Escape to Witch City

by E. Latimer

  “Ugh, they’re bringing the thistle wine out.” Prince Edgar’s voice jerked Emma’s attention away from the conversation and back toward the table. He was looking at the front of the Throne Room, where a servant in the all-white livery of the queen’s royal footmen had wheeled out a metal tea tray full of wine flutes, each glass filled with pale purple liquid.

  Emma looked away quickly, her mouth twisted in distaste.

  The prince didn’t seem to notice her discomfort. “I hear it’s even worse than the thistle juice mother makes me drink. Have you tried the juice?”

  Had she tried it?

  She whirled on him, fists clenched at her sides, hardly able to believe he could be so stupid. “Yes, I’ve tried it,” she snapped. “The first thing they do when you’re accused is make you drink it. I’m sure you must remember, Your Highness.”

  Edgar flinched, his face flushing.

  Clearly, he remembered it now: the witch hunters showing up with a flask of the violet-colored liquid, one of them holding the back of Emma’s neck as another forced the thistle juice between her lips.

  She could still remember the bitter taste on her tongue, even now.

  Anger swelled her chest and she turned her back on the prince, determined to ignore him for the rest of the evening. Just then, however, she heard something deep in the back of her mind—a distant, faint-sounding thump-thump.

  Emma froze. Fear crawled up her spine and down her arms, making her fingers tingle, sending goosebumps rippling over her skin.

  No. This couldn’t happen again.

  She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste the bitter tang of copper, glancing sideways at her mother. Isolde was staring at her now, even though the handsome lord on her arm was leaning over, whispering in her ear. She stared past him, gaze locked on Emma, eyes narrow. Emma looked away quickly.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Prince Edgar stammered. “That’s not what I was saying.”

  The anger flared in her chest again, in spite of her efforts to shove it down, and to Emma’s dismay, the Noise came a second time.

  Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

  It was a loud, steady beat now.

  He was still blathering, clearly trying to pry his foot from his mouth. “I just meant, uh, I wasn’t sure if you’d had it before, under other circumstances…”

  This wasn’t good. She had to calm herself.

  Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

  Now the Noise was drowning out Edgar’s voice. It was getting too loud, too fast. She grappled in the back of her mind for the trick she usually relied on when it got out of hand: trying to picture herself locking the sound away, shutting it behind a door. But she couldn’t seem to imagine the door in her mind, couldn’t remember what it looked like or how she’d conjured it up before.

  This wasn’t working.

  Emma turned, grasping for something, anything, to make the prince go away, to tell him he needed to leave her alone. But it was too late: his face had gone sheet white and, in the next moment, the Noise in the back of Emma’s head cut off mid-beat.

  The buzz of the crowd dropped into silence, leaving nothing but the echo of a hundred excited whispers behind.

  Prince Edgar’s mouth was open in a silent gasp, and one hand flew up to his chest, fingers splayed as he pressed his palm to his heart. He wheezed, and Emma stumbled back a step as cold panic raced over her.

  No, no, no. This couldn’t happen. Not here. Not to him.

  She felt paralyzed, helpless to do anything other than stare, and then from somewhere behind her came a loud crack, and Emma jumped.

  She whirled around, heart in her throat, to see several nobles clustered by one of the high, pointed windows set into the stone wall. A few of the women were staring up, wide-eyed, hands over their mouths. One enterprising gentleman had raised himself up on his toes to peer out.

  “Bloody bird ran right into the window, poor daft thing.”

  There was a frantic thudding in her ears, but now it was only the sound of her own heart beating very hard. The Noise had gone.

  Emma turned back around, thinking she’d find Edgar gone, run off to report her to the nearest witch hunter maybe, or cowering under the table. Instead, he stood with one hand braced against the tabletop, staring hard at her. The color was slowly returning to his face.

  “You…you’re a wi—”

  A second, louder crash from the front of the room cut him off.

