Witch bottles shattered, sending glass and clay shards throughout the hold. A familiar in the shape of a fat rabbit bounded away. A cat with a scar across its eye snarled, hackles raising as it slunk away.
“They’re releasing the others,” Cormac said, grabbing a sword from the wall beside the ladder. It had knotwork etched onto the hilt and was inlaid with jet. A crystal sphere filled with salt and rowan berries sat in the center of the pommel. “Get out of here, Emma!”
The jagged pieces of the bottles and jugs hovered, glittering with malevolent magic. The Sisters flung them at Emma and Cormac. Cormac swung the sword, using the blade like a shield. When the shards struck the metal, they exploded and crumbled to sand. “Magic sword,” he explained tersely.
Emma gathered the magic in her, and it only prickled slightly. Wind whipped and howled through the hold, dragging at the Sisters, tearing at their hair and their clothes until it took all their concentration not to dissipate like mist. Cormac fumbled for a red pouch inside his jacket and tossed the banishing powder inside onto the snow-stung floor between them and the Sisters. A white horse coalesced, hooves striking sparks as it reared. The Sisters backed away, howling curses.
“It won’t be enough to hold them,” he said with grim certainty. “Not one horse.”
“Come with me,” Emma demanded.
“I can’t leave the ship to them. Don’t argue with me, Emma. Go!”
“That wasn’t an argument, it was a statement. You’re coming with me,” she said, as her hair whipped into her eyes. “Because they’re coming with me. Isn’t that right?” she yelled over the wind and the curses. They turned toward her as one, necks unnaturally long, heads swiveling too far around.
“Shite.”
It was all Cormac had time to say.
Strawberry led Gretchen and Moira to the May Ball.
“Why’s it always at a ball?” Gretchen muttered, racing up the steps to the front door. The windows of the lower portion of the house glowed with lamplight. The smell of roses and lilies was strong. Everything seemed normal.
“I don’t think she’s here,” she said, even as snow assaulted her and she stumbled over the stoop into the front hall. The marble floors gleamed, slippery with ice. Moira followed gingerly, her shoulder hunched protectively.
“A bleeding Society dance with Greybeards.” She pulled an iron dagger from her belt. Her fat little gargoyle circled over her head, snapping its jaws. “I’d rather be in the stews of the Seven Dials.”
Gretchen snorted. “I don’t blame you.”
The butler stood at his post, staring straight ahead. Moira raised an eyebrow in his direction. “What’s with him?”
“He’s being a butler,” she explained, frowning slightly. “Sort of.” Apprehension tickled her spine.
They followed the hungry gargoyle down the hall to the ballroom. The perfume of flowers and melted beeswax hung in the air. Hawthorn petals and snow blew in behind them. The guests danced the waltz even though there was no music. Others stood by the walls, mechanically drinking champagne. Footmen continued to circulate though their trays were empty.
“They’re bewitched,” Moira said softly. “Bollocks.”
Gretchen wandered between the guests, feeling ill. They smiled frozen smiles, their eyes wild. Even the Keepers stationed by the garden doors stood at attention, unable to move. She shook one of them, slapped another across the face. There was no reaction. Gretchen screamed, hoping to startle them out of their stupor. It wasn’t the dainty yelp of a lady startled by a spider, but a full-on war-bellow.
No one noticed.
She screamed so loudly the dog next door barked in reply, and Moira’s gargoyle hid in the chandelier until she stopped.
Moira rubbed her ears. “Are you done with that?”
“It was worth a try.” And yet no one so much as glanced her way. The guests waltzed in circles like music-box figurines. The scuff of their shoes on the parquet floor was the only sound. It send shivers skittering over her even as part of her wished she could join them. She could stay here, frozen, and pretend that Godric was still alive.
She forced herself to stay in the moment, to blink away the image of his blood on her hands, and pushed through the guests.
