floating in the air. One by one they land gracefully on the table. Once again, I’m shocked. That level of magic is beyond anything I’ve seen before.
But when the quail lands in front of me, I decide it doesn’t matter. I’m starving. I reach for the platter, but John grabs my arm and pulls it back.
“Wait,” he says.
“Why?” I briefly wonder if he’s questioning my manners.
“It’s just that Hastings—that’s Nicholas’s servant—well, he’s a ghost. You have to be careful when he’s around.” John gestures at the empty air. “He usually wears a white hat so we know where he is, but sometimes he forgets. I usually wait until everything goes still before reaching for anything. I’ve made the mistake of touching him before.” He gives me a sheepish smile. “Hurt like hell.”
Being a witch hunter, I’ve seen a lot of things: revenants, ghouls, demons, and, yes, ghosts. But never ghost servants. Ghosts are known for destroying your home, possessing livestock, and suffocating you in bed, not pouring tea or fluffing pillows.
“I’ve never heard of a ghost servant before,” I say.
“He came with the house,” John says. “Used to work for the wizard who owned it before. Mostly cooking, but other things, too. Gardening, cleaning, things like that. Apparently, he was so good at his job that after he died, the wizard brought him back so he could keep doing it.”
I think of those necromancers digging up that corpse in Fortune Green. Mossy, decaying, maggots, bones gleaming in the moonlight…
I smile weakly. “Well, you know what they say. Good help is hard to find and all that.”
John laughs. Across the table, Peter looks from John to me then back to John again. He’s smiling.
“Nicholas keeps offering to send him on, but he wants to stay,” John continues. “And he’s great, really. I mean, the not seeing him part takes some getting used to, plus he’s hard to understand. Half the time it feels as if he’s just blowing in my ear.”
I manage another smile, a real one this time.
“Anyway, it looks all right now.” John nods at the table. “I imagine you’re hungry.”
“A little.” It seems rude to say yes, especially after all the trouble he went to brewing me those potions.
“Dig in, then. Hastings is an excellent cook.”
I watch him pile his plate high with food. After a minute I do the same, taking huge helpings of strawberries and cake. If Caleb saw this, he’d laugh and tell me to save room for supper. I always eat dessert first.
The mood at the table is relaxed, everyone eating and making small talk. No one speaks to me directly, and aside from the occasional glance from John, no one even looks at me. I relax a little, look around. Still amazed at what I see.
Before, whenever I thought of Nicholas Perevil, I imagined him holed up in a dank, drafty cottage somewhere. Tattered robes, matted hair, living off grubs and acorns and tea made from leaves. A fugitive. The most wanted criminal in Anglia.
The table in front of me tells a different story. I glance at my plate. Pewter, definitely valuable. The silverware. Finely wrought and highly ornate. A tablecloth made from soft-spun linen instead of coarse muslin. Fine candles made from beeswax instead of rushes dipped in tallow with a flame stinking of animal fat.
He’s not foraging for food. He’s not selling his possessions to raise an army. He’s not wanting for anything. This is the kind of information Blackwell would want to know. Information he’d pay a king’s ransom to know. Because he’ll know, as I know, it means Nicholas is receiving help—and money—from somewhere. But from where? And from who?
I pick up my glass and examine it. It’s thick and heavy, probably crystal. The stem is made up of three intertwined snakes, the bowl perched on top of their heads. I’m wondering what the disadvantage of the glassblower was—aside from having questionable taste—when Gareth speaks.
“Have you told her yet?”
Her. I set my glass down on the table with a thud. “Told me what?”
“I was going to wait until later to tell her, in private.” Nicholas’s voice is low, full of warning. Gareth seems not to notice.
“Tell me what?” I repeat.
Peter clears his throat. “The thing is, Elizabeth, Gareth just came in from Upminster,” he says. “And things there, well, they’re a little worse than they were three weeks ago.”
Three weeks ago there were protests, burnings, and I was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death. How could things possibly be worse?
“I know Nicholas already told you about Veda, our seer, that she sent us to find you,” Peter continues. “But while she gave us your name, she didn’t give us much else. Not where you were, not what you looked like. It was down to us to figure it out.
“We managed to locate two people named Elizabeth Grey. You and a witch from Seven Sisters. We thought for certain Veda meant her. I don’t know what kind of magic she can do, but she was certainly more… formidable than you. She weighed about fifteen stone.”
Beside me, George lets out a snort.
“So we let you go. A mistake in hindsight, of course, but we’re not in the business of rounding up people for interrogation.” Peter’s dark eyes flash with sudden anger. “But if we had, we could have avoided”—he waves his hand—“all this.”
“My arrest,” I say.
“Among other things.”
“What other things?” I look around the room. Gareth, suddenly interested in me; George, suddenly interested in the ceiling; John, turning his fork over and over in his hand; Fifer, looking somewhat gleeful.
Finally, Nicholas speaks.