  Someone had flung both doors open at the entrance, and the doorman in his white livery jumped hastily to one side, cupping his hands to his mouth to call out, “Announcing Her Majesty, Queen Alexandria Black, High Empress of the Western Shores—”

  Queen Alexandria swept forward, skirts rustling over the floor. Her pale face—painted white just like her sister’s—was set in a terrible, stony determination as she marched toward the dais. The doorman’s eyes widened imperceptibly, and he sped up his announcement.

  “—Thistle Queen, Duchess of the Shadowed North, Slayer of Witches, and Savior of the People.”

  He ended his announcement just as the queen mounted the stone steps and settled onto her throne, one hand extended. Her foot servant had been waiting by the dais, and now he jumped forward, throat bobbing nervously, holding out a silver tray with a single flute of thistle wine. The queen took it delicately between finger and thumb and drank, tipping her head back, dark lashes fluttering.

  All around the Throne Room the rest of the court was doing the same, tipping back the watery purple liquid. Some of the nobles gulped it back all at once, and more than a few lords and ladies hid their disgust poorly, attempting to conceal purple-lipped grimaces behind sleeves and fans. Emma chewed her lip, remembering the awful, bitter taste.

  Queen Alexandria set her empty glass back on the tray. Her thin hands drifted like pale birds, trembling ever so slightly, before she folded them in her lap, shifting her attention back to the court.

  The queen looked very much like her sister, though Emma’s mother was a full head shorter. They had the same black eyes and hair, the same sharp edge to their expressions. Queen Alexandria seemed harder though. Even waif-thin as she was, she had a dark glitter in her eyes that made her seem a little dangerous. And that was on a good day.

  Today was not a good day.

  “Bring him in,” the queen barked, and so the hearings began.

  The first man was deemed a possible witch. He had reportedly refused to drink the thistle wine his neighbor had gifted him, and was later overheard bad-mouthing the queen in a local pub. Both he and his wife were condemned to be Re-Tested. Emma winced as they were dragged away protesting.

  What kind of fool would commit treason in the middle of a crowded bar? Everyone knew the queen would hear about it even if you so much as cursed her under your breath in your own living room.

  The cases that followed were all similar, and they soon started to blend together. Had the last one been the woman who’d supposedly murdered her neighbors’ cow with magic, or the one who’d been spotted cursing her neighbors’ houseplants so they would shrivel up? Emma found her gaze drifting up to the wheel of the seasons next to the dais. She kept forgetting The Testing was tomorrow and then remembering with an unpleasant start—a pattern that seemed to repeat itself every few minutes.

  By the time the tenth hearing was about to begin, the Throne Room was buzzing with fearful whispers—“Did you see if his eyes were black?” “They were darkening, I’m almost sure of it!”—but the noise cut off abruptly as the guards hauled the next subject through the door.

  Emma looked up just as they dragged him past, and her breath caught in her throat.

  The captain of the witch hunters looked nothing like he had that morning. His cool confidence had vanished. He was smudged with soot, and his wide-brimmed hat was crooked, his face twisted in fury. One of the soldiers walked behind him, carrying th
e thistle- wood staff they’d confiscated, and as the procession passed, Emma caught a strong whiff of smoke. A few of the nobles around her stepped back, pressing handkerchiefs to their mouths.

  The guards deposited the captain at the foot of the throne, and he stumbled and fell heavily to his knees.

  For a moment there was dead silence in the court as the queen regarded him, her face thunderous.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was like the lash of a whip. “You lost them.”

  A stirring from the court; people began to murmur.

  “Captain Tobias McCraw, you are charged with criminal negligence in the line of duty.” The queen’s fist came crashing down on the arm of the throne with a dull, echoing thunk, and half the court jumped. “You failed your queen and your country. You were meant to find…” The queen paused, and for a moment her stony expression faltered. Then her face went cold and smooth once more. “You were meant to find the coven, and you failed.”

