Page 13

NINE

“Walls!” Meg screamed from the door.

In one swift movement, the warlock stood up and kicked the dagger out of Thorn’s hand.

“Bloody hell!” Thorn yelled.

Meg rushed in and stood in between Thorn and the warlock, but he promptly pulled Meg back behind him.

“What were you doing to my brother?” Meg yelled.

Thorn rubbed her sore wrist. “Taking his soul.”

Meg whipped out her cell phone. “I’m calling the police.”

“Meg, wait,” Walls said, not taking his eyes off Thorn. He wasn’t looking at her with fear but with patience—and a kind of trust, if not in Thorn’s scruples, at least in the belief that she’d give a satisfying explanation.

“Wait for what? For you to be murdered?” Meg’s voice had gone shrill. “I should’ve known better than to believe that witches and time travel exist. Or to trust a total stranger who thinks so.”

“Some of those are legitimate questions that you should probably ask yourself, but I assure you that I had no intention for the warlock—Walls—to die.” Thorn had no idea what the fuss was about. “I’ve taken many souls.”

The extra chairs proved useful again. The trio sat at the round table. Bandit sat atop the table, receiving a bounty of ear scratches from Meg. But she was not giving Thorn a smidge of that affection.

Meg’s voice was still shrill. “Is this, like, a Shakespeare thing? Where an eye of newt is mustard seed and a toe of frog is buttercup leaves? Is a soul actually a lock of hair or something?”

“You, in the twenty-first century, know of Shakespeare?”

“He’s probably the most famous playwright of all time.”

“He’s a hack who plagiarizes and slanders witches. In any case, an eye of newt is mustard seed. A toe of frog is buttercup leaves. A soul is a soul.”

“But taking someone’s soul doesn’t kill them?” Meg asked skeptically as Walls poured steaming tea into everyone’s cups.

“Of course not.” Thorn was rattled that Meg thought she would murder for a potion. She fished her dagger out of her pocket again. “I would cleave off a tiny sliver of his soul. Like this.”

Meg ducked while Walls kicked the dagger again.

“It’s sheathed.” Thorn went and retrieved her dagger from the other end of the room.

“Sorry,” Walls said, sitting back down. “Reflex.”

With her sheathed dagger, Thorn made slicing motions around Walls.

“Like this. I only need a little. It’s not even as invasive as taking a small piece of lung, or a kidney, because the soul can regrow.

Like a liver, or a lizard’s tail. The person might have confusion for a day.

Nightmares for a night. Perhaps a few days of sun sensitivity.

But otherwise, he wouldn’t even miss it much. ”

“Much?” Walls grinned.

It was the first time Thorn had seen him express anything other than cool, calm collectedness. He even made kicking daggers out of a witch’s hand seem like it was all in a regular day’s work.

Meg glared at him. “Of course you think this is funny. You’re the baby of the family. If anything happened to you, Mom and Dad would blame me.”

Thorn was surprised. She was the youngest in her family, but Mother had never hesitated in blaming her for Father’s departure and Rose’s death, even though she’d been only a newborn when Father left, and it had been Rose’s idea to forage for mushrooms the day the black panther had taken her.

Rose had always been Mother’s favorite, perhaps because they looked so alike with their identical green eyes and light brown hair.

But more likely, it was simply because Thorn wasn’t as lovable.

“Even if Mom and Dad don’t believe in time-traveling witches,” Meg said, “they’d never forgive me for letting you get hurt, even if it was something you recovered from.”

Then Meg had already told Walls about Thorn’s origins. But he hadn’t even looked at her like she was out of place or time.

“I love you, big sister.” Walls chuckled.

His smile seemed to dispel the last of Meg’s fury. When she turned back to Thorn, she looked sympathetic instead of wary. “But, Thorn, you can’t just go taking people’s souls willy-nilly.”

Thorn huffed. Magic was so misunderstood. “It’s not willy-nilly. Specific souls are for a specific purpose.”

“Tell me.” Meg took a sip of her tea. “What type of soul do you need for this Youth potion?”

“The soul of a virile man.”

Meg spat. Walls choked. Tea spilled.

“How would you even know something like that?” Meg asked, dabbing tea off her blouse.

Thorn bent down to help wipe tea off the floor. “Nothing is verified until the man has sired multiple children. But there are outward signs of virility. For one, he looks healthy.”

Walls sipped what was left of his tea. “I do hike and kickbox.”

“Two, he is hirsute.”

“Laugh while you can, Wallace,” Meg said. “While I’m on my honeymoon next week, I’m going to get a call from you crying that Thorn has stolen all your hair to brew a flying potion or something.”

