The Whisper Witch

by Harvey, Alyxandra;

  “Run.”

  That wasn’t cryptic at all.

  She struggled to separate the rising cacophony of voices. They were urgent, scared, cautionary. As if she didn’t already know random magic, that soiled the very air was unwelcome.

  “We are still here.”

  “Who are you?” she asked. She could have sworn one of the voices was vaguely familiar. She wrapped her hand around a branch of the nearby yew tree and held on tight. Pain made spots dance in front of her eyes. Bile burned in the back of her throat. She felt something pop, and her nose started to bleed. The pain in her head intensified, but she refused to give in.

  “Gretchen, stop!” Tobias was suddenly there, holding her up. “You have to get out of here!”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t stop. She was too close now. She just needed to sort through the last of the voices assaulting her. “A warlock’s spell. We are still here.” “Almost got it,” she croaked.

  “It will kill you,” he insisted, his finger’s digging harder into her arms. “It’s warlock magic.” He took a pouch from his coat pocket, fingers trembling slightly. “Angelica leaves, mullein, and pepper,” he said through clenched teeth. “Burn it.”

  Gretchen made a little pile of the herbs on the dirt and used a matchstick Tobias gave her to carry the flame from one of the church torches. The mixture smoked and smoldered, scented smoke pushing against the unnatural fog.

  Tobias meanwhile was shaking and had turned away from her, shoulders hunched. Remembering his reaction when she’d startled him the day they’d bound the kelpie, she approached him cautiously. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He didn’t turn around. “Take this flask,” he said, thrusting it at her. His voice was strangled and breathless. “Salt water,” he explained. “Pour it over your feet and your witch knot.”

  She did as he asked, trying to keep an eye both on the receding poisonous fog and Tobias. There was an alarming crunching sound that made her abandon the warlock’s magical residue.

  Tobias wasn’t entirely Tobias.

  His teeth had elongated and his eyes burned the color of the sky on a parched summer’s day. The irises were too large and a strange sound ululated from his throat.

  Right before he fell to the ground, his hands shifted into furcovered legs with paws. Claws scraped the dirt.

  By the time Gretchen had blinked in shock, he was back to being Tobias again, the seams of his coat ripped but with nothing else to show for the change. She might have imagined it all.

  She took a step backward, trying to find her equilibrium.

  And fell right into a hole.

  No, not a hole exactly.

  An open grave.

  Tobias crouched to peer over the edge. “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she finally wheezed. She’d landed on her backside and the force of the fall had knocked the breath from her lungs. She was offended more than actually hurt. “Just winded.” Soil crumbled onto her, skittering over her clothes like ants. Her tailbone throbbed lightly as she struggled to sit up. More dirt rained down, covering her legs.

  That was when she realized she hadn’t landed on a coffin or a collection of bones. Whoever had rested here was gone. “Bloody hell,” she said, scrambling up.

  Tobias reached a hand down to help her out of the grave. “This body was deliberately dug up,” he said.

  “Grave robbers?” she asked dubiously. “In Piccadilly?”

  He only pointed to the iron nails driven into the ground. If Gretchen squinted she could see the salt scattered in the hole. Both were clear signs of magic. “A ring for the dead.” Salt. The whispers meant the salt ring around the grave.

  Tobias circled it, looking even more stark than usual. His focus was so intent and predatory, it was clear he was hunting for something. She took a closer look at the area but couldn’t see anything other than the broken earth and the glint of the nails.

  “Why would someone do this?” she asked. She stepped over to the headstone that had been left where it toppled. It was carved with a weeping angel.

  “I’ll have to turn it over,” Tobias said, crouching down to grip one end. Gretchen hurried to help him. He glanced at her, startled. She didn’t have the breath to make a cutting remark; she was already red in the face from trying to budge the stone. Tobias applied himself hastily and flipped the marker over. It landed with a thud. She brushed the dirt off the lettering. Her hand stilled as her blood went cold.

  “Lilybeth Jones,” she read aloud.

