Witch Hunter (11 page)

said yourself it looked as if I could use a friend.’ This isn’t

too far from the truth, either.

George walks over and sits down next to me.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. But

not to worry. You’ll make plenty of friends here. Charming

girl like you, who can resist?’

‘According to you, I kicked John and cursed out everyone

in the room,’ I say. ‘I would hardly call that charming.’

‘It was.’ He laughs. ‘The cursing was the best part. It’s

funny to hear something so salty coming from someone

who looks so sweet.’

A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.

George pulls me to my feet. ‘Come on. Get dressed so we

can eat. There are clothes in the wardrobe. When you see

John, be sure to tell him you’re sorry. That kick you gave

him knocked him clear across the room.’ Then he leaves,

shutting the door behind him.

I cross the room, open the wardrobe. It’s empty

inside, save for a single stack of clothing. A pale green silk

tunic; tan close-fitting trousers. A wide brown belt and a

pair of sturdy brown boots, both a size too big. A hairpin.

Bronze and delicate, one end tipped with glittering green

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jewels, the other tapered into a sharp, deadly point. I twist

my hair up into a knot and work it in. Then I step back

and examine myself in the mirror fastened to the back of

the wardrobe door.

I don’t like what I see.

The remnants of my illness are everywhere. In my

skin, so pale I can see a network of bluish veins under

the surface. In my eyes, the way the colour seems to have

faded, once bright but now a pale, watery blue. In my

body, so thin I can see the ridges in my sternum, exposed

by the deep V of the tunic. Even my hair seems muted:

a weak, tired blond.

There’s no hint of the strength I worked so hard to build.

No hint of the training I went through to get it. Nothing at

all to show that, for a time, I was one of the best witch

hunters in Anglia. Instead, I look fragile. Sickly. If I look

better now than when I arrived, it’s no wonder they thought

I was going to die. I think again of the healer and feel

another pang of gratitude, guilt, and the feeling I couldn’t

place before that now has a name: doubt.

John used magic to heal me. If he hadn’t, I’d be lying

stiff and blue in that bed, the way that witch lay stiff and

blue in my cell. Magic is wrong – I know this. Blackwell

drilled into us, over and over, the danger of it. I spent two

years fighting it, seven years recovering from it. I’m still not

recovered. But if Caleb had been the one to pull me out of

Fleet, if he’d seen how sick I was, would he have done

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whatever it took – even if it meant using magic – to keep

me alive? Or would he simply have let me die?

I slam the wardrobe door harder than necessary and

meet George in the hallway. It occurs to me that I have no

idea how long I’ve been here.

‘Two weeks, give or take,’ George says as we walk to

the stairs.

Two weeks. Of course, Caleb knows I’ve escaped. Is

he pleased? Worried? I don’t know why he didn’t come

back to get me, but something must have happened. For the

first time, it occurs to me he might be in danger. What

if Blackwell thinks he had a hand in my escape? What

if he’s been arrested? What if he’s being tortured?

The thought distresses me so much that I careen into

the wall, smacking into a heavy, gold-framed painting.

‘Easy.’ George reaches behind me to straighten it.

‘You all right?’

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I guess I’m just nervous. You know?’

The words come out without thinking, but I realise

they’re true. I am nervous. Facing all these people, dining

with them. The wizard who rescued me, the boy who healed

me, the girl who bathed me, the fool who befriended me.

I’m indebted to each of them in some way, yet they are my

enemies. They’ve shown me kindness, yet I’m prepared to

kill them. The whole thing is so confusing that it curls my

stomach into a hard, tight knot.

‘Aye.’ He turns to me with a sympathetic smile. ‘If it gets

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to be too much, just excuse yourself. Say you aren’t feeling

well. Everyone will understand.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

George stares at me a moment.

‘Take a look around,’ he says, spreading his arms. ‘I

know you’re used to the king’s palace, but this is quite a fine

home, too. Take this rug, for example.’ He gestures to the

rug that runs the length of the hall. It’s beautiful, woven in

shades of dark blue, yellow, and green. ‘It was woven by a

blind woman with a missing arm. Amazing, isn’t it? It’s

over five hundred years old. Of course, it took her that long

to finish it…’

‘Is that so?’

‘Oh yes,’ he says solemnly. ‘See, the key to investing in

fine objects for your home is to find artisans with as many

disadvantages as possible. Greatly increases the value.’

I roll my eyes, but he keeps going.

‘See this portrait here?’ He points to the one I nearly

knocked off the wall, of a sour-faced woman. ‘It was painted

by a dwarf. Had to stand on a ladder just to reach the easel.

You know, paintings done by dwarves are triple the value of

paintings done by regular-sized men.’

I feel a tiny smile creep across my lips.

‘And these –’ George gestures to the brass candlesticks

fitted along the dark wood-panelled wall. They’re each

shaped like a fleur-de-lis. ‘The blacksmith had no arms, no

legs. Can you imagine? He used nothing but his teeth and

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tongue to forge those. That’s extraordinary. You can’t put a

price on that.’

I laugh then. I can’t help it. George places his hand on

my arm and we start back down the hall. He’s halfway

through a story about a deaf lute maker when I realise we’re

downstairs already, standing in the middle of an enormous

entrance hall.

Directly in front of me is a set of wooden doors.