  You were meant to find HER. Emma was almost sure that’s what Queen Alexandria had wanted to say. The captain was supposed to find Lenore and he hadn’t.

  “It wasn’t my fault, Your Majesty.” Captain McCraw’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “We had the house surrounded. We were forcing them out.” He wheezed and then gave a rasping cough, shaking his head. “I don’t know what happened…” His brow furrowed and his gaze darted around the room. “I-I don’t know what they did. The witches—”

  “You were in the house.” Queen Alexandria leaned forward on her throne, painted face twisted with fury. “They set the house on fire with you inside, and they escaped. It’s a miracle you didn’t burn. The entire coven, gone!”

  The witch hunter’s eyes were wide. “No, no, that’s not possible. They were there, in the house. We had them.”

  “It was an illusion. You were enchanted, Captain. The witches are gone. They’ve disappeared.”

  “Impossible.” His voice shook.

  There was a buzz around the throne room, and Emma heard the same phrase passed from one spectator to the next.

  Witch City. They’ve gone to Witch City.

  The fabled town filled entirely with witches.

  Emma had been fascinated when she’d first heard about it. She’d collected as many rumors as she could, combing through the library for any hint or mention. She’d even listened around corners for gossip.

  She’d discovered that the more you looked into the rumors, the more outrageous they became. Blue gaslight that burned intruders; shifting streets that left you forever lost; fountains that pulled you in and drowned you.

  Finally, she’d plucked up enough courage to ask her tutor about it. To her disappointment, he’d claimed the whole thing was nonsense, and Emma had finally resigned herself to the dreary fact that Witch City was nothing more than a wild fairy tale.

  But lately, it seemed as if there was a lot she didn’t know. A lot she hadn’t been told, and a lot she couldn’t learn from the history books, because pieces of those books seemed to have mysteriously gone missing.

  All of this brought her back to the abandoned library in the East Wing. To her mother’s revelation, and the words she’d said just after.

  My worst fear in life is that you’ll become like her. You’re already close in so many ways.

  If she was close to being like Lenore, did that mean she’d fail tomorrow’s Testing?

  Up on the dais, Queen Alexandria let out a heavy sigh and settled back into her throne. She waved a hand at the guards. “Get him out of my sight. A night in chains should remind him to keep his wits about him.”

  The crowd cleared out of the way as the guards dragged the witch hunter, who was staring in stunned silence, toward the doors. Captain McCraw kept trying to turn back, twisting and bucking against the guard’s grip. “It’s impossible! I had them!”

  The doors slammed shut behind them, and Emma jumped as the noise echoed through the Throne Room. When she turned back, Queen Alexandria was standing up from the throne, composed once more. She nodded at her guard.

  “We’ve found one of their children. Send out a task force for the others. They can’t have gone far.”

  The guard vanished through the door, and after a beat of silence that followed the exit, a murmur began in the court. The palace’s rumor mill never rested—at least not for long. Already the story would be traveling, passed on by servants and nobles, running through underground networks at lightning speed. Soon the entire city of London would know a coven had escaped capture. That a group of the most dangerous sort of people was roaming the streets.

  Emma turned back to Edgar, swallowing hard.

  His expression was dark, and he met her eyes for a second before turning his gaze up to the stone wheel on the wall. And even though they’d barely spoken to one another in years, she knew exactly what he was thinking, because she’d seen that expression on her own face. Every time she looked in a mirror. Every time she took stock of the date, and how many days were left in the season.

  She knew that expression. It was dread.

  Emma frowned at him. Why exactly was he dreading The Testing?

  She stared at him, hesitating. She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. Not here in the middle of court.

  “My friends.” Queen Alexandria’s voice was firm. “We will find them, and we will put an end to this. Magic will not rule us or steal our freedom ever again.”

  The crowd drew closer to the throne, a buzz of excitement swelling.

  Even Emma could feel goosebumps spreading over her arms.