  Tobias rose to his feet, swearing softly. “The wards haven’t been leaking magic on their own. They’re meant to keep the Order occupied so Sophie could gather magic.” He pulled a scroll of parchment from his pocket and unrolled it. “More grave robberies,” he said. Gretchen watched over his shoulder as names began to burn themselves into the paper.

  Margaret York.

  Alice.

  The names of the witches Sophie had murdered for the Sisters.

  “Not again,” Gretchen said grimly.

  Even after midnight, the goblin markets bustled. Usually, only the taverns and the seedier shops stayed open after dark, unless it was a full moon or a Threshold day, which were times of power like solstices or May Day and midnight. But the witching world was most decidedly on edge. If any more wards broke, One-Eyed Joe would be able to retire on the profits. And London might run out of salt altogether.

  Moira poured some into a tiny glass bottle, trying not to scatter the grains over the table, with little success. She was better at leaping between buildings than she was at fiddling with delicate spells, but One-Eyed Joe needed the help, despite his protests. She couldn’t carve his cameos for him, but she could put together the other charms he sold at his stall.

  The trade in protective amulets was even brisker than it had been after the kelpie was found in the Serpentine right in front of the Beau Monde. They’d had to shut the brocade curtain on the side of the tent that dealt with regular shoppers looking for cameos. One-Eyed Joe’s illusion talent was easily strong enough to hold the tent open between both worlds, but there was just too much magic to be done and he already looked tired. On the other side of the stall, goblins, witches too poor to own shoes, aristocratic witches, spirits, hags, Rovers, and Madcaps mingled together uneasily. Protective witch knots and other symbols were painted onto walls, chalked over the cobblestones, and embroidered on dream pillows meant to safeguard familiars while you slept. Evil-eye beads stared back from every corner.

  But at the end of the day, if you weren’t stronger, you could only hope you were faster.

  Moira intended to be faster. Marmalade sulkily prowled the confines of the stall. He wanted to run but she just couldn’t risk it. She wasn’t even entirely sure it was safe enough in One-Eyed Joe’s tent, but she couldn’t stand her restless familiar’s scratching inside her chest to get free.

  One-Eyed Joe hunched over a delicate shell cameo. He wore his usual purple cravat and gray coat, even though it was stiflingly hot in the tent. A brazier of coal and incense smoked at his feet. His knotted fingers worked carefully to carve a relief of a knight holding a shield decorated with a witch knot. He’d pack salt, crushed rowan berries, iron dust, and lady’s mantle leaves behind the backing when he finished it. It was both magically protective and pretty, and therefore popular with the young ladies Emma and her cousins went to school with. Cedric had purchased one for Penelope just this morning.

  Moira wrinkled her nose. “You’re pungent today, Joe.” He usually smelled like gin and lettuce, another illusion to keep the curious away. It was especially strong today, even under the incense. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Never you, ferret,” he chuckled. “No warlock wants to tangle with an old man who smells bad. Best protective magic there is.”

  She rubbed her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. “I can see why,” she grumbled. She turned back to her work. “What’s this one for?” she asked, adding three hairs to the mixture of mistletoe berries and mir
ror dust in the mortar and pestle.

  “Shape-shifters use it to keep hidden. You can look right at one and never quite see his face,” One-Eyed Joe explained.

  They worked in silence for a long moment, and Moira made a mental note to gather more mistletoe for the cabinet. She watched Atticus swagger across the street, pale hair gleaming like gold threads. Piper followed, as she always did. She wore a new dress, with pink ribbons on the sleeves.

  “Since when can they afford fripperies?” Moira wondered.

  One-Eyed Joe looked up. “Eh?”

  “Atticus,” Moira explained. “He’s up to something. Even the Rovers are leaving him be.”

  “He’s like a child,” One-Eye Joe muttered dismissively. “He chases every shiny thing and then cries when he breaks it.”

  She snorted in agreement. “But he says a Greybeard hired him to find a dead witch’s teeth.”

