Chapter 7
The front door of my shop was locked from the inside.
A chain latched the door closed, leaving a gap too narrow for me to reach through. I groaned in exasperation. This was Mrs. Lewis’s doing, no doubt, but why she did it was another question. Perhaps merely some Friday amusement on her part.
At least it had stopped raining.
I shut the door and rounded to the back of the building, where the rusted fire escape rungs led up to the second floor window.
It had never been opened before, but it was worth a try.
I wiped my hands on my skirt and hefted myself up the fire escape, one rung at a time.
The rusted metal bit into my palms, but luckily I had callouses aplenty.
When I finally reached the window, I made the mistake of looking down. The alleyway below was dizzyingly far away. The pavement was slick with fresh rain, the moisture highlighting its unforgiving ridges and cracks.
I swallowed, carefully grabbing the bottom of the window and pushing it up. It was encrusted with grime, but after some effort, it gave. The window opened with an ear-splitting screech.
I tumbled inside the building into the stairwell, nearly falling down the steps in the process.
“What is going on down there?” Mrs. Lewis demanded. Clunky footsteps sounded from the flight of steps above, until a pair of slippered feet came into view. The landlady set her arms akimbo as she glared down at me.
I unhooked my leg from the windowsill and stumbled to my feet. “The front door was locked,” I said with a huff. “I had to get inside. Didn’t you need soap?”
“Well!” Mrs. Lewis said, as if she were dealt a great insult. “You are no longer welcome here.”
“Excuse me?” Surely I hadn’t heard correctly. “I paid my rent yesterday.”
“It has come to my attention that my daughter Prilla needs a place to stay,” Mrs. Lewis continued, undeterred.
I sputtered. “So? You can’t kick me out for no reason!”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I have a reason. You have been stealing from me, witch girl. Explain this!”
She held something white up. My eyes widened at the bodice of Narcissa’s gown in her gnarled hand. I had used Mrs. Lewis’s thread to secure the beading along the neckline.
That’s it. You’re done for, Gigi, my inner voice said.
But my real voice didn’t want to succumb so quickly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said airily, straightening my skirts as I stood face-to-face with my landlady.
Her spine was straight for her age, so she was nearly my height, but I was still two inches taller.
I used that to look down on her. “If you would kindly give that back. That’s for a particularly illustrious client. ”
Mrs. Lewis shook the bodice. “The thread along these seams! I know the luster of it from a mile away! They were spun from the finest Olderean-bred silkworms, which I had harvested and refined myself thirty-four years ago!”
My mouth opened, then closed. Who knew Mrs. Lewis would recognize that bit of thread? She had sharper eyesight than I’d thought. “It was hardly a yard of thread,” I said, my face heating. Stealing from her was not my proudest moment, but it wasn’t as if she were a saint either.
Mrs. Lewis pointed a trembling finger at me. “I knew your kind was the unsavory sort. The flippant way you use magic is bad enough, but add onto that your thievery and insolence!”
She marched down the last flight of steps and strode into my shop, thrusting open the curtains past the fitting room.
I followed. My jaw dropped at the state of the place.
The shelves were swept clean, nary a bolt of fabric in sight.
Nearly every drawer was open, the contents upturned onto the jacquard rug.
Pins, tapes, and loose threads littered the floor and countertop.
Charred paper pattern pieces lay crumpled beneath the fireplace mantlepiece.
She must’ve rifled through everything when I was gone.
“Clearly I have been too lenient toward you,” Mrs. Lewis said. “You are no longer welcome here and I will collect what you owe me.”
“Collect what I owe you?” I ran to the counter, looking at the empty storefront display that should have held mannequins with dresses on them. Even my shelves of fabric were gone. “My fabric...those dresses. They weren’t yours to take!”
“Hah! Now you know the taste of your own medicine, eh?” Mrs. Lewis sneered. “But you are wrong, girl. Everything on this floor is now mine, as repayment for the damage you’ve done and the scandal you breed. I should have never leased my property to the likes of you.”
“You wouldn’t still have this property if it weren’t for me!” I burst out. “No one wanted to rent this place!”
“Don’t you talk back to me, witch!” Mrs. Lewis said, marching toward me.
Rage simmered underneath my skin, along with an answering thrum of magic.
It always reacted with anger. I gripped the countertop.
Inches from my hand was an overturned box of buttons, beneath which were two scraps of paper, both an angry tomato red, inked with the foul symbols I had drawn last winter to hypnotize Dominic Turner, a convicted traitor of the crown.
It would only take a second to stick one on Mrs. Lewis’s forehead. I could make her taste her own slap. Return my belongings. Leave this place and give it to me.
Something like fear flashed in Mrs. Lewis’s eyes, and I realized that the overturned box, as well as everything on the counter, was rattling from the agitation of my magic.
I abruptly turned away and unhooked the chain from the front door. “This shop is everything I have,” I said quietly, refusing to cry in front of someone who would surely revel in my tears.
“Then you’ll go back to that village of yours?” Mrs. Lewis asked almost gleefully.
I fumed. “You have no right.”
“I have every right,” Mrs. Lewis said haughtily. “It was in the contract you signed.”
My face grew hot again. “What contract?” I asked, even as I knew the answer.
Mrs. Lewis had provided a contract upon leasing—a custom I found rather odd as there were no such things in Witch Village.
In the village, one’s word was as good as binding.
A promise between witches was its own type of magic.
I didn’t bother reading the dense text as a result and had signed it without a second thought.
