Witchmark Read online

  “They gather here to sing in the seasons and stay in Kingston over the winter to turn back storms until they sing in the springtime. The country Circles hold local patterns.”

  The implications clicked together in Tristan’s mind. I watched him think it over. “Brilliant. But if the organization falls apart…”

  “All of Aeland will suffer. Kingston would be crushed inside a year. The interior would flood, or suffer drought, over and over. Crops will fail. People will starve.” I looked away. “I know running away was selfish.”

  Tristan caught my hand. “They make slaves of you for the sake of their prosperity.”

  “The greater good of the country. We need Storm-Singers. The fact that they use their powers to make life better for all, beyond simple survival … Wouldn’t you want the best for your family? For your community?”

  Tristan waved it away. “It’s not right. It’s one thing to serve others. Quite another to be forced into it, however noble the cause. Would you have left, if they didn’t bind you?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t mind not being important. I can’t will the winds. I wanted to heal the sick. I wanted to save lives, not be a battery and a breeder.”

  Tristan’s eyebrows went up. I glanced away.

  “Secondaries are … matched.”

  “I’m glad you ran away,” Tristan said. “I hope you inspired others to do the same.”

  “I think I must have,” I said. “I don’t think my disappearance would be enough to bring my family low.”

  “Stay here until you’re ready to face your sister,” Tristan said. “Hopefully you’ll have enough time to regain your strength.”

  “I’m already feeling better.”

  “Good. I have to get dressed. I’m expecting a caller.”

  “Who?” I set my bowl on Tristan’s tray, and sat up.

  “Alice. At least, I suspect she’ll come today.”

  “I should probably hide when she comes. I’m not dressed properly.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  My cheeks grew hot, but I laughed. “I wanted to look like a servant out of livery.”

  His lips twitched. “Congratulations on your success.”

  “I suppose I could say I was in disguise.”

  “You left clothes here,” Tristan said. “Mrs. Sparrow cleaned the wine out of the shirt you borrowed the day of the accident, and she mended the tear in your trousers.”

  I tested my ankle. Not bad at all. “Bless Mrs. Sparrow. My jacket?”

  “Still out for treatment. You’ll have to settle for shirtsleeves.”

  “Better than this.” I followed Tristan upstairs.

  * * *

  Breakfast wasn’t enough. I felt dizzy enough to worry Tristan, and he tucked me onto the chaise, where I dozed under his watchful eye. I dreamed vividly of a house whose rooms changed if you closed a door and then opened it, where I’d been looking for the tall black horse I’d left in the library. I woke with a feeling of dread, for dreams of black horses were a death-omen.

  A knock sounded on the door. Tristan set his book aside, but I had to move and clear the last tendrils of the dream from my mind.

  “I’ll get it.” I pushed the stolen bicycle farther down the hall before swinging the door open for Miss Farmer.

  The figure standing on the step was taller, more elegant, and less welcome. Grace’s long black car rested next to the curb, and Grace herself sighed in relief.

  “I haven’t come to drag you back,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”

  I pushed the door closed, but Grace blocked it. “Miles, please.”

  I jerked it open again. “Are you going to release me?”

  Grace folded her arms. “So we’re going to argue in the street?”

  “Go away, Grace.”

  She lowered her voice. “Miles, we can make this work for both of us.”

  “How?”

  “Will you let me in?”

  “This isn’t my house.”

  “It’s fine, Miles.” Tristan stood behind me, his hand warm on my back. “She doesn’t want a spectacle, but she’ll make one if you give her no choice.”

  I sighed and opened the door wider.

  “Right,” Tristan said. “I’ll make some tea.”

  He deserted me, while Grace took off her coat and came in. She stared at the mirror-covered walls and the mismatched wallpaper. She gave a gusty sigh. “You shouldn’t be here, Miles. He’s a witch.”

  “So are we.” I opened the door to the parlor.

