The Secret Witch

by Harvey, Alyxandra;

“Lord Gilmore is also unmarried.”

  “He’s thirty-seven!”

  “And he has a duchess for a sister,” her mother replied, as if it negated all arguments. “Choose, Gretchen. Or I will choose for you.” She sailed away as conversation quieted and the guests were urged to take their seats.

  Someone’s marriageable young daughter sat at the harp and sang with the enthusiasm of a cat trapped in an icehouse. Her father eyed all the young men hungrily.

  “Hide me, won’t you?” a young man asked, sidling up to Penelope. He glanced imploringly at the cousins. His eyes were strikingly moss green. “He keeps staring at me with his quizzing glass. I feel as though I’m sitting exams again.”

  Penelope chuckled. “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Then Lord Herringdale is most definitely looking at you.”

  “He’s rather fearsome. Am I to assume that is his unmarried daughter currently abusing the harp?”

  “Yes, but she’s harmless.”

  “Good to know. And I do beg your pardon,” the young man added with a bow. He was very handsome. Penelope was already starting to melt. “We haven’t been properly introduced but I was feeling rather desperate. I am Lord Beauregard. And you have quite saved me, Lady …?”

  “Penelope Chadwick,” Penelope replied. “And my cousins, Lady Emma Day and Lady Gretchen Thorn.”

  “I am in your debt.” His brown hair tumbled over his forehead and his crooked smile was charming. He bowed again, wine sloshing over the rim of his glass. Drops splattered onto Penelope’s pink gloves, staining them across the knuckles. He flushed, mortified. “I am very sorry, Lady Penelope,” he apologized. “I have the manners of a beast. Please, allow me to have those cleaned for you.”

  Penelope only smiled. “They’re only gloves, my lord. I’ll have them dyed burgundy and start a new fashion.”

  “You are as kind as you are beautiful.”

  Penelope blushed. Emma and Gretchen grinned at each other behind her back, turning slightly away so as not to intrude. After a few minutes, Emma drifted away, mumbling something about tea, and Gretchen eased back into the shadows of a large potted palm tree.

  By the time Penelope took her turn at the pianoforte, Gretchen had reached one of the side doors. She stepped back swiftly into the safety of the hall, narrowly avoiding knocking over a passing footman. “I’m very sorry, miss,” he said, even though she was the one flying out of nowhere.

  She helped him steady his tray before vanishing into the library. It was full of leather-bound books and shadows. A candle burned in the far window, and another on one of the tables. The scent of dust clung to her as she eased deeper into the comforting darkness.

  She didn’t hide in libraries because she was a bluestocking like Penelope, forever prattling on about poetry, but rather because at most musicales and balls, it was the room least likely to be occupied. Couples were more interested in stealing kisses in conservatories, and old ladies sleeping off too much brandy generally escaped to the parlors, which left the libraries blessedly abandoned.

  And luckily she knew the Worthing library as well as her own, right down to the popular novels hidden on the back shelf by the balcony. Good thing too; just last week she’d been trapped in the Brookfield library for hours with nothing to read but tracts on sheep shearing and the benefits of rotation crops. She’d fallen asleep somewhere between lentils and Egyptian onion farming.

  The contrast between fighting off the Rovers and pasting a polite smile on her face for the single sons of earls was too stark. Residual magic, burned through her. She was surprised the air around her didn’t crackle. Her mother shouldn’t begrudge her a stolen moment in the library, not if the alternative involved magic shooting off the ends of her hair. Hardly subtle.

  Not to mention hardly marriageable material.

  On second thought …

  Better not. She’d already pushed her luck by going off with Godric.

  Egyptian onion farming it was then. She walked along the book shelves, reading titles and glancing into the glass-fronted cabinets displaying painted globes. It was dull and dusty and soothing. Her witch knot stopped aching.

  Until someone grabbed her arm, yanking it behind her back and spinning her around. Her cheek pressed to the cold glass of a curio cabinet. Pain shot up to her elbow when she tried to move. “Who are you?” a man asked, his voice quiet and cold in her ear.

