Chapter 17. Ambrose #2
“Well, you needn’t worry about a body, Mother,” Priscilla said lightly. “Incubi simply fade into the shadows when they die.”
Isadora snorted. “Stupid girl. They most certainly do not—”
Priscilla’s voice cut in, suddenly hauntingly melodic. “When incubi die,” she sang softly, her voice crackling as if she were exhausted, “they fade into the shadows, Mother.”
The silence that followed stretched.
Then Isadora huffed a laugh. “Well. At least I won’t have to worry about a body when he finally expires. That’s one thing off my plate. Let’s hope he manages to cook at least one proper meal before he fades into nothing.”
***
Warm fingers pressed into my shoulders, and a melodic, whisper-soft voice murmured, “Wake up, and remain quiet, Ambrose.”
My eyes obeyed before my mind caught up. I blinked blearily, the hazy figure above me resolving into something pale and otherworldly—skin marbled in fading blues and purples, black hair spilling down like ink in water.
I tried to speak, but no sound came out.
Another blink, and her face came fully into focus.
Priscilla?
What in Hades’s name was she doing?
Her voice was gentle again, soothing in its cadence. “Get up, Ambrose.”
She offered a slender hand. I took it without thinking. My body protested as I unfolded myself from the couch, joints cracking after hours spent curled too tightly in place. Hunger cramps seared through my abdomen, forcing me to bend forward as I found my feet.
Priscilla steadied me, her hand slipping beneath my elbow, holding me upright until the room stopped tilting. Only then did she let go.
“We’re going to go outside now. You need to follow me.” Her words were a soft hum radiating through me, and I reached instinctively for my boots.
“Leave them,” she said quietly. “You can’t take anything with you.”
I wanted to ask “Why?” or “Where are we going?” or even “What do you want from me?”
The questions crowded my mind, but my mouth refused to shape them.
“Do you remember where your partner is?” she asked. “The house he’s working at?”
I nodded.
I’d memorized every detail of the candy witch job. Every stop along the route to Isadora’s had me pulling out my phone, rereading the listing line by line, burning through every scrap of resolve I had not to cancel Isadora’s work and turn back. To drive straight to Blaise instead.
“Good. Because you need to leave your phone here too.”
With that, she crooked a finger and beckoned me to follow.
She moved through the house as silently as death itself, every step precise, as if she’d practiced this escape a thousand times before.
The front door clicked softly as it opened, and she ushered me through, pressing a finger to her lips when I, not quite as silent as her, followed after.
I walked barefoot through the garden, the cold earth biting at my soles.
Priscilla stayed on her tiptoes, casting quick glances over her shoulder toward the house every few steps.
It wasn’t until we slipped through the garden gate, passed beyond Isadora’s wards, and were engulfed by the underbrush that she finally seemed to relax.
“You’ll have to forgive me for using my compulsion on you,” she said, her voice soft now—nothing like the cool indifference she’d spoken in since I met her.
“I’ve only ever used it on my mother before.
Sparingly.” She hesitated, then added, almost wryly, “I’ve spent my whole life convincing her I don’t have a siren’s song. ”
A beat passed. Her brows drew together, then her expression softened. “Oh. Right. You can speak now, Ambrose.”
My throat burned as my voice finally returned. “What’s going on?” I croaked. “Where are you taking me?”
Priscilla didn’t answer. Instead, she asked quietly, “You listened last night, didn’t you? You heard what my mother plans to do?”
I nodded. I’d spent nearly a full day on that damned couch doing nothing but listening. Listening until my ears rang and the ache behind my eyes rivalled the hollow, gnawing pain in my stomach.
“Good,” she said, more to herself than to me. “Then this part will be easier. I need you to do something for me. But first—” She took a steadying breath. “—we need to undo my mother’s compulsion on you.”
She didn’t expand further, and I followed her in silence.
Part of me ached to turn back, to return to Isadora, to the familiar pull of her presence, her voice curling through my thoughts. You’ll never leave me, Ambrose.
But every pulse in my ears carried Priscilla’s command instead.
Follow me.
Follow me.
Follow me.
The two voices clashed so violently that it took a moment for my surroundings to come back into focus.
When they did, we were standing in a clearing.
At its center stood a gnarled, knotted rowan tree, its trunk split by a deep hollow.
From within it, a pair of phosphorescent, lamp-like eyes glared out at us.
