Emma set a teacup down in front of her. “Drink this.”
“I don’t have time for tea.”
“You don’t have time for your head to burst open either. Not to mention the mess it would make.” She was listening too hard for the voices of the dead witches.
“She’s right,” Daphne said from the other end of the library table. The school was full of hushed shadows. It was late but no one slept, not even the kitchen cat. Her mouth twitched in distaste. “You’re already getting blood all over that book.”
“Why are you here again?” But since Gretchen also picked up the tea, Daphne only smirked in response.
“There’s no spell to banish the Sisters,” Daphne added. Again. “It’s why Lacrimarium’s use witch bottles.”
“No spell yet,” Gretchen corrected “Give me a bloody minute.”
“And we’re out of Lacrimarium witches and anyway, it didn’t exactly work last time, did it?” Emma said, mostly because she’d been the one nearly trapped in a witch bottle with the Sisters. And Gretchen worked best with both a fight on her hands and someone to have her back. Daphne met Emma’s eyes. She knew it too.
“I’m trying again,” Gretchen muttered.
Emma frowned. “You should take a little rest first.”
Gretchen drained her tea cup in a single unladylike gulp. “There. I’ve rested.” She rubbed her ears. “The hardest part is keeping track of the different spells we need. It’s all a jumble of voices talking over each other. I’m afraid I’ll miss something.”
“We’ll make a list then,” Emma suggested.
Gretchen nearly smiled. “You and your lists.”
Emma only reached for the parchment she always had folded up in her reticule. “We have to start somewhere, don’t we? Most obviously, we need to stop the Sisters from permanently corporealizing.”
“Which they can do if Sophie gathers enough power from her murder-spells,” Daphne said. “So a spell to stop Sophie, or at least sever her connection to either the Sisters or the ghosts of her victims.”
“And one to make sure she doesn’t use Penelope as a vessel.”
“And a spell to banish the Sisters entirely, but without a witch bottle. Something to destroy their bones.”
“A spell to break Lucius’s hypnosis.”
“That I already have, at least,” Gretchen pointed out. “And the rest might shatter my skull but I’ll bloody well find them anyway. Now hush so I can concentrate.”
Rain beat at the window and thunder paced the rooftop. “I hope Penelope is all right,” Emma couldn’t help but say.
“She is,” Gretchen said firmly, as if her will alone would make it true. “They need her alive.”
That helped, but not enough. A shingle landed in the rose bushes. Gretchen glanced up. “Emma, you’re making the sky growl.”
Emma winced. “Sorry.” The rain turned mournful. She tried not to take it as an omen.
“Actually, I like it.” Gretchen said. “It’s soothing.”
“Only you would find this kind of weather soothing,” Daphne pointed out.
“Me and that deer getting rained on in the herb garden. He looks positively serene. Lucky bastard.”
Emma pressed her nose to the glass, blinking in surprise. “Actually, I think that’s my mother.”
Daphne blinked. “Pardon?”
“Long story.”
“She can help us then,” Gretchen said. “She owes you.”
Emma pulled the window open. Her antlers touched the glass when she leaned forward. “Mother?”
The deer froze, except for its furiously twitching nose.
“Mother,” she repeated. “It’s Emma.”
“Are you sure that’s not just a dee---,” Daphne broke off.
The deer shifted from russet fur to skin, ears to tangled hair, hooves to bare feet. Theodora Lovegrove stood naked in the rainy garden.
“Definitely not a deer,” Daphne allowed.
“Come inside,” Emma called out to her dazed mother. She didn’t know why she expected Theodora to use the front door. Crawling naked through rose bushes and an open window was much more her style. “What are you doing here?”
“The Greymalkins were coming for you.”
Emma bit her lip, not sure what to say. The last time she’d seen her mother, her mother had chosen the forest, and the deer, over Emma. Over everything. Beside her, Gretchen didn’t look impressed. She made a sound in the back of her throat. It wasn’t complimentary.