  “Who am I?” she barked back. “Who the hell are you?” He evaded the kick she aimed at his most sensitive parts. Her skirts wrapped around her knees, hobbling and infuriating her. He turned her roughly around.

  Tobias Lawless.

  She wasn’t sure which of the two of them was more surprised.

  Someone so chilly and perfect and wearing such a flawless cravat shouldn’t be mauling ladies in dark libraries. He also shouldn’t have several short iron daggers tucked inside his cutaway coat. It probably said something unsavory about her character that the sight of those daggers made her like him a bit more. But only a little bit.

  “Let me go.” She yanked down savagely, breaking his hold. He didn’t move back, and his body continued to block her against the cabinets. The glass rattled.

  “What are you doing?” He stepped closer still. She had to tilt her chin up.

  “I am currently being accosted,” she snapped, driving the heel of her shoe into the top of his foot. He fell back a step, growling in his throat. Growling. He really didn’t seem the type.

  She made a proper fist, not like the ones girls made when they hadn’t practiced before. She’d already punched a Rover tonight. She was very comfortable punching Tobias, Lord Killingsworth. Eager, in fact.

  “What is wrong with you?” she asked finally. “Are you drunk?”

  “Certainly not.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I’m the one being mauled and yet you take offense?”

  “I can smell it on you,” he answered, which was no answer at all. “There’s no use prevaricating.”

  “I don’t usually bother lying about perfume,” she replied, now more bewildered than concerned.

  “Not perfume,” he ground out, as if she was the frustrating one. “Dark magic.”

  Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. “I beg your pardon.”

  “As you should.”

  She aimed for his head. It was big and fat and so perfectly groomed, how could she miss?

  He caught her wrist and squeezed. Hard. He shouldn’t have been fast enough.

  An iron-nail pendant in the shape of a wheel slipped out from under his collar. Gretchen stared at it, then transferred her glare to his haughty, unkindly beautiful face. “I knew it.” Her smile was better suited to one of the animals in the zoological gardens. “You’re a bloody Keeper.”

  “Which is how I knew you’ve been playing with magic beyond your ken.” He leaned in slightly. “I can smell it all over you.”

  “What you smell,” she returned, drilling her finger into his chest until he stumbled back a step, “is some poor witch’s funeral nearly ruined by a bunch of Rovers. Who the Order is meant to keep controlled, if I’m not mistaken.”

  And now he was sniffing her.

  Oh, he was being very subtle about it. Some other girl might have thought he was interested in her, that he was flirting or leaning in for a kiss. But she knew better.

  “Now what are you doing?” she asked, exasperated.

  He froze. “Ascertaining the truth.”

  “By flaring your nostrils?” She rolled her eyes. “Honestly, does that work on all the girls? You can’t gull me, Killingsworth. You’re not the first Greybeard I’ve met.” She shoved him, mostly because she could. “Now stop it.”

  “You’re a Whisperer,” Tobias said.

  “So?”

  “So Whisperers collect strange things for their spells. Bones and teeth and poisonous flowers. Unclean things.”

  “Not me,” Gretchen replied grudgingly. “Though frankly, it sounds more interesting tha
n the embroidery they keep insisting I learn. I told you, what you’re smelling is Rover magic and a binding pendant. So if it’s unclean, blame the Order. And if it’s that noticeable, I’m going straight home for a bath.”

  He stretched out an arm on either side of her, caging her in. His blue eyes were very intent on her. It felt as though he were sorting through the drawers in her bedroom cabinets. She had to fight not to squirm. “I’ll see you back to the drawing room,” he finally murmured, apparently satisfied with whatever it was he saw there.

  “I think I can manage five feet of hallway on my own; thanks all the same.”

  “It wasn’t a request.”

  She crossed her arms. “And yet still I repeat, no thank you.”

  He looked briefly irritated. It was the most human emotion she’d seen on his face so far. “No one told you.”