They’re flanked by large mullioned windows, each inset

with a symbol in stained glass. A small sun surrounded by a

square, then a triangle, then another circle that is actually

a snake with its tail in its mouth.

The symbol of the Reformists.

It’s an alchemical glyph; a series of symbols, each with its

own meaning. The sun for illumination: a dawn of a new

existence. A square representing the physical world. The

triangle a symbol for fire: a catalyst for change. The snake –

an Ouroboros – for unity.

Combined, the shapes form the symbol for the creation

of the philosopher’s stone: the substance for turning

ordinary metal into gold. That’s not what the Reformists are

trying to achieve – that’s for alchemists – but the end goal is

the same: change. They’re trying to create change in Anglia.

Change in policy, change in mind-set, a change in the way

magic is viewed.

And much like the idea of changing ordinary metal into

gold, it’s impossible.

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‘He can’t hear the lute, so you’ll never guess how he

tunes it,’ George continues. ‘He takes the neck and sticks it

in his – what?’

I look over his shoulder and see them sitting around an

enormous dining table. I don’t see who or what they are, or

how many. I barely register them. Because what’s happening

in there, in that room, the magic, no.

I take a step backwards, then another. My heart picks up

speed and my stomach tightens, the way it does before a

hunt. Only there’s no one to hunt, not without giving myself

away. I can’t even run, though I want to. I want to get as far

away from this as I can.

Where there should be a ceiling, there isn’t. Just a vast

expanse of sky, the entire universe spinning in the darkness

above me.

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I stare at it.

At the sky, black and dark and empty as the moonless

night I was arrested on. At the stars that spin against it:

some white and bright, some small and glowing pale. At the

planets that bob among them like colourful marbles,

revolving in wide, lazy circles around a bright orange sun.

Then at Nicholas, who sits beneath it all: arms stretched

upward, a benevolent God – or perhaps not – flicking his

hand this way and back; a conductor, the planets and stars

dancing to his tune.

I watch in horrified fascination as a line appears across

the sky, a series of tiny numbers and glyphs appearing

beside it. Nicholas turns to the man beside him. He’s

dressed in all black like a clerk, a fat leather book in one

hand, a pen poised in the other.

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‘Transiting orb, two degrees, Neptune in trine with

natal Jupiter,’ Nicholas murmurs. He pauses to allow the

clerk time to write it down. ‘Tell him he’d be better off

waiting. The fourteenth of next month, though no later.

Whatever trifles he’s got, they can wait. He might consider

a few days of restful silence as well. His wife, I know, will be

glad of the break.’

Everyone around the table laughs.

It’s astrology; I know that much from training. Many

wizards consult astrology tables, looking to divine answers

in the planets and stars. They’re common enough; I’ve come

across dozens in houses of wizards I’ve captured. But never,

not once, have I seen a wizard create a full-scale replica of

the sky like this. And, like the way he multiplied himself in

front of me at Fleet, I don’t know how he’s doing it. I don’t

know how it’s possible.

I back up another step. Then, just as if the stars directed

him to, Nicholas looks up. His eyes meet mine across the

table. He holds up a hand; the clerk stops writing. Silence

falls. I don’t need to look, because I can feel them, the eyes

of everyone in the room on me.

‘Elizabeth!’

The sound of my name, shouted across the universe,

snaps me from my daze. At once, the sky disappears, the

stars disappear, the planets and the sun disappear. Into

nothing, winking out as if they never were. It’s just an

ordinary ceiling now, open to the rafters, a half dozen small

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chandeliers hanging at intervals over the table.

I look down to see a man striding towards me. I know

him. Curly black hair, short black beard. Even without that

dog’s head pipe in his mouth, I know him.

‘You!’ I gasp. It’s Peter. What on earth is a pirate

doing here?

‘Me.’ He laughs. He clasps my shoulders, then plants a

loud smacking kiss on each of my cheeks. I can feel myself

blushing. ‘Pleased to see me, love?’

I don’t know. Am I? He seems harmless enough, kind,

even. But how harmless can a Reformist pirate really be?

Before I can answer, Peter drapes his arm around my

shoulders and pulls me into the dining room. Stone walls,

stone floors. A row of stained glass windows on one side of

the long, polished wooden table, a heavy cabinet on the

other, piled high with food.

I stumble after him, uncomfortably aware of the stares

still levelled in my direction, of the flush still on my face, of

my heart still knocking against my rib cage.

‘Looking so lovely, too,’ Peter continues. ‘Far better than

when I saw you last. But then, it’s hard to look good when

your eyeballs are floating in absinthe, eh?’ He thrusts me

into the chair next to John.

‘Father,’ John groans.

I forget my discomfort for a moment and turn to

him, incredulous.

‘He’s your father?’

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John nods. I notice he’s blushing a little, too.

‘Naturally!’ Peter booms, walking around the table and

throwing himself into the chair opposite mine. ‘Where else

do you think the boy got his good looks?’ He waves his

hand in John’s direction. ‘A specimen that fine can only

come from the loins of a pirate!’

John groans again and buries his head in his hands.

‘Dear God, please don’t let him use the word loins ever

again,’ George whispers, sitting down next to me.

‘Why don’t we move on to introductions?’ Peter

continues. ‘Now, there’s Nicholas, of course. Him you

know already.’

Nicholas smiles at me. In the ordinary candlelight, he

looks less godlike, more man, and an ill man at that. His

face is drawn and haggard, his skin translucent and grey.