And thereby allowed Mrs. Lewis to do whatever she liked to me.
Careless, I thought miserably. You really are just a foolish girl.
“Go then, before I call the city guard,” Mrs. Lewis said smugly. She knew the city guard would never take my side. My witch identity aside, I had willingly signed my own doom.
My feet felt rooted to the ground. This shop really was all I had. Luckily, my essentials were all in the bottomless satchel around my shoulder. If I had left it here, Mrs. Lewis would’ve claimed it. The hateful hag.
Before I could make my exit, the door burst open, nearly smacking me in the face. I stumbled back.
“Giselle, I came for—” Maddox stood at the door, his jaw going slack as he took in the state of the shop, disheveled and nearly empty. “What’s all this?”
Mrs. Lewis practically swelled with indignation as she brushed herself off.
“I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get out of my sight,” she hissed at me, then stalked back to the stairs through the fitting room.
It appeared she deemed Maddox important-looking enough to pause her tirade for the time being
The curtains had barely settled before I headed to the shelves to sweep anything useful left into my satchel—half-finished spools of thread, a packet of needles, a pincushion, a length of velvet ribbon. Better to take these now when Mrs. Lewis wasn’t watching.
Maddox stepped inside. “What happened? You didn’t get robbed, did you?”
“It seems I’m evicted,” I said curtly, grateful that my voice didn’t tremble.
“But your things...”
“Mrs. Lewis has a claim on everything and anything she likes,” I said bitterly, stuffing a yard of plain weave cotton into my satchel.
“That can’t be lawful,” Maddox said indignantly. “You should report her—” He made a move toward the fitting room, but I stopped him.
“Don’t bother. I put the nails in my own casket,” I said bitterly. Briefly, I told him about Mrs. Lewis’s leasing contract, embarrassment washing over me at my own ignorance.
“I’m sorry.” Maddox’s voice was earnest, and I knew his face would be too if I bothered to look. Why did he have to be so sensitive and serious when I didn’t want him to be?
I gritted my teeth, lest I gave in and cried.
I stuffed the remaining knickknacks on the shelves and counter into my satchel.
Maddox followed me to the back room. I tried not to notice the mannequin that no longer held Narcissa’s wedding gown.
Mrs. Lewis had her gnarled hands on it now.
On the floor, my cot was still laid out from this morning, the quilt a mess as I had left it. I knelt to roll it up.
“Do you sleep here?” Maddox said incredulously, kneeling beside me to help wrangle my sheets into my bag. “Why didn’t you tell me, or Narcissa? We could’ve gotten you situated someplace nicer.”
The back of my eyes felt hot. No. Not right now.
“Giselle.”
“What?” Instead of a demand, the word came out wobbly with suppressed tears.
Maddox squeezed my hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
The contact of his skin on mine brought back the memory of the incident.
Last winter, weeks after our initial acquaintance, we had run into each other at a tavern near the Grand Alevine Opera.
I had just bought a new smoothing iron, and he along with a few other guards were indulging in food and drink.
I indulged in the same. The music had been lively that night, and the air felt alight with possibilities; perhaps that was why I finally mustered up the courage to kiss him.
Maddox’s lips had been fuller than I expected—he always had them pinched together when he was on duty—and his hands, which had tangled in mine, were warm and rough. The kiss was heart-pounding and heady, and he had kissed me back.
Or at least that was what my drink-addled brain thought before he pushed me away.
He then stammered an apology and pretended it never happened the day after.
Maddox stood now, pulling me with him. “Come on. I’m taking you to Greenwood Abbey.”
“What?” I said, disoriented.
A sudden fanfare blared outside, bright and stately.
Beyond the window, a carriage rolled to a stop before the street, the gilded gold spokes on the wheels a stark contrast to the dreary surroundings. In the center of the wheels gleamed the royal crest, indicating that it was a palace-issued vehicle.
A scrawny man with salt and pepper hair and gold-rimmed spectacles stepped out: Ulysses, the royal steward.
I had momentarily forgotten about Crown Prince Bennett’s offer. Today was the deadline—I had to make my decision. I pulled my hand out of Maddox’s and headed to the front door. Mrs. Lewis had answered it before me. She stood, mouth agape, as Ulysses entered.
The steward looked around the ramshackle space with his brows raised. “Miss Giselle?”
“Right here,” I said, wiping my eyes and straightening my shoulders. Maddox nudged me, his eyes wide with question.
“Have you, er, considered His Highness’s offer?” Ulysses asked, stepping over an overturned stool.
I looked around at the shop that was meant to be my livelihood, now reduced to nothing. Mrs. Lewis had robbed me of everything: my supplies, my lodging, my dreams. My decision was clear.
“H-his Highness?” my now ex-landlady stuttered. She gaped at Ulysses’ pale blue coat and brass buttons polished to a high shine, each of them emblazoned with the royal crest.
“Yes, Ulysses. I’ve decided to take it,” I said, slinging my satchel over my shoulder.
“Take what?” Maddox said, bewildered.
“Oh. Hello Mr. Greenwood,” Ulysses said with a cordial bow. “It is royal business.”
“Greenwood?” Mrs. Lewis repeated faintly.
“If that is the case, Miss Giselle, you have an appointment with Crown Prince Bennett Monday morning in His Highness’s study. Have a good day.” The steward bowed again and headed out the door.
I caught it before it swung fully shut. “Goodbye, Mrs. Lewis.” I kicked over a porcelain vase near the door. It shattered into large pieces. “And clean that up, will you?”