Star Cursed: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book Two

by Spotswood, Jessica

  Finn lounges against the table. “Well, I can see how information from the Head Council would be advantageous.”

  The Head Council includes Brother Covington and eleven of his closest advisers. Their meetings are shadowy, secretive affairs; no one knows where or when they’ll be. Rumors abound about who the eleven advisers are, but no one will admit to it publicly for fear of becoming a target.

  I shuck off my cloak, damp with melted snow. “It’s awfully dangerous. If they caught you passing information—”

  “I’d still be in less danger than you are,” he points out, running a finger over my bare wrist.

  My pulse jumps in response. “I was born into that. I haven’t got a choice. Besides, it sounds like you could be happy at the Archives.”

  “I’d rather be useful. I know Denisof. Know of him, anyway. I’m not surprised he’s on the Head Council.” Despite the scruff of his beard, Finn’s face looks suddenly boyish, vulnerable. “Whichever position I get—you wouldn’t be unhappy to have me in New London?”

  I shake my head. “Not at all. I want to see you as much as we can manage it.” I twine my arms around his neck. He’s got a headache; I can feel it whenever I touch him. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet. I’ve become a very capable nurse. I can tell you’ve got a headache, for instance.”

  He pinches the bridge of his nose, g cf hcomerimacing. “It’s Ishida. The man goes on and on.”

  I lean my forehead against his. I can see his headache: a red, throbbing haze that slowly subsides as I push against it with my magic. I would protect him from all the harm in the world if I could; a headache is nothing.

  “Better now?” I ask, and he nods, looking astonished. I clutch at his shoulders as the world spins around me. “I can heal more serious injuries, too, but there are side effects. It makes me feel a bit—wobbly.”

  “Wobbly?” He steadies me with a hand on either side of my waist.

  “I’m fine. A headache is very minor magic; loads of witches could do that much. I saved a woman’s life yesterday.” I’m startled by my own boasting; I’ve never felt this way about magic before. I continue, in an impulsive rush: “It’s getting easier, the more I practice. I’m the best in the convent, aside from Sister Sophia, and she’s the healing teacher. I like it. I like helping people. At Harwood, I felt like—like I was doing something useful, something good.”

  “At Harwood?” Finn’s voice rises. “You were at Harwood?”

  I nod, pulling back so I can see his face better. His forehead is furrowed, his brown eyes grim behind his glasses. “I wasn’t alone. Sister Sophia takes girls on a nursing mission once a week. And I got to meet my godmother, Zara. Did your mother ever mention her to you?”

  “The Sisters let you go to Harwood?” He seems stuck on that.

  “I was perfectly safe,” I assure him. “Sister Cora—she’s the headmistress here—asked me to go speak to Zara about the past oracles. There were two between the Great Temple Fire and Brenna.”

  “What happened to them?” he asks warily.

  “It’s a little unsettling,” I confess. It’s a relief to tell him about the torture and experiments and madness Thomasina suffered. I haven’t wanted to worry Maura and Tess, but last night I dreamed of Brothers closing in on me with old-fashioned torches. Ishida was right at the front of the pack, cackling. It was dreadful.

  I pray that it was just my fear and not a premonition.

  “Good Lord.” Finn’s hands clutch at my waist. “How can they torture girls like that and still claim to be men of the Lord?”

  “If they’re witches, no one cares.” My voice breaks, and I lean my cheek against his shoulder. “Have you heard about the girls they’re holding in the basement of the National Council building?”

  Finn runs his hand over my hair. “I have. Nine of them now.”

  One more since Cora’s report.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I confess. “Maura and Tess are here now. Maura’s blaming Sister Cora for not doing more to protect the girls, and Brenna for telling the Brothers the oracle’s here in New London. She thinks we ought to assassinate Brenna before she can say anything else to implicate us.”

  “What do you think?” Finn asks, drawing back so he can see me.

