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“What did Maura want?” I ask.
“To accuse me of being a turncoat. ” Alice looks put out, her color high, her blue eyes snapping. “What did he want?”
“To warn me that we know two of the girls being executed, that they’re from Chatham. He thought I might find it upsetting,” I explain.
“That was kind. ” Rilla watches Finn stroll back into the crowd of Brothers. There are hundreds of them right down front, ready to watch their vote being carried out. I wonder if their attendance here was mandatory. Surely some of them aren’t eager for this spectacle; surely some of them voted, like Finn, against this?
“It looked a bit more personal than that,” Alice says.
“It wasn’t,” I snap. “And I hardly think you’re in a position to question my loyalty. ”
I’m spared Alice’s reply by the sudden furor. Guards are shepherding the sixty prisoners down the steps of the National Council building and across the street into the square. Despite the cold, the girls aren’t wearing cloaks. They’re dressed in the same coarse brown skirts and thin white blouses that constituted the Harwood uniform.
Blast. I’d hoped they’d managed to scrounge up other dresses before their capture. It would be easier for them to get lost in the crowd that way. I scan their faces as they get closer, squinting to find Sachi and Rory. They march next to each other, their hands bound behind them. Rory, tall and voluptuous, towers over her petite sister.
Around us, the crowd rustles, craning their necks to see. What do they think? Are they surprised at how young most of the prisoners are, how thin and malnourished? Or do they believe the Brothers’ lies that such innocent faces hide the most insidious sins?
The guards clear a path. Can we fend them off? Can this possibly work? I stare at the girls. There are no bruises—at least not where I can see—and they seem remarkably composed. I’d have thought some would be struggling or crying or mumbling prayers.
Alice pinches my upper arm. “They’re drugged,” she whispers, her breath hot on my ear.
Oh no. I hadn’t even considered—but of course. The Brothers must have forced laudanum on the girls, the way they did at Harwood. It accounts for how slow and sleepy the prisoners look, their eyes narrowed into slits against the sunshine.
We can’t count on their magic. It’s all on us.
The guards herd six of the girls onto the platform and direct the rest into a roped-off holding area to the left of the gallows. Sachi and Rory are in the first group. The more fervent members of the crowd are calling out epithets:
“Damned witches!” a burly, bearded man nearby shouts.
“Devils!” another man yells, making the sign of the cross.
“Go back to hell!” an old woman screams. The effort brings on a fit of coughing that leaves her red-faced, clutching her tattered cloak around her. I purse my lips, remembering Mei’s warning about the fever down in the river district. We mustn’t be the only people who’ve heard the rumors; people around the old woman edge away, raising their scarves around their mouths.
“Damned river rats. Ought to hang them right alongside the witches,” the bearded man mutters to his friend, glaring at the sick old woman.
Some enterprising souls have brought rotten food, which they hurl at the girls. Sachi twitches as a pulpy tomato splatters on her brown skirt and splashes her face. I wonder if the Brothers handed it out. The poor people in the crowd haven’t got food to spare, not even for something as entertaining as this.
Sachi’s dark eyes search the crowd and I wonder if she’s looking for me. Does she have faith that I’ll stop this? I couldn’t prevent her arrest, after all. But her gaze lingers on a figure nearer the front. Her father. How does Brother Ishida feel, seeing both his daughters up on the gallows? Has he hardened his heart so thoroughly that he can stand there with impunity, or does his conscience give a weak stirring?
Lord, but I loathe that man.
Tess grabs my hand. I let my rage rise up, magic stirring my muscles, flexing my fingers against her palm.
The executioners step forward to lift their nooses around the girls’ necks.
“Now,” Alice says under her breath.
The gallows bursts into flames. Fire leaps across the heavy crossbeam and eats its way down the support beams. Gray smoke curls around the stage, scattering sparks.
It’s not real—just an illusion. But it’s a convincing one. Together, Alice and Rilla are tremendous.
People begin to flee, shrieking and pushing and shoving toward the exits. O’Shea and his cronies are being shepherded away from the gallows by a squadron of guards, knocking common people aside as they go. I scan the crowd of remaining Brothers for Finn, but he’s impossible to make out in the sea of black cloaks.
“Hurry, hurry. It’ll be a stampede soon and we’ll all be trampled!” a middle-aged woman wails, yanking on her husband’s arm. They’re rushing toward the back gate, which is closest, but it’ll take an age for everyone to fit through that way. It’s only wide enough to allow two people at once.
“Someone fetch the fire department, quick, before the whole square goes up!” the bearded man near us shouts.
Onstage, Rory is grinning.
A dark-haired guard reaches for his bayonet. “Witchery!” he roars.
Tess squeezes my hand, and my magic flows into her and merges with her own considerable power. She casts silently, immobilizing the guards. The man with the bayonet has lunged forward; the wicked-looking blade stops just short of Rory’s back. It came entirely too close to skewering her. A blond soldier is still holding his noose, frozen in the midst of shoving a skinny dark-haired girl’s head toward it. She ducks away.
The ropes that bound the prisoners’ wrists are floating through the air like snakes, winding around the guards’ chests. If our spell fails, they won’t be able to fire their rifles until they’re freed. That’s Elena’s work.
Rory and Sachi grab the dark-haired girl and shout something. All six girls onstage run toward the steps.
The flames are moving quickly, spreading down the legs of the platform, licking at the dead brown grass. I can smell the smoke now—taste it, bitter, in the back of my throat. I can hear the crackle and pop of it. It looks as though the gallows could collapse in a moment, crushing those nearby.
The guards on the ground are hollering. Their rifles are out but they can’t get off a good shot—not with half a dozen guards like statues in the way. A squadron moves to intercept the girls, but as Tess casts, the first soldier stops abruptly, frozen in his tracks with one boot on the first step. The man behind him bumps into him, and they all fall to the ground like a stack of dominoes and lie there, unmoving, eyes staring up at the flames coming toward them.
I hope they’re scared. I hope they’re bloody well terrified, thinking they’ll be burnt to a crisp.
The girls rush down the stairs. Sachi steps delicately over the guards at the bottom; Rory plants a heel right in one’s stomach. They’ve linked hands with the dark-haired girl between them. I spare a glance for the dozens of other Harwood girls huddled beside the stage, staring with dumbstruck expressions at the fire. Their guard is a quarter what it was. Half the soldiers are trying to control the stampeding crowd; a quarter more are chasing after the fleeing witches.