Page 4 of Song of the Hell Witch

Puck’s face brightened at her obvious discomfort, the way it used to whenever he was trying to energize their little thief troupe before a particularly difficult job. He should have been born a duke or an earl, someone who could have real influence in Leora.

But babies found on the steps of the Apostle’s abbey rarely grew up to be anything at all.

“The Watch has busted into three homes in the last week without a warrant,” Puck continued.

“Nearly arrested Marney back there ’cause she wouldn’t turn her eleven-year-old grandson in for gambling in the alley behind her tenement.

Wanna know what he was really doing? Playing Kettle with his mates for a few lyran. ”

“Pissants!” Marney and Arthur chorused.

“There’s easily six Watchmen for every one in the Silk, Fred.” Puck’s voice was night-sky smooth. “Mind if I call you Fred?”

“Your Grace,” Frederick corrected him with a snarl.

“I’m not asking for extra blankets or extra food or anything that’s gonna force you to go to the Apostles for some big donation, all right? Just get the boots off our necks, mate.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a command, Thief Lord.” Frederick propped his elbows up on the armrests of his chair and steepled his fingers, his frustration palpable.

Maybe it was the fact that her legs had gone numb.

Maybe it was her thoughts, unable to congeal into anything resembling sense.

But before she could gain control of her body, Prudence stood up far too quickly.

Her head swam, and as she stumbled back, Frederick reached for her while Puck lunged. Somehow, it was Puck’s hand she caught.

A marriage knot peeked out from beneath his shirt sleeve, the indigo ink snaking once around his thumb before coiling into his palm.

He is married, then. And proud enough to show the world. The jealousy knifed her in the lung.

“You all right, Pru?” he asked.

They both tensed at the old nickname, and her eyes went wide, pleading with him to find a way out of it.

As far as Frederick was concerned, she was the daughter of a textile merchant killed as Visage set up its embargo lanes.

That was the lie she’d sold. “Uh … Prim? Primrose? What was your name again, Duchess?”

“Prudence,” she mumbled.

“Oh, Prudence. Sorry, I’m shit with names.” He winked at her, and she desperately wanted to read it as forgiveness, but she knew him too well for that. No, that wink translated to Saved your skin twice tonight. Your turn, Spitfire. “Beautiful necklace you got there. Wedding present?”

“You know, I think we’re all a little tired, what with the drama of the last half hour.” Forcing a breath, she yanked her hand out of Puck’s grasp and turned to her husband. “Darling, why don’t we start the dances?”

“What a wonderful idea. Mr. Reed, I’ll mull your request over, shall I?

” Frederick stiffly rose from his seat, massaging his sore hip.

Once recovered, he clapped his hands, summoning the room’s attention.

“My friends! If we could have the servants clear the banquet tables, my wife requests we dance!”

The guests cheered and partnered off, the rustling of skirts and clicking of shoes growing that much more pronounced.

Crisp air rushed in as the servants threw open the patio doors, the bite signaling the first gasps of autumn, the damp a coming storm.

The kitchen staff cleared the tables away, and to Frederick’s obvious horror, Puck’s entourage scattered, blending in with the crowd.

He’d likely hoped the dancing would drive them back to their life of squalor.

“I … Mr. Reed, are you …” He began the sentence three times but never managed to finish it.

“Oh, my lot love a good party,” Puck told him. “And it’s not like you’d turn away your constituents, would you?”

“I …” Frederick adjusted the cravat at his throat and flashed Puck a vacant smile. “Of course not.”

The quartet struck up the first dance of the night—the Thrill, a combination of the elegant Belacans Trellio and a jig danced in most of the taverns and pubs around Leora.

“Darling, why don’t I give Mr. Reed the first dance tonight and we can finish this business about the Watch, hmm?

” Prudence asked, unsure why she wanted to place herself so close to Puck, to give them the opportunity to speak alone.

Closure, perhaps. Maybe the chance to explain. She had so much to explain. “Trust me.”

Before Frederick could tell her no, forbid her from following her own mind, she whisked Puck out onto the dance floor, more than a little proud of her pluck. Across the room, Fortuna Braithwaite’s mouth fell open, an added bonus.

Puck went rigid as a statue as she placed one hand in his and rested the other between his shoulders.

This close, it was easier to spot the changes the last twelve years had wrought.

A scar curved around the outside of his right eye, a half-moon that skirted the top of his cheekbone.

The furrows in his brow were more pronounced, but she saw the laugh lines around his eyes too. Her throat threatened to close.

“Wrap your arm around my waist.” It sounded like an order, and she hated herself for it.

His cheeky grin faltered. “You gonna give me what I want?”

“Take me for a spin around the room, and I’ll think about it.”

Huffing, he folded his arm around her and shuffled out into the throng.