  Joe narrowed his one eye speculatively. The incense smoke transformed into owls and ferrets as he thought. “Don’t like that much,” was all he said. He sorted through one of the baskets on his table and tossed a tassel of evil-eye beads at Moira.

  “I don’t need more charms,” she said. “Sell them to the next country witch who comes to the table.”

  “Humor an old man,” he insisted.

  She made a face but attached the tassel to the end of her braid and then flipped it behind her shoulder. “There. Happy?”

  “Aye.” He coughed as he rose from his chair. She hurried forward to take his arm. When he didn’t snap at her, she worried more. “I think I’ll sleep on the cot tonight,” he said, shuffling to the narrow bed behind a standing screen. She helped lower him down on the straw-stuffed mattress, pulling the blankets up over him. “Don’t fuss,” he grumbled, but he patted her hand gently.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You think loudly,” he said.

  The bridge didn’t feel right. The wind was too cold, the sounds too sharp. She didn’t need Cass to know something was happening. She glanced outside. The dragon he conjured up to coil around the tent didn’t have the usual ferocity that kept Rovers, thieves, and Greybeards at bay. She didn’t think it would keep anyone over the age of six away tonight. It was thin as mist and looked as old and tired as One-Eyed Joe.

  Moira waited until he was snoring before settling in his chair to keep watch.

  The fact that Sophie was gathering the bones of the witches she’d murdered did not bode well.

  Gretchen should probably fixate on that instead.

  But it wasn’t every day someone half turned into a wolf in front of her.

  Especially not someone she considered to be the most tightlaced and unbending gentleman of her acquaintance. Frankly, she could more easily imagine herself accidentally turning into a wolf before Tobias Lawless, Viscount Killingsworth, Lord of All Things Proper. And yet he looked as haughty and calm as ever. One would never guess he had just grown fangs. And fur.

  He didn’t let go of her arm until he’d hailed a hackney and she’d hopped inside. He gave the driver the address and climbed in to sit across from her. She rubbed her arms, slightly chilled now that the adrenaline and bravado were fading. “You’re not taking me to the Order?”

  “No.”

  She licked her lips. “Not that I’m not grateful, but why not?” “Did you do this?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Do you know where Sophie is?”

  “No.”

  “Then why split what little manpower we have left into questioning you when we could be hunting a warlock instead?” “Oh.” It was logical. Still, she’d expected him to follow the letter of the law when it came to his duties. The carriage lurched into motion and she winced, bumping the bruises currently forming on her backside.

  “You’re hurt,” he said sharply.

  “Just a few bruises from the fall,” she said.

  “You were lucky you didn’t crack your head open.”

  “You’re a wolf,” she blurted out.

  He went ominously still, except his gaze snapping up to her face, blue eyes as wild as the rest of him was civilized. “Yes,” was all he said.

  She stared at him. “A wolf,” she repeated. “I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”

  “You are rather new to this world,” he pointed out. “And we prefer to keep it private.” He leaned forward. “Very private.” His expression was too mercurial to read accurately.

  “The Order knows, I assume.” Although, come to think of it, she’d never heard any suggestion of wolves, and the girls at Rowanstone did love to swoon and fuss over him.

  “The First Legate knows,” he replied. “And Cormac. No one else.”

  She shook her head. “No one else? Why not? And how on earth can you keep it a secret?”

  “Because I must,” he said.

  She looked at him carefully, searching for signs of who he was truly was. He wasn’t just a Keeper, nor just a tracker, nor even just an aristocrat. He was someone else, under all the rules, but she couldn’t figure out who that someone was. The mask of a proper gentleman was firmly, and maddeningly, back in place. “Can you do it again?” she asked. “Turn wolf?”

  “No,” he replied shortly.

  Tobias was thinking about Gretchen when he nearly walked into his own murderer.

  It was his own fault. He knew better than to walk around London reeking of the wolf.

  He hadn’t lost control like that since he was thirteen years old. One unguarded moment and he was at another witch’s mercy. She could tell anyone, despite her promise not to. The word of a reckless debutante who was always at the wrong place at the wrong time was a tenuous guarantee at best.