“Why won’t they stop?” She saw Daphne whispering in her father’s ear. And a few feet away, Tobias stood by a sugar sculpture of two entwined lovers, as equally chained as the others. He looked as cold and controlled as ever, but it wasn’t discipline pinning him in place this time; it was dark magic. She knew him now, knew him well enough to read the despair in the taut lines of his body. She grabbed his arm. “Tobias!” She shook him, even though she knew it wouldn’t help. “Can you hear me?”
He couldn’t reply of course. There was a burning lump in the back of her throat. There was too much inside her—grief, fury, worry. She might explode. Her fingers dug into his coat. “Wake up, damn it!”
“We need to find the spell,” Moira said, patting down the gentlemen’s coat pockets. She didn’t find any amulets or witch bundles, but she did come away with a handful of coins and three gold cravat pins.
Gretchen stepped away from Tobias to dig through the potted plants. She tore the flowers and leaves off the garlands. She didn’t find anything, couldn’t even find her own cousins, never mind a hidden spell bundle. Fear soured her belly like it hadn’t at the sight of the silent ball. They could be anywhere. Anything could have happened to them. She doubled her search efforts frantically.
Moira’s gargoyle began to attack the chandelier, sending a shower of crystal shards over the whirling guests. Moira watched him for a moment before dragging a chair across the floor and setting it under the chandelier. “I think Pip’s found something,” she said, climbing onto the chair. She stretched, wobbling. “Can’t quite reach it.” She cursed.
Gretchen followed the silk-wrapped chain from the chandelier to where it was looped on a hook behind one of the brocade curtains. “Watch out,” she called, waiting for Moira to step out of the way before unwrapping the chain and lowering the entire chandelier to the ground. It rattled as it dropped, breaking more crystal beads. A candle rolled away and nearly lit a lady’s hem on fire before extinguishing. Pip darted at the chandelier like a viper. Moira nudged him aside, digging through the broken glass until she came away with bloody fingertips but nothing else.
Gretchen closed her eyes, her fists clenched even she tried to relax. “How do I wake them?” She listened hard for the whispered answer, but she could hear only the heavy, sick thud of her pulse.
“Ask Strawberry,” Moira suggested. “She’s clearly been keeping an eye on Sophie.”
“Strawberry,” Gretchen murmured. “Help us again. How do we break this spell?”
“Alas no witch’s spell.”
“Not that one,” she snapped. “Concentrate. How do we break this hypnosis?”
“Cross running water.”
She shook her head. “Not possible. What else?”
By the time Gretchen had a reply she could work with, she was trembling and pale, her hair damp with sweat. Her ears burned. “We need malachite stones,” she said. “And wormwood for the magical infection, and salt. All of it needs to be mixed with thunderwater.” She shrugged bleakly. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to gather thunderwater; it’s not even raining.”
Moira grinned cheekily. “I can find you all of those things. It’s what I do. And we’re in a witch’s house, after all. Folks this rich, they’d have everything on hand.”
She left to prowl the house, leaving Gretchen alone with hundreds of silent guests. She tried to ignore the soft sounds of their forced mechanical dancing. “We’re going to break the spell,” she told them out loud, wondering if they could even hear her. “I promise you.”
She was just starting to believe it when Tobias grabbed her from behind, pinning her back against his chest. The betrayal made her freeze for a moment, unable to process what was happening. She felt his breath on her cheek.
He still couldn’t speak, but he could prevent her from breaking the spell.
“Oi,” Moira yelled, thundering down the stairs. She skidded into the ballroom, holding two round bottles filled with water and herbs. “We have bigger problems.”
Gretchen, trapped in Tobias’s iron-hard, dead-eyed hold, wasn’t entirely sure how that could be possible.
Emma twisted to the side to avoid colliding with the frantic Keeper hurtling toward the ladder down to the hold. Cormac emerged behind her, magic sword glowing.
“Call the white horses,” he ordered, thundering past the stunned Keepers following the first. “And hide!”
The malice emanating from the hold convinced them, even before the Sisters began to float up through the deck. Glowing beetles and wasps filled the air, lending an eerie pale blue glow to the Keepers as they ran for cover, fumbling for banishing powder. Emma and Cormac were already sliding down the ladder into the rowboat. The Sisters had the advantage; they could float over the water.
