Chapter Twenty-Eight Vina
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vina
Of course I’ll help you in any way I can. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. Ever since the Eternal Prince woke up, London’s been full of whispers. Maybe I’ll catch something of use to you.
Come back when you can, Hari. I’ll be performing at the Theatre Royal soon. I like to think Simran would have loved it, but you’d be a better judge of that.
Source: Letter from Oliver Pryce to Hari Patel
There were places that drew witchcraft to them—where the occult naturally drifted, tale-drawn.
“Graveyards are cliché,” Hari said cheerily, holding the lamp in front of them.
Its hot orange flame flickered under glass, turning his face ghoulish in the darkness.
No part of London was ever truly lightless, but the tales wending their way through the graveyard did not know that.
“But some concepts are old hat for a reason. Witchcraft is drawn to liminal spaces—mirrors, twilight, sunrise and sunset, unlife.”
“Do you see anyone?” Vina asked, squinting through the light.
“Not yet. But we will.”
Hari had no coven, and never had. It was cunning folk he seemed to consider his circle, though he never called them that.
Some had visited now and again—Oliver, always elegantly dressed and exquisitely kind, was the one she remembered best in the parade of folk who’d arrived late and taken over the spare room, whispered with Hari over ale in the kitchen, and slipped away days later at the pale touch of dawn.
The cunning folk knew everything that went on in London, and a cunning woman called Ella had directed them to this cemetery.
Vina had wanted to come alone, in truth. But Hari had dug his heels in. When Hari had said, “It’s either me or Galath,” Vina had relented.
A wind blew through the graveyard, ice cold. Vina stopped moving.
“Stay still,” she whispered to Hari.
Hari stilled. In the darkness stood a figure, almost as gray-pale as the angels carved above the graves. A woman. Thin, wraithlike. A mouth full of sharp teeth. A revenant? A vampire? It didn’t matter. Either way, it wasn’t welcome.
“You’re not the tale I’m looking for,” said Vina apologetically. “I’m sorry.”
The hungry thing took a step toward them, legs trembling.
“You’d be wise not to touch us, friend,” said Hari. He sounded calm, friendly. But there was an edge to his voice, keen as a blade waiting to cut. “You should seek out other prey.”
The creature hesitated, then bared all those serrated teeth and lunged forward again. Vina reached for her sword—a sharp hiss of drawn steel, a lick of silver under the gloom-black sky—but Hari was faster.
He drew a knife and whispered a curse—then flung the blade directly into the revenant’s chest. The thing staggered.
The knife itself caused it no pain. It was the dash of blood at the blade, Hari’s own blood, that made the thing freeze again, fingers grasping feebly at the air as fractures of light crept sharp-nailed through its dead flesh.
“Leave,” Hari said, voice cold. “Or I’ll make it worse. I promise you.”
For a moment there was silence. Then the creature stumbled away, a guttural noise leaving its lungs.
“You shouldn’t have worried,” a voice said. “It won’t harm witches. At least one of you would have survived.” The witch who’d spoken stepped forward. Dark hair, shot through with licks of silver. Blue eyes. Her eyes fixed on Vina, and widened.
“I remember you,” said the witch. Her gaze narrowed again. “What are you doing here, sir knight?”
Vina squinted at her, puzzling out old memories.
“I know your face,” she said slowly. “But I’m afraid my memory is a little patchy.
I died for a time, you see.” She returned her own sword to her belt—she’d watched this sword being made in her own town, by the smith who’d trained her.
She was too tempted to wield it now to protect the new life she’d made.
Better to remove it from her hand. “The last time we met, ma’am, you captured people for a fae maiden.
She enthralled me. Some of those people died. How have you been since then?”
The witch laughed thinly. “Oh, you try at sharpness, but it’s like having your heels nipped at by a puppy. You think people like me don’t deserve forgiveness? That seems like a terrible way to live.”
“Didn’t the ‘foxes’ who died deserve to live?”
“Justice is a nice tale,” she said. “But it’s not for all folk. What do you want? Here to kill some witches?”
“We’re not interested in killing any kin of mine,” Hari said. “We’ve come to talk. Maybe make a mutually beneficial bargain. That’s all.”
The witch’s mouth was thin.
Vina raised both her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she said, aiming for sincerity.
“I’ve been very rude. Please forgive me.
Sometimes I get my lives confused, and I say things I don’t mean,” she continued, saying something she absolutely did not mean.
