The Whisper Witch

by Harvey, Alyxandra;

  She shot him a look. “Don’t help me,” she ordered. “When I finally flatten you utterly, it will be a delicious revenge entirely of my own making.”

  Godric nodded to the candles guttering in their silver holders. “Might you make the attempt today? Before Mother and Father return from the opera? I don’t fancy another lecture on how I am too lenient with your unseemly habits.”

  “We’ve hours yet.” Gretchen waved that away. “It’s barely one in the morning.”

  “Some of us like to sleep.”

  “Please. You’re hardly out the door for your evening debauchery at this time.” She smirked. “You just want to go out looking for Moira.”

  He reddened slightly. She smirked harder. “I’m only concerned for her well-being,” he muttered.

  “Moira can take care of herself,” she assured her brother. She took the shot, mostly to distract him from his worry. And the fact that if he left to prowl the London rooftops and the goblin markets, she would be equally worried for his safety. More worried actually, since he wasn’t half as fierce as Moira.

  Gretchen rushed the shot and knew before the end of the cue struck the ball that she had botched it up, as usual. She stayed hunched over the table, frowning. Her wolfhound scrambled out from underneath, hackles bristling.

  “There’s no need for dramatics, Gretchen,” Godric said. “I already warned you you’d never make that shot.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, finally straightening. She pressed a hand to her breastbone. “I feel odd.” There was a burning sensation, slowly developing into a painful prickling under her skin. Her breaths went shallow. Her wolfhound growled, just as Godric’s wolfhound leaped up beside hers, also growling and with its ears flattened against its glowing skull. “Something’s wrong,” she added.

  Her brother’s hold on the cue made it appear suddenly spearlike. “I’ll go and see.”

  Gretchen shook her head wildly. She felt clammy and pale. “It’s inside of me.” Pain lanced through her, like a sword being driven into her belly. She gasped.

  “Are you ill?” Godric frowned. “Shall I call for the doctor?”

  “No,” she croaked, stopping him when he went to ring the bell to summon the butler. She was both so hollow and so filled with disorienting pain that she could only sink to her knees. Both wolf-hounds circled her, barking madly. “It’s something else.”

  “Is it a Whisperer thing?” he asked, looking helpless.

  She shook her head. “The pain’s not in my head.” She began to writhe, hot needles jabbing her all over. Blood spotted her gown, under her collarbone, on her shoulder, above her belly button. They were small wounds, but they throbbed unpleasantly. “It’s magic.”

  “Hell no,” Godric said. “Not with a Keeper likely out lurking in the bushes.” He raced out onto the terrace, bellowing Tobias’s name.

  Gretchen’s arrowhead amulet flared as hot as metal on a blacksmith’s anvil. Waves of sparkling iridescent heat emanated from it, and the acrid smell of lemon balm forced another dose of adrenaline through her.

  Tobias and her brother rushed in from the garden, trailing flowers and rain. Tobias came to an abrupt halt, his expression remained cool and remote. She found it oddly comforting.

  “Do something,” Godric snapped.

  “We need salt,” Tobias ordered. Godric left for the kitchens at a dead run. Gretchen tried to push herself up off the floor but couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Don’t tax yourself,” Tobias said gently. She had a very good view of the water and mud on the bottom of his boots. She concentrated on them, trying to keep the panic at bay. Tobias pulled rowan berries and iron shavings from the pocket of his greatcoat and built a circle around her. When Godric returned with the salt, Tobias added it to the ring.

  Gretchen was able to catch her breath for just a moment. “It’s helping,” she said, but she knew, it wouldn’t be enough. The pain was already stalking her. She could practically see it pacing outside the barrier.

  An invisible dagger stabbed through her palm. A ragged hole opened on her witch knot, bleeding sluggishly. She cried out, feeling her hand pinned to the floor even though there was nothing physically touching her. The wound throbbed viciously.

