Whisper the Dead

by Alyxandra Harvey

  And then Lord Mabon, the head of the Order.

  And Theodora Lovegrove, Emma’s mother. She wore a ragged, torn dress and there were leaves in her black hair. Her eyes flashed.

  “Where the hell is my daughter?”

  Moira raced up the grand staircase, trying to see through the gloom and keep her footing. The fire was still contained to the ground level, but it raged unabated and it was only a matter of time before it nibbled up the steps and at the ceiling. Smoke pressed in on all sides, rising through the cracks in the floorboards.

  Coughing, she kept climbing, keeping one hand on the wall. She’d never been inside a nobleman’s house before, but she imagined that attics were attics, no matter the neighborhood. She crossed acres of plush woven carpets to reach the servants’ stairs to take her to the top floor. It was cramped and crooked, the steps too narrow for her feet. She couldn’t imagine climbing them with a basket of laundry or coal. Better to live as a Madcap, ducking pigeons and Greybeards.

  She smelled the smoke but it was thin enough that she could lower her cravat. She went through a maid’s bedroom and used the fire poker to smash the glass so she could climb out the window. It was a simple thing to haul herself up over the overhang and grasp the railing. It was decorative iron, adorned and painted black even though she’d wager no one ever came up here. The household gargoyles had been beheaded, hulking bodies ending in jagged stone.

  “Go on, Pip,” she urged. “Find the spell.”

  The fat little gargoyle flew fast and deadly, suddenly fierce with his sharp teeth and curved talons. He circled the roof, dipping low and rising up again. He finally led Moira to the far corner.

  On a round mirror sat a nest made of three yew twigs bound with red-and-black thread. In the center of the web sat a robin’s egg, blue as the summer sky. A circle of black salt surrounded it. When she went to brush it away, the grains flung themselves at her like stinging insects. Bloody marks rose instantly on her skin. Pip growled and snapped at the salt, plucking it out of the air like a toad with a swarm of flies. Moira rubbed feeling back into her numb fingers. When Pip had cleared the way, Moira undid the spell. She didn’t use fancy rhyme or herbs picked at midnight. She just used her boot.

  She stomped down hard, breaking the egg and cracking the mirror into shards. She ground it into dust under her heel.

  Below her, the fire had consumed too much of the house. She felt it shift as floors gave away. She clung to the railing, cursing. Smoke snuck between the shingles. Her feet burned. She couldn’t swing back down to the window. Flames licked the broken glass, cutting off her escape. She peered down the length of the building to the flagstones below. An oak tree scraped its branches against the stucco.

  She’d have to jump.

  She leaped, soles of her feet prickling. She landed precariously, the branch dipping low under the sudden weight. She twisted and grabbed onto another branch, before the first could drop her. She pulled herself along to the trunk, the bark scraping the inside of her elbow and her jaw. Once she’d steadied herself, she climbed down into the ruins of the garden, darted over the wall into the lane, and ran right into Atticus.

  “Can this night get any worse?” she muttered. Marmalade hissed as he emerged from her rib cage.

  Atticus smirked, his lavender eyes pale as water in the hungry light of the house fire. “Where are you off to, love?”

  “Piss off,” Moira said. “I’m not in the mood.”

  Ogden stepped out of the shadows, and before she could react, he’d cuffed her on the back of her head. She crumpled, pain clouding her vision.

  “We’re not done with you,” Atticus said as Ogden hauled her over his shoulder. She bounced painfully as he ran, swearing once more that she would never visit Mayfair again.

  “The bakery by Hogarth’s Print Shop,” Emma yelled in Cormac’s ear. The moment he realized why she’d suggested that particular rooftop, his shoulder stiffened. “It’s the only way to get away from them,” she insisted. “They won’t stop. And if they need me to be at Greymalkin House, then I need to be anywhere else.”

  She called down more and more lightning. She was exhausted and hollow but she refused to stop. They couldn’t risk getting caught. And they couldn’t risk letting the Sisters loose again.

