Chapter 13
Anne
Gisa had told them the truth—there was a door at the end of the hallway, and Anne crashed into it, fumbling for the latch.
With a heave, she and Lina tumbled out into an alleyway, lucky that the road was so narrow that the stone wall across the way kept them from falling face-first onto the ground.
Gisa’s bag slammed first into Anne’s hip, then into the stone with a crunch.
Anne hoped whatever was inside wasn’t too valuable.
“Left, left,” Lina urged, shoving Anne along. She was limping, but it hardly slowed her.
There—there was Guillen and the carriage, just as Gisa had said. The Spaniard looked up from the book he had balanced on his lap, his jaw dropping in surprise at their frenzied arrival.
“My ladies, you’re back so soon—”
“Drive!” Lina ordered, wrenching open the door and throwing her bag onto the floor before all but diving in herself. “Now!”
“No!” Anne held up a staying hand to Guillen, who looked more confused than before. “She said to wait for her.”
Lina motioned for Anne to get inside. “She’ll be lucky to make it out of her house alive, and we’re no good to her or anyone if we get ourselves killed too.”
“This is our mission,” Anne argued, crossing her arms. “I won’t give up now when we’ve only just begun.”
“My ladies…” Guillen began. Anne turned toward him in time to see the young man point a trembling finger in the direction they had come. “Is that who we are waiting for?”[*1]
Gisa d’Arc strode down the alley like a warrior goddess of old.
Blood streaked her dress and coated her sword hand, a crimson glove from fingertips to elbow.
The blade itself shone in the winter sunlight, reflecting an eerie, luminous glow onto the planes of Gisa’s face.
If Anne had harbored any remaining doubts that this woman was of Jeanne d’Arc’s blood, those doubts vanished completely.
Anne had sat in the audience at the Tower gallows on more than one occasion.
She’d even watched her own body double die.
But she had never seen someone fight—and kill—the way Gisa d’Arc just had.
And the prescient state she had seen Gisa slip into not once but twice…
Anne didn’t fully understand mysticism, but she could feel magick when it moved, and this woman made the very air tremble.
She wanted that power. She wanted that sword.
The block that had existed in her mind, the one that had kept her cautious about using her own magick these last few months, was ripped away like a blindfold, and brilliant light filled her eyes.
How could Anne have ever feared her gift when it made everything about her sharper, lighter, brighter?
She wanted to go back into Gisa’s house, take her bloodletting knife, and fight a battle of her own.
“Thank you for waiting,” Gisa said when she reached them. She hefted her own bag into the carriage and stepped in to sit beside Lina, who regarded the girl with barely concealed alarm. “But we should go now, before the captain of the Orléans guard realizes six of his soldiers are dead.”
Gisa refused to say more until they returned to the abbey.
Guillen wrapped the mystic in a horse blanket to cover up her bloody clothes, and Anne and Lina smuggled her—and her three bags—into their room.
Anne used a diversion spell to keep the abbey’s inhabitants from looking too closely and noticing the red splatters on Gisa’s face.
She was pleased when her curse worked perfectly, despite the new cut along the back of her hand.
“What is in here?” Anne asked Gisa, finally setting her bag on the ground as Lina closed the door behind them.
“My most important items. My brothers know to gather the rest from my home and keep it safe until I send for them.”
The small, square room felt overcrowded with three people, and the reek of drying blood began to overwhelm the space.
Anne and Lina retreated to the farthest edge of the room, sitting side by side on Anne’s bed.
Meanwhile, Gisa had shed the blanket and was peeling off her ruined clothes, feeding them to the embers of the fire that burned in the hearth.
Soon she was down to only her chemise, and beneath the worn-to-sheerness fabric, Anne could see the swirls of blue markings tattooed across the woman’s shoulders, back, chest, belly, and thighs.
Gisa caught her stare. “I bear the prophecies of my foremothers, lest they be forgotten. Now, can you bespell this room so no one hears?”
Anne froze. She hadn’t told Gisa she was a witch, and she also hadn’t thought the mystic had seen her use her bloodletting knife when they entered the abbey.
“I sense your power, just as you do mine,” Gisa said. To prove her point, she added, “Anne Boleyn.”
Lina gripped Anne’s arm in surprise, or perhaps in warning. Anne’s own heartbeat tripled its efforts, the thrum of blood in her ears almost making it too loud to hear. With as much composure as she could manage, she cast the curse that would ward their quarters against any eavesdroppers.
“How do you know that name?” Lina demanded.
“I have been dreaming for some weeks now that you two were coming to find me, and I sensed you harbored a secret. After seeing the visions, I realized I recognized your face.” She looked from Anne to Lina.
