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twenty-one

T he café by the river was small, cozy, and smelled faintly of freshly brewed tea and burnt sugar. The afternoon sun filtered through the fog, casting soft light on the cobblestone streets outside. It was the kind of place that made you want to curl up with a good book.

Grim and I settled into a small corner table, tucked away by the window, just as I spotted the man we were meeting.

Dr. Gentry Townes had a messy mop of light brown hair that curled at the ends. His large hazel eyes peered out from behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses, and he fumbled with his satchel as he approached, his keys slipping from his grasp and clattering to the floor.

For a moment, I couldn’t help but notice how… adorable he was—in an awkward, and endearing way.

“Grim, relax,” I muttered, though I knew he didn’t have it in him to do so.

“I'm just observing," he grumbled back, as he clutched his drink tighter. "His energy is... odd."

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it because Gentry was finally at our table, looking even more flustered as he apologized for his clumsy entrance.

“Dr. Townes, I presume?” I smiled at him, trying to break through his nervous energy.

He looked a little too startled, blinking rapidly behind his glasses. “Oh, yes! Sorry—uh, you can just call me Gentry. Dr. Townes is... a bit formal.”

Grim’s gaze narrowed slightly, as he gave a slow nod. “Gentry, then.” He dragged the name out, testing the man’s discomfort.

Gentry offered a faint smile, then quickly looked away as he took a seat. The server appeared once more, setting down his tea in front of him.

“Thanks for meeting us,” I said gently. “We only had a few questions about your research.”

Gentry relaxed by a fraction, enough to reach for his tea. His fingers curled around the cup. “Of course,” he said, voice careful. “Happy to help if I can.”

Grim leaned forward, elbows on the table. “We’re looking into Alice Wylde.” He said it like an accusation, as if Gentry stood trial for even knowing something about the Wylde sisters.

His posture was stiff, deliberate, and the darkness that often clung to him seemed to bloom in the space between them. To the untrained eye, it might have gone unnoticed, but I knew better. He was doing it on purpose.

I nudged him gently in the side, a silent warning to behave. “What he means,” I added quickly, “is that your work caught our attention. Your paper on Alice and the others—it was well done.”

Grim said nothing, his gaze still pinned to Gentry.

We’ve come across a few accounts of the sisters, and as my colleague mentioned on the phone, we’re doing some follow-up research,” I continued.

After we'd made our way through the park, Grim explained that he had made a call to Gentry.

Asking if he'd meet us at a café beside the Thames to talk about his paper Nemo dug up.

"I’d love to hear how you came across your source material.

Records that thorough from that era are rare. "

Gentry gave a small nod, the faintest bit of color rising in his cheeks.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, sure. I can walk you through what I have.” His whole demeanor shifted as he launched into telling us his story.

“I was on the cusp of graduating to become an anthologist, and I was helping catalog some old texts at the library. It’s fascinating—they're the first recorded deaths tied to accused witchcraft.”

I was genuinely intrigued. “That is fascinating… but I don't remember anything from your paper about Alice's death."

He nodded enthusiastically, as a smile split his face. “That's the peculiar part, she disappeared on her twenty-second birthday. But the others were hung.”

It knocked the breath from my lungs. Twenty-two. The same age I was when I was cursed…

Grim’s hand moved under the table, giving my thigh a brief, comforting squeeze. But his jaw was clenched, and I knew this was only the beginning of the strange, tangled path we were about to follow.

“What’s got you interested in the Tempest trials?” Gentry asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his voice laced with innocent curiosity.

“The Tempest trials?” Grim’s posture stiffened. He straightened, leaning in, his gaze intense.

“Yes, the trials, I mean—I’m sorry, what interest do you have in Alice?

” Gentry’s eyes lit up with the kind of eager curiosity that seemed to bypass caution entirely.

“I’ve done a lot of work on the lesser-known records, especially the ones surrounding her.

You know, it’s actually quite interesting how the phrasing changes between sources—”

“The point, doctor. Continue, please,” Grim bit out, his voice tight with barely-contained impatience. His hand trembled once more.

Gentry seemed unbothered by the interruption and continued with his explanation. “The trials leading up to Alice’s disappearance were later referred to as the Tempest Trials—named after Lord Stanton, who brought forth the formal accusations.”