But so could the white horses.
They rode the waves like it was a field of grass. One of them clamped strong teeth over the edge of Lark’s plaid shawl, tearing it. She went from moon white to a sickly shade of gray.
Cormac rowed as fast as he could, muscles straining. Emma stood at the stern of the small boat and faced their pursuers, calling the wind to attack them and the waves to confound them. She wore the lightning like a crown. The boat bobbed dangerously and she nearly fell over the edge. Rain fell in sheets, turning to snow and ice the nearer it came to the Sisters.
They reached the shore, and Emma pulled the fog back down. She sent it clinging to the shadows, the houses, and the carriages, hiding everyone from the Greymalkin Sisters. They would see no warehouses, no dockside taverns, no clogged London street, only her.
Cormac cut the traces of the first horse he found, freeing it from the carriage it was meant to pull. The coachman was asleep and didn’t wake in time to stop him. Cormac leaped onto the back of the horse and pulled Emma behind him. The sword was dimpled with rainwater, still gleaming unnaturally.
Lightning struck the ground behind them like spears. She could just make out the Sisters racing to catch up, light trailing off them like shooting stars. Frost formed and melted, closing its fingers around lampposts, street signs, and unwary pedestrians. Windows shattered under the violent and sudden pressure.
Behind the Sisters, a herd of white horses galloped madly. No one else saw them, but they knew enough to get out of the way when ice formed on the first of May and the sound of ghostly hooves spooked even the rats nibbling at the garbage in the gutters.
Magdalena vanished and reappeared beside them, trailing icy light. The horse’s sides heaved and ice crackled in his mane. He ignored Cormac’s pull on the reins, turning right to get away from Magdalena.
“She’s herding us,” Cormac shouted above the whirling storm. He struggled to control the frightened horse.
“Where?” Emma asked, though she thought she knew the answer.
“Greymalkin House.”
“Tobias, what are you doing?” Gretchen struggled in his arms, making the same noises a wounded badger would make. Tobias held on tighter. “You have to stop!”
“Gretchen,” Moira’s voice was strangled. “There are Rovers closing in.”
“I don’t care if they rob the place,” Gretchen said.
“That’s not what they’re here for,” Moira replied grimly. “Someone’s sent them here while the Greybeards are useless. And we can’t hold them off, not the two of us.”
“We just need to hold them off long enough for me to break the spell.” Gretchen struggled harder against Tobias’s grip.
“I’ll have to break that one’s arms to make him let go of you,” Moira said.
“I have a better idea,” Gretchen said. Or possibly the worst she’d ever had. Or the best. It was hard to tell.
Tobias was a shape-shifter. They needed him to fight the Rovers and rouse the others. He’d once told her that shifting into wolf shape burned any malevolent magic out of a shape-shifter. She could free him. She just had to force him to wear the wolf. The pull of his own magic had to be inexorable, had to fill him up so there was no room left for any other magic.
She reached into the front of her corset, where she’d hidden the vial of wolfwater. She’d half-expected the potion to taste like snow or fire or wild herbs. Instead, it tasted like what it was: muddy rainwater. For a frozen moment, nothing happened.
He continued to hold her pinned against his body. The Rovers kept on advancing. The guests danced on and on.
It was a tickle at first, then a cold burning down to her belly, as if she’d eaten too many ices too quickly. A shiver raced under her skin, pricking painfully.
The change was fluid and excruciating. She was ice melting and reforming. Her bones dissolved. She slid like rain down a drainpipe and Tobias released her. There was nothing left of her to hold on to.
She landed on four legs, disoriented. She was still Gretchen, but everything looked and felt different. Her vantage point was so much lower, all hips and legs and frock coats billowing. Her joints worked differently, her center of balance shifted. And when her tail moved, she nearly fell over. She smelled everything—beeswax, lemon balm, sweat, hair oil, floor polish.
The wolf trapped inside Tobias.