  “We are rather more than common—”

  Grace blinked at the bright colors, the profusion of plants, the mirrors on the walls. She inspected the seat of the wingback chair before settling herself, and went fish-eyed at the three-foot-tall water pipe next to the chaise.

  “Miles, you can’t be serious.”

  “I find it comfortable.”

  “It’s vulgar.”

  “Probably why it’s comfortable.”

  “We should go somewhere else to talk. Somewhere private.”

  I put my feet up on the table. “I’m not leaving. How did you find me?”

  “We’re linked now.”

  “I was shielded.”

  “I was already following you when you vanished. I knew vaguely where you were, so I went looking for wards.”

  Tristan returned bearing a tea tray. “Pity. I was hoping you weren’t that clever.”

  He sat beside me and poured, stirring in a cube of sugar before giving me a cup. He rested his hand on my thigh as he sipped his own. Grace’s nostrils flared as she watched Tristan lean against me as if we were lovers.

  I let him.

  Tristan spoke into the silence. “What you’ve done is atrocious.”

  “This isn’t your business.”

  “Why don’t we speak of the weather?” Tristan sipped from his cup. “How do you plan on managing the winter? Do you ever let a snowstorm through, or do you simply shove them away from your borders?”

  Grace turned a shocked look on me. “Miles! What have you done?”

  “He hasn’t done anything. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  Grace ignored him. “Miles. I understand you were lonely and he offered you what you wanted, but a commoner can’t be allowed to know our secrets.”

  Tristan went still next to me. “What will you do, then? Accuse me of witchcraft, put me through one of those farcical trials? Lock me up in an asylum for insanity?”

  “You will go insane,” Grace said. “They all do.”

  “But you and yours do not,” Tristan tilted his head. “Don’t you find it strange?”

  “They’re not equipped to handle power.”

  “Grace,” I interrupted. “There’s probably no difference between witches and mages.”

  Tristan snorted. “The only difference between them and you is that they were born poor, and you weren’t. You don’t want them around.”

  Grace squinted. “Them? Not us? Do you think you’re somehow different from the other witches?”

  “I am no witch.” Tristan stood up, taller, more imposing, and shredded the veiling spell hiding his true appearance. Grace gasped and twisted her hands in a protective sign, one Tristan erased with an annoyed swipe of his hand. “Miles is my friend. If he says the word, I will unleash my irritation with you, Dame Grace Hensley. You have the promise of my revenge if you hurt him.”

  Grace’s eyes screwed shut. “You stay away from my brother. Let him go.”

  “I do not hold him. You do.”

  Grace was on her knees now, fighting the effect of Tristan’s full power. “Let him go. Please. He means nothing to you. He’s my brother, my only brother. Please let him go.”

  My sister begged for me, thinking I was under Tristan’s spell. Because she loved me, or because she needed me?

  “Tristan, don’t.” I touched his arm, and he subsided. “Grace. I know you didn’t want this to happen this way. So let’s set it aside. Relea
se me.”

  “I can’t.” Grace picked herself up off the floor. “Miles. You should hate me. You should. I can’t let you go. Too much depends on you. Ten Secondaries ran away after you did.”

  I had suspected as much. “Did they get away?”

  “Only two weren’t found. The others are under severe control. One killed herself. We can make things better, but if I don’t succeed Father, Sir Percy will take over.”

  Tristan sniffed. “And why should Miles care?”

  “You can’t understand, Amaranthine. But Miles does.”

  It was sickening. I did care. I couldn’t help it. Sir Percy in charge was terrible for Secondaries. He’d be the Chancellor, with even more power than he had as the Minister of Defense. If he kept his Cabinet post, like Father had …

  I had to make him answer for what he’d done with this war, and if he were responsible for the soldiers’ condition, too—I wished my conscience would let me turn Tristan loose on him, just for the imaginative and terrible vengeance he would visit on Sir Percy. I couldn’t. An Amaranthine’s revenge could have consequences that rippled beyond the person who paid.

  Grace looked at me. “Miles. I swear. You know I’ll never mistreat you. I need you to help them. And when I’m the Voice, you’ll be able to do exactly as you please.”