  I am so glad to have him here to talk to. With him, I don’t feel guilty for not having all the answers yet. “I don’t want to consider it. But if she knows it’s one of us, she could lead them here. I don’t know how to stop that. I don’t know how to stop any of it.”

  Finn sets his jaw. “I’m half tempted to spirit you away from here right now. Some remote place where no one would ever find us. If I thought you’d go—”

  I squeeze my eyes shut against the temptation. “I can’t. I have to look after Maura and Tess. What if it’s not me? What if it’s actually one of them?”

  “That would be a grand relief for me.” Finn’s voice dips low. “You worry about what the prophecy means for them, but I worry about you, Cate. Someo c> Cand reline’s got to. You’d sacrifice yourself in a second to keep them safe. You’d sacrifice us.”

  His words hang there between us, a reminder that I already have.

  “I don’t know if I could do it again,” I say truthfully. “I know being here is dangerous for you. I should send you away, but I don’t want to give you up. It’s selfish of me.”

  “Good. Be selfish.” Finn’s mouth claims mine in a searing kiss, and my mind empties of everything except his hands, his lips, his tongue.

  He pulls away to shrug off his cloak. Beneath it, he’s wearing a crisp white linen shirt, gray vest, and matching gray linen trousers. He looks fashionable. Handsome. But he doesn’t look quite like my Finn, rumpled and awkward and scholarly.

  I start with his hair, running my fingers through the thick strands. I slip my fingers beneath his collar, undoing the top button as my mouth moves to his throat. His hands clutch reflexively at my back, anchoring me against him. Without my heavy corset between us, the buttons of his vest press into my stomach.

  I fumble with the top button of his vest and, when it comes undone, tug at the next one. Finn catches my earlobe between his teeth. “Are you undressing me?”

  I shiver at his breath against my ear, achieving a third button. “Do you object?”

  “No.” His voice is a little hoarse as I remove his vest and toss it onto the floor along with his cloak. My arms wind around his neck again; the sinewy muscles of his shoulders bunch beneath my fingertips.

  I wonder what he’d look like without this shirt on.

  I wonder what he looks like with nothing on at all.

  If I’d stayed in Chatham, refused the Sisters, would we be married by now and sharing a bed every night? I press tighter against him as his hands slip beneath my cloak, stroking my sides. I blush to think how much I want that.

  Then the door slams open, and we spring apart.

  Maura stands in the doorway, snow drifting in behind her. “I’d ask what you’re doing, but that’s fairly obvious,” she snaps.

  I pat my disheveled hair back into place, blushing furiously. Finn turns away, snatching up his vest.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I was watching the snow. I saw you out my window—but this is worse than I imagined! What are you thinking, Cate? Anyone could have seen you!”

  She needn’t look so scandalized. “I’m fine, Maura. Go back to bed.”

  “You expect me to leave you here to carry on like this? With him?” Maura sputters, outraged, and I realize it’s not my virtue she’s concerned about. “Haven’t you any sense at all? Any pride?”

  Finn shoots me a wounded look as he struggles into his cloak. “You didn’t tell your sisters?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” I explain.

  “I understand how this must look,” he says, “but I assure you, Maura, I have only the most honorable intentions toward your sister.”

  “Well, my sister may be fool enough to believe that, but I’m not. Cate, he broke whatev
er vow he made to you. He’s a Brother now!” The door bangs shut behind her as she stalks closer, pointing at the silver ring on his finger.

  Finn whirls on Maura, the black cloak flaring out around him. How he can make a symbol I’ve hated all my life look almost dashing, I don’t know.

  I daresay he could make anything look dashing to me.

  “I only joined the Brothers to help Cate. To be able to support a wife,” he insists.

  Maura laughs. “Please tell me you don’t believe this nonsense, Cate. When he’s ruined you, what then? Sisters are meant to be chaste; you’d be arrested if anyone found out! You’re putting yourself in cg ye’s danger for a few kisses, and that puts all of us in danger. Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

  “Don’t I—?” Finn is the one part of my life that is mine, and she wants to shame me for it? Dismiss it as meaningless? She is always so quick to assume the worst of me.