“Both of your faces. I presume there is something very interesting afoot if two dead English queens have come all this way for me.”
Anne couldn’t muster a response to that, but it mattered not, for Gisa kept talking.
“I do not know everything.” The mystic moved to the washbasin, attacking her bloody hands and face with the bar of fine Castile soap they had brought from Santa Cruz.
Anne watched with no small amount of dismay as the olive-oil bar turned from off-white to pink.
“That is a common misconception about mystics, but each gift is different. My ancestor, Jeanne d’Arc, could dream the potential future for all of France.
The weight of that power was her undoing, but it was glorious. ”
The young woman sounded wistful, at least until she began scrubbing anew at her nails and her tone shifted back to pragmatic.
“My sight is nearly perfectly precise about my own future—down to waking dreams, which is how I knew the duke’s soldiers would arrive when they did.
The farther I get from myself, the murkier my visions become and the more it costs me to see them clearly.
I can divine truths for my friends and family, but less for strangers. ”
She placed a soapy hand over her left shoulder, leaving a damp handprint over one of her larger tattoos.
“This is what Jeanne saw, from the fairy tree to crowning Charles VII to raising the siege of Orléans to her own death. My other foremothers have named kings and queens long before their births, predicted wars and plagues, and even seen the newest stars before they joined the sky. I do not yet know what my great prophecies will be, but I have a feeling they are tied up with the two of you.”
There it was again, that feeling of magick shifting in the air. The hairs on the back of Anne’s neck rose in response.
Gisa gave up on her washing efforts and set the soap aside, drying her hands on the hem of her chemise. She perched herself on the end of the other bed, looking at Anne and Lina expectantly. “I assume that is everything you wish to know. Now, why is it you have come for me?”
Lina didn’t bite. “First, you must tell us what happened back there with the soldiers.”
“Oh, that.” Gisa shrugged. “The bishop of Orléans has been looking for an excuse to be rid of me for some time now. He prefers his mystics to be the God-fearing types, and I am…well, not that. I was given the benefit of the doubt on account of my heritage, but once it became clear I was not the second coming of Jeanne d’Arc, holy maiden liberator of Orléans, he grew impatient.
He sent an assassin to kill me last week, I assume because a mystic who offers no visions of saints or angels is little better than a witch. ”
“Why an assassin? Why not arrest or exile you?” Anne asked. She didn’t bother to conceal her curiosity, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
Gisa smirked. “You underestimate how popular the d’Arc legacy is in Orléans.
To come out against one of us without irrefutable proof would incite a riot.
[*2] So the bishop sent his man instead, hoping to do the job quietly.
The soldiers today were following up on the death of that assassin, thinking a murder charge would be enough to put me behind bars. ”
“But now you’ve killed six more people,” Lina pointed out. She didn’t sound nearly as impressed as Anne felt. “And had to flee your home.”
Gisa nodded. “I know. I saw such a future. I am curious where it leads me.”
Anne didn’t know what to make of the woman.
The mystic was young, brimming with untapped power, and even more irreverent than Anne herself.
What kind of upbringing had Gisa had? Who had inked those prophecies into her skin?
How did she wield a hundred-year-old sword with such ease?
What would her prophecies hold? How long before she began to lose her mind to her magick?
Most importantly: Could she be trusted?
“We’re here on behalf of the Hellebore Sisterhood,” Anne began.
She and Lina explained their mission, leaving out details like the name of Marguerite’s university and who exactly was in charge of the Sisterhood.
Given that Gisa had slain six soldiers earlier that morning, Anne doubted the mystic would go running to the authorities, but it was best to err on the side of caution until they had the full measure of the d’Arc heir.
“You are hoping I can act as a sort of connector between mystics in Europe?” Gisa asked when they finished. “To help you find witches in danger?”
Lina nodded. “That is correct.”
Gisa considered this for a moment. “I am not certain if my powers extend that far. I have dream walked, but only with my great-grandmother before she died. It would take time, and study, to be able to enter the dreams of a mystic who did not invite me there.”
Anne couldn’t stop her shoulders from slumping at that revelation. Without Gisa and her ability to communicate with other mystics, their mission would be a thousandfold more difficult.
“But, if it is any help,” Gisa added, “I do know where you could find two witches right now.”
Skip Notes
*1 This reminds me, I ought to increase Guillen’s pay. The boy had come to Santa Cruz with his mother, who was one of our earliest recruits for the hospital. To this day, he is one of my most trusted staff.
*2 She is not wrong. Jeanne d’Arc is one of my country’s most beloved figures, and the bishop could have easily lost his seat for taking a stand against the d’Arc family, even if one of their number had cursed the entire city.