Page 10 of Song of the Hell Witch

Six

The world was a swarm of colors Pru couldn’t force into shapes.

Blood thundered in her ears, forcing her power’s song to turn inward.

Her head spun until she couldn’t tell up from down.

Vibrations quaked through her fingers, up her shins, as if her magic had turned against her, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.

Somewhere beyond the suffocating colors, a voice cried out, comforting in its familiarity, an anchor in turbulent water.

“Pru, answer me!”

The panic storm belched her back into the world. She blinked, drew a breath—and there was Puck kneeling before her.

“Pru, talk to—”

“Sorry.” It was all she could say, all she should say. Because he didn’t know why she was there, dripping rainwater and blood onto the floor of his parlor room—and when he found out, he’d probably drag her down to Hornsgate Prison himself.

His exhale was long, like he’d been holding his breath too. He stood and backed away, though he didn’t seem afraid. Then again, he’d never been great at knowing when he was in real danger. “You all right?”

“Do I look all right?”

“I mean, are you hurt?”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t feel her own body.

Her skin and muscles were useless bits of tissue sitting atop her bones like a strange, wet garment.

Closing her eyes, she tried to wake her nerves.

Her power sang, the subtle hum lighting up her spine, webbing through her wings.

She recalled the blade slicing through the air and pressed her hands to her abdomen.

There was no wound, just the satin nightgown, soaked through and clinging to every curve.

She pulled the cloak tighter. “No. No, I’m fine. ”

“Right. Good.” He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. “This is … a look.”

The chuckle warmed her a little. Shock was a strange thing. “Am I more wet rat or soaked pigeon?”

“Think drowned weasel.” He paused, and she tried to read his silence, but she couldn’t. “What—”

“Frederick.” Her head was so heavy. She crumpled forward, unable to hold it up anymore.

The sob burned in her chest, but every time she tried to release it, it stuck fast. Like it wasn’t ready.

Like it needed to simmer a little longer.

Folding her arms around herself, she closed her eyes and fell into the comfort of the darkness.

You should’ve gone with the woman who gave you the card. Saved yourself when you had the chance.

It happened the week she arrived in Belacanto, only days after she’d watched Puck become a slouching speck on the Gold Harbor docks.

A woman came to the brothel in Vivichi, the country’s capital city.

She had ebony skin, pale-green eyes, and teeth sharp enough to rend flesh.

She was easily one of the most beautiful women Prudence had ever seen—and she was, without question, a vampiress, the most powerful type of Hell Witch.

The melody of her magic had tangled with her own, amplifying it.

The woman had sashayed into the room, shut the door behind her, and pressed a finger to Prudence’s lips.

“Don’t be afraid. I know what you are. Just like you know what I am.

” Her voice was low, seductive. She’d cupped Prudence’s face in her hands, her touch like lightning, her power so much stronger than her own.

“If you come back with me, across the Marrow Sea, to the Wild Fangs, I can show you who you can be. Who you deserve to be.”

She’d kissed her then, and Prudence’s power had ignited, transforming her into a vessel of untamed energy, as hot and dangerous as a new sun.

“We aren’t meant to be lone wolves,” she’d breathed in Prudence’s ear. “We are meant to be sisters. A family.”

The offer was so tempting. Beyond tempting.

But she’d only just arrived in Belacanto, and she was determined to make her own way in the world.

Besides, why follow a stranger back to Leora where the Apostles and their ilk had convinced province masters to burn girls like her in the public square in years past?

She’d asked the woman the same question.

The woman had simply drawn a small, golden card out of her pocket, the same card Prudence had plucked out of the journal on her bedside table. “For when the time comes,” she’d said.

The regret of refusing her pulsed now like a bruise.

“Why me, Pru?”

Puck’s question plowed through her like a bullet. It was fair. Her seeking him out had put him and his wife, wherever she was, in incredible danger.

Still, it was like she’d been clinging to the side of a fast-spinning top, and his query wrenched it to a sudden stop.

“Why come to me unless you …” His head twisted to one side, the lines in his face going taut. “You didn’t.”

“I …” Her hands relived it all again, the wet of Frederick’s throat, the terrible sound as the arteries opened. “I killed him.”

There was something comforting about Puck’s face falling—and something horrible too.