  Anger and embarrassment clash inside me, and my magic rises, inextricably linked to my emotions. I send Maura flying back several paces, flinging her against the glass wall. Not hard enough to hurt her, but sudden enough to surprise her.

  I’ve never used magic against her before, but I want her to know that I’m serious. “Shut up, Maura, and give us a chance to explain.”

  “What are you doing?” she shrieks. Her red hair is tumbling out of its loose braid; her boots are leaving puddles across the floor.

  “He already knows I’m a witch. He knows everything. I would trust Finn with my life. More than that, I’d trust him with yours.”

  Maura gasps. “Are you mad? He could be a spy!”

  Finn takes my hand in his. “I am a spy. For the Sisterhood.”

  “What?” Her blue eyes go wide.

  I tug away from him. “Are you sure? What about the job at the Archives?”

  “I’m sure,” Finn says, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll apply for the other position, if that’s where I’ll be most useful to the Sisterhood. What does Sister Inez need to know?”

  “Sister Inez knows that you’re seeing Finn? She approves?” Maura slumps back against the wall. The wet, blue cotton hem of her nightgown peeks out beneath her new black cloak.

  “She thinks Finn could be a valuable ally,” I explain.

  “And you’re in love with her,” she says to Finn. All the fight has drained out of her. She looks very young suddenly, with wisps of red hair curling around her pale face. “You’re willing to risk your life for her.”

  “Yes.” Finn turns all his earnestness on Maura. It’s impressive, as I know full well. “It’s important to me to do something. Even before I fell in love with Cate, I disagreed with the Brothers’ policies. I see it every day, how much contempt the men around me have for witches, how little regard for women. They talk of what they’d do to witches if they caught them, if there weren’t laws in place to stop it.” His face darkens. “If I don’t do something to fight on the right side, what kind of man am I?”

  He’s a good man. Honorable. I stare at him, struck all over again by how very lucky I am.

  Maura takes it all in. “You never said you were in love with him.” Her voice is small, hurt.

  I take a few steps toward her. “I should have told you from the beginning. I’m sorry.”

  Maura shakes her head, tears brimming in her blue eyes. “Everything comes so easily for you, Cate. It’s not fair.”

  Without giving me time to respond—to argue against the obvious untruth of it—she picks up her skirts and hurries out the door into the snow.

  I turn back to Finn, burying my face in my hands. I should have told her and Tess the truth about him yesterday. No matter how much Maura claims to be over Elena, it’s obvious that she isn’t. Not if seeing me happy affects her this way.

  Finn puts a hand on my shoulder. “Should you go after her?”

  “No. I’ll try and talk to her tomorrow. She’s had a—disappointment. Perhaps she’s not as past it as she thought.” How did everything become a competition between us? How does my relationship with Finn take anything away from her?

  “Sometimes it’s better to let them cool off,” Finn agrees. “It might all be forgotten by tomorrow.”

  Somehow I doubt that. “Do you and Clara cou ow much get into rows?”

  Finn nods, his lips twitching. “Loads. She accuses me of being a bossy know-it-all, if you can imagine.”

  “Never.” I laugh, taking his hand. “I want to discuss this spying a bit more. I’m not quite comfortable with—”

  “What would you do if I forbade you to go back to Harwood?” he interrupts, raising his eyebrows at me.

  “You would never forbid me anything,” I say, wrinkling my nose. It’s one of the things I love best about him.

  “Rightly so. I need you to afford me the same respect,” he says.

  “Of course I respect you. Don’t be silly. You’re the cleverest person I know, except maybe Tess.” I take a deep breath, straightening his vest. In his hurry to get it back on, he’s done up the buttons crooked. “I’m just scared. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t. You have to let me take the same risks you take yourself, Cate.” He pulls me into his arms, and this time I cling to him. Anxiety blooms through me, dark and dreadful.

  I didn’t think anything could compare with the fear of losing one of my sisters, but this cuts just as deep. What if I never get to hear the warm rustle of his laugh again, or talk through my problems with him, or kiss him?

