Page 45 of Bloodwitch

Iseulthadlost Trickster, though, hadn’t she? Yes, yes, she absolutely had, so how in the Moon Mother’s great weave had he found her again?

She stretched her magic wide, grasping, reaching—there. His Threads scissored into her awareness. He was entering the inn by the front entrance, yet he had veered right into the main room.Maybe he doesn’t know I’m here. Maybe he isn’t looking for me at all. Maybe he just needs a place to stay.

Unlikely, she decided, and not worth risking. She needed to endthis situation before it could even begin—and the last thing she wanted was to get trapped in this tiny, claustrophobic room. Or worse, for Owl to get trapped in here, panic, and destroy the inn outright.

Burn him,suggested the Firewitch, but Iseult tamped that down. She was logic, she was focus, and there would be no flames. There would be no emotion at all.

The hall outside is dimly lit. The faucet at the end is beside a back stairwell. Unlit.Iseult could wait in those stairs, watch from the shadows. If the man approached, she could head him off before he reached their door.

“Owl,” she said, easing back over the bed. Calm, casual, nothing to see here. “I am going out into the hall for a moment. Lock the door behind me and stay quiet. Can you do that?”

To her vast relief, Owl nodded and sank to the floor. She must have sensed Iseult’s urgency—and how could she not? Despite Iseult’s cool words, shewascreeping toward the door, hunched practically in half to avoid the window. She paused at the hook where her cutlass and belt hung, but no. Even if Marstoks allowed Nomatsis to carry weapons in public, tensions were too high. It was not worth the risk.

Besides, Iseult could fell a man barehanded if she had to.

“I’ll be back soon,” she whispered. Then she slipped into the hall. The lock clinked into place behind her.

Twelve careful steps carried Iseult to the end of the hall. The faucet dripped as she passed, then she was to the stairwell. It was perfect for hiding. Iseult dipped into the shadows, magic casting outward once more…

The man was ascending the stairs, his Threads shot through with the green concentration of someone on the hunt. He moved fluidly. One step, two step, three—all the way up until he prowled into the third-floor hall. Slower now, he approached the door on the balls of his feet. Well trained and silent in this growing storm.

If Iseult did not have her witchery, she never would have sensed him coming.

As it was, this close, his Threads burned bright as a full moon. And the longer she stared, the more she sensed a charge crackling beneaththe surface. Like a river in winter, where a riptide of dark currents churned at the slow, icy heart.

Trickster,she thought again. Then a heartbeat later,Danger.

The man aimed straight for room thirteen, no hesitation, no pause—and any lingering doubts Iseult had that he was here for her were gone in an instant. He sank to a crouch before the door, then he shrugged his cloak off one shoulder.

A one-shot Firewitched pistol rested in a holster at his hip.

The man’s Threads shrank in tightly, pulled taut by single-minded intensity. And in that moment, as his arm stretched long overhead and his wrist cocked back as if to knock—at a normal height, so that anyone who opened the door would be taken by surprise—Iseult realized she had not told Owl what to do. She had not said,Do not answer if you hear a knock.

Owl would open the door. The man would attack.

Iseult moved. No stealth, only speed, she charged from the staircase into the hall. She reached the man right as startled turquoise ignited his Threads. Right as he angled toward her and grabbed for the pistol.

A front kick to his arm. The pistol flew. Then she pivoted and drove her knee into the back of his neck. He snapped forward, a shout breaking loose. His face hit the door.

But Iseult wasn’t done.Burn him, burn him, burn him. His hood had slipped back, revealing pale hair. She grabbed it, yanking his face toward her. Then she kneed him again—this time in the temple. Over and over and over, until his body went limp. His Threads hazed into unconsciousness.

For several seconds, Iseult stood there, planted above him and staring down. Her pulse boomed in her ears, her breath came in panting gasps. She needed to move. Needed to get out of the hallway before anyone saw her here. Already, curious Threads were moving toward doorways in the rooms nearby. Any moment now, someone would arrive. She was Nomatsi; he looked Cartorran. This would not go over well.

Except Iseult also couldn’t simply leave this man here. He would wake up eventually, and then he would attack again.

Burn him, burn him, burn him.

Her nose twitched. Threads approached from downstairs. No time, no time.

“Owl?” she called. “Open the door, please.”

Immediately, the door swooshed back, as if the little girl had been waiting there all along. Iseult pushed inside, grabbed the man by the shoulders, and dragged.

She had no idea how she moved him all on her own. He was not a large man, but dead weight was dead weight. Thank the goddess for the storm outside, hiding the scraping, scratching,heavingsound his body made across the floorboards.

All the while, Owl watched on, her Threads curious and, for some reason Iseult didnotwant to consider, thoroughly delighted.

Iseult got the man mostly inside. She dropped his shoulders, dove for his feet, and then curled his legs up. Right as she got his boots in far enough to shut the door, a person stepped into the hall.