Page 23 of Song of the Hell Witch

Twelve

Fields of rhubarb, asparagus, wolfberries, and potatoes stretched portrait perfect beneath them—and all Prudence could think about was how Imogen would never see beauty like this again.

She’s a Hell Witch, Pru. Never underestimate the power of an enraged woman, remember?

Pru. On the passage to Belacanto all those years ago, she’d effectively killed the nickname Puck had given her.

Prudence felt more elegant, more appropriate for the lady she aspired to be.

But Pru was the only name Puck had ever used, and hearing it again made her fingertips tingle, a sensation she held on to as she followed the bends and curves of the Whip.

Away from the city, the air sweetened, cleansed by the scent of rain-soaked grass and fresh-fallen leaves.

On the wood’s western bank, pines and whisperwillows crowded together. Morning fog gathered at the base of the trees. Outside of that, there was nothing, nothing …

“There!” Puck shouted, scaring her so much she nearly dropped him into the river so he could swim the rest of the way.

“You ass, what in …”

Two spheres of golden light shone in the purple dawn, nestled in the crook of the forest’s elbow, and the relief of finding them gave her one more minute of energy, enough to land with some grace.

She set Puck down gently, then glided over his head.

She tried to land on her feet, but her knees collapsed and she let herself fall.

The damp seeped up through her trousers, cool and pleasant on her skin.

Her wings tucked in, her talons receded, and the bones in her face rearranged themselves.

The pain pitched her onto her stomach. She floated somewhere between conscious and unconscious, the chill the only thing keeping her awake.

Her shirt was in tatters, and she was slowly realizing that her cloak was buried in the rubble of Marigold’s townhome.

She wanted to lay there on the wet earth and drift into a dream, but the Zeraph’s face and crown of curls flashed before her, reminding her of the threat bearing down on them—and pricking at her memory.

Meanwhile, Puck tried sending up a whistle. It didn’t last long. He sat with his legs tented toward his chest, the wound on his head slick with fresh blood. His hair was matted with it, and his shoulders slouched in exhaustion, his spine curved into a perfect C.

He turned to look at her, shoulders rising and falling as he worked to catch his breath. Bathed in the light of the dawn, he could have been a figure in a painting. “You all right?”

“A bit shot. Extremely tired.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows, grunting. “But I’ll live.”

“Good.” He took a few more deep breaths. “They’ll be here.” It was probably to reassure himself as much as anything. “Soon.”

There was no harm in giving him a distraction. “Puck?”

He turned his head in reply.

“We know him, don’t we? The Zeraph?”

He paused, brows stitching tight, and all she could do was plead with the universe, because if she was wrong, if he wasn’t someone she knew, then the Lightbringer and his warriors were real.

And if they were real, then she was condemned.

In the Epistle of Light, written by Galahad himself, Hell Witches spent eternity on a pyre, doomed to forever feel their flesh bubble and melt.

Their skin grew back, only for the flame to reignite so the horror could start all over again.

And at the base of the pyre lay the Dark Mother, the goddess who spawned the Hell Witches.

Staked by the Lightbringer during some cataclysmic battle between Light and Darkness, she was doomed to live impaled for all eternity as her Daughters shrieked above her.

No. That can’t be the truth.

“You know … I think we do,” Puck finally said. “There’s a name on the tip of my tongue, something like … Brom? Did we know a Brom?”

“Yes!” Scenes fell into place: lunch by the river, stepping up on skinny shoulders to sneak through a window. There wasn’t much, but she did remember him. “He wasn’t with us long, was he?”

“No. Standish had me chase him off. He joined mainly to try and convert all of us.”

She let out a choked huff. “Must have blocked that part out.”

“You’d remember if you gave yourself some time.

He was always going around, preaching about the Lightbringer and good works and all that.

” He released a long, trapped breath. “Still, he was nice enough, just clinging to the only thing that made sense to him, you know? How the fuck he turned into that thing, I’ve got no idea. ”

“So the stories aren’t true, then? The ones in the Epistle? Something changed him; he … he was a boy at one point.” A strange excitement trembled through her, betraying her frayed nerves.

“No, he definitely used to be a boy. A much scrawnier, extremely prude boy.”

“But then how—”

A whistle cut through the night. Marigold emerged from the tree line, her black cloak and dark skin blending with the silhouette of the wood.