  “Told me what? That you’re mad? I’ve figured that out all by myself.”

  He looked down the length of his patrician nose. “That I was sent to watch you.”

  She listened for the buzzing sound that told her a spell wasn’t working and, incidentally, when someone was lying to her. There was nothing but their breath in the quiet room and the faint strains of the harp from the parlor.

  “For your protection,” he added.

  The buzzing was so loud it was like a slap to the face.

  He was lying now.

  Whatever he was doing, it had nothing to do with her protection.

  Chapter 3

  Returning to the Rowanstone Academy instead of her father’s townhouse a few streets away still felt strange to Emma.

  Though in all honesty, she preferred it.

  She liked walking through the front door with the other girls who had attended the musicale, even if few of them spoke to her. They’d grown accustomed to the sight of her antlers, but not to the fact that she’d been inside Greymalkin House.

  Still, she loved the academy—from the grand staircase carved with rowan leaves and berries to the long draughty upstairs hallway to the ballroom full of dents and marks from spell class. She was rather proud of the new burns in the floor from the ghoul she’d dispatched with lightning just a few weeks ago. All of it, down to the apothecary closet with its odd collection of flowers, crystals, animal teeth, feathers, and holed stones was more welcoming than her father’s opulent and empty house. The gleaming marble, crystal vases, and gilded table settings couldn’t disguise the fact that Emma had regularly gone days without saying a single word beyond “thank you” to the servants, who were not permitted to reply.

  She slipped a leg over the windowsill, scooting down to her favorite part of the roof. A moth floated past her, denied the tempting light. She lay back on the shingles and the clouds directly above thinned to reveal a scatter of stars. One street over, rain pelted the gardens and hissed at the torches. There were certain advantages to her particular magical gifts.

  There was a sound behind her, and then Cormac blocked the stars for a brief moment before he sat down at her side. He put a finger to his lips before she said a word. He pulled two charms out of his jacket pocket, one shaped like an ear, the other round as a marble and painted to resemble an eye. He placed them on the shingles and smashed them with the side of his fist. She felt, rather than saw, the magic billow around them. It was like sitting in a pocket of mist, except she could still see the sky. One of the nearby gargoyles made a small sound, like a sneeze.

  “No one can see us or hear us now,” he said. “Not even the Keeper they’ve assigned to watch you.”

  “Not you, then?” she asked, disappointed but not surprised.

  “Virgil,” Cormac replied, jaw clenching. Emma winced. They’d hated each other since their school days, and Emma knew perfectly well Virgil wouldn’t hesitate to use her against Cormac if he suspected their attachment. It was that much more vital that they keep each other secret.

  “Well, he’s not very bright,” Emma said lightly. “So I’m not too worried.”

  A smiled flickered at the corner of his mouth before he went serious again. “But he’s ambitious,” he said. “So have a care.”

  She slipped her hand into his, their fingers entwining. She smiled shyly. His dark hair tumbled over his forehead as he turned his head toward her, willing to be distracted. “It was torture being so near you all evening and yet so far,” he said hoarsely.

  She met his eyes and tried not to blush. A normal girl would have known what came next: Cormac would court her with rides in Hyde Park and stolen kisses in ballroom gardens. He would eventually ask to speak to her father, and they would marry by special license one morning at St. James Church, where her own parents were wed.

  But she wasn’t a normal girl. Not anymore. She was a witch with a family secret that could get her banished from society or trapped inside a witch bottle. Cormac reached out to smooth the frown lines between her eyebrows. “You think too hard.” She didn’t disagree. He half smiled. “And you worry too much.”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed. “You’re taking an awful risk.”

  “It’s worth it.” His hands closed around her shoulders, bared by her evening gown.

  “But I’m technically a Greymalkin,” she said, whispering even though she knew the charms shielded them. “You’ve worked so hard to prove yourself to the Order. I could undo it all.”

  “Then it wasn’t worth doing.” He sounded very sure of himself. He raised an eyebrow, drawing back slightly. “Have you changed your mind, Emma?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then nothing else matters.”

