Page 18 of Song of the Hell Witch

The hum grew louder, an enraged beehive.

She envisioned her power rebounding from her nerve endings to tangle in her chest, and she fused her own desires with those of the Vultress, making them one again.

Once she knew the creature was dormant, that her own body wouldn’t betray her, she opened her eyes.

Bea was awake, fear and confusion written in her trembling bottom lip.

“It’s okay.” Prudence believed it more than she’d believed anything before, and as Imogen squeezed her arm, she bared down on Bea’s veins.

The song in the girl’s blood was nothing like the divine melody she’d felt walking beside Imogen that evening.

There was no beauty in it. It was a death rattle echoing within a void, and its violent vibration traveled up Prudence’s arms, splintering through her jaw.

She snapped her eyes shut, desperate to let go, but something whispered No, not yet.

“Pru, what the hell is …” Puck spoke behind her, but Prudence ignored him. She couldn’t lose focus. Not now, not this close.

When she chanced a look at his daughter, she understood his outburst. Bea’s head arced backward, her breath escaping through bared teeth. And her veins. They’d become a dark, putrid green, like rot branching out from a wound.

“No.” Prudence lurched forward, taking Bea’s face between her hands. “Bea? Listen to me, can you feel that? That hum, do you feel it?”

Tears brimmed in the girl’s eyes, her pupils so large they looked like black beads.

She blinked once.

“Yes. One blink’s yes!” Puck shouted at Prudence.

“Okay, good, Bea, that’s good.” Prudence didn’t know if it was good or not. “Do you …” You’re going to sound insane. “Do you feel like the hum wants to help you? Like it might feel good if you let it in?”

She blinked again.

“Okay, so I … I want you to try and breathe it in. Can you do that?” She took a deep breath, pulling her hand toward her own chest to help Bea visualize it. “Try to see it, the hum, try to imagine it and then pull it toward you, okay?”

Bea blinked one last time. Then, gaze still locked on to Prudence, she began to breathe, her little ribs poking through her nightgown as she inhaled with her whole body.

“She’s pulling.” Imogen nodded at Prudence. “Give her what she needs.”

Prudence followed the vague order as best she could. She pictured the magic spiraling down her arms, buzzing in her fingertips.

“Now, Prudence,” Imogen said.

She gave Bea everything she had, pouring her power into her. The more she gave, the more she could feel herself wilting, her own energy draining away, a light growing dim inside her.

“Puck.” Marigold’s voice was an awed whisper. “Look.”

The rot in Bea’s veins receded. She stopped shivering, and a pink flush chased the blue out of her face. She closed her eyes, and her writhing muscles went still.

Three heartbeats and she was a normal, sleeping girl worn out by a long day. Prudence collapsed against Imogen, feverish and half spent. The Hell Witch held her up.

Puck charged toward his daughter and took her into his arms, as if he had to feel her weight to convince himself he hadn’t lost her.

“You know, for a Scrape, you’re not half bad,” Imogen told Prudence, squeezing her shoulders like she’d known her for years.

“A Scrape?” Prudence sat up slowly, her voice hoarse and weak.

“It’s what we call untrained Spectabra Daughters. Women who’ve ‘scraped’ by without any formal training.”

Like Hell Witch isn’t bad enough. She didn’t have the energy for snide comments at the moment, so she stayed silent. Relief knocked at the back of her ribs as she looked at Bea, but she couldn’t let it in.

Because it was only a matter of time before the poison erupted through her blood again, before she was beyond helping. She saw the same sentiment in both Imogen’s and Marigold’s eyes.

Tell him, Mari mouthed over Puck’s shoulder.

How? Prudence mouthed back.

Marigold’s shoulders lifted in a shrug, but she nodded as Puck sat back on his heels, keeping hold of Bea’s hand.

Prudence steeled herself. “Puck.”

Puck lifted his head. In his face, she found no trace of the boy thief who had run headlong into danger. This was a father half mad with worry.

And she was about to push him right over the edge.

“Do you know what Subversal is?”

He shook his head.

“Bea’s a …” Just say it. “She’s a Hell Witch.”

“A Spectabra Daughter ,” Imogen corrected. “Honestly, the respect you lot refuse to show yourselves.”

“She’s like me, like Imogen,” Pru continued. “Except when she heard the song, the”— might as well say its proper name now —“the tune , it turned inward instead of outward. Infected her blood rather than transforming it.”

He was a statue staring at her. “What?”

“The potential for transformation lives in every woman’s blood,” Imogen interjected. “Every woman can become one of us. But it only wakes if and when we hear the tune, which often happens in the wake of … well, it can be a variety of—”

“We know how it works,” Marigold snapped.

“In that terrible moment, the magic takes our strongest emotion and our deepest desire, and the transformation takes hold.” Imogen cleared her throat.

“But sometimes it goes wrong. We don’t know why, just like we don’t know why the magic wakes in some women and not others.

But when the magic turns inward, it still changes people. ”

“How?” He seized Prudence’s wrist. “How?”

“It … it corrodes their blood, gets inside their cells, and—”

“Kills them.” His words escaped in a rasp. He heaved as he let go of her, pressing a hand to his mouth like he was going to be sick. “I’m going to lose them both. I’m going to lose them both .”

“Puck …” Marigold started.

Prudence had to give him something, even if it was only half a hope. “It’s not over yet. Imogen, tell him. About the Ladies.”

