Star Cursed: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book Two

by Spotswood, Jessica

  The sky is the heavy white of imminent snow, and the wind roars in my ears. As we get closer to the wharves without any sight of Tess, my worry grows. So many awful things could befall her in this neighborhood, not all of them to do with magic.

  There’s one long brick warehouse with half a dozen guards posted outside, and no one going in or out. “That must be it,” I say, jerking my head in its direction. I pull Maura into the shadowy, garbage-filled alley between two buildings. “Should we disguise ourselves?”

  “That’s a good idea,” Maura agrees. In the blink of an eye, she’s transformed into a girl with dark curls and pouty lips and a patched red cloak.

  I hesitate, breathing in the briny stink of rotting fish. “I haven’t been able to hold those illusions.”

  “I’ll do it for you,do sl” she offers, and I arch my eyebrows. “Oh, for Persephone’s sake, I’m not going to let you get arrested. Certainly not before we can help Tess. She’s my sister, too.”

  I examine a loose wisp of my hair and find it a dark brown that matches hers. My cloak is rough gray wool, and I’m wearing scuffed, muddy work boots. “Thank you,” I say, leading the way toward the building.

  It feels good to be working with Maura again, instead of against her.

  One of the guards steps forward to bar my way. He’s not much older than we are, with a fuzzy brown mustache lying like a caterpillar on his upper lip. “What’s your business here?”

  “We came to see our father. He’s one of the prisoners?” I lower my eyes, trying to sound as meek as possible.

  “Sorry, miss. Visiting isn’t for another hour.”

  “Can’t we wait inside, out of the cold?” Maura glances up from beneath dark lashes, shivering as she pulls her threadbare cloak tighter.

  The guard softens, his eyes lingering on her face. She couldn’t help making herself pretty. “All right. Just go straight inside. There are a few others waiting over by the fire. But don’t approach the prisoner until you have leave, understand? Don’t try to give him food or blankets until the guards say so. It will only get him in trouble.”

  “Thank you, sir,” we chorus.

  Just inside the cavernous space, half a dozen women warm their hands around a fire in a barrel. Most of them carry baskets of food for the prisoners, and I realize too late that we should have brought some provisions for our make-believe father. I blink against the smoke that stings my eyes. It takes me a minute to recognize Tess on the far side of the huddle, her blond hair tucked inside an unfamiliar blue hood. I make a beeline for her, and she looks bewildered by the two strange women advancing on her, glowering, until I hiss that it’s us. “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting Father, same as you two. I brought him this,” she says loudly, holding out a moth-eaten red blanket.

  “It was mad of you to rush out alone like that. This is no place for a little girl,” Maura exclaims, towing her aside.

  Three more guards cluster in a corner, smoking their pipes. A few of the women around the fire—mothers of the prisoners? wives?—eye us with curiosity, but most are chatting in low voices, stamping their feet to keep warm. If Yang is coming, he isn’t here yet; no men are waiting besides the guards.

  To our right is a row of holding pens, each closed off by a heavy sliding metal gate, padlocked shut. I can’t see the prisoners, but I can hear the low murmur of voices—and I can smell them. The odors of unwashed bodies and human waste waft toward us, nauseating even from several yards away. I wonder how the prisoners can stand it. How long do the Brothers intend to keep them here? It’s already been two days. With this cold, people must be getting sick. And what about those whose families aren’t bringing food? Are they being left to starve?

  I shake off the sympathy. My business is getting Tess out of here safely.

  “What were you thinking?” I demand in a furious whisper.

  “Look at this place! They’re not cattle,” Tess hisses, her jaw set. She eyes the meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, the blood spattered on the cold concrete floor. “This isn’t a warehouse, it’s an abattoir, and it’s not a fit place to keep people. I want to help them. I can do this. I know I can.”

  “Why do you even care?” Maura shoves her hands in her pockets. “They don’t care about us. If we were the ones locked up, they’d throw away the key. Or worse.”

  Tess’s cheeks and nose are red from the cold. “You donld.h="1em’t know that.”

