Witch Hunter (18 page)

this for a moment, and I wonder vaguely if she’s fallen

asleep. Then she jerks her head up. Her eyes are wide open

as she stares into the mirror.

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‘What is your name?’ Nicholas asks her.

‘Veda,’ she intones.

‘How old are you?’

‘Five.’

‘What did you tell me, last time I was here?’

‘Look beyond what you see, to one made blind.

The thing you seek only she can find.

Betrayed, sent to a place of no return,

Elizabeth Grey, forsaken to burn.’

At those words, I give a little gasp. But Nicholas turns to

me, his finger on his lips. Then he tips the hourglass over. I

watch the tiny grains of sand trickle to the other side.

‘What is she supposed to find?’

Silence.

‘Can you tell me where it is?’

Silence.

‘How much time do we have?’ Nicholas presses. His pen

hovers over the paper, but he hasn’t written a thing. The

sand is a quarter way through the hourglass now. I’m about

to dismiss this entire scene as a joke when she finally speaks.

‘Upon this stone are etched meters of death.

From you it will draw your very last breath.

Come third winter’s night, go underground in green.

What holds him in death will lead you to thirteen.’

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None of this makes sense to me. But Nicholas is hunched

over the table, nodding and writing furiously. The room is

so quiet I can hear his pen scratch the parchment.

‘Trust the one who sees as much as he hears,

For always, things are not as they appear.

Betrayed by three, beholden to four,

One who lost two is loath to lose one more.’

Nicholas’s brows twitch together a little at this, but he

keeps writing. Veda continues.

‘Darkness comes; the circle closes its end.

The ties that bind do both break and mend.

The elixir of life will pass between,

Because she bears the numbered mark unseen.’

Nicholas jerks his head in my direction, a look of

surprise on his face. It takes me a moment to realise what

just happened. The numbered mark unseen: my stigma.

Veda just named me for a witch hunter. Just as I thought

she would.

My first instinct is to leap out the window and run like

hell. But where would I go? So I force myself to stand still

and face whatever happens next.

The last grains of sand slip through the hourglass, and

Veda slumps forward onto the table. Nicholas takes her by

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the shoulders and gently leans her back in the chair. After a

moment she stirs, her eyes slowly coming back into focus.

She looks at Nicholas.

‘How’d I do?’

‘Beautifully.’ Nicholas gives her a kind smile. ‘Now why

don’t you run and see Fifer? She has a gift for you.’ Beaming,

Veda jumps off her chair and charges into the next room.

He looks at Avis. ‘Would you mind if I spoke with Elizabeth

privately for a moment?’ She nods and leaves the room. I

notice she avoids looking at me.

The door quietly shuts, and Nicholas leans back in his

chair. He clasps his hands together, the tips of his fingers

resting against his lips as he studies me. His gaze is hard;

there’s no hint of the levity or kindness I’ve seen before.

‘You’re a witch hunter,’ he says, finally.

I don’t reply. My heart is beating somewhere in my

throat, and my palms are damp with sweat. I slide them

against my trousers, hoping he won’t notice.

‘I wouldn’t have guessed it,’ he continues. ‘You don’t

look the part. Then, that’s probably the point.’ He goes quiet

again. ‘You wanted to kill me at Fleet, didn’t you?’

I still don’t reply. I quickly scan the room for something

to protect myself with. The candlesticks, the stones on the

table. The mirror I could break, use the shards as knives…

‘I think we should have a little chat.’ He stands and pulls

out a chair. ‘Sit.’

I don’t move.

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‘Sit,’ he repeats. ‘I won’t harm you.’

I hesitate for a moment before moving to the chair. I

watch him closely, waiting for him to make a move. He just

sits down and resumes staring.

‘I thought you were a witch,’ he says. ‘An untrained

witch. I thought it was how you knew to procure those

herbs, how you survived jail. John said you should

have died.’

‘I heard,’ I say.

‘Your stigma protected you?’

‘No. It protects against wounds, not illness. It makes

me strong, so I can hold out longer than most. But if

you hadn’t found me and John hadn’t healed me, I would

have died.’

Nicholas doesn’t respond to this. Maybe he’s wishing I

had died; there’d be one less witch hunter in the world.

He can wish it all he wants; but if he wants to stay alive, he

needs me alive, too. Just as I need him.

‘John said you’re cursed. That you’re dying.’ I don’t

bother dressing up the words into something more tactful.

Nicholas grunts in disapproval – maybe at my impertinence,

maybe at John’s carelessness – but I continue. ‘Veda said

the thing you seek only I can find. It’s a wizard, isn’t it?

You need me to find the wizard who’s cursing you and

kill him.’

‘It’s not a wizard,’ he says. ‘It’s a curse tablet.’

Now it’s my turn to be surprised. ‘A curse tablet?’

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‘Yes. Do you know what they are?’

I nod. I’ve come across a few curse tablets before. The

idea behind them is simple: etch a curse onto a flat piece of

stone, lead, or bronze, then dispose of it somewhere it can

never be found. Wells, lakes, and rivers are popular choices.

But while the idea is simple, the execution is not. To create

the curse, you have to use a specific material, a certain stylus

to write with, the correct runes. If a single step is done

incorrectly, it won’t work.

And most of them don’t. The curse tablets I’ve seen were

always incomplete, abandoned at some point in the process.

But if done correctly, it’s one of the most effective ways that

I know of killing another human being. The only way to

break the curse is to find the tablet and destroy it. Which is

nearly impossible.

‘You may be looking for a curse tablet,’ I say. ‘But it still

amounts to me finding a wizard. A wizard cursed it, a

wizard hid it. One of your enemies, I presume.’ Nicholas

raises an eyebrow at that, but I go on. ‘I find him, persuade

him to tell me where it is. Then I destroy it. It’s really not

that difficult.’