  Cormac guided the horse down the dark alley even when it balked. They slid out of the saddle, and he went straight to a pile of wooden skids used for transporting stacks of parchment and jars of ink. He moved them against the wall to the print shop, perpendicular to the drainpipe, as makeshift steps. The ladder Moira had lowered down for them the first time they’d been here clattered to the ground. They hadn’t seen it shoved in the corner.

  Cormac slammed it against the bricks. “Go!”

  Emma scrambled up the rungs, trying not to trip on her skirts. Cormac followed, just as the ice began to make the shingles into a skating rink. The gargoyle shifted and woke, grumbling when it smelled the Sisters’ magic. More ice cracked as the gargoyle unfurled its talons.

  Emma tried to recall all of the Toad Mother’s instructions from the day she’d been cleansed of the Sisters’ familiars. She dropped the half-carved deer she’d taken from Ewan’s hut. She glanced around wildly, looking for something she could use to grind it into dust. The gargoyle would just as easily swallow it as crush it for her. The hilt of Cormac’s dagger wasn’t strong enough.

  “What are you waiting for?” Cormac yelled. The sound of ghostly hooves shivered through the alley.

  “I need something strong enough to crack this,” she said frantically. The wooden sculpture was sturdy and surprisingly heavy for something so small. The hooves were carved in perfect half moons.

  Hooves.

  Thanks to Ewan’s blood and Theodora’s magic, Emma had grown antlers. Once, briefly, her leg had also transformed, while standing in a herd of deer. A hoof would be strong enough to break the carving.

  She wrapped her hand around her antlers, pressing the witch knot to the tines. She stared at the deer figure, remembering her mother shifting shape, her father turning into a stag, the painful push of the antlers when they grew out of her hair. She thought of grass, trees, the sound of hooves on the ground.

  Her bones elongated and her foot hardened, fusing together. It was painful and strange. She brought her hoof down in one sharp motion, shattering the wooden deer. She ground down with enough force to splinter it into dust.

  The Sisters shot up the side of the building, screeching.

  “Now!” Cormac shouted. “Do it now!”

  She released the magic and dropped to her knees, too weak to stay upright. Her hands shook as she piled salt, crushed apple seeds, graveyard dirt, and moonwort fern onto the wooden remains. She lit it, hunching over the small flame so the sleet wouldn’t blow it out.

  The alley below was full of stampeding spirit-horses. The cold stung, leaving tiny bloody bites on exposed skin. The gargoyle attacked, tearing through the ghostly moths and beetles that surrounded Magdalena. Cormac slashed at Lark’s bird. The horses began to appear, scorching through the ice.

  Emma shook the apple branch, the silver bells chiming softly. The sound shimmered, leaving trails of sparks.

  The fire glowed faintly, sucking in the energy from everything in the vicinity. Emma wilted. Cormac staggered, nearly losing his footing. The gargoyle thunked inelegantly to the shingles. The Sisters washed out, tendrils of thick fog being pulled from them.

  The flame shot up like a flashing sword, cutting through the cold shadows. The center widened, pushing at the darkness of the rooftop. The edges unfurled, made of purple lightning.

  The portal opened like the mouth of a beast.

  Luminescent snakes slithered over the shingles. There were so many of them, they tangled into knots around Emma’s ankles, trapping her. Their magic burned, leaving welts as it ate through her stockings. Cormac stabbed at them until they parted, hissing. She pushed feebly to her feet. Cormac caught her around the waist as they teetered on the edge o
f the portal. Violet sparks caught and flickered. There was blood on his chin and on his collar, and he held a vicious sword in his other hand. “Emma?”

  “Yes?”

  He smiled, dipping his head so close to hers she could see the flecks of amber in his dark eyes.

  “Marry me?” he asked, just before they fell into the vortex.

  • • •

  Gretchen and Penelope exchanged a glance as the aunt they’d never met stormed across the road toward them. The illusion spells that kept Greymalkin House and the argument occurring on its doorstep hidden did not hide them from another witch. Theodora Lovegrove was furious and muddy. She’d spent months as a deer only to finally shift back in time to save her daughter. But Emma wasn’t here.

  The three Sisters, however, were.

  The unnatural spirit winter followed them, closing its cold fingers into a ruthless fist. Gretchen’s lips chapped with the drop in temperature. Her fingernails ached, turning blue.

