Page 27 of Song of the Hell Witch

Fourteen

The corpse lay on a black tile floor, arms splayed wide like broken wings. Prudence approached slowly, her breath scalding her lungs. She knew the curve of the body, the silk nightshift.

Her husband’s eyes were open and unseeing as he stared up at her.

The gash in his throat oozed dark blood.

Through the gore and viscera, it should have been impossible to make out, and yet there it was: his spinal column, a thick snake braided out of nerve and bone.

The sight took her knees out from under her—and as she fell down beside him, the wound began to speak.

“Murderess,” it hissed at her, a strangled version of Frederick’s voice. “You did this. You killed me. Murderess. Monster. Monstress. ”

She tried to speak, to tell him it was a mistake. But she couldn’t find the words. Her tongue had become a useless lump of flesh, paralyzed by her own guilt.

“ Pru. ” A voice vibrated through the swallowing black, deep and soothing. “ Wake up, Spitfire, come on. ”

She stared down at the ruin of her husband’s remains. The wound pulsed. “You killed me. You killed that Hell Witch who was only trying to help you. You’re damned, Prudence Merriweather. Damned. ”

She closed her eyes as his words carved themselves onto her ribs.

“It was an accident,” she finally managed to say. “I didn’t … I couldn’t …”

“ Pru, listen to me. ” There was that voice again, a flame in the dark. “ Wake up. ”

She felt it then, the touch at the small of her back, the warmth at the nape of her neck. And she followed it up, up, up, drawing a deep, shuddering breath as she surfaced.

She was in her small, sunken double bed at the Honey Pot House. The sheets were soaked through, the pine sap scent of the walls sweet in her nose, along with the faint hint of leather and smoke. Sunlight splintered through the crack in the emerald curtains.

Beside her, cradling her like he would a small child, was Puck.

He wore the new traveling clothes Amelia had fetched for him, a gray wool shirt that fit him perfectly and a pair of brown wool trousers, loose without the belt to hold them up.

His hand slipped from behind her neck to thumb away a tear curling down her cheek.

In the sky of his eyes, she spied flecks of gray she’d never seen before, as if the storms from the last few years had left behind lingering clouds.

The crescent moon scar curling around his temple tugged at something in her chest, a reminder of how much she didn’t know him anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she said, finding her voice at last. Being this close to him felt …

she wasn’t sure what she felt. All she knew was the hair on the back of her neck bristled; instinctively, she moved away from him, pressing herself against the wall, hugging her knees in.

“Did I … did I wake you? Did I wake Bea?”

His smile was gentle as he shook his head.

“Mari came to get me. She tried waking you a few times, but you kept hitting her, so …” He paused for a moment, like he was considering his next words carefully.

“She was afraid you might go all Vultress if we didn’t do something, and we don’t really have the money to pay for a new roof or anything, so … ”

A stab of embarrassment speared her through. She buried her face in her hands, but the memory came back, the blood and the horror and the terrible gurgle of Frederick’s voice.

“Hey,” Puck said, the kind whisper so comforting it nearly broke her in two. “It’ll get easier.”

She picked her head up, glaring at him. “You don’t know that.”

His tongue teased his lips and he sighed. “I do, actually.”

She sniffed and tugged her legs in closer, wanting nothing more than to shrink into a small, insignificant speck incapable of murder. “How?”

“’Cause I’ve been through this.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“At first, I could only dream of Jocelyn as she was in those final days, with her skin clinging to her bones and her breath like death and her red hair gone all thin. She clawed at my eyes, screamed in my face that I should’ve done more.

But now …” A smile nearly tugged at his lips.

“Now I see her as she really was. Drinking tea by the fire. Dancing round the apartment. She tortures me less than she used to.”

She wanted to believe him, to know that one day she would close her eyes and Frederick wouldn’t be there, waiting for her. Not like that , anyway, throat gaping like a vicious maw.

Except …

“It’s different, though.” She played with the sleeve of her nightgown, the linen rough and worn, a castaway from one of Amelia’s girls. “You didn’t kill her.”

He was silent after that. His hand, resting on her pillow, grazed the top of the pillowcase. He stared at the headrest for a while, his face shifting from one expression to another, a mask of grief giving way to rage giving way to an emotion she’d never seen him wear before, one she couldn’t read.