“I feel it may be …” Imogen started, but Prudence sharpened her gaze into a weapon.

The succubus huffed and continued. “At Stormlash Manor, there’s a coven of Spectabra Daughters.

As I’ve said, with our combined power, we can often reverse the cycle.

Turn her magic outward rather than letting it consume her.

It would trigger a transformation, but she would live.

However, that’s if we can get her there in time.

May I ask, how long has she been like this? ”

“Since my wife died,” Puck sniffed, slowly coming back to himself. “A year.”

Imogen’s mouth dropped open. “That’s … well. She’s exceptionally strong, your girl. Most Subversal cases change or succumb within a few months. I’m not sure anyone’s ever made it a year before.”

“Wait, so … so you’re saying she should be dead already, and you want me to take her to the Wild Fangs?” Puck scoffed. “She barely had the strength to get from Sweetbreads to here; how’s she gonna make it a week on the road?”

“There are teas we can brew, braceberry and fireroot concoctions that have been rumored to stave off Subversal, though again, her case is exceptionally rare,” Imogen said. “And the coven has friends from here to Stormlash. They’ll help us, I’m sure of it.”

Puck hiccupped a cruel laugh. “So I’m s’posed to put my faith in a succubus and fucking tea ?”

“No, you put your faith in us,” Marigold said before Prudence found the same words. “We’ll take care of her, together.” Her glance flitted toward Prudence, then settled back on him.

“Not you,” Puck said. “You’ve got that ticket to Visage; you’re not missing that boat.”

“She’s my soul-daughter. I’m not leaving when she’s like this.

Look at me.” Marigold hooked her finger under his chin.

“It’s a Hell Witch coven. Women who might be able to …

” She hesitated, then kept going. “To help me . ’Cause, sure, singing in a Visage opera would be great. But there are things I want more.”

Her childhood fascination with Prudence’s ability. The mural on her wall. Her wish was so obvious, Prudence didn’t know how she’d missed it.

She’d met women like Marigold who had transformed, a noblewoman and a dancer in Vivichi.

One was a werebeast, the other an arachnise, so it wasn’t impossible.

But Marigold was almost thirty now. Usually, if a woman was meant to transform, the change took place before she turned sixteen.

Older women, for reasons that would probably never be known, rarely changed, regardless of the horrors many of them faced.

“Why … why does Subversal happen?” Puck asked, voice wavering in and out.

Imogen cocked her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what causes it? Do you see it more with girls who lose their parents, or …” He swallowed hard. “Girls who see something so bad, they break right then and there?”

Pru could hear the guilt in his question, a shame that didn’t make sense.

“We know it’s terrible trauma. Watching someone you love be beheaded, for example, or …

other horrific things. Girls who have seen war or been prisoners, things of that nature.

A lot of girls still experience the change then and there, but some …

for some, it turns on them.” Imogen sighed.

“I also know that heading north is her only hope. But we need to leave, and soon.”

“She’s right,” Prudence said, and Mari and Puck both gaped at her. “Listen, come dawn, there’s no escaping the city. The dark is our only chance.”

“Does that little girl look like she can travel?” Marigold pushed back. “We need a—”

“Okay,” Puck cut in. He kissed the back of Bea’s hand, then stood on trembling legs, looking like the lone survivor of a violent battle. “We can’t use the river. The Watch probably doubled the guard along the bank when their man didn’t come back. We’re fucked as far as that goes.”

“I mean, I could take the river.” Marigold eased to her feet, apparently forgetting her doubt, and Prudence rose with her. “I’ll paddle the boat through the gate, say I’m going to visit a friend in Tongueswitch. I can pick you up at the edge of Kingston Wood.”

“But you hate the Whip,” Puck said.

“So? This is my family.”

Prudence had forgotten how comforting it was to be in the presence of people who cared so deeply for each other. The people on Silk Hill lived in a world of shallow pleasantries. She couldn’t name a single person, not even a husband or a wife, who’d willingly give their life for someone else.

“Let me go change out of my nightie, put something more travel-worthy on.” Mari hurried over to the folding partition in the right corner, intricate floral designs carved along the whisperwood panels.

“Think they’ll have fireroot in Tongueswitch?” Puck asked Imogen.

“Absolutely,” Imogen replied. “It’s an effective antidote for adder bites, and given how much tall grass there is between here and there …”

“Not to mention Silks adore the apothecaries in Tongueswitch,” Prudence added.

It was true. People swore up and down the herbs were fresher, more aromatic.

She ticked her nose up, putting on the heavy accent she and Puck used to use whenever they would make fun of Silks. “Their recipes are far superior.”

Puck’s grin was short-lived, but it was there. “Were they all as terrible as we thought?”

“Oh, much worse.”

“Couldn’t have been so bad. You came back to Leora to be one of them, didn’t you?”

The truth pressed into her throat, and she so wanted to tell him. He deserved that much. But it wasn’t the time. It might never be the time.

“I …” she started, but Puck shushed her, hands swinging out like he was bracing for impact.

“Did you hear—”

It came again. One thud. Two. Right above their heads.

Imogen rose to her feet, alabaster hands curling into fists at her sides.

Marigold peeked out from behind the partition, hair tucked up under a beret cap. “What’s—”

They all flinched together at the next footfall and the one after that.

Boots. Two pairs, stalking along the rooftop, keeping a steady, even pace, like there was no need to rush.

Whatever they’d come seeking was already trapped inside.