A Breath of Frost (39 page)

The trail shimmered like stardust between the leaves, curling into tiny spirals along the edges. It led through the undergrowth and ferns and straight through the heart of a bluebell wood. It diverted around a willow tree to move alongside the river and finally wove around the roots of a giant oak tree, circling around and around the thick trunk to the fork of three giant branches.

Looking up, Emma saw the Hydra’s starry eye looking straight back down at her.

“I found it,” she whispered out loud, stunned.

It was the tree from Aunt Bethany’s painting. She would have dug around the roots for her mother’s witch bottle but the silver ribbon wound itself up into the crown of branches. She climbed gingerly, her shawl snagging. The first rays of watery light touched the crushed acorns in the grass and the pollen drifting on the wind.

The oak tree was full of nooks and crannies and spiders. The silver ribbon went into a crevice and faded away. Anticipation thrummed through her, almost painful in its intensity.

She was less impressed with the necessity of having to stick her hand in a hole full of beetles, spiders, and centipedes. Grimacing, she reached in warily. Years of leaves and acorns hoarded
by squirrels and mice crumbled away. The smell of mold made her sneeze. Finally, her thumbnail grazed something smooth. She hooked her fingers around it and pulled it out, knuckles scraped raw.

It was a bundle of faded, moth-eaten velvet, green as spring leaves, as her father’s eyes. She unfolded it carefully, heart pounding.

The bottle was smaller than she’d imagined, looking like an old silver perfume bottle more than a witch’s spell. She could still smell the faint waft of roses. It was wound around with a ribbon of indistinct color, now mostly stained reddish brown with mud and leaves. When she tilted it, salt and rowan berries shifted inside.

And in the very center, a faint white glow pulsed, barely noticeable.

Emma jammed her nail under the edge of the stopper and tried to pop it open. The stopper was old and rusted and sealed tight. She couldn’t even shatter it; the entire bottle was made of silver and clear faceted quartz. She tried again and again, until the splinter under her left thumb started to bleed, mingling with the blood of a dead girl on her dress.

Blood.

It was her blood that had unlocked the spell that gave her antlers.

Her blood that agitated the gate on the roof and called Ewan to save her from the old Greymalkin warlock.

Her blood when she’d shivered so violently on the rooftop next to Strawberry that she’d bitten her tongue. The glass of the
bottle had sliced into her thumb right before the earthquake and Margaret.

Her mother had made Emma’s blood the key to her binding spells and her witch’s bottle.

She squeezed a drop from the small splinter wound, smearing it over the glass, the ribbon, and the blackened stopper.

When she tried to open it again, the lid popped right off.

The glow intensified, leaking out like spilled ink. It gathered into itself until it formed the shape of a small red bird with the crested head of a cardinal. It launched into the air, tearing through the leaves.

A glowing red feather drifted slowly down.

Emma watched it until it brushed her antlers, until it caught in her hair, until her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.

Uncovered

1796

Theodora and Bethany huddled in the hallway, each holding a candle, their bare toes curled on the cold floor. Their mother stepped out of the bedroom with a soft smile. “Nothing to worry about, girls,” she said, as though their father hadn’t just woken the entire household with his screaming. “It’s just a nightmare.”

“It’s the Greymalkin,” their father said hoarsely, stumbling to the door. His hair was disheveled, his nightshirt askew. He held an iron-wheel spoke tipped with jet and pearls in his hand. “They’ve set off the alarm. They’re here.”

“They’re
not
here,” their mother said sternly, catching his arm. “My love, that spell is decades old. It’s gone faulty.”

“I was a Keeper, wasn’t I?” he barked. “I know when there’s dark magic afoot.”

Their mother closed the door firmly, looking tired. “Go on back to bed,” she said. “Your father will want to check the wards.”

“I can never sleep while Papa is working the wards,” Bethany said. “It’s like hot needles. Let’s sit up until he’s done,” she suggested, ducking into a small parlor. It was cold and dark, the fire long since dead in the grate. “You can distract me by telling me where it is you go all day long.”

Theodora took her candle to the window without replying. There was nothing but darkness and the reflection of the flame
.

“You do that a lot,” Bethany pointed out. “Who are you looking for?”

“No one.” She turned hastily away
.

Bethany didn’t look convinced. “Theo, I know something’s going on. I’m not bacon-brained. You never used to spend so much time in the woods. And just last summer you went into a fit because the sun gave you freckles on your nose that no one else could even see. Now you’re dark as a hazelnut.”

She knew she could trust her sister but she didn’t want to share Ewan just yet. He was her delicious secret. And the longer she kept him that way the longer she could keep harsh reality at bay
.

“Tell me this, at least,” Bethany continued archly. “Is he handsome?”

“Yes.”

“Not even a second’s hesitation. He must be divine.” Her smile was wry. “Not Alphonse, then?”

Theodora’s only reply was a decidedly unladylike snort
.

“He’ll be devastated.”

“He won’t even notice.”

“Our fathers will.”

“I know, Beth.”

“And he might—ouch!” Bethany winced. “Papa’s started.”

Theodora abandoned the window to curl up next to her sister. Bethany’s familiar, a luminescent badger lying under her chaise, snarled. Magic prowled through the house, searching for holes in the wards, for residue of forbidden spells. It became a pressure in the temples, uncomfortable and irritating, but not truly painful
.

Theodora slapped back at the magic when it poked around her, making her feel queasy. “He hasn’t been like this in months.”

“I wonder what set him off.” Bethany pinched the bridge of her nose. The last time the wards were probed it had bled all over her favorite gown. The magic seemed more interested in Theodora this time, probably sensing she had secrets
.

