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I backpedalled. ‘I did listen, I just can’t imagine magic strong enough to hurt you.’

She gave me a measured look as she probably tried to figure out if I were lying. Finally she nodded. ‘Matilda very strong magic. This magic not as strong as Matilda, justbad.’ She made an odd gesture with her claws, a pinching motions above her head. Maybe the magic around the secret place felt like static, or pins and needles – or worse.

I let that go and moved on. ‘Do the mean men come into the mine itself?’

‘They in mine.’ I could tell she didn’t understand the question.

‘Do you know who killed the dwarves, Matilda?’ She looked at me blankly. ‘Did you take the dwarves’ heads?’

Matilda exploded in sudden movement that nearly made me piss my pants. I stayed very, very still as she jumped up and down and threw her arms about in fury. Rocks and dirt flew in all directions. ‘Stolen!’ She howled. She pulled her hair and her ears turned red. ‘Bad men take. Steal from Matilda!’

‘Matilda, what did they steal from you?’ I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I had to be certain.

‘They go to cave and take my prizes.’

I remembered the heads lining her cave. How had the MIB even gotten into it? And why would they steal the skulls? My brain sluggishly connected the dots: the skulls on the pikes had been old: the MIB had stolen them from Matilda. ‘They took your skulls?’

‘Yes!’ she wailed.

‘Where did the skulls come from?’

‘They are mine!’

‘Iknowthey’re yours – you showed them to me. But where did you get them?’

‘Mypeople.’

‘They were hag skulls?’ That made no sense: hags were supposedly made of pure earth magic, not something that would leave behind a skeleton.

Her frustration was evident. ‘No.’ She searched for a word. ‘Husband, husband family, friends. Mypeople.’

‘You were married?’ My voice was incredulous so I hastily added, ‘Are there male hags?’

She settled back down enough to laugh again. ‘Bunny silly. No, hags always female.’ She puffed her chest out with pride. ‘Husband was vampire.’

Nowthat, I could relate to. ‘Nice,’ I said, holding my hand up for a high-five. She stared at it and I let it drop awkwardly.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, still staring at my hand which was now folded on my lap. ‘He good husband. He kill many for me.’

Well, I guessed we all defined what made a spouse ‘good’ in different ways. I offered a weak smile.

Matilda had had a vampire husband? How did that even happen? Her appearance wasn’t even humanoid – did the vampire have a thing about metal teeth? And the academy had taught me that a hag’s appearance could vary from humanoid to downright alien. Could Matilda change her appearance at will?

I thought back to her den and her ‘family’. There’d been hundreds of skulls in that cave; some were probably dwarves – the ones she appeared to have stolen – but the rest were her friends and family? How long ago had her husband died? And what had killed him?

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Matilda. I didn’t know your husband had died.’ Or that she’d even had one.

She sat back down on the stone, her short legs swinging. ‘Long ago,’ she said but her expression was wistful.

‘Why keep the skulls?’ I asked.

She looked at me like I was stupid. ‘They family.’

My heartached for her; she must be so lonely now. ‘Have you always lived in Portlock?’ I asked curiously.

She shrugged. ‘I live many places. Family came with me.’

‘How long ago?’