Theodora scowled. “They told me you were in the Underworld.”
Emma shook her head. “I tried. There were too many portals opening, too much magic criss-crossing across London. It didn’t work.”
“You didn’t find your father?” Her face crumpled.
“And she didn’t die either,” Gretchen snapped. “So I believe what you are meant to be feeling is intense relief.”
“I feel the forest.”
Gretchen blinked. She glanced at Emma. Emma just sighed. Her mother wasn’t exactly like other mothers. But at least she’d come for her, had cared enough to drop her deer-shape and come to London of all places. It was something. Maybe not enough, but something.
She shut the window and turned back to the open books piled everywhere. If only she could build a tower out of them; a place to hide her family away. She thought of Penelope again.
“There has to be another way in.” She turned slowly. “The Greymalkin family went to great lengths to make that house safe for themselves. It stands to reason they’d have some kind of secret exit, don’t you think?”
“It would still be spelled against witches,” Daphne pointed out.
“But not against me,” Emma pointed out. “Or my mother.” Who had already wandered out of the library, leaving behind only muddy footsteps.
“The Order searched for decades,” Daphne reminded them. “The house might be new to you, but it’s very old to the witching world, don’t forget.”
“Yes, but I’m new too,” Emma said, a flicker of hope igniting in her belly. “My blood opened the gates before. Perhaps my blood can find another way in as well.” She nodded to Daphne. “You showed us how to use a pendulum once.”
“Half the witches in London have tried that trick,” she replied. She paused, looking thoughtful. “But as you say, you haven’t tried it yet. Maybe with a drop of blood on your pendulum? It could work.”
Gretchen swept the books off the table and onto the floor. Emma made a small strangled sound. Gretchen rolled her eyes. “They’re books not babies.”
“Ingrate,” Emma muttered under the breath. “Those books have saved us more than once.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure I’m very sorry.” She plucked the largest book she could find off the floor and flipped it open. “Draw the house on this,” she said, handing Emma a pencil.
Emma winced but didn’t argue. They didn’t have time to run about for more parchment and maybe drawing the house on the back of a map of London would help. She pinpointed the street the house was on and used it as the centre of the sketch on the other side.
“Very few people could ever draw a map of the inside of the house,” Daphne said. “That will help too.”
Emma tried to recall the layout of the building without lingering on the predatory feel of the house, the iron teeth of the gate, the way she’d almost been turned into a Sister in the drawing room. The foyer and the stairs took shape under the tip of the pencil, the smudge of the portal, the huge fireplace with its marble winged women.
When she was done, Gretchen handed her a small dagger. Emma didn’t ask her where she’d gotten it. Knowing her cousin, it was probably hidden in her shoe.
Daphne placed a pendulum next to the knife. It was a simple crystal point on a chain. Emma poked into the end of her finger with the dagger until there was a pinch of pain and a drop of blood. She smeared it on the crystal and it glowed pink in the lamplight.
“Give it here,” Daphne said, brushing her aside.
“I’m better with a pendulum.” Gretchen rolled her eyes. Daphne was right though, her magic made spells were as accurate and precise as possible.
Daphne took a deep breath, her face going still and sharp. “How does a Greymalkin enter Greymalkin House?”
The crystal swung in a lazy unhelpful circle.
Emma put her bloody finger on the chain, where it looped over Daphne’s hand. “How does a Greymalkin enter Greymalkin House?” They asked together.
The pendulum circle tightened until it was directly over the gates.
“How else does a Greymalkin enter Greymalkin House?” Daphne repeated, annoyed. “Honestly.”
The crystal circled a blank spot on the paper, outside Emma’s drawing.
“That is singularly unhelpful,” Gretchen said.
Daphne frowned. “This never happens.” She shook the crystal. “Maybe we need a new pendulum.”