His footwork was clumsy, like that of a colt fresh from its mother’s womb. She took the lead, counting “One, two, three” to get him into the rhythm. More than once she stepped on his toes, but he never flinched. He still wouldn’t look at her, though. Not completely.

“Glad to see your time away was so enriching,” he said. “Learning dances, how to stand up straight.”

“If you’d give me a second, maybe I could tell you—”

He shook his head, cutting her off. “I don’t care about your reasons, Pru. Trust me, if I didn’t have to come talk to your lump of a husband, I’d never even think of you.”

“Oh.” The blade sank deeper, calling up tears she refused to let him see. Bowing her head, she stared at her jeweled ballet shoes, which sparkled with actual emeralds. “Well, I’d … practically forgotten as it was.”

“Yeah. That pendant definitely says as much.”

“This?” She glanced down at the ruby, the golden back suddenly burning into her breastbone. “I found it in one of my trunks when I came back to Leora. No idea where it came from.”

He knows when you lie. He always knows.

“Right.” His eyes, usually bright as an autumn sky, went murky as the River Whip. “So. Back to the Watch.”

Business. Focus on business.

“Frederick’s never going to pull them back from the Podge.” She twirled once under his arm, then spun in close once more. A single breath and her chest would kiss his. “The Silks think it’s a cesspool for crime.”

“By Silks, you mean you too?”

Breathing around the stone lodged between her lungs, she cleared her throat. “Let me work him a bit. He’s not as malleable in front of crowds this big, but once I get him alone …”

“And show him those wings he loves so much?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Pru.” He scoffed as the music slowed and the first dance came to an end.

“The whole country knows the man has a Hell Witch fetish. His brother just announced it in front of the entire room. And I know how good you are at using people, making them think you care so you can get exactly what you want. You’re using him, just like you used—”

The seam where the wings usually split through her skin bubbled like acid.

That part of the fury she could counter, but her mind was so focused on keeping the Vultress locked away, she couldn’t stop herself from seizing the collar of Puck’s shirt.

He threw his hands up in what looked like surrender, though the smirk on his face was meant as another slap.

The gossips around them clapped their hands to their mouths.

It was yet another display, a crack in Prudence’s otherwise immaculate mask.

The rumored commoner, the supposed beast, stood blustering before them.

Pull back, Prudence. You have to pull back. She couldn’t give them any sign that Paris’s accusations were true.

Sucking in breath after breath, she let go of him.

“ Hornsby! ” Frederick’s voice boomed through the manor for a second time, and in seconds, the Watchmen marched back into the room. Their hands clapped down on Puck’s shoulders as Frederick’s closed over hers. “Did he hurt you, my darling?”

She glared at Puck. His throat bobbed in a swallow, and while she knew this wasn’t his first, second, or even third run-in with the City Watch, she spied something in his face that never used to be there.

Puck Reed was afraid .

She did owe him something. And while she’d intended to talk Frederick into kicking the Watch out of the Podge, this seemed more important. He wanted—no, he needed —to get home. Back to his wife and the life he’s made with her.

“He didn’t hurt me,” she said. “But it’s time he and his friends leave.”

“Hear, hear!” a gentleman shouted behind her.

Puck’s body relaxed as Marney, Arthur, and the beautiful woman rushed up to meet him. He shirked off the Watchman’s grip, and the entire ballroom held its breath as he stepped toward Frederick.

“You take my concern to the House of Lords,” he said. “And remember, Duke Talonsbury. The people of the Podge are the backbone of this city. Be a real shame if they decided they didn’t wanna be mistreated no more.”

It was the first slipup he’d had all night, the once-illiterate street rat breaking through.

“Take them out,” Frederick commanded.

Hornsby and his men herded Puck and his group out of the ballroom, toward the foyer and the front door. But before he disappeared completely, Puck finally looked straight at her.

This time, when he winked, her knees almost buckled.

Frederick massaged the tension out of her shoulders as the guests returned to the dance floor, acting as though nothing had happened at all.

“You didn’t know him, did you?” Frederick asked her.

She kept her eyes fixed on the door frame.

Her mind was a kaleidoscope of memories.

Puck, dancing with her atop the Sweetbreads Brothel long before she’d worked there, both of them howling at the Druid Moon because they could.

Puck, sprinting toward her and Marlowe with two bottles of lemon wine clutched in his hands, screaming “Go, go, go!” as they booked it toward the Rusted Gate on the northern side of the city, making a break for Kingston Wood.

Puck that very first night he found her starving and shivering and not entirely human anymore, how he was kind when he could have been scared.

“No,” she said. “No, I don’t know him.” It came out flat and dead.

It was also the truth.

“Come.” Frederick pulled her back out onto the floor. “Dance with me.”

“Your hip.”

“One dance.”

She didn’t notice it as they stepped out onto the dance floor. She wouldn’t notice for quite some time.

Her ruby pendant was gone.