“Your arrest, your escape. Your story, unfortunately, is all over Upminster. More unfortunate is what that story has turned into. That you’re not just a kitchen maid, but a spy and a witch. A secret Reformist in league with me, spying on the king and queen while feeding us information. Conjuring spells against them, using herbs in an attempt to poison them. You’re now the most wanted person in Anglia.”
I gasp at this litany of accusation.
“They say this?”
Nicholas nods. “It’s quite a scandal. The queen is said to be distraught, completely inconsolable.” He smiles then: hard, ironic. “They’re generating a lot of sympathy for it. Even to a public who is angry with their monarch, it’s too much. They’re calling for blood. Only this time, it’s not the king’s, the queen’s, or even Blackwell’s. It’s yours.”
I drop my head into my hands, stunned. That Blackwell accused me of this, that Malcolm believes it. That it went this far, this fast. And I know, with dreadful certainty, that whatever hope I had about regaining Blackwell’s favor is gone.
Maybe I should have known better; maybe I did. But it was the only thing I had to hope for. It wasn’t the job I loved so much; it was never that. It’s that it was the only home I had. Now there’s no going home for me.
Ever.
“We know it’s a lie,” John says. I lift my head to find him watching me closely, his eyes dark but sympathetic. “They just needed something to divert the public’s attention from the burnings. A scapegoat. You’re safe with us. We’ll protect you.”
“But who will protect us?” Gareth says. Everyone’s attention shifts to him. “She’s exposing us to a great deal of danger when we don’t know what she can do.” He gestures at me with a long white hand. “Whatever it is, it better be worth it, considering the price on her head.”
“How much?” I blurt.
“A thousand sovereigns.”
George lets out a soundless whistle, then leans over to pour me a glass of wine. The most Blackwell was ever prepared to pay for Nicholas was five hundred. I reach for my glass.
“Yes, she’s very valuable,” Gareth continues. “But she’d better deliver on it. Otherwise, what’s to stop us from sending George to turn her in and collect that reward? We could fund a nice army with that.”
John drops his fork to the table with a thud.
“We’re not going to turn her in,” Nicholas replies, a sharp edge sliding into his voice. “There’s no need to make threats.”
“The charts—” Gareth begins.
“Are inconclusive,” Nicholas finishes. “Veda will tell us what we need to know.”
“The witch hunters—” Gareth tries again.
“Will come,” Nicholas says. “As they always have. And we will be careful, as we always have. Elizabeth being here doesn’t change anything. Blackwell will never stop hunting us.”
“That’s another thing,” Gareth says. “It’s not Blackwell after us now. He’s sent someone else. A new Inquisitor. Someone called Caleb Pace.”
I SQUEEZE MY GLASS SO tightly that it shatters in my hand. A lot of wine but very little blood splashes onto the cream-colored tablecloth, staining it a deep crimson. I let out a gasp and shove my hand into my lap.
Caleb is the new Inquisitor?
The others—except for Gareth and Fifer—look at me with alarm.
“Elizabeth!” Peter cries. “Are you all right?”
Am I all right? No. Definitely not. When did Caleb get promoted to Inquisitor? Why? And if he’s the new Inquisitor, what does that make Blackwell?
“Let me take a look.” John pulls a clean napkin off the table and reaches for my hand. Another problem. If he sees there’s no blood…
“No.” I yank my hand away. “Not here. It’s the blood. I may faint.” I look down, trying to appear sick. It’s not hard.
“John, why don’t you take her upstairs,” Nicholas says. “Hastings, can you bring him what he needs?”
As John rattles off a list of supplies, I feel a surge of heat in my abdomen followed by a prickling sensation. The wound is starting to heal. I tighten my fist around the thick shards of glass, pressing them into my skin, wincing as they cut deep, down to the bone. But it gets the blood flowing again. John wraps his napkin gently around my hand and helps me to stand.
“Hold on.” Fifer, so quiet throughout dinner, speaks up. Her voice is raspy, almost gritty-sounding, a surprising contrast to how young she looks. “This new Inquisitor. This Caleb.” She says his name as though it were anathema. “You don’t know him, do you?”
I feel George’s eyes on me. Wondering if this is the same Caleb I talked about in my sleep, the same Caleb I said was my childhood friend. I spoke his name to Nicholas, too, when I was inside Fleet.
I think about denying it. Then I remember what Blackwell told us: If ever we got caught, tell the truth, as much as doesn’t condemn you. The less you lie, the less chance there is of confusing your own story. Not that it mattered anyway. He also told us that if we ever got caught, we were on our own.
“Yes,” I say. “I know him.”
The table around me goes still.
“And?”
I take a breath. “And we were friends. Once.”
“Friends,” Gareth repeats. “You were friends with the Inquisitor, and you didn’t think to tell anyone this?”
“I didn’t know he was the Inquisitor,” I say.