  “Take this.” Gretchen fumbled awkwardly with her free hand for the clasp of her arrowhead amulet. Tobias crouched in front of her, brushing the back of her neck as he released the talisman. He added it to the rest of the barrier spell. He pressed a large chunk of black jet just above the neckline of Gretchen’s gown. It was cool against her fevered skin. There was a flash of magic. The candles flared so high and hungry they were extinguished in pools of melted wax almost immediately. Her wolfhound howled, a ghostly sound that wasn’t quite audible and yet still managed to chill the blood.

  The jet gathered more and more magic into itself until it cracked and then shattered. Shards scattered in every direction. A small cut opened on Tobias’s cheek when he was grazed. Another piece hit a glass case holding a display of bird nests, breaking it. The invisible dagger slid free of her palm. Godric hastily undid his cravat and began to wrap her bleeding hand with the strip of white cloth.

  “You’ll want to pack it with salt,” Tobias said.

  “Like hell,” Gretchen replied.

  “It’s a magical wound. It would be safest to cleanse it properly”—he was already walking toward the door—“while I track that spell.” He vanished into the gardens.

  Godric reached for what was left of the salt in the silver cellar shaped like a swan. He’d grabbed the first thing he could find. Gretchen clenched her back teeth. “Do it.”

  He may as well have poured acid and fire as salt into her cut. She felt it eating through her skin and flesh, right down to the bone. She couldn’t even scream. Pain robbed her voice. Godric tied the makeshift bandage tightly, wincing and chanting, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  When Gretchen could see again, Tobias returned, holding up a doll with stark triumph. “I found this.”

  “Is that a doll?” Her wolfhound barked at it once, the sound sharp and vicious. She’d felt the same way about dolls when she was little but now she just felt confused.

  It was made of brown homespun wool and stitched hastily with dark thread. It had embroidered eyes, yellow yarn for hair, and a witch knot on its left palm. Not only was it stuffed full like a pincushion, but it was poked full of needles too. They bristled from the chest, side, belly, and witch knot.

  “A poppet,” Tobias explained. “Someone used your hair or blood or saliva and made this of you.”

  “And then they stabbed it,” she finished angrily. She. stood up gingerly so as not to jar her hand. Tobias steadied her. “That is rude, even by my standards.”

  “We’ll find out who did this,” he promised, violence and retribution all but shimmering around him. His eyes seemed bluer, his teeth sharper. Something about him changed when he showed primal emotion. Gretchen couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “The poppet was hidden in the bole of an oak tree by your front gate,” he continued. “I tracked it but whoever used it must have had a carriage waiting. They left the poppet though, probably meaning to use it against you again.”

  The salt circle on the floor began to tremble. The tiny white grains hovered, moving together and apart like magnets until they shaped letters. The words burst into green-tinted flames. The fire burned a message into the floorboards.

  “I see you, Gretchen Thorn.”

  She hissed at it. “Why attack me?” she asked.

  “To keep you under control?” He hazarded a guess. “To stop you from sealing the broken magical wards and damning up their supply of power?”

  “Then they greatly miscalculated.” She narrowed her eyes at the warning. “Because now I mean to try even harder.”

  She slipped off her evil-eye school ring and set it in the middle of the word see. She’d read enough of the grimoire to have a basic understanding of sympathetic magic, where a symbol literally became
the thing it represented, such as the poppet.

  Two could play at that game.

  She held out her palm to Tobias. “Iron nail, please,” she requested, knowing he would have one on his person. Keepers always carried iron nails.

  When he passed one to her, she drove it through the center of the eye.

  “Now what do you see, warlock?” she said fiercely.

  Chapter 9

  By the time the last of the other boarding students had gone to sleep, Emma was still at her desk with her stack of books and a flickering candle. Behind her, the yellow curtains around the bed matched the embroidered coverlet and the silk-papered walls. She pushed the book aside and reached for another. She was going to grow into an old woman hunched over creepy vellum pages detailing the many sinister secrets of the Underworld.