  “I do. You’re being naïve if you think otherwise,” Maura insists, tossing her brown curls.

  “Cate?” Tess reaches out a hand. “Even if it’s true, we should be better than that. We should help them because we can, because it’s right. And if we don’t, they’re going to put them all on the prison ship.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Maura asks, glancing at the plump gray-haired woman nearest us.

  “One of the guards said so. We can stop it, but we have to do it now. Before the storm gets worse.” Tess points toward the high windows, at the fat snowflakes swirling in through the broken glass.

  I suspect Tess is strong enough to manage this on her own, but I take her hand anyway, letting her draw magic from me. She stares down the empty expanse of concrete toward the holding pens.

  With a crack, each padlock drops to the floor. Scarcely a second later, the gates fly up, one by one, in a series of great crashes. The prisoners are screaming, shouting, flooding down the passageway toward us. A tall black man is the first out, followed by two burly blond men who look like brothers.

  “Who opened the doors?” one of the blond men asks. His face is smudged with dirt.

  “It was magic!” cries a thin girl with fuzzy black braids, rushing toward the prisoners. “Papa! It was magic!”

  “What the devil? Stop right there! Stop!” one of the guards shouts, ineffectually waving his pistol. The crowd flows toward him, ignoring the warning shot he fires into the air.

  “The witches are helping us!” someone shouts.

  “Danny! Danny, where are you?” The stout old woman pushes past us.

  The guards from outside stream in, and shots are fired, but most of the guards take in their odds, turn tail, and run. The prisoners tackle those who are left. Two guards are already being shoved down the hall toward the holding pens. Most of the prisoners are out now. A tall, thin man with dark hair half carries a limping old man.

  “Oh, dear,” Tess says as two prisoners kick a guard huddled on the floor. “I didn’t mean—should we help?”

  I grab her arm. “No. We’ve done enough.”

  “What about Mei’s sisters? Should we see that they’re all right?” she asks.

  “We need to go. I bet those guards ran to get help.” Maura slips toward the exit, and I drag Tess after her. Mei’s sisters can find their own way out.

  The bulk of the crowd is running up the street, shouting and making much of their sudden freedom. Maura leads us in the opposite direction, around the warehouse and along the creaking wooden docks. We stop between the gangplanks of two huge vessels—a schooner called the Lizzie Mae unloading coal and a great three-masted, iron-hulled ship swarming with sailors. There’s so much banging and clanging, so much activity onboard, that no one will overhear us. Maura’s hair goes red again, her cloak black, and I see my own windswept hair turn blond as she releases her illusions.

  “We did it!” Tess says, launching herself at me with such force she almost knocks me over. “I knew we could. What did I tell you—we make a marvelous team!”

  Maura stops walking and stares down at the sluggish gray river. “The two of you are a team?”

  “I mean—the three of us always make a marvelous team, when we work together, don’t we?” Tess babbles, flushing, her eyes falling guiltily to her feet. “That’s why we can’t let all of this Sisterhood business come between us.”

  “It already has,” Maura says softly. There’s a funny expression on her face. “I used to try to win you over, you know. I’d brush your hair out and braid
it like you were my little doll and sing yoll Mauou songs and tell you fairy stories. But then Cate would come in from the garden, and you’d go running to her. It’s always been her you’ve gone to, for everything, every bruise and bad dream.”

  “That’s not true.” Tess reaches out, catching at the snow-covered sleeve of Maura’s cloak. “I’ve been confiding in Cate more lately, yes, but that’s only because you’ve been so distant. Like you didn’t want anything to do with us. I know Elena broke your heart, Maura, but ever since then, you’ve been so cold.”

  “You think I’m cold?” Maura shakes her off. “Cate’s the one who couldn’t care less about those girls being murdered! I suggested trying to break in and rescue them, and she discarded the idea, the way she rejects anything she doesn’t think of first! All she cares about is saving her own skin—hers and Finn’s. Do you know she’s still seeing Brother Belastra?”

  The wind picks up. Behind Maura, the water in the river begins to churn, the great ship nearest us rocking as if tossed in a tempest. The men on the deck shout, running to secure their cargo. Is it just the snowstorm, or is Maura losing her temper?