  He kissed her; his lips were warm and clever. She leaned into him, kissing him back until his fingers tightened in her hair. He eased her back onto the shingles and the rest of London disappeared. When his tongue touched hers, the entire world vanished. She felt as if she were floating away or falling, she couldn’t be sure. She gripped his coat to hold on. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear, sending delicate shivers down her neck and over her collarbone.

  They could finally lose themselves to each other. She could let go of the Order’s surveillance, the worry over her father in the Underworld, her mother in the forest. Cormac could put aside the lack of magic burning inside him, the lies he told the Order daily, and the fear that it wasn’t enough to protect her.

  For a little while, it was only two mouths and two bodies and a certain singing in the blood. His hand was at her waist and his leg pressed along hers when the rain started to fall. Within moments the sprinkle turned to cold, fat drops that pelted them. By the time they’d dashed to the relative cover of the attic window gable, they were already soaked through. They laughed, wiping water off their faces.

  Emma felt her hair come down out of its chignon. She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry about that.” Cormac grinned. She fought another blush. They both knew it was raining because she’d gotten carried away by his kisses. It still proved difficult to control her magic sometimes.

  He tossed his damp hair off his face. His cravat was wilted around his neck, so he yanked it off, revealing a slice of bare skin. “I have to go anyway,” he said. “I’m due back at Greymalkin House.”

  “I’m sorry about the rain,” she said. “You’ll have a miserable night now. Have you found anything?”

  He shook his head, bewildered. “Nothing at all. The house hasn’t changed.”

  She suppressed a shiver that had nothing to do with her wet dress. His arm slid around her shoulder, and though his touch was gentle and protective, his voice had an edge of bitterness. “I should have been able to protect you.”

  “You were the reason the Lacrimarium’s witch bottle didn’t trap me the way it trapped the Sisters.” She had nightmares about it sometimes. “You did more than even the First Legate could.” All without magic of his own. She didn’t have to say it.

  Cormac didn’t look convinced. She knew it took great effort for him to smooth his scowl and smile his most charming smile. It was the same one he used on countless girls
and women. She didn’t smile back. “Don’t,” she said softly.

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I’ll find a way to protect you, Emma.”

  She watched him disappear into the dusty darkness of the attic, rain dripping off her antlers. “And I’ll find a way to protect you,” she promised quietly.

  Later that night she woke to find the bedroom floor inches from her nose. Her palms stung and she’d wrenched her left knee. The nightmare was particularly violent, and she’d evidently flung herself clear out of bed.

  She pushed herself into a sitting position, her heart beating in her chest like thunder trapped in a bell jar. She lit a candle with trembling fingers, reminding herself that she was safe in her chambers at the academy. Her fingernails were blue and her teeth chattered, recalling with perfect clarity the searing cold of the Greymalkin Sisters.

  In her dreams, she was back in the Greymalkin House or running barefoot through London while birds dropped dead from the sky. Always the Sisters stalked her, ice spreading from them as inexorably as spilled ink on paper. They reached for her and no matter how fast she ran, it was never fast enough.

  And when she was lucky enough to dream about something else, she dreamed of her father. Ewan Greenwood, banished to wander the Underworld, never reaching the Blessed Isles, where the dead met their loved ones. The Order’s spelled arrow robbed him of that basic right, and it filled Emma with the kind of black sorrow that woke her with tears on her cheeks instead of the perspiration of fear.

  She wrapped her blanket around her shoulders against the cold still trapped in her bones. She couldn’t do much about the nightmares of the Sisters, but she could do something about Ewan. She had to find a way to save him. He’d sacrificed himself to help close the last portal and he shouldn’t be punished for it. Not to mention that he’d been killed and banished in the first place all because of his mother’s last name, not any crime of his own.

  It wasn’t right.

  And she knew full well the same would happen to her if anyone in the Order discovered her secret. They already suspected her and her cousins because of their presence at the Greymalkin House the night the Sisters were defeated, but they had no actual proof.