“Wait,” Emma said. She pressed her finger on the spot the crystal had touched and lifted the page. On the other side, her blood made a shadow on the map of a back garden, two houses down from Greymalkin House. ‘That still doesn’t make sen---oh.” She let out an excited breath. “There must be a secret tunnel. Like the ones they built for priests when Henry the Eighth was thumping about.”
“Should have made tunnels for his wives,” Gretchen added drily.
“That house belongs to the Order,” Daphne said.
“How do you know that?”
“All of the buildings near Greymalkin House belong to the Order. Except the one right across. The old woman would never agree to terms and she’s the daughter of a duke. Too much pressure would draw attention.” She let the pendulum drop. “If you enter through the garden on the other side of that back wall, there likely won’t be any Keepers patrolling.”
“You’d make a fine First Legate,” Gretchen said, with a pointedly arched eyebrow. Daphne’s favourite boast since they’d first met was that her father was First Legate of the Order.
She snorted. “Of course I would. And yet my brother is being trained, and he’s a pudding-brain.” She and Gretchen exchanged rebellious glances.
“So you can get in,” Daphne added. “Then what?”
Emma smiling faintly. “I have a really bad plan.”
“Oh good, and here I thought Gretchen was the reckless one,” Daphne said drily. “You’ll both need supplies. Let’s see how the others are doing.”
They found their way to the workroom next to the school apothecary. Daphne had already organized the students with the list Gretchen had spent the last hour bleeding from the ears for: salt, iron, rowan wrapped in red thread, nine drops of thunderwater, all wrapped in red cloth and smeared with ash from the fires that had burned in the school grates overnight. Fires from the Threshold time of May Eve, the same energy Sophie had tried to harness for her sacrifice. She’d failed.
They wouldn’t.
But they couldn’t wait either. Not for a better plan, not for someone to save them. Dawn was the next Threshold time and Sophie would use it to her advantage. They had to do the same. They had to stop her before the sun rose.
Before the damage was irreversible.
She took some comfort from the scents of herbs and melted beeswax as the girls worked. Scraps of red cloth were passed from hand to hand, filled with spell ingredients and secured with knots tied with rose thorns. The witches in Gretchen’s head had promised her the combination would break Lucius’s hypnosis spell on the Keepers. And now that they knew what he could do, they could stop him from mesmerizing them again. More importantly, they could help banish the Sisters. And save Penelope. If she hadn’t already burned everything to the ground and salted the earth. She was by far the most bloodthirsty of the three. Emma took even more comfort from that.
“Emma gets inside, Gretchen fixes the Keepers,” Daphne said. “And the rest of us stop Sophie.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Binding spell.”
“Daphne Kent, that is a dangerous kind of magic, and forbidden.” Mrs. Sparrow spoke from the doorway. The streak of white in her dark hair glinted in the candlelight. “And the Order will have tried already.”
Daphne shook her head. “Half the Order was already under hypnosis not to hunt for Sophie by the time she escaped Percival House. That’s what my father said. Anyway, the Order didn’t have Emma, as she has pointed out, and it didn’t have us.”
The headmistress looked conflicted. “I need to keep my girls safe. Calling attention to the school like that is unwise.”
“There is no safe,” Gretchen said. “Not anymore.”
“Do you think the Sisters won’t come here eventually? Or the bewitched Keepers? Of course they will.” The gleam of pearls at Daphne’s throat and in her coiled hair were at odds with the martial light in her eyes. “If not now, tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the next day.”
“She’s right,” Gretchen said. “They all underestimate us. A bunch of schoolgirl debutantes. It would never occur to them that we might fight back. We could be the best weapon in this whole battle, because no one sees us, even when we’re right there.”
She’d been fighting that her entire life, fighting her mother’s expectations, Society, rules in general. Emma saw a smug kind of fierce joy at the thought that she might be able to make good use of it now. “And even if I can’t unspell all of the Keepers in time, they can’t get past the school gates.”
“But the Sisters can,” Mrs. Sparrow said. “As soon as they realize what we are doing. And then they will gobble my girls up like sweets.”