  “This isn’t about Cate,” Tess says firmly, taking a cautious step backward. “This is about you and me. Our relationship as sisters.”

  “It’s always about Cate,” Maura disagrees, her black cloak rippling in the sudden squall. “She insinuates herself into everything! We don’t even know which one of us is the oracle yet, but you’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you? If it were up to you, you’d have Cate lead the Sisterhood.”

  Tess squares her shoulders. “I don’t like Sister Inez. I don’t trust her. So, yes, I think Cate’s the best choice.”

  Maura looks stunned, as though she’s been slapped. “What about me? Don’t you trust me?” She gives a hysterical little laugh. Tears are gathering in her blue eyes. “Let me guess: you think I’m reckless. ‘Too easily ruled by my emotions,’ Elena said. As though feeling things deeply—wanting more for myself and girls like us—is so terrible!”

  A heavy crate falls overboard with a tremendous splash. On the gangway, there’s a spate of cursing from the sailors.

  “Maura, let’s go home and talk about this there,” Tess suggests.

  “Cate won’t win this war, you know,” Maura insists. The snow is falling faster and faster now, obscuring the ships farther away. The dock is slippery beneath my heeled boots. “You’ll need soldiers like me and Inez. People willing to do what needs to be done.”

  “We’re not at war,” I snap. “And it’s a good thing, because the Brothers outnumber us a hundred to one.”

  “But we’re a hundred times more powerful.” Her smile is chilling as she gazes out over the harbor. “You want to free a few witches? That’s not enough. We need to show people what we’re really capable of. That’s why we’re going to ruin the Head Council.”

  “Ruin them how?” Tess asks, and my stomach sinks.

  “We’re going to erase their minds, the way the Daughters of Persephone did with their enemies. They won’t remember their own names once we’re finished with them.” My sister’s voice is vicious. “They’ll stop murdering innocent girls, and we’ll remind people what witches can do.”

  This is why Inez wanted Finn to spy. So she could start a war.

  “She would expose us like that? We’re not ready, Maura!” Tess’s face is pale.

  Maura swipes her hair out of her eyes. “No one will connect it with the Sisterhood. They’ll only know witches were responsible.”

  “This won’t stop the Brothers from murdering innocent girls. Don’t you see, they’ll crack down twice as hard!s wh asly kn I protest. “Inez can’t do this. Cora isn’t even dead yet, and once she is, Inez will only be regent until one of us comes of age.”

  “It will be me,” Maura insists. “Why can’t you let me have this one thing?”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Maura. We can’t just decide that it’s you. It’s up to Persephone,” Tess says, stepping closer, hands outstretched like Maura’s a wild animal.

  “Even if you could, you wouldn’t choose me, would you?” Maura’s lip wobbles. “No one ever does.”

  Tess puts a hand on her arm. “Maura, I love you.”

  Maura shakes her off. “Get away from me!”

  Tess skids backward—farth

  er than Maura’s push warrants. Her feet slip on the snowy dock. She teeters for a moment on the very edge, windmilling her arms above the freezing river. She screams.

  I grab her, pulling her back toward me. She throws both arms around my waist, clinging like a child, her whole body trembling.

  Tears are streaming down Maura’s face now. “I didn’t mean—”

  “You could have killed me,” Tess says, stunned. “I can’t swim. You know I can’t swim.”

  She’s always been frightened of the water; she would never even wade in the pond with me. Mrs. O’Hare teases that Mother must have dropped her in the sink when she was a baby.

  “I can’t—when I’m upset, I can’t control it,” Maura says. “I told you to stay away from me, I—just let me alone, both of you! I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone!”

  And with that, she’s gone, running away down the snowy street. I hug Tess close and watch her go.

  arm am">To th

  CHAPTER

  14

  “WE HAVE TO STOP INEZ.”

  I pick my way carefully up the snowy front steps of the convent. “I know.”

  Tess’s nose is red from the cold and from crying. “People have had a hundred years to forget what the Daughters of Persephone did, and now she’ll make us into bogeymen again. It will ruin any chance we have for sharing power.”

