Page 68 of The Unbound Witch

The silence was so loud it crept along my skin, causing a ringing in my ears. As if I were seeking noise so desperately, my mind conjured what was not there. I twisted my wrist, lighting the red candle in the window, as I promised Bastian I would do. Wandering our home, I lit the others, one by one, remembering the last time I was here. The day of Kirsi’s funeral.

“It’s empty,” she whispered, clicking the door shut. “But he’s been here. There’s a note.”

Stepping toward the door, I snagged the piece of paper nailed into the frame.

The only safe place for you now is behind me. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.

Anger billowing,I ripped the note to shreds, lighting each individual piece in a lone candle as I pictured his imminent demise. The single look on his face the instant before death snatched him away forever.

I blew out the red candle and lit it three times. The signal to take cover and wait. And so we did. After moving the couch toward the window, I sat on it to watch for movement and time to pass. I didn’t know if he’d even try to go back to the shop after destroying it. I knew it was him, though. He’d taken extra care to avoid the small things that he knew were most precious to me. My grandmother’s apron. The small line of glass vials along the shelf closest to the door with the last bit of herbs she’d ever gathered. The blanket over the cot in the back I’d wrapped myself in the night she died. No one else would have known what those things meant to me. No one else would have taken such care.

He’d been to my parents’ house every day, though. He was still searching. And if not at Crescent Cottage and not at my first home, this was the only logical place he might find me. A place where we had memories together.

My eyelids drew heavier and heavier as I waited. But the moment I slipped into sleep, Bastian was there on the threshold of my mind.

“Wake up, Little Witch. You cannot sleep.”

“He’s been here,” I answered with a yawn in my dream.

Bastian closed the blank space between us, gripping my arms. “Do not hesitate. If you feel threatened at all, kill him. No information is worth your life. You have that spell for a reason.”

“I can hold him off until Clariss comes. Have faith in me.”

“I have all the faith in the world in you. It’s him I have a problem with.”

He jerked away from me in my dream, vanishing without another word.

“Raven,” Kirsi hissed in my ear, yanking me from my sleep. “I think he’s here.”

The sharp snap of rocks beneath the hoof of a horse whipped through the room. I leapt to my feet, heart instantly racing as I realized I didn’t know what I’d do to start this. I gripped the tin box in my pocket as I slipped to the bedroom in the back, holding my breath as the door crept open and heavy footfalls broke the tension-filled silence.

“Raven?”

I gasped, stepping into the hall as I heard my father’s voice.

“Raven, your mother is worried and sent me to check after you. Are you here?”

Seconds became minutes in my mind as I weighed the option of answering or not. Bastian was going to come flying through that door if I didn’t give him the signal soon. Which meant I really had no choice.

“I’m here,” I said calmly, walking out from the back room, rubbing my eyes as if I’d been completely asleep.

“You didn’t lock the door?” my father asked, but there was something different in his eyes, some kind of spark I’d witnessed when he was full of fight, but yet his body, his posture, were all calm, apart from the hand resting on the knife in his belt, the milky white moonstone, our namesake, practically glowing in the faint light.

I’d seen preternatural calm before, felt it. Like being trapped in one’s own body. My heart sank to my toes as I realized what was happening.

“I’d hoped Nikos would come for me. I’m waiting for him.”

Then there was sadness. A swell of it as his eyebrows turned in. Nikos had forced him to come first. To be the sacrificial pig before he would enter. And my father was only a victim. Perhaps they both always were. My heart ached at that thought. A truth I’d never considered.

“Would you like to take a look around? Make sure everything looks okay?”

That must have been what he was ordered to do. I let the flame flicker in the candle. A signal to Bastian and company to hold back.

Walking behind my father, I wondered if he was scared of what might lurk in the shadows behind me. If he thought for sure he would meet his maker here and now, forced to face whatever it was in this world that might protect me from Nikos. Because he was only the bait. Just as I was. But I could see him through this. Make sure he got out and gave whatever sign was needed.

“Where is Kirsi?” my father asked, his tone suspicious, the words hardly his own.

“She has her own path to follow, Father. She cannot be tangled in mine. These are dangerous times.”