  She smelled like snow and pine, like home. Like a wolf. He simply couldn’t figure her out. He reined in his inner wolf with the kind of violent precision usually reserved for an encounter with Napoleon himself.

  But she wasn’t the only thing his wolf was reacting to.

  London held many predators for the unwary: pickpockets, cholera, gaslight leaks, the Thames in August. But shapeshifters, wolves especially, had only one true predator.

  Wolfcatchers.

  He couldn’t say what alerted him this time, only that it was like hackles bristling on the back of his neck. He kept walking, trying to keep his wolf from pressing too hard at the inner wards that contained him. He could smell rainwater in the gutters, fish pie from a kitchen window, and a dried spill of black ale on a coat sleeve. He didn’t hear footsteps, only the faint clatter of teeth strung on a chain.

  And then out of the shadows a man passed by him, dressed in sturdy trousers and a leather coat with a stained cuff. Tobias smelled iron, blood, incense.

  He was a fool for having dropped his guard, even for a moment. Wolfcatchers never dropped theirs. They were never satiated and considered their work holy, not savage. His own mother bore the marks of their handiwork: a scar from throat to collarbone, a nick on her upper lip where one had tried to rip her canine teeth out for a talisman. A growl reverberated in his chest at the thought.

  “Beg pardon,” he said instead, in his most cultured and haughty tone. The one most unlikely to be associated with a wolf.

  Tobias called on his legendary self-control to keep his pace unhurried, his breaths even. If he was lucky, the hunter would keep on walking, seeing only an aristocrat in an expensive crowned hat. He was aware of every raindrop, every creak of every cart wheel, every scratch of the cat in the nearby alley. Adrenaline prickled under his skin, sharpening to jabs as he fought the instinctive magical response building in his blood and bones.

  The illusion of being invisible, cast by fog and shadow, shattered.

  The Wolfcatcher didn’t say a word, didn’t even pause, but Tobias knew when he was being hunted.

  They launched into a run at the same time. Tobias could outdistance him if he shifted, and they both knew it. Wolfcatchers counted on the fear of their quarry. The pelt, bones, and teeth of a shifter in animal form was w
here the magic lived. It was what the Wolfcatchers wanted, and they laid violent and cunning traps to that end.

  Since they seemed to have surprised each other, the hunter was likely alone. It was a small advantage. He’d still have all of the spells at the ready; it was how they lived, They were more animal in the hunt than the wolves were. They gave themselves over to it like a lover.

  Tobias ran faster. At least his face was partially hidden under the brim of his hat. The Wolfcatcher was tracking him by instinct, not by name or reputation. He wove through the streets until they became crowded with women huddled under streetlamps to finish their sewing. Candles were dear in this part of London. Children ran back and forth, playing some sort of game. Men stood in doorways, talking. It was as good a cover as he was likely to get.

  He glanced behind once, catching a glimpse of his pursuer. The wolf teeth he used as a toggle on his coat gleamed. In the country, the Catchers wore strips of fur cut from pelts. Tobias felt his own teeth sharpen, elongating to canine fangs. His wolf was both jubilant and desperate. Tobias snapped his traitorous jaw shut, tilting his head down to hide another momentary lapse of control.

  He tried to figure out where he was exactly. Near Fleet Street, perhaps. There was a safe house nearby. He and his siblings had memorized all of the shifter burrows in London the very moment they were old enough to escape the attentions of their nanny. There were three between Seven Dials and Westminster. Surely he was close.

  Not quite close enough.

  The Catcher’s first charm glanced him, slicing through the mist and blasting it clear away. It reeked of pepper and pond water, disorienting his sense of smell. The second cracked like glass, the sound shivering in his sensitive ears.

  But the Wolfcatcher wasn’t accustomed to pursuing someone like Tobias. His shackled magic did more internal damage on a daily basis than any hunter spell. Pain meant nothing to him.