Chapter 20 #2
Offering Biscuit a chunk of leftover gingerbread, of which she always had an abundance, Zofka leaned against her counter, trying to see the note, too. ‘Read it out, read it out,’ she chanted like an incantation.
‘Dearest Thea,’ Thea read aloud, ‘I am cheered to hear of your good health and swift recovery. I look forward to attending the Winter Ball with you on my arm. Do be assured, I am not threatened by other men.’
Zofka groaned. ‘What did you write to him?’
Thea glanced up guiltily. ‘I just wanted him to know that there was nothing . . . untoward happening when Jasper made a point of escorting me back to my bedroom.’ Though there had been earlier.
Her guilt thickened. She liked Malek and he’d been good to her.
. . Surely he was the sensible choice for her?
Zofka swatted her with a floury cloth. ‘You daft pigeon, you shouldn’t draw attention to these things!’
‘Well, I’m not exactly practised at courting!’
‘What else did he say?’
‘Though if you bore any doubts as to my intentions, here they are: I intend to win your heart. Yours, Malek.’
Thea let out a slow breath.
Zofka copied her. ‘That was . . . good,’ she admitted. ‘As much as I’m rooting for Jasper—’
Thea shot her a curious look. ‘What?’
Zofka waved a dismissive hand, ‘You’re not ready to hear that yet.’ She gestured to the note. ‘That was good though. Are you all right? You’ve gone pale.’
Thea grimaced. ‘I have no heart to be won.’
‘You don’t need to have a heart to be in a relationship with someone,’ Zofka said gently. ‘Isn’t that what you decided? That you didn’t want to be by yourself any longer?’
Thea worried at her lip. ‘Maybe.’ Something white fluttered past the windows. ‘Oh, look, the weather-witches have been experimenting with snow again.’ Thea jumped down from the counter and went to look outside, followed by Zofka.
When they stepped out onto the street, Thea was first to realise. ‘That’s not snow.’
‘They’re notes,’ Zofka exclaimed.
Hundreds of notes, folded into the shape of birds, were whirling through the Magic Quarter, coaxing its residents outside. Talibah emerged from the Lantern. On spotting them, she hurried over.
The white paper was luminous against the black skies, drawing the attention of a couple of pixies, who flitted from cobblestone to cobblestone, trying to catch one. More than one note set alight when its paper wings flew too close to the witch light street lamps, scattering the evening with embers.
Rose peered out of her window, already in her sleeping cap, vanished, then reappeared with a Venus flytrap, sending it spiralling up. The plant’s jaws clamped around one of the notes and shot back to Rose, who shut her window and vanished again.
The notes settled onto the cobblestones like snowflakes.
Thea bent to retrieve one.
‘Take care.’ Zdenka, the fortune teller, materialised in robes of violet satin. ‘They’re a portent of doom.’
Thea tightened her hold on the note, unfolding it in a hurry. When she glanced up, Zdenka had vanished again.
‘Ignore them,’ Zofka said, ‘They like to rustle up drama.’
But Thea had already read the note. She handed it to Zofka with an unsteady hand. ‘They’re not wrong.’
‘I’m coming for you, Theodora,’ Zofka read aloud. When her gaze rose to meet Thea’s, it was filled with fear as dark as night. The witch light street lamps flared, emerald-green flames licking higher, as if they could burn away the threat.
Talibah began picking up other notes, unfolding them one at a time. ‘They all say the same.’ She started collecting handfuls, then armfuls, and still the notes kept coming, flying down into the Quarter on sharply folded paper wings.
The words ricocheted through Thea’s bones.
‘You were right,’ she told Zofka bleakly.
‘Biscuit being nailed to my door, that note . . . I was the target all along. What if I’m the reason that someone attacked the wards and sent Pan Novak in against us?
What if—’ She grabbed Zofka’s arm. ‘What if I came to Jasper looking for a deal because I was in hiding?’
‘You could be.’ Zofka squeezed Thea’s hand. ‘But as valued as you are to me, I doubt you are the reason that Hunters were sent in to cause chaos in the Quarter.’
Thea did not relax. ‘Perhaps. But someone’s sending these threats.’
Ignoring the witch light, more notes nosedived down onto the three women. Thea yelped and covered her head with her arms, shielding her face as they ran into the apothecary.
Talibah yanked the door shut as another volley of bird-notes slammed into the wood. She slid the bolts firmly across.
‘Who would want to threaten me?’ Thea watched the notes pile up against the window like drifts of snow. ‘And why?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ Talibah said grimly.
Thea rested her head against the glass. ‘My customers have just started returning. If they hear of this, they’ll be frightened away for good.’
‘They won’t.’ Zofka nodded to the window. ‘The Magic Quarter protects its own – look.’
Thea looked up.
Rose was shuffling by, holding flower baskets stuffed with notes, feebly flapping their wings as she shoved more in.
Zdenka was gathering more at her side. A quartet of the widest gowns Thea had ever seen waltzed past by themselves, their skirts sweeping up more notes like opulent brooms. In their wake, walked Fleur.
Even Wojslav had joined their ranks, though he looked less than pleased about it.
The skulk of vulpine shape-shifters were running around in their fox forms, using their tails to brush notes into a heap, which a flock of weather-witches then razed to ash with witch light.
And Paní Dagmar seemed to be waving her hands around, conducting notes to fly straight into that witch light.
‘Maybe she’s a weather-witch after all?’ Talibah pondered.
‘Could be,’ Zofka mused.
It wasn’t until Talibah and Zofka had left for their own homes that fear overshadowed Thea once more.
Somebody was targeting her. But who? The more Thea discovered, the less she knew.
Except for one thing: she couldn’t delay in asking Jasper for a new deal any longer. It was time to get her memories back.