  Lucius’s Keepers attacked first, slashing at their brothers with iron daggers. Magic lanced between them, sparking with sour greens and virulent yellows. Spell shattered against spell. The gas lamps in the area exploded all at once, even as snow fell thick as rain. Tobias tried to separate his brothers, using a branch to shove between them. Gretchen tripped as many as she could, trying to reach the fence.

  Icicles dripped from the railing, glittering like silver knives.

  She stayed low, crawling between the Keepers and trying to avoid being stomped on. She nearly lost a finger to a boot, jerking out of the way at the last second. A Keeper tripped over, sending her sprawling. She hit the fence hard. She reached up and snapped off one of the icicles.

  “Where’s Emma?” Sophie demanded, her back pressed to the gates.

  “She has fled,” Rosmerta hissed. Serpents slithered from under her dress.

  “Well, get her back!” Sophie snapped. “I need her.”

  “She’s in the Underworld now.” Lark shrugged sadly. There was blood on the ends of her hair.

  Sophie’s pretty face fell.

  “Hush, love,” Lucius murmured. “We’ll find another way.”

  Sophie’s gaze snapped onto Theodora. “You’re right. We will.”

  Theodora stiffened as bruises bloomed on her skin and wounds opened like tiny, hungry mouths. Blood dripped down her arm and she held it gingerly. She looked confused for a moment, as if she didn’t know where she was.

  Gretchen used the icicle like a pin, stabbing into the poppet.

  Sophie screamed, clutching her side.

  Gretchen smiled grimly and stabbed again. Sophie staggered, moaning.

  “Stop,” Lucius commanded. “Stop or I’ll snap her neck.” He tilted Penelope’s head back until she mewed.

  “You need her,” Gretchen said. “You said so yourself.”

  “Stop her,” Lucius ordered his Keepers. The two nearest to her abandoned their attack on the others and turned toward her. Tobias leaped over two grappling Keepers to slide to a stop in front of her.

  Gretchen kept stabbing. Unfortunately, so did Sophie, in her own way.

  Theodora fell to her knees. Her torn sleeve was soaked with blood. Whatever wound she’d suffered had been deep.

  Gretchen’s icicle melted to cold water. She fumbled for another one with numb fingers but the railing only glistened wetly and did not freeze. The Sisters whirled through the battle, scattering snow and hail. She couldn’t reach any of it.

  Beside her, Godric’s pale shadow closed his hand around the iron fence. Frost gathered, bristling like moth-eaten lace. Sophie’s imprisoned ghosts strained at their chains, reaching out luminescent fingers. A thin film of ice traveled over the filigree until the black iron gleamed white. They didn’t have enough power left to create icicles. Instead, she pressed her fingers to the furred frost until they ached and water collected. It was slow, excruciating work.

  “You bore a Greymalkin, after all.” Sophie crawled forward to rip a strip off Theodora’s sleeve. “Your blood might work just as well.”

  “Gretchen breathed on the frost until more water collected, enough to make a puddle that might fill a teacup. She pressed the poppet’s head into it.

  Sophie gurgled in surprise.

  Gretchen willed herself not to feel the weakness of the fever she’d caught three years ago. Her hands trembled as she held the poppet down. Lucius took a step forward. Penelope jabbed her elbow into his sternum and stomped on his instep at the same time. She stumbled out of his grasp.

  Sophie spat water, clawing at her throat. She threw a hateful glare at Gretchen, who tried not to feel guilty as she drowned a girl.

  It still wasn’t enough.

  Choking, Sophie managed to press the blood-soaked fabric against the scorched magpie crest joining both sides of the iron gate together.

  They flew apart in a burst of lilac fire.

  Sophie fell forward and vanished, dragging her ghosts behind her.

  Lucius stalked Penelope, unconcerned with the magic and the blood all around them. Greymalkin House loomed behind her like a troll. She flattened against the fence, not quite trapped but not quite free either.

  “Penelope, come with me,” Lucius said, pushing the magpie gates open wider. They creaked, rust flaking into the dead grass. Sophie had been transported inside, using the spell that still clung to the gates. Gretchen was sprawled on the ground, covered in bruises and old injuries. Earlier in the evening Penelope would have followed him anywhere. She was a fool.