“We aren’t Hansel and Gretel to be eaten,” Gretchen said tightly.
“And we’ll be keeping them busy at Greymalkin House.” Emma knew Gretchen was thinking of Godric. Her throat burned. “And Hansel and Gretel cooked the witch in her own oven, if you recall.”
“We can do this,” Daphne insisted.” Sophie was one of us. We know her.” There was still soot on Daphne’s cheek. She’d helped them stop the fire at the May Ball. “She’s the link to the Sisters. Maybe we can’t stop them, but we can at least stop her.” Her gaze speared the girls watching them with wide eyes. “Do we fight for our school? Or do we cower while the Sisters take London for their own and use the bones of our brothers for their stew?”
A dozen girls in white nightgowns with bare feet and herb-scented hands, lifted their chins in reply.
Gretchen suddenly staggered against the wall, hands over her ears. Blood stained her fingers. “Send word to Penelope’s mother. We’re going to need her.”
***
Cedric’s gaze was an arrow, but he smiled a sad, brief smile.
“What is it?” she asked. “There can’t be anything else that could possibly go wrong. We’re already in a dungeon made of dead people.”
His voice was soft. “I never thought I’d die without kissing you at least once.”
“You’re not going to die!” She snapped, paused. “Wait, what?”
He just looked at her. No, looking implied something distant, separate. She felt his gaze like heat from a fire.
“But you never… I thought….” She’d thought he might love Moira, or another brave, wild Madcap girl. Not her. Never her, the girl who read too many novels and recited Shakespeare more than was probably healthy. She’d convinced herself her feelings were silly, unrequited. Something to be starved at the roots. But now he watched her with a different kind of hunger. “You never said.”
“You’re a lady.”
“So?”
“So, there are rules. Society.”
She narrowed her eyes, pacing towards him. He backed up a step as if she was the dangerous one in the house. Smart boy. “But you want to kiss me?”
“Yes.” There was no denying the want in his voice. “But you can’t kiss me. I’m the coachman’s gypsy grandson. You’re the granddaughter of a duke.”
“That is not your decision to make.”
“Penelope.” He bumped into the wall. “I’m not good
enough for you.”
“Cedric Walker, now is not the time to be so idiotic. I’m covered in the dust of thousands of dead warlocks and I think this stain here might be your blood. Exactly how much of a fine lady do you take me for? We deserve this and you will kiss me, damn it.”
He didn’t say anything else, only dug his fingers into her tangled hair and dragged her mouth up to his. Breaths and tongues tangled. For all of his worry over her station, he wasn’t particularly gentle and she didn’t want him to be. There was no time for delicate sips, only a long, desperate drink from the cup. His lips moved against her throat and she was all fire and nerves. She felt the kiss in the back of her knees, everywhere.
She wasn’t a fool. She knew she might yet die.
But she’d die well-kissed.
Sometimes that was the best you could hope for.
***
They left Daphne crouched in the centre Sophie’s old bedroom with a black cord and the other girls pacing in opposing concentric circles around her. There was nothing of the debutante about her now, or the girl who’d been asked to play the victim during the Ironstone Academy demonstrations. She wasn’t even the First legate’s daughter, she was just Daphne, sharp and capable and rather more deadly than might have been anticipated, even considering her temper.
Gretchen felt better about Rowanstone’s chances than about her own, frankly.
Tobias met them at the school gates, serious-eyed with concern. His kiss of greeting was brief, but it burned with promise. “Are you ready?”
She lifted her eyebrow. “Of course I am.”
His brother emerged from the shadows. “I’ve got the Carnyx in place.”
“Good.” She handed him an enormous basket filled with spell bundles. There were more tucked into pockets and packs. Emma’s mother wore hers on a ribbon around her neck like strange jewellery. “These should break the hypnosis spell.”
“Should?”
She shrugged. “Dead witches sometimes mumble.”
“That is not reassuring.” He exchanged a glance with his brother before turning away. “Don’t die, big brother.”