  At times like this, she knew Isolde could never hope to take her sister’s place. It was Alexandria who had the power to captivate, to lead the people, not her little sister.

  There was a good reason she’d been the one to lead the uprising.

  Emma had yet to be born when they’d risen up against the witches, but she’d heard the stories. Everyone had. She knew about the fighting in the streets, the clashing armies and the havoc the witches had wreaked on the city. The horrible things they’d done to the human rebels.

  Until Alexandria had discovered their weakness, the key to their defeat.

  On Yuletide Eve, she had risen up against them. She and her army had ousted the Witch Queen from the throne. They had taken the palace back, and hung the witches in the city square.

  And that was why they celebrated every year, why the fires burned bright in the center of the city. Why they lit candles and hung bushels of thistle over every door. And why every child of thirteen would report to the city square on Yuletide Eve for The Testing. To make sure they weren’t a witch.

  “Tomorrow, we will have our Testing. Once it’s over,” the queen continued, “Yuletide day will come, and we will celebrate our freedom. We will sing, and we will feast!”

  Now the buzz of the crowd grew louder. A few people even cheered.

  Wordlessly, Emma looked over at Edgar. He gave her a wide-eyed stare in return, and they both turned to look at the stone plaque on the wall.

  Tomorrow.

  The Testing began on Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. sharp, in the center of Piccadilly Square. The sun was rising, turning the peaks and towers of the London skyline into a show of dusky oranges and reds.

  The gas lamps were still burning, casting stretched-out shadows onto the frosty cobblestones. As far as Emma was concerned, it was entirely too early, and no one had any business being out of bed.

  She slumped on the velvet-cushioned seat, tugging the collar of her winter jacket up to her chin, pressing her face to the window as the carriage bumped and jostled her. She tried to ignore the heaviness in her stomach, and the fact that the stupid lace dress she had on made starchy crunching sounds every time she moved.

  “Stop that.”

  A hand snatched at her wrist, and Emma found herself tugged sharply upright. Her mother scowled ferociously at her f
rom over the top of the lace handkerchief pressed to her nose. “You’re smudging the windowpane.”

  “I don’t care.” She glared right back. Not for the first time today, she felt irritation begin to swell in her chest. Here she was, completely dreading what was to come, and her mother was acting as if the whole thing was nothing more than a terrible inconvenience. As if she’d turned thirteen today out of sheer spite.

  Isolde had moaned and complained the entire way to the square: Her constitution was too weak for a trip into the inner city. She was bound to catch some terrible plague from the common folk. She was too weak for the dirty air.

  Emma had contemplated tucking and rolling out of the carriage and onto the street. Surely it would be less painful. Perhaps her ridiculous dress would cushion her fall. It certainly had enough layers.

  “Just look at that. Barbarians, the lot of them.”

  Emma twisted in her seat to peer out the window. No doubt her mother meant the crowds on the street. Everyone was up early for The Testing, and the city was as bustling as it usually was at noontime. The shopkeepers were stringing garlands from the signs of their stores, and the vendors passing their carriage had carts loaded with fruits and grains.

  There was an air of excited nervousness in the city, and the streets were full of traffic, all of which was heading in the direction of Piccadilly Square. The crowd, dressed in their best walking dresses and winter jackets, weaved through traffic and pushed past storefronts.

  It was not a celebration yet, but even from behind the glass in the carriage, Emma could tell people were getting ready. Once The Testing was over, there would be time to let loose. To drink and sing and dance to the band in the square.

  From the seat beside Emma, her mother made a series of disapproving tsking sounds.

  Isolde disapproved of frivolity of any sort, especially if it was the poorer sort of people engaging in it. She sat back in her seat, red lips twisted in disgust, and crossed her arms. “Testing Day is hardly a party, but they use any excuse, don’t they? I say we should ship the rabble-rousers off to Scotland with the witches. Get rid of them all in one go.”