  “You mesmerized me,” she whispered.

  She inched away, trying to see through the confusion of Keepers fighting Keepers. The Sisters abandoned them, flying into the wilted gardens.

  “You leave me no option then,” he said. “If you don’t come with me right now, Gretchen will die. Emma will die, and all of these Keepers trying so valiantly to rescue you will die. And, dear girl, your tenacious little Gypsy friend will die.”

  She shook her head. Glowing spiders crawled fanatically over her hem. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Cedric, who has kept you from me for too long now, has had a rather regrettable evening. Look for yourself, Penelope.”

  Cedric was pulled from Sophie’s carriage. He was gagged and his hands were lashed together. Worse, he was unconscious, carried over the shoulder of a stern-faced Keeper built like a bull.

  Penelope launched herself at Cedric, but there were too many Keepers between them.

  Other Keepers were dying at her feet.

  Her cousins were in danger.

  Cedric was in danger.

  Lucius smiled at her expression. “There it is. Hopeless capitulation. So much easier than any spell.”

  Penelope did the only thing she could do.

  “Penelope, don’t!” Gretchen yelled, knowing her too well.

  She took Lucius’s hand and let him lead her to Greymalkin House. The gates slammed shut together behind them. The house flared once, shooting arrows of light between the shutters and under the mended door. It flung everyone back, blinding them. Penelope could only watch, half shielding her eyes, as it changed.

  Instead of broken shutters, peeling paint, and the dark hunger of the house as it had been, it now gleamed, all elegance and sophistication. The gardens shed their shroud of weeds for dresses of candy-colored petals. Daffodils, lilacs, tulips, and violets bloomed cheerfully from urns, box hedges, and out of the mouth of a satyr’s head set into the artfully crumbling stone wall separating the house from the lane to the stables.

  The trim around the windows and the fanlights had blue, cream, and plum accents. The iron scrollwork railings on the balconies were freshly painted black, decorated with magpies in flight. On each corner of the roof hulked two giant gargoyles, two more holding up the third-floor balcony on its outstretched wings. A brass knocker in the shape of a magpie was affixed to the front door, which was now a vibrant blue.

  The white stones might well have been carved of marzipan and meringue, with icing for m
ortar. The roof was a collection of sugar biscuits. It no longer looked like the house of a family of banished warlocks. It was welcoming and warm, like a fairy-tale witch’s house—the kind made out of gingerbread, meant to lure the innocent until they were caught like flies in a spider’s web.

  “Welcome, Penelope,” Lucius said with a smile that shivered her insides.

  Epilogue

  Gretchen watched Penelope step inside the Greymalkin House and disappear.

  A trail of ice and frost clung to the railing and spilled over onto the stone path, all the way to the door. She couldn’t see Godric anymore. For all she knew, he was trapped inside as well, dragged by Sophie’s spell.

  Fear and rage made the back of her throat burn. She lunged for the gates, but she was too late. The spell that locked them in flung her away in a shower of yellow sparks. Tobias caught her before she hit the lamppost. Keepers stood around them, stunned. Their brothers on the other side of the fence were expressionless and cold.

  And then the London night was broken into shards of light. Fire shot into the sky, like columns of fireworks and Catherine wheels, spinning violet sparks over the Tower, Temple Bar Gate, and Blackfriars Bridge. Lavender smoke billowed to eat the stars.

  “Portals are opening,” Tobias said grimly. “She’s nearly got all Seven Sisters through now. With their bones, she can materialize them fully.”

  “London is doomed,” one of the Keepers whispered.

  The last portal opened on the sidewalk in front of them. The light from the opening portal was too bright to look at directly. Gretchen shaded her eyes, waiting for the jagged forks of light to dim. It didn’t disgorge one of the Sisters. Instead, the silhouette of an antlered man stepped through the violet light.

  “Ewan!” Theodora’s voice was fragile. Her bird-familiar dropped red feathers all around her.

  Ewan froze, clearly both desperate and terrified to believe he’d found her at last. He turned his head. Theodora struggled to get to her feet, not yet recovered from Sophie’s magical attack.