Thorn snorted. “Hair is one thing you do not want to add to Flying potion.”

“Just so you know, studies have shown that there is no correlation between hair and virility,” Meg said.

“In the seventeenth century, the man I knew with the greatest number of children in town was the butcher. He was as hairy as a wolf.”

“Correlation is not causation. And why are we talking about my brother’s virility?” Meg looked ill. “Someone change the subject, please.”

“Thorn,” Walls said, completely serious, “is soul-stealing really that simple? You don’t need to draw a pentagram or anything?”

“You could, but that’s more complicated.

You’d have to convince the person to enter the pentagram of their own free will.

A Dire Dagger is much more convenient. But the process of enchanting the amethyst blade takes decades.

Mine was passed down from my great-grandmother.

I remember my sister and I were very intrigued by how pretty it was, so much so that my mother enchanted her pocket to prevent us from thieving it.

Very few witches had these in the seventeenth century.

And it looks like I might be the only witch in this century, so this is probably the only Dire Dagger that exists now. ”

That might not be , Bandit interrupted.

Thorn hadn’t noticed him move to the kitchen window, where he was staring out. Someone is watching us. That raven perched on that dead fig tree has been visiting us for many days.

Thorn would have gone to check, but her matter-of-fact sharing of information about the pentagram had drained the color from Meg’s face more effectively than a bloodletting ritual.

It made Walls laugh. Meg launched herself at him to muss up his hair, but with his long limbs, it was easy for him to keep her, quite literally, at arm’s length.

Thorn couldn’t help but be reminded of Rose.

Even though it seemed like the world was against them at times, they’d always had each other.

But Thorn tried not to think about Rose, because it always caused a pang in her chest. Perhaps because she couldn’t remember her sister’s life without being reminded of her death.

Walls’s phone alarm rang, and he got up. “Guess my soul has been saved by work. My next appointment is in half an hour. Meg, since Bandit’s your employee, I’ll send the vet bills to the society.”

“Where’s your atelier?” Thorn asked. “Do you have ingredients to spare? I have to build my cache from scratch.”

“It’s a fifteen-minute walk from here. I don’t know if I can share ingredients, but you can visit anytime.” He handed her a little card. It had the same cat and dog logo that was on his medical box.

THIMBLE VETERINARY CLINIC

DR. WALLACE MILESTON

“What is veterinary? If you think anyone’s calling a warlock ‘doctor,’ then you are truly mad.”

He laughed. “It’s a good thing I’m not a warlock, then, but a physician for animals. And if you do visit my clinic, please leave your dagger at home. I’ll see you around, Thorn.”

Once Walls was out the door, Meg pointed at the dagger still in Thorn’s hand.

“It might be normal to walk around carrying swords or axes in the seventeenth century. Here, not so much. And the insurance company for the tour might cancel our liability policy if they catch our actor carrying a real weapon.”

“No problem. I don’t need it anyway, if I can’t use it to take souls.

” She would have to substitute something else in her Youth potion, then.

Thorn opened the wardrobe by her bed. When she placed the dagger on top of a pile of striped stockings, she felt much lighter.

She wondered if it was only because she was setting down something she had carried around for thirty years.

“By the way.” Thorn returned to the table. “I saw the pavilion in the park. There used to be a grave there. Do you know what happened to it?”

“I don’t, but if the developers had found a grave site back then, there should be a record of it. I’ll make inquiries. But I might not get to it until I’m back in a little less than a month.”

“Where are you going?”

They heard a car pull up the driveway, and Meg stood.

“My husband’s here to drive us to the airport.

We’re going on our third honeymoon. While I’m gone, please , no stealing souls or lives or kidneys or any body parts for your potions.

The society is happy with the tour revenue, but a crime will see you get fired.

I’m worried about leaving you here alone, but the tickets and hotels were booked last year and are nonrefundable, and my parents already shuffled their social calendar to take care of my daughter while I’m away. ”

“I’ll be fine. I’m not a child.”

But that only made Meg’s brow furrow deeper. “Exactly. You’re an ancient witch trapped in modern times. That’s far more dangerous.”

The car horn beeped.

Meg headed for the door. “I did ask Walls to check in on you, and he’s very dependable. If you need any help, call him.”

Once Meg left, the first thing Thorn did was type “honeymoon” into her phone.

Fancy that! Bandit yawned. Humans found a way to get to the moon.

“It’s a romantic trip for wedded couples. And I’ll be damned. Meg is going on her third one.” Thorn was determined to go on her first. She set her sights back to finishing the Youth potion.