When he finally looked at her, he was Puck again, or at least the Puck she used to know. A bit aloof. A bit playful. Always ready for trouble.

“We’ve got a long night ahead of us. Best we both get some rest.” He slapped his knees before he stood up. “Tell yourself other stories. Think soothing thoughts, all that good stuff.”

Another wave of dread trembled through her, and as he turned to go, she launched herself to the edge of the bed, seizing hold of his hand. He turned back, brow furrowed in obvious confusion.

“Is Mari with Bea?” Her heart was a drum in her ears.

He nodded once.

“Would …” She pinched her eyes shut as the embarrassment jabbed at her again. “Would you stay? Just in case it happens again. I know you probably want to get back to Bea, but—”

“Okay,” he said before she finished, and she swore she felt his hand squeeze hers before he let go.

He looked to the empty bed on the opposite side of the room, the sheets coiled up from where Mari had thrown them off.

His bare feet padded across the floor, and then he sank onto the mattress.

It nearly folded around him. “Bit of a work hazard, don’t you think? ”

It was almost enough to make her laugh. “You’re bad.”

“I am.” He slid under the covers, tilted his head back onto the pillow. “Brave those nightmares, Spitfire. You’ve still gotta take turns rowing.”

The rhythm of his breathing, gentle and even, finally tugged her down into a dreamless sleep.

They stuck to the plan as best they could, sleeping during the day, traveling once dusk set in.

It was surprising how quickly Prudence took to being nocturnal.

She missed the warmth of the sun, but there was something about how the moonlight glimmered on the water and the silence of the surrounding dark that quelled the storm of panic forever threatening to take over.

As Marigold rowed, Prudence and Puck tore into a stale sweetcoil, one of the spoils from their brief stint in Colony, a tiny village some fifteen miles upriver from Hammersmouth.

They’d been buying the pastry when they heard the whispers behind them, a group of Silk women clustered around a standing table.

“Yes, the Duke of Talonsbury. They say his Hell Witch wife murdered him,” one said, her face framed by a hideous orange bonnet.

Puck and Pru exchanged glances. Amelia had offered them all traveling cloaks left behind by some of her patrons. Discreetly, Pru drew the faded green hood up over her head.

“Well, that’s what he gets for marrying beneath his station,” said one of the other women, lifting a lace-covered pinkie finger as she sipped her tea.

“Sure, her father was supposedly a merchant, but still, you never know those people and their breeding history. Besides, I heard that once the two of them wed, he stopped attending Sanctuary all together. I suppose we know why now.”

“Now that second son, that weasel-looking one, he’s the new duke,” a third woman added. “They say he’s quite devout, so maybe he’ll get that sinful city under control.”

Puck swiped both their coin purses on their way out.

It was only as they hurried back to the boat that they noticed the posters plastered to the sides of the mist-veiled shops.

Etched on pieces of fresh parchment paper were sketches of Pru’s face, her long hair tumbling down her shoulders.

Her hands were talons, curled in front of her like a beast on the hunt, and her mouth was open, revealing two rows of sharp teeth.

Wanted: Duchess Prudence Merriweather, for the unnatural murder of His Grace, Duke Frederick of the City of Talonsbury. By order of His Esteemed Brother, Lord Paris, the newly named Duke of Talonsbury.

“Right. So things just got worse,” Puck said as they quickened their steps, dashing back to the river. Prudence kept her hood clasped tight until they were at least a few miles outside the town limits.

The sweetcoil wasn’t as delicious as it would have been a few hours ago, the buttercream icing having hardened into a sort of skin on top. But the brown sugar still melted on her tongue, and the puff pastry’s salted butter was as delectable as ever.

Puck handed a piece to Bea. Her hands trembled as she took it, and Puck dove for the sheepskin where they’d been keeping the tea, which tasted a bit like braceberries and a lot like old shoe. The girl wrinkled her nose.

“I know, Bumble, but you’ve got to, all right?” He handed her the sheepskin. “Drink this, then eat that. The sugar will cover up the taste, promise.”

She took the sheepskin and brought it to her lips, forcing a swallow.

Smacking her tongue a few times to scrub the taste off, she put the piece of sweetcoil in her mouth, then pulled out one of the blankets they’d nicked from the Hammersmouth market and cuddled up inside it, resting her head against the side of the boat.