Page 29 of The Moorwitch

Sylvie frowns, her eyes narrowing at me. “What? I know how to read. I read all the time. I’m notstupid.”

“That’s good.” My tone is strained, and I cannot help but hear the echo of her intolerable guardian in her words. She’s so quick to take offense, just like Mr. North. “Reading is good.”

“I had a governess once. Old Miss Teague. She smelled like beeswax. Connie fired her.”

“Why?”

“She taught me history.”

“History?Is he against history too?”

“Well ...” Sylvie winces, her fingers worrying at a seam in her sleeve. “History about Weaving, mainly. About how the Telarians—”

“Telarii,” I correct without thinking.

“Right. Those ones. Anyway, she taught me how they turned the battle of Waterloo against that wretched wee devil Napoleon.” Getting caught up in the glory of it all, Sylvie leaps about, firing an imaginaryrifle at the trees. “First, they captured Napoleon’s battle standard, weakening the magic barriers around the Imperial Guard! Then—”

“Your brother fired her for teaching youbasic history?” I ask.

She pauses and looks at me, her rifle-arm lowering. “Ach. Well. I might have bribed her to go into more detail than necessary about the magic behind Napoleon’s battle standard.”

“Itwasa good piece of spellwork,” I admit. “Come on, then. I’ll walk you back home.”

I hadn’t planned to return to Ravensgate, but I can’t very well leave Sylvie to be preyed upon, should her tormentors return for vengeance.

She grins, linking arms with me. “Will you show me how you did that thing with the wool bundles just now? What sort of magic was it?”

Her brother’s face flashes in my memory, his eyes stern as he commanded me to not practice magic in his house. And despite the fact we’re well away from Ravensgate, I still hesitate.

“Please?” Sylvie begs. “I won’t tell Connie, I swear it on my—”

“No need for swearing,” I cut in. The gesture may be empty without a vowknot to seal them, but still the words make me uneasy. “But all right. I will show you. Just don’t mention it to your brother.”

As we walk back to the manor, I thread several hovering knots for her, letting her tie them to little branches, then quietly channeling into them. She crows with delight every time one floats away. She’s a fast learner, her fingers quick.

“A week after I was sent to school,” I say, “the other girls tied my hair to my bedposts and pretended they were going to cut off my ears. I cried all night.”

“Children are beasts,” she replies. “I should know. I am one.”

From what I’ve seen, though, children are more like mirrors, reflecting the attitudes of the adults around them. Those girls in school would never have singled me out if the teachers had not gossiped about me first.That one is fae touched; mind her closely. Wicked hands Weave wicked spells.I had told myself I didn’t mind, that I’d rather have focusedon learning Weaving over making friends anyway. But I know what it is to be lonely.

I take Sylvie’s hand and hold it tight as we walk. The road bends away from the forest and into the moors. In the bushes, a few red highland cattle graze lazily, lowing at us and shaking their great shaggy heads.

“Sylvie,” I say, “why does your brother dislike magic so much?”

“I think ...” Her voice hitches. “I think it has to do with our pa. I think magic might have killed him.”

“Was he a Weaver?”

“I don’t know. Connie will never tell me anything about him, or my mum neither. He and I had different mums, but his died and mine ran away. I guess she must have died too, because she never came back for me.” She lets out a huff of breath, then changes the subject. “Where’syourmum and dad?”

“They got sick,” I reply, lost for a moment in memory so faint it’s little more than a scent in my nose—baking bread, a cottage on a hill, strong hands hoisting me into the air. The sadness is a coil of cold wind around my ankles, swirling and then fading again. “And so did my uncle. It was just me and my aunt until ... she couldn’t care for me anymore.”

She nods. “Like me and Connie.”

“A bit.”

“He’s not abadbrother, you know. Just overprotective. And once he makes his mind up, not the Fates themselves could change it. Or so Mrs. MacDougal says. He never lets me go anywhere or do anything! We used to get invitations from other families, you know, for balls and parties and such. Even some as far as Stirling or Edinburgh! But he declined them all, and the invitations stopped coming.”