  The terrible notion of a world without Finn Belastra in it slices through me. I love him. I knew that. I mourned the marriage that wasn’t; I worried he wouldn’t forgive me or that I might not see him again for years. But I knew he was safe in Chatham; I could picture him going about his day, teaching in the boys’ school, sitting through Brother Ishida’s sermons, eating supper in his mother’s flat. I could picture the geography of his life, even though I was no longer part of it. But the awful image of him, dead and pale like my mother, buried in a graveyard somewhere—it’s more than I can bear.

  I can’t breathe, can’t think past the sudden panic. I cannot lose him. I cannot.

  “Cate.” Finn tilts my chin up with one finge

  r, and I kiss him. I kiss him as though I will break into a thousand tiny pieces if I don’t; I kiss him as though my lips on his can protect him from any possible danger.

  When he pulls away, there are tears gathering in my eyes. I tilt my head down so he won’t see them.

  “You have to go in,” he says. “I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

  I curl my little finger around his. The smallest brush of warm, freckled skin against mine.

  I nod, and I pretend to believe him. But he can’t make promises like that.

  None of us can.

  arm am">To th

  CHAPTER

  9

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, ALICE AND MEI and I go out to deliver food to the poor. A cloud of discontent seems to have settled on each of the flats we visit. The mothers look drawn and worried, and though they don’t dare utter a word of complaint, they wonder aloud how they can stretch these vegetables in soups. Daughters who worked as shopgirls last week glare at us over their sewing and pace like pent-up cats.

  I feel a pang of guilt, knowing some of them may go to bed hungry by the end of the week. For all my worries, that’s never been one of them. Is there more we could do to help? If we waged war against the Brothers, would these families be better off?

  The men who are home don’t hesitate to speak up. Fathers grumble about the extra burden the Brothers’ new measures put on their pockets; aged grandfathers joke about having to return to work. I see more than one man stuff a newspaper beneath the sofa cushions when we enter, and I know it’s not the sanctioned New London Sentinel fke p, the Brothers’ mouthpiece, that they’ve been reading. Part of me is afraid for them, but their complaints make me hopeful, too. Perhaps they’re finally seeing the cruelty of the Brothers’ whims.


  “They’ve got plenty of money in their coffers, thanks to our tithes!” Mr. Brooke is usually jolly, despite the broken leg that keeps him home from his factory job—but not today. He sits in a sturdy blue armchair, leg propped on an ottoman, with his wooden crutches leaning in the corner behind him. He and his family occupy one half of a brownstone duplex just outside the market district. “I ain’t suggesting girls should be prancing around the city, mind you, or working jobs what aren’t decent. My Molly worked at the flower shop around the corner, you know. And if she flattered the men a little to get ’em to buy flowers for their wives, that’s just good business, ain’t it? She sold more flowers than any other girl.”

  “Papa, hush!” Molly’s a pretty girl, with frightened cornflower-blue eyes. “Are you trying to get me arrested?”

  “We won’t say anything,” I promise her, and her knitting needles flash to work again.

  Mr. Brooke frowns. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Molly’s a good girl.”

  “Course she is.” Mei grins. Alice just sniffs, as usual.

  There’s talk of more disappeared girls, too—girls the Brothers suspect of being the oracle. The Chen sisters whisper about their friend’s cousin across the city. They say the Brothers heard neighbors gossiping about a strange dream she had, then took her away and told her family to forget her. As if it’s as easy as that.

  By my count, it’s up to ten girls now.

  All afternoon, we walk a fine line between sympathizing with the families we visit and criticizing the Brotherhood. After we visit the last house and pile back into the carriage, I turn to Mei. “Do you think it’s like this all over the city?”

  Mei nods. “My brother says people have been talking about a protest.”

  “That’s never happened before, has it?” Would I have known, tucked away in Chatham?

  “Not since the Daughters of Persephone were in power,” Mei says. “And we all know how that turned out.”

  • • •