Page 33 of Song of the Hell Witch

Seventeen

Prudence’s mind urged her toward Bea, but her body wouldn’t move.

All she could do, at least for the moment, was stare.

Bea screamed as though she couldn’t see Marigold and Puck: Puck as still as a dead man, Mari caught in convulsions.

Blood dripped from their ears, curled down their faces.

All the while, Bea screamed as if it had been bottled inside her since the beginning of time.

Stop her! Florence wasn’t speaking. Prudence heard her voice inside her head, clearer than her own thoughts. Or she’ll kill your friends! Grab her and hold her tight!

How? Prudence tried to thread it into her tune, uncertain of how the telepathy worked. All she knew was that the wall of sound around Bea felt impenetrable. She wouldn’t be able to make it to her, let alone touch her.

Show her she’s safe! Nothing here will harm her; she has to know that!

Is that true?

I didn’t understand! I didn’t give him time to explain! Florence pinched her eyes shut. Please. We’re running out of time!

Prudence listened with her whole being, trying to distinguish her own tune from Bea’s shriek and Florence’s magic. But it was all one tangled mess, a cacophony she couldn’t separate.

Beside her, Florence took her hand. I’m with you.

The vibration of Florence’s tune rippled along the periphery of Prudence’s bones. She latched on to it as best she could, imagined braiding the amethyst threads of her own magic with Florence’s power, which she envisioned as a sort of arctic blue.

That … that feels … Life altering. Intoxicating. With this much magic coursing through her, it was easy to believe she could do anything in the world. Topple cities. Devour oceans. Create new worlds.

Focus with me. Florence’s voice was an echo of her own, like they were speaking in tandem. Go to her. Show her she’s okay.

Buoyed by Florence’s energy, Prudence pressed up onto her knees. She crawled toward Bea, and the closer she got, the more she could pick out the girl’s tune, frantic and loud and atonal. It thrashed against her and Florence’s combined power, but it was too weak in comparison to do them any damage.

She slipped past Marigold and Puck, pretending they didn’t exist. This was no time to get distracted by her own fear.

Bea didn’t look at her as she approached. The scream went on and on.

I’m going to braid my tune with hers , Florence told her. Try to force Quiescence.

What is—

No time. Just grab her!

Florence’s energy abandoned her, but not before Pru scrambled to her feet.

Bea’s shriek splintered through her body, but she sprinted the last few inches, then took the girl into her arms. She crushed her to her chest and thought of how Puck had combed his fingers through her hair, how that always seemed to calm her on the boat.

Slowly, she mimicked him, begging the red to come back.

The scream cut off, and Bea went limp as a dead fish in her grasp, eyes open and unseeing.

“Bea?” She shook her, but the girl didn’t move. “Bea!”

“Give her a second.” Ears still ringing, it took Prudence a moment to realize it was Florence’s actual voice sounding off behind her.

The words were muffled, all sound completely distorted.

“Quiescence is like a lash striking at the center of your mind. It cuts off the tune so you can’t hear it, effectively numbing your power.

Useful when a young Daughter is misbehaving.

” She rose to her feet with a grunt, hand stitched to her side, where the blood from Prudence’s talons was already starting to slow.

“But it takes a moment to recover from it.”

Sure enough, Bea blinked, and then she was staring up at Prudence like she didn’t understand how she’d ended up in her arms. Hyper, hysterical breaths escaped her, and the black crept from the ends of her hair back up to her scalp, then faded altogether.

Her murky eyes cleared, the dark rolling back like storm clouds, and the black in her veins receded, becoming more of a soft gray, the color of smudged charcoal.

Her skin stayed pale and cold as winter marble. She trembled, though it seemed to be more shock than weakness. Sweat glistened on her forehead.

She was Bea. A little colder, a little whiter, but alive and healthy … and crying.

“I … I … I …” It must have been an involuntary sound, a sob escaping. “I d-don’t know w-what …”

Prudence pushed her back, stunned. “Bea, is that … are you talking ?”

“What did I do? Oh no!” Like smoke, she slipped out of Prudence’s grasp and galloped across the floor, rushing over to where Marigold and Puck lay.

Marigold was starting to stir, groaning as she turned onto her side, but Puck.