Beatrice glowed like a moonbeam as she ran toward her father, bare feet licking the grass. He scrambled up in time to catch her in his arms, and he swung her around, his weariness gone in an instant. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“She’s fine,” Marigold assured him. “A bit tired and nervous as hell about you, but fine.” She rushed over to Prudence, helping her to her feet. Her hip joints ground together and her ribs smarted, but she stayed upright.

Marigold nodded at her ruined shirt. “The perils of monsterhood, eh?” She took the cloak from around her shoulders and pulled it around her, clasping the front without a word. “Can’t have a duchess roaming around with her bits out, can we?”

Prudence gave her a tired smile. “Thank you, Mari.”

Bea traced her fingers along her father’s gash like she could heal it with her mind.

“Careful, all right?” Puck grunted. “Still hurts.”

“Spotted the Watch gathering a pretty big group up at Northgate,” Marigold said.

“Yeah. They nearly took Puck out. And god knows what happened to the Zeraph or …” His name was a barb in Prudence’s throat. “Or Paris. They’re probably trailing us too.”

“So … we are going to talk about the terrifying angel from the Epistle, right?” Marigold asked. “Should I be afraid some man with skin like armor and a flaming sword’s gonna come hunting us?”

A nauseating ache pulsed through Prudence’s wings. “We’re pretty sure he was in Standish’s gang with us.”

Marigold frowned. “Really?”

“Remember that bloke always banging on about prayer as a means of restoring your ‘true self’?” Puck asked, and like she could read the exhaustion in his voice, Bea slid out of his arms and leaned against him. “That guy. Brom something.”

“He definitely believes he’s a soldier in some holy war,” Prudence added, haunted by how he spit “Hell Witch” at her, how he spoke of wanting her death to be a spectacle. “The question is, how did he get his power, and are there more like him?”

“Well, far as the power goes, all he’d really need is a blood ritual,” Marigold said.

“A what?”

“A blood ritual. You know, those ceremonies where you drain the blood of a Hell Witch to—”

“I know what they are.” Barely, she thought, but she didn’t need Marigold to know that. “But they’re a myth. Stories to justify killing us. They don’t actually work.”

“What was it Imogen called you? A Scrape?” Marigold’s tone was scalding. “Where is Imogen, anyway?”

“She …” But Prudence couldn’t say it.

Bea’s face fell, and she tugged on her father’s shirttails, asking. He sighed and crouched low, taking her hand in his. “There was nothing we could do, Bumble. I’m sorry.”

She threw her arms around his neck, holding him tight, and Prudence looked down at the tips of her boots, fighting the impulse to retch. You could have saved her. You could have.

“Right, well, if we needed more of an excuse to get in that boat, I think we’ve got it.

” Mari clapped her hands together. “I don’t know about you two, but knowing some lunatic capable of performing a blood ritual in the name of the Lightbringer is chasing me is all I need to get moving. I say we leave. Right now.”

“And go where? Tongueswitch?” Puck was probably thinking of the fireroot, the tea Imogen promised to make. But without her, they didn’t have the recipe.

She’d said something about friends along the way, though, people who might be willing to help if they knew they were bound for Stormlash.

“Puck, do you still have that card I gave you? The gold one?” Prudence asked.

He reached into his vest pocket and fished it out. It was damp, a little worse for wear, but intact.

“Keep it safe, okay? I think we’ll need it.

We’ll probably want to get farther than Tongueswitch if we can.

I killed …” She relived it again, Frederick’s warm blood curling down her arm.

“Frederick was the most powerful man in the province, maybe the country. And Paris told the entire ballroom I was a Hell Witch. They’ll want me for this.

Which means we need to get as far north as we can as fast as we can, to stay ahead of the messengers spreading the word. ”

“We can travel by night, sleep during the day,” Marigold added. “Like the thieves and monsters we are.”

The word monster felt like a slap, but Mari was right. Sunlight was not their friend. Prudence glanced back toward Talonsbury, a black speck on the horizon. Her body sang with the desire to get back on the water, to put as much distance between her, Paris, and the Zeraph as possible.

“What about Hammersmouth?” Puck asked. “I’ve got a friend there, owns a place called the Honey Pot House.”

The name told Prudence everything she needed to know about the place. But Marigold’s mischievous grin confused her. “By friend, you mean Amelia, yes?”

Even in the dawn, Prudence caught the red in Puck’s cheeks. Something hooked in her gut.