Chapter Twenty-Eight Vina #2
“It sounds like you have a lecture prepared,” Sarah murmured. But she was listening attentively, no bite in her words. None of the witches were even drinking their cups of tea.
“We’re on the margins. All of us. We know people eaten by tales.
Broken, or murdered by them. You’ve felt what it means to be nothing, unimportant, unseen.
We’ve felt the anger in us. But we’ve embraced being on the edges of what it means to belong to the Isle.
We’ve chosen to be outside, anathema—we’ve crowned ourselves as monsters.
” Hari looked from face to face. “We know the establishment is rotten,” he said. “Don’t you want to tear it down?”
Vina stared at him. When had Hari chosen witchcraft? He hadn’t possessed any magic in Vina’s last lifetime. But so much had changed in the time between her death and her return, and Hari was changed too—older, broader, more comfortable in himself, grief a mantle on his shoulders.
“The archivists are part of the power structure that has done this to us,” he said quietly—and the witches leaned in to listen, drawn by the tightening spool of his voice. “Let’s wrest control back.”
“The archives are protected by powerful magic. And I’ve got no magic,” said Vina, “though I live in an incarnate tale.” Frayed though it was, the tale was still hers—it still tied her to Simran, spilled ink inside her heart.
“You understand magic in a way I never could. Help me. Help us all. Please.”
“You want spells from us, to break the archives,” said Sarah. “To take away their power.”
“I do,” said Vina.
The witches shared looks. There was hesitation in their faces.
Hari took a card from his pocket—an address.
“If you’re willing to help, meet us here before the week ends,” he said. “We’ll be waiting.”
They’d almost reached the cemetery’s arched entry when they heard someone call out.
“Wait,” said Tam.
They turned.
“Brother,” Tam said, hands in his pockets, eyes steady. “You’re Elsewhere. Like me.”
Hari nodded hesitantly.
“The world’s changed,” said Tam. “You don’t need to be a witch the way these folk see witches. Your own people have tales you can wear now. I know scribes that could help you.”
Hari rolled up his sleeve, revealing the tattoo on his wrist—the hexafoil of cunning folk, cut through neatly with a line of limni ink. Benevolent magic, fractured, turned to maleficent purpose. The limni tattoo for a witch.
“I’m already marked,” said Hari. “I can’t take up any other kind of magic.”
“I told you things have changed,” said Tam.
“I was marked long ago as a witch. But as new tales swept in, my mother told me about her parents from Elsewhere; about a different magic, witchcraft from where we hailed from. I wanted it. I paid a cheap back-alley scribe, and it worked. The Isle’s changing, and no one can tell me I can’t have this. ” He bared his own arm.
Vina knew there were limni tattoos for those who wanted foresight, divination. This didn’t look like those clear, steady eyes. Instead it was an eye within a teardrop—cut through the center to turn benevolence to witchcraft.
Hari took a step forward, breathing in the magic. His eyes were full of wonder.
“What a fine thing,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“There’s more of us every day,” Tam said quietly. “You could join us. This business with the archives—that’s for the coven to decide together. But this is for you. If you want it.”
Hari shook his head.
“I’m glad for you,” said Hari. “But this magic was given to me by a fellow witch, and my greatest friend. I chose it. It matters to me. It may be Isle-made, but it’s also mine.”
“Then I’ll let you go,” said Tam. “Maybe we’ll meet again.” He nodded curtly, to Hari and to Vina, then vanished back into the darkness of the graveyard.
Hari was quiet for a long time after that, something quietly awed in his eyes. Vina let him feel it, and kept her own silence.
They’d moved into Hari’s flat in Limehouse. It was Simran’s flat too, long ago. When their landlady and friend Lydia Chen had passed away, she’d left it to Hari. “She was a proper matriarch,” Hari told Vina wistfully. “I miss her.”
Simran’s old flat looked nothing like it had when Vina had last visited…
and been spell-bound to its floor. The burn marks on the floorboards were gone; the clutter of Simran’s clothes on the aged, buckling sofa had been swept away decades ago, and the floor was polished and shining.
A soft rug swathed the ground, and a leather sofa sat under the window, draped in a blanket.
Galath sat, cross-legged, on the rug by the fire.
Maleficium was already settled on Galath’s lap, snoozing mightily with her paws stretched out toward the fire’s warmth.
“The witches will consider it,” said Hari, before Galath had even looked at them or spoken. “They’ll come here if they’re willing.”
“If they turn on us, you understand what I’ll have to do,” said Galath, voice even.
“I do,” said Hari. “But it won’t come to that.”
“You’re not going to need to kill them,” said Vina.
Galath stroked Maleficium’s ears and said nothing.
She leaned back against the wall, far from the fireplace.
“We need to do more,” she said. “This isn’t enough.”
“There may be no way through in this lifetime,” Galath replied.
“There has to be. I’ll find it. I have to believe that.”