“Don’t play games,” Gareth snaps. His eyes fall to my hand. “Is that why you broke the glass? Because you’re friends with him still, in league with him? Because you plan on escaping and leading him here? Is that why you stand there, looking so shocked?”
I feel a hot blush climb up my cheeks. That was my plan, of course, and now I feel caught. Cornered by the enemy and exposed by my lies and I don’t know what to do.
“I did tell someone about him,” I say, finally. “I told George. I told him Caleb and I grew up together, at the palace. That we worked in the kitchen together.”
The others look at George for confirmation.
“Aye. She did tell me that. Only…” He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “You didn’t tell me he was a witch hunter.”
I take another breath, force down the tide of panic rising in my chest.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t tell you he was a witch hunter, because I didn’t see any reason to.”
“No reason—” Gareth sputters.
Nicholas holds up a hand. “Let her speak.”
“We were very young when we met,” I say. “We both lost our parents. And for a long time, we only had each other. Then we grew up. Caleb wanted to be a witch hunter; I didn’t. So we drifted apart.”
“You say you drifted apart,” Nicholas says. “Yet you called out for him, the day I came for you at Fleet. Why?”
I feel Nicholas’s eyes on me, and I turn to meet them head on.
“Because I was ill. Because I was in prison for a week and no one came for me. Because I”—my voice catches, and I hate myself for it—“I was hoping that the first friend I ever had would be the last person I ever saw. That’s all.”
No one says anything to this, so I continue.
“I didn’t break the glass because I’m in league with him. I broke the glass because I don’t like the idea of my childhood friend coming after me to try to kill me.”
I look around the table. Nicholas and Peter watch me closely, George, too; but they don’t look angry or suspicious. John is still behind me, his arm still pressed against mine. He hasn’t moved or shifted backward. He’s done nothing to make me think he’s angry or suspicious, either. Only Gareth and Fifer look doubtful, but they looked that way the moment I walked into the room.
“I think she’s one of them,” Gareth says. “A plant. A way for them to try to infiltrate the enemy camp—”
“Five people is hardly a camp,” Peter remarks. “Six, if we include you, and you’ve only just arrived.”
Gareth waves it away. “Then what do you make of her being friends with the Inquisitor?”
“Elizabeth already explained that they’re not,” Nicholas replies. “The evidence of that is clear. Were they still friends, he wouldn’t have left her to die in prison.”
The baldness of his words, the simplicity of them, hits me like a slap to the face.
“Nevertheless, she’s still acquainted with the enemy—”
“It was a long time ago,” Nicholas interrupts. His voice is calm but final. “We can’t hold her accountable for what her friend—former friend, rather—chose to become.” He smiles. “Now, if you please, John, could you take Elizabeth upstairs? Her hand is in dire need of attendance.”
I look down. The white napkin John used as a bandage is now stained through with blood. The glass. I didn’t realize I was still squeezing it.
John steers me out of the dining room, up the stairs, down the hall, and past the endless expanse of paintings and sconces. I don’t remember which door is mine, but he does. We stop in front of one halfway to the end. John leans around me to open it.
&nbs
p; On the table beside the bed is a tray piled high: a bowl of steaming water, bundles of herbs, an array of tiny metal instruments, and a stack of clean white towels and bandages. There’s even a pitcher of wine and a platter of food. Yet for all that, there’s no place for us to sit. Well, no place except the bed.
I glance at John, who surveys the scene with a slightly furrowed brow. After a beat, two, he clears his throat and gestures toward it.
“Do you, uh, is that all right…” His gaze shifts around the room as if he were wishing a set of chairs would magically appear—or that he might disappear.
“It’s fine,” I say, and cross the room to the bed, made now—the green coverlet pulled smooth and tight across the mattress. I perch on the edge, my feet firmly planted on the floor as if this might somehow lessen the intimacy of sitting on a bed with a boy I don’t know—or for that matter, one I do know.
But my discomfort is nothing to the worry that underneath the napkin my hand is beginning to heal, the skin stitching itself together by the second.
John closes the door, pauses, then moves to sit beside me, the mattress shifting under his weight and shifting me along with it. We’re so close now our shoulders touch. He looks at me, hesitates, then takes my hand.
“Let’s have a look.” He peels off the bloodstained napkin.
“I thought it was magic,” I blurt.
“You thought what was magic?”
“The platters. Downstairs. Before you told me about Hastings, I thought it was magic.”
“Oh. I guess it would look that way.” He takes a pair of tweezers from the tray. “Nicholas could do that, I suppose. But he wouldn’t waste his energy, at least not now. Hold still.” He pulls out the first shard of glass. I hold my breath, willing the wound not to heal. At least not in front of his very eyes.
“Why not?” I think of Nicholas’s face, gray and drawn. Of the potions he’s always drinking, of the last spell he performed on me inside Fleet, the one that faltered, then failed. “Is it because he’s sick?”
The Witch Hunter Page 8