“He was distracted at supper,” she said. “But nothing like this.”

“I can’t imagine seeing something so horrid it would give you nightmares almost forty years later.” She shuddered. “All those people drained and murdered.”

“Yes, but the Greymalkin have gone underground, if there are even any left. They were rather thoroughly banished.”

“The Sisters could still be out there,” Bethany pointed out. “Perhaps Papa’s right to be cautious.”

“Cautious, certainly.” Theodora bit her bottom lip. “But you don’t think he’s a little …” she trailed off, searching for the kindest word. “Excessive?”

Bethany made a face. “Sometimes.”

The flames of both their candles turned pink for a moment, flickering wildly. It was their mother’s way of telling them to go to sleep. She’d been doing it since they were little girls. Theodora used to force herself to stay awake just to see the candle’s pretty dance
.

Her father paced the house for the rest of the night, his cat-familiar slinking by each doorway again and again. He was haggard by morning, his jaw set at a dangerous angle. He sent word to the Order, asking them to send Keepers to investigate the estate
.

Theodora wasn’t able to escape the manor; her father watched everyone too carefully. Three Keepers arrived later the next day, armed with iron and grim expressions. They disappeared with her father into the study and try as they might, Theodora and Bethany couldn’t hear a single word of what was being said through the thick door
.

They hid rowan berries and iron nails under all the furniture, where the servants wouldn’t find them and ask awkward questions. Their father wore his sword everywhere, even in the house
.

On the third day, Theodora hid at the top of the stairs and eavesdropped on the whispering in the hall below
.

“There’s definitely a trace,” one of the Keepers said. “It’s the Greymalkin signature but it’s faint. I can’t even follow it, it’s like it’s everywhere at once.”

“I’ll send the girls to London,” her father declared immediately. He didn’t know it, but she’d never go. She wouldn’t leave Ewan. Disconcerted at the idea, she snuck down the back stairs. It might be her only chance to see him now that her father was so occupied with his mad warlock hunt. His fervor made her sad. It made him look old and sour, like a stranger
.

Theodora moved through a gap in the hedges, staying hidden from the house. She ran as fast as she could until she broke through the line of trees of the edge of the forest. Ewan was waiting for her. She threw her arms around him, burying her nose in the side of his neck and inhaling his familiar woodsy scent
.

“I was beginning to think they’d locked you away,” he said into her hair
.

“I missed you.” She clung to him, feeling normal for the first time in days. “My father’s filled the house with Keepers.”

He eased back. “Greybeards?”

“He used to be one himself, a long time ago,” she explained. “He helped banish some of the Greymalkin when he was barely my age. And now he’s convinced they’re back.” She swiped at a tear. “This obsession is eating away at him.”

“Father warned me,” Ewan muttered, slapping at the long grass. “How’s it even possible? What trace could there be in your house?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Don’t say you think the Greymalkin are back too?”

Before he could answer there was a shout, a flash of light, and the pounding of horses’ hooves. A short arrow with painted fletchings slammed into Ewan’s shoulder. He jerked back, blood blooming on his sleeve. Someone screamed. Theodora thought it might be her, but she wasn’t sure. Ewan tried to step in front of her
.

The Keepers rode in, Theodora’s father leading the charge. Theodora struggled to pull the arrow out but Ewan grunted in pain, his hand closing over hers. “Leave it.”

“It’s been spelled,” she said frantically
.

“I know,” he said through gritted teeth, eyes rolling back in his head. Ghostly antlers rose from his head like smoke as his magic reacted to the danger
.

“Get away from my daughter,” her father roared, flinging an iron-spoke pendant. It hung from a long, thin rope like a lasso and it
looped around Ewan’s neck. The smell of burning hair and flesh was acrid. The spectral antlers sizzled, laced with raw burns
.

“Papa, no!” she yelled, leaping to stand over Ewan when he collapsed, struggling to fight the binding
.

“He’s one of them,” her father barked. “We followed the magical traces here.”

“He saved my life,” she argued. “I love him.”

“Stand down, Lady Theodora,” one of the Keepers ordered as her father gaped at her, turning gray
.

“Go to hell,” she shot back
.

“Theo, you don’t know what you’re saying,” her father shouted. Spittle gathered at the corner of his lips. “He’s one of them. He has you bewitched.”

They flung salt and iron nails at her feet. She spat curses at them. Ewan moaned, sweat dampening his hair. He pushed into a crouch though it clearly cost him to do it. “Stand back,” he said softly. There was blood smeared all over his arm
.

Theodora glanced at him incredulously. “They’ll hunt you.”

“Trust me.”

Muttering, she moved aside slightly. The horses circled them, carrying Keepers swinging iron-spoke pendants in their hands. Her familiar was locked inside her chest, prickling with fear. Her father threw an iron-binding chain. It struck Ewan across the face and would have flattened him if he hadn’t already begun to shape-shift
.

He lumbered to his feet, a giant white stag with shining antlers and blood dripping from an arrow embedded in his flesh above his right leg
.

His fur was streaked red and his clothes lay in tatters around
his hooves. He tossed his head, bellowing. The horses reared around them. One of the Keepers was thrown from his saddle. The grass caught fire, burning lavender and blue, and smelling like burned apples and fennel seeds
.

Theodora didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a handful of fur and flung herself onto the white stag’s back. She held on tight, her teeth clattering together as he bounded over mounds of iron and salt. Her father was yelling behind her but she couldn’t make out his words. The forest swallowed them. She knew the others would follow but they’d never find them, not if they beat the woods with a hundred hunting dogs and a hundred huntsmen. No one knew the forest like Ewan
.