“This Lord of Stanton, what was his full name?” I asked, my voice a little too sharp. In my mind, the picture of Alice and her sister Margery was still vivid.

Gentry didn’t miss a beat. “Alban Tempest, the Second. His son, Alban the Third was newly married to Alice’s twin sister, Margery, or Maggie in most of the texts. There’s not much written about her directly, though, which always struck me as odd.”

I froze, sinking back into my chair as the room tilted off-kilter. Air thinned around me, stretched taut like skin over bone. Someone said my name—once, then again—but it came from far away, dulled as if spoken beneath water.

I shot to my feet before my mind could catch up, legs already moving.

The café blurred behind me. I pushed through the door into cold air that slapped against my face.

City sounds muffled to a distant murmur.

Ahead, the river waited, glass-still, reflecting the colorless sky.

Wind brushed against my cheek. Everything else had fallen away.

Just the roar of my heartbeat remained, pulsing through my ribs echoing a warning.

Everything I thought I knew about myself, about the curse… it all felt like it was slipping away, twisted in a knot I couldn’t untangle.

If Alban Tempest was my descendant—and he had accused his own family—then what did that mean for me? If Alice really was the beginning, that meant I’d been cursed by my own blood.

I couldn’t breathe.

The door to the café chimed as it closed behind me, and I heard someones voice, faint, as though they were far off, calling my name. I blew out a breath, loud and shaky, and then called over my shoulder, my voice cracking, “I just need a second, Grim.”

“Astoria…” Gentry startled me, as he leaned over the railing next to me, his body a dark silhouette against the pale sky.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I just needed some air,” I said, facing him.

Gentry blinked, concern flickering across his face as he took a small step forward. His hand twitched at his side, “Are you okay?” he asked, voice careful, scarcely louder than the clink of silverware and the hiss of the espresso machine behind us.

Lying, I nodded yes. I took a moment to study him, trying to piece together the kind of life he must lead.

The elbow patches on his sweater, worn and frayed, were a giveaway that he had a fondness for books—perhaps he spent hours lost in obscure bookstores, pulling down dusty volumes, meticulously turning pages that others had long since forgotten.

There was a quiet rebellion in his scuffed sneakers and the way his glasses sat too large for his face, yet it suited him in a charming, unassuming way. A youthful contrast to his position as one of Oxford's youngest professors.

“They were twins?”

“Identical,” he confirmed, tone absent, the information already well-worn in his mind. “But while Alice’s name appears in nearly every account… Maggie fades after the marriage. It’s almost like she vanished into the margins.”

Alice and Margery were strikingly alike in Fate’s drawing. I swallowed hard before asking the question that had been gnawing at me. “Were the other women related? The other accused? You mentioned them briefly in your research.”

But Feo had not mentioned the other women, I’d only known about them after reading the short article Gentry wrote.

“No,” he answered, rubbing his hands together as though to warm them.

“That’s one of the most curious aspects of the Tempest trials.

There are accounts suggesting that Agatha was very close to Maggie and Alice, but the others—Colette, Agnes, Isbel, Godiva, and Matilda—were never mentioned again.

Not a single charge has survived in the documents, just their names, and the verdict.

Guilty. If I hadn’t come across their names in the records I wouldn’t have known about them at all. ”

That was strange. In his article he’d mentioned the seven women, and how they’d all been hanged in the town square. So what was it about Alice that seemed to make her the focus?

I took a slow breath, trying to steady the riot in my mind.

“Did you know that Lord Stanton’s son, Alban, married Margery only a year before the trials?” Gentry blew warm breath into his hands. “Odd timing, if you ask me.”

“No…” I replied slowly, already feeling the thread pull tighter around me.

“Can I ask something?” His tone shifted, more tentative now. “Is this… some sort of lineage thing? You’re not just here for academic curiosity.”

I offered a tight smile, trying to keep the weight out of my voice. “Something like that.”

He gave a short laugh, like he thought he was being clever.

“You do kind of look like them, you know.” He held up his phone—two sketched faces, almost mirror images of my own.

“These came from the Stanton estate archives. Lord Stanton’s father kept meticulous records, like he was building a case before the town ever formally accused anyone. ”