  “But you still won’t release me.”

  “It will only matter on the days we sing in the seasons and the half dates. Eight nights a year, Miles. That’s all.”

  “It’s not freedom,” Tristan said.

  “It’s not,” Grace said. “But it’s what I can give.”

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I can’t accept.”

  “I’m sorry too, Miles. But you don’t have a choice.”

  “I do.”

  The tie between me and my sister wasn’t a string, exactly, but I could see the connection reflected in one of Tristan’s mirrors. Through it, she could take my power and use it as if it were her own, as if—

  As if my soul were bound to her, the way Mother and Nick were bound to me. But with one difference: souls were just power. I had a will.

  I grabbed her wrist.

  She startled. “Miles, what are you—Miles!”

  Her aura was golden and strong. I had to be stronger. I tried pulling on the bond between us, but it was as solid as the cables holding the Ayers Bridge.

  She tried to yank her hand away. “Miles, stop.”

  “Will you let me go?”

  “I can’t!”

  “You won’t.” I pulled, testing the bond again. I could do this. I would be free.

  “Please.”

  “He forced both of us, Grace.”

  “It’s the only way!”

  “Find another.”

  The edges of her aura diminished. It lay closer to her skin, thinner, paler. The bond was supple, if you could call steel cable supple. I’d have to pull until it became a strand, and I was already dizzy.

  Grace hauled backwards, and we fell into a heap on the floor. She balled up a fist and punched me in the eye, but I didn’t let go—not of her arm and not of the power.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  “You can make it stop. Let me go.”

  She kicked out and hit me again, a solid blow to the delicates.

  “Miles!” Tristan moved as I drew my knees up and gasped.

  The tie was a hemp rope now. I was winning. Blood seeped from Grace’s nose. I hadn’t hit her, but red ran down her chin, dripping onto her oyster silk blouse and stormy mauve tie, scarlet and bright with oxygen.

  “Miles,” Tristan gripped my shoulder. “She’s dying.”

  Grace coughed, and red flew from her mouth. She bled inside, her heart and lungs weakening under the assault. For an instant I saw Mother, and remembered how she had fought Father’s grip on her wrist as she had coughed up blood and rasped, “Let go.”

  Father had held fast and said, “I can’t.”

  This was how Mother had died—she had pitted her lesser strength against Father’s, trying to sever the bond between them, and Father had let her die rather than unbind her. I was stronger than my sister. She had to see that.

  “Let go,” I said. “Please, Grace.”

  “I can’t.”

  Grace tried to pull the power away from me. The effort was so feeble a child could do better. She went limp, blood bubbling on her lips, but she wouldn’t let go.

  I would be free, but she would be dead.

  I let go of the power and yanked on her bloody tie, my fingers on the pulse of her throat.

  “Grace. I’m sorry. Come back.”

  She coughed again, but her nose stopped bleeding. I fought to put the life back in her, to undo what I’d done. Tristan kept his hands on my shoulders and gave me a steady stream of power tinged with sadness and guilt, mixing with mine.

  “Grace!”

  I wouldn’t let her die. Her breaths evened as I repaired the little tears in her lungs, soothed her overworked heart, massaged liver and kidneys back into function. The room tilted crazily, but I didn’t dare stop.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I didn’t know. I would have never—”

  She lifted one hand to my face. Mother had done that, before she had poured her power into me. “Miles.”

  I held onto it and looked at Tristan. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t,” he said. “She’d rather die than free you.”

  “He’s right.” Grace’s voice was hoarse. “I’m a coward.”

  “Stop. It will be all right, Grace. We’ll work it out.”

  “Now you’ll hate me.”

  “Never,” I said. “I could never hate you.”

  Her smile slid across bloody teeth. “Maybe not today. But you will. I can’t let you go, Miles. I have to lead the Invisibles. I have to.”

  “Shh. Tristan, help me.”