He backed away from her, blue eyes wild. She prowled toward him, hunting him.
A Rover crawled in through one of the windows. Pip attacked him, smashing into the back of his head until he slumped over the sill, unconscious. Two more thundered into the ballroom. Gretchen snapped at one, her teeth closing over his leg, tearing through linen and flesh. The taste of his blood should have sickened her, but it didn’t. He howled, stumbling. Moira broke a chair over his head.
“Bloody hell,” she added, giving the giant wolf that was Gretchen a wide berth.
Gretchen lunged at Tobias, knocking him back. He landed on his back, and she slapped her paws on his chest, growling.
Finally, finally, his wolf answered.
Chapter 17
While Gretchen was clumsy and disoriented in her new body, instinct gave Tobias a undeniable feral grace. He slunk around a couple still whirling in their own frozen moment, barely brushing the woman’s skirts. He leaped over the broken chair and landed on the third Rover, who had a fistful of Moira’s hair. Pip dove for the Rover’s face, breaking his nose so it bled down his chin, but he still wouldn’t let go. Tobias swiped at his thigh with his claws, tearing through pant leg and muscle. He fell, clutching at the claw marks. The ragged wound was so deep it showed glimpses of the bone beneath. Moira yanked herself free.
“I saw at least six more of them in the garden,” Moira warned. “Gretchen, you need to be Gretchen again.”
It felt better to be a wolf. She didn’t feel the loss of Godric so keenly; it didn’t burn into her marrow because even her marrow had shifted. She was finally as wild on the outside as she felt on the inside. She could stay like this forever.
Tobias changed back; she could smell the human in him overpowering the wolf. He crouched beside her, naked and calm. “Gretchen,” he said gently. “You saved me. Now we have to save the others.”
She whined, longing for long nights spent running through the forest with nothing but the stars for company. Her ball gown was in tatters on the floor, where it belonged.
“You’re stronger than this,” he insisted. “And you’re the only one who can break the spell. Change back.”
She didn’t want to.
“Please, Gretchen. We need you.”
The combination of his plea and the feel of ice crystals forming under the pads of her paws convinced her, but only because she imagined Godric was the one freezing her toes with his dis-pleasure.
Fur turned to skin, bones reshaped, fingers formed. She let the wolf in her retreat, let the human girl take over with her grief over her brother, her fear for her cousins, her frustration that she would never
find her place in a world where the girl always won out over the wolf.
She nearly howled at the loss of it.
Tobias tugged the tablecloth off the refreshment table and wrapped it around her before ducking into the privacy of the shadows. Teeth chattering, she felt the heaviness of her legs, the fragile confines of her body. Dully, she took one of the bottles from Moira. Chips of green crystal and salt swirled around the angelica and wormwood leaves. “We need to put it on their third eye,” she murmured. Her voice felt strange in her throat.
Tobias returned wearing a linen shirt and buff trousers he’d stolen from their hosts’s bedroom. He carried another set of clothes for Gretchen. “I thought you’d prefer these,” he said quietly, handing her trousers. “They belong to the young son of the house. They should fit you.”
“Thank you,” she said, touched.
Moira rolled her eyes. “Could you flirt later? We’re about to be overrun here.”
Telling herself she wasn’t blushing because there was simply no time for that kind of foolishness, she stepped behind the curtains to get dressed.
A lit torch crashed through a window.
Moira stomped it out as Gretchen rushed to anoint the First Legate, rubbing the potion between his brow. He jerked like a marionette whose strings had tightened abruptly. While Tobias explained what he could of the situation, Gretchen woke Daphne. She jolted into consciousness, looking furious.
More smoke from the hallway and the smell of scorched carpeting.
“They’re going to burn the place down around us, with everyone frozen inside,” Tobias said harshly. “We’re the sacrifice.”
Fire continued to consume the house, closing in on the ballroom. The curtains went up in flames, snapping and crackling as they belched black smoke. Moira coughed, pulling her cravat up over her mouth and nose. “It’s spreading,” she said, peering down the hall.