“Let me start again. My name is Vina. This is Hari. We need to speak to your coven, if you’ll allow it. ”
The witch hummed thoughtfully for a moment.
“Let me think,” she said. “Since you’ve been so polite, here it is: No.”
“Please. I know the old bargains,” Vina said.
“Vina.” Hari’s voice was a quiet warning.
She couldn’t say Trust me. She knew she wasn’t trustworthy, when it came to her own safety. She’d made so many errors, over so many lives, and she had no reason to believe this life would be any different.
“I need to do this,” she said instead.
“If anyone’s going to make a bargain, it’s me.” Hari drew a fresh knife from his coat, small and wickedly sharp. “A hank of hair, from my head, given to you freely, fellow witch,” said Hari. “Will that do to allow us to converse with your coven?”
“They don’t need you to reassure them,” said Vina. “The witches need me to do it.”
“The knight is correct,” she said, arms crossed. “You’re a fellow witch. She’s not. She needs to give us power over her, or there’ll be no trust.”
Vina held out her hand for the knife.
“I’d prefer to use your knife,” she said. “Please.”
Hari gave her a sharp look, but didn’t argue. He handed the knife over. “What were you going to use if I said no?” Hari asked.
“My sword,” she said. “I’ve done it before. It’s fine.”
Hari’s mouth twitched. “Of course you’ve cut your hair with a sword before.”
Her hair was longer than it had been in her first life, long enough to tie at the nape of her neck. She severed one curl now, and held it out to the witch, who took it from her after a brief pause.
“You’d give me, of all people, power over you?”
“You told me to show forgiveness,” said Vina. “Besides, I need your help enough to risk it.” It wasn’t the only bad bargain she’d ever made. It probably wouldn’t be the last.
The witch tucked the hank of hair away.
“My name is Sarah,” she said. “Follow me.”
Between green grass and paved paths, beyond the gravestones and graceful mausoleums, stood a tree.
It was imposingly broad, its trunk gray.
Rising up toward it like a collar, or like a muddled jaw of teeth, were dozens of gravestones, each slatted unevenly against the other.
It was a grim sight. Sarah whispered a spell, made a cutting motion with her hands, and then the tree and graves cleaved open, widening to open into a stairway down into the darkness.
They followed her in.
Within sat a group of witches. They were in a casual circle, seated in the modest chamber hidden beneath the tree. They went silent as Vina and Hari entered.
“There’s nothing to fear,” said Sarah. “These two have come to talk.”
“You’re lucky to find us,” said one witch, settled by a flask clearly full of tea.
He was pouring it out into chipped mugs.
His skin was warm-toned, his eyes black as pansies beneath thick eyebrows.
“We only meet every full moon. But I suppose, as a fellow witch, you know that,” he said, eyes sliding to Hari.
“I’m not one for covens,” said Hari. “But we are here looking for your help. I’m Hari Patel, and this is Vina.”
“Tam,” said the man. He didn’t offer a surname.
“The Eternal Prince is coming, ready to usurp the Queen and take her throne,” said Vina. “I need your help to take advantage of the archivists and Queen while they’re vulnerable. The archive needs destroying.”
“You want us to support the beautiful, terrible prince-thing running across the Isle and devastating it?” Tam raised an eyebrow.
“Beautiful, terrible prince-thing?” Vina repeated.
“He’s a fine and dreadful tale,” said Sarah. “We can all feel him. You must too.”
Vina had, when he’d passed by the edges of her town.
His presence alone had been enough to awaken her to herself.
“I’m not asking you to support him,” she said.
“We’ve all been controlled by the grip of the archives far too long.
The rise of the Eternal Prince has broken some of their power.
We can take this opportunity to end the archives entirely.
I want you to take advantage of what his presence offers: a flaw in the armor of the archivists.
A chance to steal their control from them. ”
Tam sighed. The other witches had similar expressions, tired and unimpressed.
“They’re not possible to fight,” said Sarah.
Tam said, “Power’s the oldest tale, young knight. There’s no hope here.”
“Why did you turn to witchcraft?” Hari asked.
He sat calmly in that circle of witches, his face like stone—her gentle father, always kind and thoughtful, suddenly sharper, carved by the shadows of the room and the shadows of his spirit.
This was a version of him she’d rarely seen—like the sky in an eclipse, without its habitual moonlight to gentle it.
“There are softer magics—benevolent work, prayers and charms and healing. You could have been cunning folk. Wise folk. You could have kept your magic tucked under your skin and never utilized it. So why witchcraft?”