  He knelt and picked up my sister, carrying her up to the room I slept in. He brought me a basin of warm water and a sponge, soaked her blouse in a sink full of cold while I cleaned the blood from her skin. He took the sponge and basin away, and steered me back downstairs to rest on the chaise.

  “You look like I ought to tuck you in by her side,” Tristan said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not.” His hand was warm on my shoulder. “But I’ll let it be. She’ll be hungry when she wakes up.”

  My own stomach growled. “Is there still some sausage?”

  “Mrs. Sparrow will return to a bare larder.”

  I shivered. I’d almost killed my sister. “What do I do now?”

  Tristan caught my hand and squeezed. “You find a way to live with it.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Compromises

  Grace slept through the knocking at the front door that interrupted my early supper. I expected Alice Farmer, but Avia Jessup sauntered into the parlor dressed in wide-legged trousers paired with a black and white knitted vest, a burgundy tie snugged under her collar matching the paint on her lips. She paused on the edge of Tristan’s hand-knotted wool carpet, one foot forward, the other back, and one hip thrust in a smooth curve. She raised two fingers to her mouth, planting an unlit cigarette between them. I ached for a smoke of my own.

  “You look like a starving man, hero.” She took the chair Grace had occupied with a lazy grace, leaning forward for my light. “For food or a smoke?”

  “If you have another of those, I’d be obliged.”

  She snapped her handbag open, and a silver case rested in her hand. “My treat. Mr. Hunter? A smoke?”

  He grimaced. “No, thank you.”

  Avia blew violet-tinged smoke to the ceiling. “I took Alice’s card. She didn’t need it. Never forgets a thing, poor girl.”

  “It’s an extraordinary gift,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Good things and bad, hero. Your bad times have faded. Hers never will.” She ignored the tea service. “You’re sure Nick was murdered?”

  “We are.”

  “When he hadn’t come
to work, I thought—” Her little finger tapped at the corner of her mouth as she thought, decided. “I thought he’d killed himself.”

  “What were your reasons for believing that?” Tristan asked. “Was he unhappy?”

  “It wasn’t quite unhappiness. Look, I know it’s still an hour for coffee, but do you have anything a girl could brace herself with?”

  “Whiskey?” Tristan asked.

  “All the gods bless you.” Avia waited for the cut-crystal tumbler and drank it down. “When did he die?”

  “Firstday.”

  She swallowed another mouthful. Tristan had poured a deep one. “I was there the day he died, then. He’d come home from one of his journeys. I watered his plants while he was gone.”

  “So you were at his home on Wellston Street?”

  She nodded. “He was … he stared at the wall. He wouldn’t talk. I was used to him keeping secrets, but he was a wreck. I should have stayed with him, but I’m not the one you call when you’re sick or sad. I didn’t know what to do for him.”

  “What did you try?”

  “There wasn’t so much as a stick of butter in the place. I called Swanson’s for him, so he’d have something to eat.”

  Tristan leaned in a little closer. “What did you order?”

  “Nick wasn’t much of a cook. He liked pocket pies. I ordered a half dozen. Frozen crab chowders. Grapes and cookies, apple pockets. He was hopeless in the kitchen.”

  “Did you eat with him?”

  “I was on the city beat,” Avia said. “I ducked in to say hello, but I was supposed to be ‘capturing the spirit of Kingston in the days anticipating the return of our soldiers.’ I only stayed long enough to answer the door when the groceries came.”

  “Had you done this before?”

  “It’s why Nick and I were never serious. He’d shut himself up writing, forget to eat, and he grew quieter and stranger. I’d gone there to—” She drew on her cigarette. “I’m a good person.”

  “You were going to break off your tender friendship,” Tristan said.

  “I like a man who can take care of himself. And Nick was getting worse. Every trip he’d come back with more secrets, working on his damned book.”

  “Do you know what the book was about?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He said he had to keep it a secret until it was published. So it wasn’t about gardening. Nick should have stuck to flowerbeds. He was killed for that book, wasn’t he?”