Priscilla had led me straight to the hob.
And judging by the way it narrowed its eyes on me, it was not happy to see me again.
The feeling was mutual.
I took an instinctive step back, shadows stirring uneasily at my heels, but Priscilla lifted both hands.
“Wait,” she said quickly. “Please... just wait.” It was the plea in her voice that made me falter.
“The shadow demon will not turn on her. I have already tried,” came the haunting voice from within the hollow.
“I have no doubt that you tried your hardest, Ashra,” Priscilla said gently, her tone soothing rather than dismissive. “But let me try this time.”
The hob seemed to roll its eyes, before its glowing gaze narrowed with clear irritation.
After a moment, however, it relented. One spindly hand emerged from the hollow, followed by the other, then its monstrous face, its small, hunched body cloaked in that tattered sweater, and finally its bowed legs.
It dropped to the forest floor with a soft thunk, sending leaves and pine needles scattering.
It hobbled toward Priscilla, then reached beneath the knitted sweater and produced the necklace it had tried to convince me to touch on my first visit to its forest home.
Priscilla held out her hand. The hob hesitated, then let the necklace fall into her palm.
“Thank you, Ashra,” she said quietly.
Her gaze lifted to me as her fingers curled around the shell. “Ambrose, do you remember what my mother said last night? About how sirens take something precious from the ocean and imbue it with their song?”
I nodded.
“This little shell belonged to my grandmother,” Priscilla continued. “I never met her, but it was the only thing of hers my mother kept.” Her jaw tightened slightly. “I stole it when I was a child and hid it in one of the abandoned houses I used to sneak into to get away from her.”
She exhaled slowly before worrying her bottom lip.
“I lied to my mother last night. I’ve always known how to imbue my siren magic into something, even as a child. Every night, I would sneak back to the abandoned house and sing to the shell, filling it with my song. A song to wash away whatever compulsion my mother had wrapped around me that day.”
My throat tightened. What kind of childhood must Priscilla have endured to find comfort in abandoned places and strength in a song meant to wash away.
“My mother brought me here a few months ago,” Priscilla continued quietly.
“That’s when I met Ashra. Mother had Ashra under a compulsion—one it fought against with everything it had.
” Her fingers curled slightly at her side as she glanced down at the little hob.
“I couldn’t interfere while I was staying in the house.
Any sign of resistance would have made Mother suspicious.
But a few days after I left, I snuck back.
I compelled Ashra to come out here, away from the house, and I gave it my grandmother’s shell. ”
“And I have remained here ever since,” the hob said, its voice ironhard. “Waiting for Morana to return.”
Priscilla opened her mouth, then closed it again. After a moment, she reached out and rested a hand on Ashra’s shoulder, her head dipping in a slow, helpless nod. The scent of briny grief rolled off her in waves.
Morana.
The name lodged in my chest like a splinter. Was that the witch Isadora had mentioned? The one whose body she’d buried at the edge of the woods?
Where she was going to bury your body, a quiet voice echoed from the back of my mind.
Ice flooded my veins—
—and then the thought slipped away.
Anger flared through me, bleeding into Priscilla’s despair until the two emotions tangled together. I knew I was furious. I knew something was terribly wrong.
I just couldn’t quite remember why.
Priscilla’s gaze settled on me. “I need you to touch the shell, Ambrose,” she said, her voice hurried as her gaze flicked to the pink-streaked morning sky.
“And then I need you to go to the house your partner is working at. You have to convince them all to leave.” She lifted the chain from her palm, the shell pendant glinting between us.
“Purdy will listen to you,” she added. “Don’t say my name in front of Caitlyn. She’ll think it’s a trap.”
I reached for the necklace, but she pulled it back, clutching it to her chest. Priscilla worried her bottom lip as if she couldn’t quite find the words to say next.
“When you touch this, you’ll be free of my mother’s compulsion.” Her jaw tightened. “And you’re going to feel angry. You’re going to remember everything she’s done to you. Everything she made you feel. And you’re probably going to want to kill her.”
She dragged a hand through her hair, fingers trembling.
“I know, because I’ve wanted to kill her for years. Some days I imagine it in vivid detail,” she went on, voice cracking. “Other days, I convince myself that if I just endure a little longer, she’ll stop. That something in her will soften. That there has to be something maternal in her somewhere.”
Her laugh was short and hollow.