Page 14 of Song of the Hell Witch

A boat, lashed to one of the posts beneath the shop and big enough to carry exactly three people, rocked back and forth in the water below, buoyed by the storm-swollen Whip.

“You were saying?” Puck quipped.

She punched him in the shoulder, a reflex from the past she shouldn’t have indulged, and they both winced.

She could sense the nostalgia tugging at her, knew exactly how easy it would be to fall back into her old patterns with him.

In the wake of tonight’s horror, she could even see how it might feel like comfort.

But she couldn’t do that to him. She wouldn’t. Not to mention there were enough emotions taking up space inside her; if she invited nostalgia in, she might come apart entirely.

It was at least a ten-foot drop into the river, and the boat rocked viciously in the churning water. Her wings bristled, begging her to use them so she wouldn’t hurt herself. But the transformation would cost her at least a minute—and minutes were too precious.

“Oi, I found something!” a Watchman’s voice sounded from below.

“We have to move.” Puck hurried over to his daughter and took her hand. “Come on, Bumblebee, show her how it’s done.”

“Wait.” Prudence couldn’t travel without cover. Sprinting over to the couch, she gathered her cloak and her boots in her arms.

Once she made it back to the trapdoor, Bea leapt down the chute, landing in a low crouch in the middle of the boat. Her body tipped, but she followed the momentum, letting it carry her into one of the seats.

“Okay, Pru. You next.”

“W-what if I land on her?”

“You won’t.”

“I think you vastly underestimate—”

“She won’t let you.” Puck took her wrist, his callused hand warm as sunlight on her skin. “Come on, where’s the spitfire girl I used to know? She’d say this was small potatoes. Hell, she’d say this was fun . You remember fun, don’t you?”

Boots thundered outside the door. The time for fear was gone. Closing her eyes, she jumped, praying to the Lightbringer and the Dark Mother and her dead sister and mother that she wouldn’t land on Beatrice.

Her feet hit the boat first. Without boots to protect them, the shock vibrated up through her arches and into her shins.

Off-balance, she fell against the side of the boat, tipping it toward the river.

Acting as one, she and Bea threw their weight in the opposite direction.

The hull righted itself, and the boat grew as steady as it was ever going to be.

The exhilaration coursed through her like braceberry wine, nudging a relieved laugh loose. Bea’s face was shrouded in shadow, but Prudence could make out the coy little grin, one that seemed to say See, haven’t you missed all this?

On one side of the riverbank, the Sweetbreads District was finally starting to quiet down. On the other, the Podge slums where she grew up piled on top of each other, the rickety buildings and partially collapsed rooftops clawing at old wounds.

Then the shot rang out, and the past disappeared as the horrible present yanked her back into the moment.

Bea sucked in a sharp breath, almost loud enough to count as a cry. Prudence rushed at her, wrapping her arms around her shoulders, determined to keep her from falling into another fit.

“Puck!” He had to come out. She couldn’t take care of a child, especially a sick child. “Puck, where are you?”

No answer. The dread began to take hold as another shot ripped through the night.

And then Puck vaulted out of the flat, crashing face-first into the boat. He cracked his forehead against the seat, and Prudence gasped. For a second she was certain he’d fractured his skull, but then he groaned, scrambling to get his bearings, and she exhaled.

He’d broken the boat’s center seat, smashed it right down the middle.

She didn’t wait for him recover. She rushed to the mooring and untied the boat, then lined the oars up inside their locks and plunged them into the water. Ignoring her exhaustion and the strange prickling in her lungs, she mustered all the strength she had left and pulled.

Bullets rained down from the shop. Puck dove for Beatrice, curling his entire body around her. Prudence pulled harder, but the boat could only move so fast.

Please …

Finally, the current caught them, flinging them away from the Curiosity Shop—and straight toward Hornsgate Prison, guarded by at least fifty Watchmen on a normal day.

“Puck, I can’t—”

He was there before she could finish, taking the slick oars in his hands as the rain hammered down on them. The gash on his forehead gushed blood, and he squeezed his left eye shut against it.

“There’s a smuggler’s door on the side there!” he shouted over the downpour, nodding toward the boat’s bow and its wooden hood. “Climb inside.”

“I can’t fit in there!”

“Do you see another way?”

He was right. It was already suspicious enough for a man and a child to be out on the river in a rainstorm. If the Watch saw all three of them, they’d definitely be pulled in for interrogation. And if that happened …

The pyre. Her skin, bubbling on top of her bones. The horror was dizzying.

Keeping her weight as evenly distributed as possible, she crawled forward. The door handle slipped once in her hand, but she managed to get it open and shimmy her shoulders through the tight space.

It was just big enough that she could lie on her back and, with her knees tucked into her chest, press her feet against the underside of the hood. The compartment smelled of rotting wood, but the rain wasn’t thrashing at her anymore. She was pretty sure tonight had spoiled her love for storms.

Cocooning herself inside her cloak, she closed her eyes, pretending she was somewhere else, in a carriage or a steamship bound for the Spindle Isles and their beautiful sapphire waters, where so many Leoran men had lost their lives fighting to steal the archipelago from the Visage Republic.

But the river crashed against the sides of the boat, a constant reminder of the danger she’d put Puck and his daughter in.

Pressed tight against the wood, her wings ground against her shoulder blades.

Her magic’s song grew louder, an undeniable melody that begged her change, change, change .

Such a unique anguish.

The cloak was useless. Soaked through, it only made the cold that much worse. She shivered inside it, her toes and fingers numb. She’d survived worse in steerage on the ship over to Belacanto and, before that, the bone-cold winters in the Plantagenet Theatre.

But in the dark, there was nothing to distract her from the dead.

Frederick’s face and gaping throat came first: his mouth stuttering as he tried to speak, the blood gargling up.

Next, she saw her sister’s handkerchief when she pulled it away after that first terrible cough, a red rose blooming at its center.

The scream lodged in her throat, a barbed, vindictive thing. She tried to push it down into that place where she pushed everything else, but with each passing second, it throbbed that much harder.

And then the boat lurched to a stop.