“Do you think you’re wiser than all the cunning folk and witches we’ve spoken to, Vina?” her father asked, voice soft.
Her father. In that moment he truly felt like he was, but there was also a queer roiling under her feet and in her limbs.
It was the sure, true knowledge that Galath was also a man who’d once been a cruel, murderous stranger to her—who’d almost taken her life, when she’d offered it up to his gleaming axe.
But he’d rocked her to sleep. Cut her hair for her. Helped her feed the rabbits herbs, and taught her the names of the mushrooms that grew in the ancient forest.
He’d never been cruel to her in this life.
“I think I’ve got hope,” she said. “And you’ve lived too long to hope the way I do. That’s okay.”
Galath did not reply. Maleficium rolled over in his lap and purred.
Hari and Galath took the bedroom, and Vina took the sofa, butter-soft under her.
The blanket was warm. She should have slept like a baby, but some instinct kept her awake.
When the bells rang for midnight, she slipped off the sofa and went to the window.
The Thames was visible out there—silvery, strange, tale-spun.
Reflecting off its surface tonight were small lights at the docks.
They flickered in and out, bright and strange.
Will-o’-the-wisps. Sent to lead travelers astray. But Vina needed to leave the beaten path if she was going to find a way forward. She quietly slipped on her coat, her sword, opened the door, and headed out.
The docks were slick with water, the wind icy. A witch was waiting for her, silver-black hair rippling in the wind.
“Knight,” said Sarah. “I was hoping I could speak to you alone.”
“Well, I’m here,” said Vina.
“The fae court are still wroth with you,” said Sarah, after a beat.
“They blame you for breaking your word to them—a great crime among their kind. And they blame you for the death of Lady Tristesse. I know things about them. Everyone says it, in the secret markets and darkest places in London: ‘Sarah has connections with the fae court. The lords and ladies are willing to parlay with her.’ I thought that’s why you sought me out, to get their forgiveness or some such.
Not that it would have done you much good.
But I suppose not. You must have been keeping well hidden, to stay so sheltered from their teeth and claws. ”
“Why would you work for them?” Vina asked. “Is power so important to you?”
“Power’s everything,” said Sarah. “But when I was young I wanted it for me. All of it. I didn’t know any better.
And it almost broke me—I near died when I lost all that sweet, powerful magic the Lady Tristesse gave to us.
I still hunger for it in my bones. But I only make small deals with fae now.
I parlay as a witch, not as a vassal or thrall.
And I do it to keep my coven fed and cared for.
There’s power in numbers—in community. Though you, standing in love, murderous and alone—I suppose you don’t know that. ”
Sarah shrugged. Went on.
“What you should know is the fae hold grudges until the stars burn out. I told them I met you, of course. And now they have your hair, they can find you.”
A different kind of cold than the wind through the docks ran through Vina. She looked around, reaching for her blade hilt—and heard Sarah laugh.
“You’re too well protected here, you silly fool,” said Sarah. “No fae are going to jump out at you. There are wards sewn into your shirt. Did you not know? You’ll want to leave those behind if you don’t want to be followed. Someone powerful loves you very much.”
“Why would I give up any protection against the fae?” Vina said immediately.
“Because you want the witch,” said Sarah. “Your witch. The Queen’s holding a ball where she’ll display all her incarnates like pretty baubles, and if you leave your guards and your wards behind you, I can get you in.”
Her heart was in her throat. Her blood suddenly felt golden.
Simran.
“It’s a trap, of course,” Sarah went on.
“If you go, the fae will collect you. You’ll be undefended there, and surrounded by people who don’t wish you well.
I should have come here and been nice to you—given you the invitation and let them catch you in their claws, you none the wiser.
But I don’t think you’re an idiot. And you’ll go anyway for her.
I can see it in your face.” She reached into her dress pocket and drew out an invitation in gold, inked onto crisp white card.
“Remember—no warded clothes. And it’s a masked ball. Try to make sure you dress the part.”
Vina reached out and took the invitation, hope wild in her. A trap, she could manage. She could do anything for Simran.
“What would your fae friends say if they knew you’d helped me?” Vina asked. “That you warned me?”
“They’ll reward me,” Sarah said flatly. “I’m sending you into their trap just like they asked. I’m just doing it honestly. That’s more than I owe you, so I hope you’ll consider my debt paid.”
Vina stared down at that white card, those gold letters. It was hard to look away.
“I still want you for the quest I spoke of,” said Vina.
“I’d still like your help to destroy the archives.
I know not all witches use magic in the same way, but I’ve seen your kind summon fire.
I know you have a gift for destruction.” Vina raised her head.
“Destruction can bring new life,” she said.
“I’ve seen it. I believe in it. Your magic could help save us all.
I don’t ask you because it’ll pay any debt between us. I ask because it’s right.”
Sarah shook her head.
“If you survive the Queen’s ball and the fae court, then perhaps the coven will consider it,” said Sarah. “But I have my doubts. Good luck, sir knight. You’re going to need it.”