Chapter Four
F OUR
My mouth opens to say something silly, like “Henrietta? What are you doing?” Then it snaps shut as my eyes narrow.
“Let her go,” I say.
Henrietta laughs a very not-Henrietta laugh. “You’re supposed to ask what’s going on.”
“That’s obvious. Now let her go.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” Audrey says, her voice breathy, as if she doesn’t dare talk louder with that knife against her throat. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
What’s happening is that her cousin is obviously not her cousin.
Henrietta arrived at the Thomases’ doorstep on the heels of a letter announcing that Mrs. Thomas’s cousin’s daughter was coming to London in search of work, and could the Thomases let her stay a day or two?
They’d welcomed Henrietta into their home and insisted she stay for the past month, even if they’d never met and Audrey’s mother barely recalled the distant cousin.
None of that was suspicious. Young men and women come to the city all the time and stay with any relative who can afford to take them in. It was the price one paid for living in London, and Henrietta wasn’t the first distant relation Audrey’s family had sheltered.
Any witch could undo those wards from inside the house. So Henrietta is a witch, which means she ingratiated herself with the Thomases to gain access to an infamously powerful spellcaster. That’s not me. It’s my aunt. But she’d never get to Lenora easily. So she came through her weak point. Me.
I might not be my aunt, but I can handle one witch, roughly my own age.
“You have questions,” Henrietta purrs, with a smirk that says she longs to show me how clever she has been.
“No, I’ve figured it out,” I say. “Lower that knife, release Audrey, and talk to me. If you want to threaten me with that knife?” I shrug. “I accept.”
Her smirk only grows. “You think you’re a better witch because you’re a Levine? Don’t count on that making you better than me. ”
Audrey’s gaze jumps to mine, her eyes sharp with concern but not shock. Calling someone a witch isn’t like calling them a werewolf or a vampire. It’s an epithet commonly lobbed at healers, like my aunt.
“I’m not trying to trick you,” I say. “I’ll step over there, and you can exchange captives—”
Henrietta backs up, taking Audrey with her. Downstairs, the rear door bangs open.
Lenora. Please let it be—
“My confederates have arrived,” Henrietta says.
My heart hammers. I had just declared I could take on Henrietta, and I think I can, but if there are others?
I am not prepared to handle others.
Get prepared.
I glance toward the stairs, pretending to listen. Then I cast a blur spell and charge. Henrietta inhales sharply, as if she’d presumed I wouldn’t use magic in front of my human friend.
Her mouth opens in a spell, but I’m already grabbing her arm and wrenching it from Audrey. I knock Audrey away with my hip and wrestle Henrietta for the knife.
Henrietta casts a fireball, but I dodge it. In ducking, though, I lose my grip on her wrist. I don’t even have time to react before her knife slashes my arm, where I’d rolled up my damnable sleeves.
The skin splits, and I gasp. Audrey charges her supposed cousin. I dart to the side, pulling Henrietta’s attention away from Audrey. When Henrietta lunges, I hit her with a knockback that sends her off her feet.
I dive at Henrietta, grab her arm, and finally yank the knife free. It’s some kind of folding blade. I snap it shut and stuff it into my pocket.
Henrietta blocks the door. Behind my back, I motion to Audrey, telling her to be ready to run. Then I step backward, my lips moving. Henrietta charges to cut off my spellcast, and I grab her by both elbows and ram her against the wall while Audrey runs past into the hall.
I punch Henrietta. Clearly, she doesn’t expect that. My aunt taught me well, and I excelled at these particular lessons. My blow strikes Henrietta in the jaw, sending her spinning off her feet.
I wheel and propel Audrey into the hall. Then I slam the door shut behind us and turn the lock. It won’t hold—Henrietta can cast an unlock spell—but it gives us time to start moving.
I handled Henrietta, and later, I will be obnoxiously proud of myself for that, but I am not staying to meet her confederates.
Time to channel my other witch training.
Time to run.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Audrey as we run down the hall. “So, so sorry.”
She looks back, her eyes wide with confusion and fear, but she shakes her head and blinks it away. “I’d be a fool if I didn’t know you were different, Cordelia. I trusted you’d explain when you were ready.”
My eyes fill, but I can’t pause for tears. Our footfalls thump up the stairs, the noise telling Henrietta’s confederates where to find us. Then the door below slaps open, sooner than I expected, and Henrietta is on the stairs, skirts hiked as she races up.
She lifts her hands. Sorcerer magic. Offensive spell.
Before she can launch it, I cast a quick panicked knockback.
It hits hard—harder than it should—and her feet fly from under her, landing her hard on her back, her body crashing down the stairs, head striking the landing, neck snapping forward.
Her eyes widen in shock, and I wait for the snarl of rage, for her to leap up.
But she only lies there, eyes open and unseeing.
My breath stops. I stare, unable to comprehend what I’m seeing.
Unable to comprehend what I’ve done.
I killed Henrietta.
I didn’t mean to. I’ve never even seriously injured anyone.
Because I’ve never had to. There’s always someone else to do it for me. My mother, my aunt, someone there when a situation requires more than a simple knockback, a simple fireball.
I stare at Henrietta. At the young woman I’d come to know as a friend.
“Cordelia?” Audrey whispers above me.
I look to see her on the stairs, angled where she can tell only that I knocked Henrietta down. Guilt and shame slam through me as I race up, prodding Audrey along before she sees what I’ve done.
We reach the top of the stairs, and I propel Audrey to what looks like a blank wall.
I whisper a spell, and the door opens to reveal a dark space and a narrow set of stairs. I don’t even need to nudge Audrey. She’s already through and heading up.
I wait until she’s high enough and then I follow. I don’t seal the opening behind me—I can’t spare the magic, and ultimately, I want our pursuers to follow.
The secret stairs bypass the next level and exit into the attic.
To my right is the hidden room, but I don’t take Audrey there. I prod her to a small ladder, this one leading to an attic window.
“It’ll take us onto the roof,” I whisper. “Go head across to the next house. You’ll see the way down.”
“I’m not going without—”
“I’ll be right behind you.” At her look, I say, “I promise. I just have to get something first.”
The set of her jaw says she doesn’t like this answer, but I promise again as I nudge her up the ladder. Once she’s out the window, I run toward the locked room.
I only partly lied to Audrey. I will follow, but I’m not retrieving anything. I’m lighting a candle in the locked room. The illumination will seep out through the door cracks and make our pursuers think we’re hiding inside. It’ll take them a long time to realize they can’t get in.
I light the candle with a spell and quickly shut the door—
Glass smashes below.
A window shattering.
For one heartbeat, I don’t think anything of it. Supernaturals have invaded our town house. Of course they’ll break windows.
Then I stop.
Why would they smash through a window when the back door is open?
A scream follows. A terrible high-pitched scream.
I go still, envisioning Lenora below, breaking a window to hit one of the invaders with a deadly spell.
I start back for the secret stairs, only to slow and think. Twice now I’ve thought she’d returned when she hadn’t. If it’s Lenora, she’ll make short work of the intruders and then she’ll check the secret room. When she finds the door locked but no one inside, she’ll know I fled over the rooftops.
I’m running toward the ladder when heavy footsteps sound on the stairs… which are between me and the ladder. I try to circle wide and a massive hulk of a man charges into my path.