He lay with his arms flung across his chest, his color completely gone save for the deep blue of his lips.

Bea dropped down beside her father, reaching for his face. “Puck?”

She was talking. Really talking, in a voice that sounded like it was caked in dust. Sucking in a strangled breath, Prudence shuffled over to the two of them.

Bea brushed a curl out of Puck’s eyes. “Daddy?”

“He’ll …” Florence said as she inched forward, head bowed in apparent contrition.

“He’ll need at least the night to recover.

The strain on his heart, the energy I stole from him—it was a lot to take all at once, especially for an average person.

Add the shock of the banshee shriek, and it’s likely to have caused some … damage.”

“Damage?” Marigold stood too quickly, and her ankles gave out. Prudence thrust herself forward, catching her before she fell to the floor. “What kind of damage?”

“He should recover. Eventually.” Florence kneaded her hands, such a human gesture, nervous and uncertain. “I promise I’ll explain everything, but we can’t stay here. That sound will have been heard from—”

And like she’d summoned them, Arcadie came running into the restaurant, looking as if they were ready to kill them all.

“Madame Florence, into the passageway, and quickly!” Arcadie waved them on toward the back of the restaurant. “The Watch are on their way, and you cannot be here when they arrive!”

Florence moved to grab Puck by the armpits, but Marigold and Prudence flung her away from him.

“Suit yourselves.” She threw up her hands, then dug into the pockets of her dress. “Follow me, yes?”

It was the last thing Prudence wanted to do, but they didn’t have a choice. Hoisting Puck up as best they could, she and Mari shuffled behind her. The sight of Beatrice’s tear-streaked face kept her going. She kept shifting her grip on her father’s hand as though that might make his fingers move.

Florence led them into the kitchen. It was twice as big as Prudence’s kitchen at the estate, with three woodburning stoves and a giant island countertop made of whisperwood.

Beefsteaks and lamb chops bled on porcelains trays, while freshly baked bread still smelling of yeast and bowls of starpeaches and grapes sat abandoned, as though someone had run into the kitchen and told the entire staff to scatter.

A screaming kettle sat abandoned on one of the stovetops. Thankfully, Florence set it down on the island in the middle of the room, delivering them from another earsplitting noise.

“I really am sorry,” she said as they continued past the stoves, where a few braceberry pies were browned past the point of saving.

“He ran in all sweaty and nervous, asking me to help him with his daughter. That’s only ever happened once in the past, when a man told me that if I didn’t take his afflicted daughter away, he would kill her himself. ”

“Bastard,” Prudence spat between labored breaths.

“But in fairness, I could have let your friend finish his sentence.”

Beatrice walked with her hands clasped tight, staring at Puck like he was dead already. She’d started to shiver again, though Prudence couldn’t tell if it was shock or sickness. All she knew was her shoulders were starting to come out of their sockets bearing Puck’s dead weight.

“How much farther?” she asked.

Florence didn’t answer but darted over to the curiously blank wall in the far-right corner. Pressing a hand to one of the bricks, she pushed the tips of her index and pinkie fingers into two notches that looked like natural grooves worn away by age.

A lock or some other kind of mechanism clicked, and a gust of cold wind cut through the room. Flattening her palms against the stone wall, Florence shoved it backward. The wind intensified as the doorway appeared, an arch that led into a wall of shadows.

In the last six days, Prudence had seen more secret doorways than she’d ever seen during her tenure as a street rat and a prostitute.

“After you,” Florence said.

Prudence and Marigold dragged Puck through the doorway, which deposited them into a staircase, one that wound around a thick stone column. It was cold, damp, with a mildew-like smell wafting up from below.

As the door closed behind them, shouts boomed through the kitchens, muffled words Prudence could barely make out, save for Arcadie’s. “Gentlemen, I assure you, all you’ll find in there is bread !”

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately, with Puck’s dead weight to carry—Florence took them up instead of down.

It was only as Pru’s arms began to shake that the steps leveled out, and Florence unlocked a door and led them into an elegant corridor, some hidden corner of the hotel reserved for special guests.

The floors were covered in a carpet that looked like the night sky—a shade deeper than indigo and decorated in silver stars.

“Here.” Florence guided them over to one of the rooms, using what seemed to be a master key to open it before ushering them inside. “Quickly.”