  Though few could accurately map out the Underworld, there were enough accounts to give one a general idea. It was filled with the unfortunate souls who were forced to wander endlessly, shut out of the Blessed Isles either by magic or malice. It was also home to warlocks hiding from justice, monsters, and wraiths. Travelers were few and far between, for obvious reasons, and admittance was only to be gained through death or the tricky business of opening a portal. She’d done that very thing just recently, accidentally releasing hellhounds and ghouls and the Greymalkin Sisters. But now that she actually wanted to open a gate, she had no idea how it was done.

  Her frustration had thunder rumbling in the distance. One of the other girls had remarked that this spring seemed much stormier than the last, and always in the middle of the night. It was no coincidence that it was the same time every night that Emma’s antlers started to give her a headache and she grew discouraged and exasperated with her research. For instance, why did so many witches insist on writing spells in rhyme when they were so very dismal at it?

  And the very few spells she could find to open a portal required murder or various parts of dead bodies.

  And once the portal was opened, safe passage was another matter altogether.

  Orion the hunter, the Plough, Cassiopeia. As always, reciting the names of constellations calmed her nerves.

  So did finally finding a clue of some use.

  “Portals stain the astral plane, leaving an imprint of themselves wherever they are opened. Even closed and secured by powerful spells, it remains possible to force them open again.”

  Emma leaped to her feet, yanking off her nightdress in favor of a riding habit that was sturdy enough not to need a corset. She could hardly attempt a clandestine experiment if she had to ring for a maid first to help her get dressed. She filled her pockets with salt and rowan berries and a knife she had stolen off her luncheon tray on her first full day at the academy.

  She peered cautiously down the hallway, looking for Mrs. Sparrow’s cat-familiar, who patrolled regularly during the overnight hours. Counting her blessings, Emma eased out of her chambers and raced down the grand staircase. She ducked into the blue parlor because it had the biggest windows. She climbed out, fully aware that every person of her acquaintance would scold her bitterly could they see her. The bushes were thorny and unwelcoming, providing a scolding of their own.

  Despite the logical reasons why she should remain safely at her desk, Emma knew she had to test this new bit of information. She had to go at night. She simply could not risk getting caught. No one could see her near the portals, not again. And though she knew her cousins would be cross if she did this without them, she couldn’t bring herself to put them in even more danger.

  Knowing something was foolish didn’t make it any less necessary.

  She fought her way free of the shrubbery and ran as fast as she could, through the iron gates and out onto the pavement. Emma had once helped Cormac and Moira close a portal on the rooftop of a bakery off Piccadilly. It wasn’t very far, and if she was lucky, a cold spring rain would clear the streets of any loitering pedestrians. The clouds gathered with a swiftness not generally found in nature, but she didn’t have the time to be subtle. The rain glistened as it fell through the gathering fog and clung to the windows. Emma wrapped the mists around her like a shield.

  She finally found the bakery and recalled that she’d had to climb up onto the print shop next door to access it. Except Moira had put a ladder down for her. Still, she had learned a thing or two from the Madcap, and she managed to find a solid drainpipe and barred windows to climb. It was an ungraceful affair but it got the job done.

  Once out of sight, she let the clouds dissipate to reveal the moonlight so she wouldn’t accidentally topple off and break her neck. She gingerly crossed the roof, finding a narrow gap to step over to lead her to the bakery. Even in the gloom of the dispersing rain and fog she could make out the grooves left by hellhounds and the scorch marks where the magical fire had been built out of salt and rowan berries. The slash of the iron dagger was charred into the shingles.

  She couldn’t see anything else though. There was no convenient scorch mark in the air leaking magic. But the gate had once reacted to her blood. From the moment the three Sisters got loose, Greymalkin warlocks paced the other side of the gates, drawn by their shared lineage.

  Emma was getting rather tired of bleeding for spellwork.

  She took a pin from her hair and jabbed it unceremoniously into her fingertip. She flung the resulting drop of blood at the damage left by the gate. “Ewan Greenwood!” she said. “Ewan Greenwood, I call on you to find me!”

  Names had power. Blood had power.