‘You’re very confident,’ Nicholas remarks.

‘I’m good at finding things.’

‘Perhaps you wouldn’t be so confident if you knew the

curse tablet is the Thirteenth Tablet.’

‘What?’ I gape at him. ‘That’s impossible. The Thirteenth

Tablet has been missing for years. If you were cursed by it,

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you’d be dead by now.’ No one can hold out against a curse

tablet that long.

‘The Thirteenth Tablet disappeared two years ago,’

Nicholas says. ‘My symptoms began around that time and

have grown progressively worse. Still, I thought I was ill. I

never suspected I was cursed, not until Veda told me a few

months ago.’

‘But why?’ I say. ‘It’s a lot of trouble to go through.

Stealing it from the gates at Ravenscourt, hauling it off, then

there’s the matter of disposal…’

‘Yes. It would have been much simpler to create a

traditional curse tablet, though for a curse of this scope, it

would need to be quite large anyway.’

He’s right. If you want to kill a man’s dog or make him

lose all his hair, you can use a smaller tablet to write the

curse on. But the bigger the curse, the more complicated,

the bigger the tablet needs to be.

‘That aside, I suspect using the Thirteenth Tablet was

symbolic,’ Nicholas continues. ‘To curse a wizard using

the very tablet written as an edict against witchcraft? It

must have held some amusement to the wizard who

performed the curse.’

‘Don’t you know who it is?’ I say. ‘Surely you have an

idea. There can’t be more than a handful of people who

could manage a curse like that.’

Nicholas looks at me, his gaze turning to steel again.

‘To my knowledge, the only witch or wizard who could

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perform a curse like that was captured and tried and burned

at the stake.’

Something floods through me then. Fear? Shame? Guilt?

I don’t know. But whatever it is makes my insides twist and

my cheeks grow warm. I knew this admonishment was

coming, but I didn’t know the effect it would have.

And I don’t like it.

‘I was doing my job.’ I return his look with equal force.

‘The job given to me by the king, enforcing the laws of the

kingdom. Laws that were put in place for a reason.’ I gesture

at him with a sweep of my hand. ‘As you can plainly see.’

‘It’s curious that you defend these laws,’ Nicholas replies.

‘Considering you yourself are a victim of them.’ He mimics

my gesture. ‘As you can plainly see.’

Anger lances through me, quick and sharp. ‘I wouldn’t

be here if it weren’t for you!’

‘Indeed, you wouldn’t.’

‘It’s because of you I had no trial,’ I continue. ‘It’s because

of you I had no leniency. It’s because of you I’m the most

wanted criminal in Anglia!’

‘That is how irony works.’

‘At least I did what I did for the country,’ I snap. ‘You

did what you did for yourself.’

‘You are no patriot, Elizabeth. You do us both a disservice

by claiming it.’

‘A patriot? That’s what you call yourself?’

‘I call myself a Reformist.’

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‘You mean lawbreaker?’

‘I don’t seek to break laws. I seek to change them. I seek

fairness. Tolerance. For everyone, regardless of the side

they align with.’

I shake my head. ‘Impossible.’

Nicholas waves his hand, and the candles abruptly die

out. ‘Improbable,’ he says. He waves his hand once more,

and they relight. ‘But not impossible.’

We stare at each other across the table.

‘Let me get this straight,’ I say. ‘A cursed wizard needs a

witch hunter to find a tablet cursed by yet another wizard,

so that said cursed wizard can rid the country of the laws

that were created to prevent the curse in the first place.’

I smirk. I can’t help it. ‘Yes. That is how irony works.’

Nicholas’s mouth twitches.

‘I have terms, of course.’

‘Terms?’

‘For finding your tablet.’

‘Ah.’ Nicholas raises a finger. ‘I didn’t ask you.’

Inwardly, I roll my eyes. These old wizards are so set

in their ways. He probably wants to issue a scrolled

proclamation for me to sign with a plumed pen in front of

robed witnesses.

‘There’s no need to stand on ceremony,’ I say. ‘You can

just ask me.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple.’

Outwardly, I roll my eyes.

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‘If I ask you to help me, I’m asking a witch hunter to

come into my home, to be around the people I care about.

To put them in danger. As it stands, I have done that

already. It simply cannot continue.’

This, I was not expecting.

‘It would be far better for me to die than to continue

risking their lives on my behalf.’ Nicholas slides his chair

back and stands. ‘I’m afraid this is where we part ways.’

‘You aren’t serious,’ I say. ‘You don’t want me to find

your tablet because I’m a witch hunter? It’s because I’m

a witch hunter that I can find it.’ I shake my head. ‘You

didn’t really think an untrained witch could manage that,

did you?’

Nicholas arches an eyebrow. ‘Why are you so eager to

help me?’

I shrug. ‘It’s a means to an end.’

‘Money, I presume.’

‘For starters. Enough to get out of the country and to live

on for a while. And safe passage.’

A pause.

‘And?’

‘And what?’ I say. ‘That’s it. Your life in exchange for

mine. A fair deal.’

Nicholas doesn’t reply. He’s still standing, gazing at the

parchment on the table, Veda’s prophecy written on it in

his careful hand. I didn’t understand it all – any of it,

really – but I do see the word death written there. Twice.

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Other words jump out at me, too: darkness, end, break,

betrayed. Last breath. I feel a momentary twist of fear. Are

those words meant for him, or for me?

‘I’m not going to hurt them,’ I say. ‘I don’t even care

about them.’ Though this isn’t exactly true. I’ve come to

like George, and Peter is kind. Fifer I could do without,

but she’s not worth the trouble I’d have to go through