  “Maybe that’s what she wants—to make it so we’ll have to go to war.” I shiver into my cloak. “Lord knows what the Brothers will do in response.”

  Tess sighs. “At least we saved the prisoners. We changed things, Cate! I saw them all being loaded onto the prison ship in the snow, and now they’re free. That means—”

  “We can change the prophecy,” I realize, a grin nearly splitting my face in half.

  “Maura might be angry with us now, but she’ll get past it. Who knows? Perhaps in the oracle’s vision, I did fall into the river today, and I drowned,” Tess says, kicking the snow off her boots. “But you saved me. You can’t know how much better this makes me feel. If I can change the things I see—if it’s not all set in stone—that changes everything.”

  She wrenches open the heavy front door, and we hang up our wet cloaks and slide off our boots. The front parlor door is ajar, light spilling out, but I don’t hear any voices. Putting my finger to my lips, I tiptoe over in stocking feet and peer in.

  “Finn?” I gasp. He’s standing before the fire in his gray vest and white shirtsleeves, hands clasped behind his back. “What are you doing here?”

  Finn whirls around, smiling. “There you are! I worried when you weren’t at the trial. Rory said there was some emergency.”

  I forgot all about Sachi’s trial. Rory is perched on the settee, dabbing at her eyes with her pink lace handkerchief.

  “Was it Harwood?” I ask.

  Rory nods, swiping at another tear. “It was awful. The things they said about her—and she looked so frightened.” “We’ll find a way to get her out of there, I promise.” I turn to Finn, distracted. “You can’t call on me here. It’s too dangerous.”

  He moves aside, ushering Tess to stand front of the fire. “I was worried. And I got the information Inez wanted about the next Head Council meeting. It’s going to be—”

  “Hush!” I pull the door shut behind me, then cross the room, reach up, and pull the copper grate shut, too, for good measure. I don’t want anyone eavesdropping. Finn stares at me, stunned. “Whatever you found out, you can’t tell anyone. Don’t even tell me. I don’t want her compelling it out of me. I don’t know if she could, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try.”

  Finn pales beneath hi
s freckles. “Who?”

  I take his warm hand in my two icy ones. “Inez. She’s not what I thought. We can’t trust her.”

  Finn’s curses would make the dockworkers blush. “It’s too late. I’ve already told her.”

  “No.” I look at Tess, who leans against the mantel and closes her gray eyes in dismay, and then I sink onto the brown silk chair.

  “I asked the girl who answered the door if I could see you. She brought Inez, and Inez guessed who I was straight off. She said you’d gone out for a bit but I was welcome to wait for you in here, and she asked whether I’d been able to find out anything yet. I had, so—I told her. Dammit!” Finn puts a hand on my bare shoulder. “I thought that was what you wanted! What’s changed?”

  “I was wrong,” I whisper. Stupid and trusting and so very wrong. “She wants to destroy them. Go into their minds and ruin them, like the witches used to do. The entire Head Council.”

  Finn’s hand clenches on my collarbone. “She can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Rory stands up, crumpling her handkerchief in her fist. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in Sisterly black. “If you’d been at Sachi’s trial today, Cate, if you’d seen how frightened she was—we’ve got to fight back. We’ve got to do something.”

  “Not this. It’s wrong. It’s murder, or as good as,” Tess snaps, tucking her damp blond hair behind her ears. “And it will only make things worse!”

  “It’s unconscionable,” Finn agrees, eyes snapping. “And she used me to do it.”

  “Both of us.” I stand, folding myself into his arms. “I’m so sorry I involved you in it.”

  “I won’t lie to you, my new boss is no prize. Most of the Head Council are power-hungry bastards. But look at Sean Brennan; he’s a good man. And even the ones who aren’t—Tess is right; it’s akin to murder. The Brothers will strike back twice as hard to prove they’re still in control. For this—” Finn swallows hard. “They might resurrect the burnings. There are men who would vote for it. They’re just waiting for a reason, and this would give them one. What in the hell is Inez thinking?”