  And the Underworld had power of its own.

  The first thing Emma noticed was the smell of fennel and dark, wet earth. A tiny pinprick of violet light pierced the haze. It caught like a candle in a draft, its flame lengthening and hissing. The gate wavered into view.

  It was faint, like a faded painting left too long in the sun. It didn’t burn with the vitriolic lavender light it had before, but it was still tangible, splitting open like ripe fruit. Magic leaked out, flaring brightly. Emma pulled back, squinting.

  Until she saw the outline of a man wearing antlers.

  “Ewan Greenwood!”

  A growl echoed menacingly, raising the little hairs on the back of Emma’s neck. She knew that sound. She remembered it vividly.

  A hellhound muscled between Ewan and the edge of the gate. It was the size of a pony, with grotesque features that closer resembled a gargoyle’s than a dog’s. Its black fur prickled with purple sparks. It snapped its jaws around Ewan’s leg, above the knee.

  Ewan jerked back, holding on to the edges of the gate, the light burning into his palms. He refused to let go, his antlers spearing out into the London night air. Blood dripped from his ragged wound. Two more hellhounds joined the first, snapping and pulling at Ewan’s pants, boots, skin.

  Emma grabbed his wrist. “No! Hold on!”

  “Let go, Emma,” he shouted. “You’ll be pulled in with me.”

  “No, I’m getting you out!”

  “It’s too late,” he said, his green eyes meeting hers.

  He let go of the gate. The moment his hold released, the hellhounds dragged him back into the Underworld, snarling and growling.

  Emma was left alone on the rooftop.

  Well, not quite alone.

  “Lady Emma, are you up there?”

  Blast.

  She’d forgotten about Virgil.

  “Come down this instant!” he called up, agitated. He was turning bright red. Emma half wondered if he was about to pop the buttons on his waistcoat. “I shall tell Lord Mabon about this, see if I don’t.”

  The last thing she needed was to be brought to the attention of the head of the Order.

  Again.

  Penelope was in the parlor reading The Mysteries of Udolpho with a pot of chocolate when the housekeeper passed by the doorway with her apron still tied over her customary black dress. It was past midnight and she ought to have retired already. Penelope’s father was having dinner with friends at their club, and her mother was at a soiree i
nvolving some kind of an art show or cornering the judges of the Royal Exhibition about an art show; Penelope stopped listening because the heroine Emily St. Aubert had just been imprisoned at Udolpho by Montoni. Anyway, they wouldn’t be back for hours and only Battersea, the butler, ever waited up.

  “Mrs. Liverpool”—Penelope marked her page—“is everything all right?”

  The housekeeper pressed a hand to her heart. “Bless me, you startled me, miss!”

  “Is that Hamish’s medicine?” Cedric had driven her parents’ carriage to give his grandfather Hamish, the official coachman, a chance to rest. His joints hardened and seized and he found himself frozen at odd angles. Cook made him a tonic that seemed to help, when he could be convinced to drink it.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Liverpool replied with a sigh. “But you know how he is.”

  “All too well.” They exchanged a knowing, exasperated glance. “Give it here.” She waggled her fingers insistently until Mrs. Liverpool handed her the amber glass tonic bottle.

  “You do have a way with him,” she allowed. “If you’re sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Penelope tipped the contents of the bottle into the chocolate pot. She tucked her book by the cup and saucer and lifted the tray.

  “Let me carry that, miss.”

  “I’ve got it.” It tilted dangerously to the left. The pot slid a few inches. Mrs. Liverpool winced. Apparently carrying trays was trickier than it appeared. “I’ve got it,” she said again, mostly to convince herself. Battersea hurried to open the door, frowning.

  “Hamish,” Mrs. Liverpool explained.

  “Good luck, miss,” he answered promptly.

  Mrs. Liverpool quickened her pace to open the door leading to Hamish’s room above the stables. The staircase was dark and treacherous but it smelled pleasantly of hay. At the sound of her footsteps, Hamish called out, “Let me die in peace, you daft crow.”