“I woke up and there was this assassin. He … he had this knife, and he …” It sounded like the kind of story a murderess would tell to deflect blame. Spheres above, maybe the assassin was a hallucination. Her own mind, driving her to kill.

Except the terror was still there, ice in her veins. She could see the blade arching through the dark. No, it had been real. She knew that in her bones.

“I fought back. Frederick came up behind me, to calm me down, but he scared me, and …” Her voice faltered, like a Silk woman on the verge of fainting, and it made her feel so small. “I killed him.”

“But not on purpose, right?”

She wanted to hit him. More than that, she wanted to disappear. “Is that what you think of me?”

“I don’t know.” His shrug was crueler than his words. “I don’t know you.”

The pain in her chest sharpened.

Sighing, Puck leaned against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. “Were there witnesses?”

“No, but the servants definitely heard it.” She swallowed hard, suddenly remembering.

“And you saw Paris tonight. The second they find Frederick’s body, he’ll have everything he needs to prove to them all that …

” She paused, aware that she was getting hysterical.

Puck didn’t deserve hysterical. “And he’ll smile as I burn on that pyre. ”

“Right. Okay.”

“Okay?” She didn’t know what that meant. Perhaps it was best to come out with it, to ask without dressing it up. “Listen, there’s not a lot of time. I—”

“You need a smuggler.” He cut her off before she could begin.

“Y-yes.”

The air fled the room, and as the silence descended, Prudence’s lungs withered in her chest.

“Stay here,” Puck finally said, shoving off the wall. She tried to read his expression, but he was too much of a stranger now. “I’ll be back.”

“Is that a—”

He disappeared through the archway, and she could hear him fumbling about in the next room, searching for something.

Without conversation to keep her occupied, the night’s horrors drifted to the forefront of her mind.

Her nail beds stung. Frederick’s blood had started to dry on her arms, tug at the fine hairs.

The panic storm gathered, threatening to overtake her once more, and the desire to flee began to set in, setting her wings ablaze.

Desperate to escape the instinct, she threw herself to her feet and wandered over to the bookshelves against the walls.

He owned so many books, another flicker of the man he’d become. She brushed her fingers along their smooth, leather spines.

“Why do you read so much?” he’d asked one night as they lay under moth-eaten blankets in the Plantagenet, the moldering theater Standish’s child thieves used to call home.

Standish had lived above the Curiosity Shop, but his River Rats squatted in the old playhouse, making beds between the seats, sleeping in the rafters and along the catwalk.

Puck, Prudence, and Marlowe strung up their hammocks backstage, and Prudence kept a candle burning so she could read into the night.

“My sister Emmaline taught me.” She’d been ten, maybe eleven, Puck all of twelve. “She said it’s how you get to see the world. And I think it’s good to know about things.”

“Like what?”

“You two don’t shut your pretty little gobs, I’m gonna knock your teeth out!” Marlowe had hissed at them, and she got quiet fast.

“What kind of things?” Puck whispered.

“Like how there’s places better than Leora, where people don’t have to believe in the same god as everybody else,” she whispered back. “I could teach you to read. If you want.”

For six months, they’d poured over books, letters, pamphlets from quashed protests littering the streets. She’d taught him to read, to write, and while he’d mixed up his letters occasionally, he became a master in his own right.

Apparently, he’d learned to love books as much as she did.

“Impressed?” Puck startled her as he strode back into the room, a pair of trousers and a linen shirt draped over one arm, a bottle of whiskey clutched in the other.

Allowing her breathing to settle, she picked up one of the novels. It was a romance, translated from Belacans into Leoran. The Fisherman’s Wife , the title read. “Do they fetch a good price?”

“Oh, these are mine. Well … mine now, anyway.” He placed the whiskey on the coffee table and set the clothes on the chair. “Figured you might wanna change. Your hips are smaller than Jocelyn’s, but with suspenders, the pants should work fine.”

“Jocelyn won’t mind?” She hoped he couldn’t hear the stab of jealousy in her voice.

“She might. But she’s dead, so.”

The world, only just starting to slip back into its normal rhythm, slammed to a stop again. “Oh Puck, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you dress. After that, we’ll figure out what to do next.”

“There’s no time.”

“The Watch have no reason to think you’re here.”