Chapter 25
“Fare’s almost up.”
The rough accent of the taxi driver startles me.
For too long, I’ve been slumped on my side on the taxi floor, Serena’s limbs tangled around mine, the tip of her nose pressing against my own, and the whole time our illusions have kept.
Serena arches to feed another fifty through the screen. “Queensferry.”
“Alright.”
Serena’s eyes brim with unspoken words.
I can just imagine what she wants to say.
Something about me spraying the guard with fruity mist. Maybe blinding him in doing so. Or that we’re definitely being chased now after the whole veil catastrophe—and the masters probably figured out at the same moment, if not before, that we’ve run away.
To a port.
That’s what Queensferry is.
Ferries come and go, boats and ships and cruises and charters. Maybe a fishing hub, too. I don’t quite know, not like I ever visited it.
But it calms me that she has a plan.
And I sink, relaxed, into the carpeted floor for the rest of the ride.
The taxi rocks and sways and stops and accelerates, and it’s starting to fill me with a bout of motion sickness.
I shut my eyes and let it pass over me.
My mind is quick to wander to places I don’t want it to go. Like my mother…
Does she wander with sorrow around my dorm room right now, watching my father pick through my belongings, searching for a clue as to where I’ve gone?
Does she hold back tears that Amelia hides behind her own slender hand?
Is Dray arguing with the hurt security guard, or are all the men in an office, discussing what to do with me once the likes of Mr Younge and Mr Burns drag me back to the academy?
My mind whirls through a dozen different scenarios—until finally my torture is interrupted.
The taxi finally parks, and the driver announces the welcome word, “Here.”
Serena is first to sit up.
Her legs worm and wriggle over mine as she leans for the weighty door and shoves it aside. It screeches open and a moment later, the weight is gone from my legs.
I wiggle out after her.
Before she shuts the taxi door, she shoves my heavy bag into my arms.
The tension on her false face, the sea winds lashing at her cheeks, the alertness of her brown eyes as she steps back from the road and scans the street—it’s all I need to stay silent.
Now isn’t the time to chat.
The gate to the port is just down the lane to the left—but she snubs that in favour of the pub at the corner of the street.
I shadow her to the old pub.
I expect it to be awful, to smell of beer and urine and stale cigarette smoke, but it’s pleasant as Serena leads the way through the door.
Fresh meals stacked onto plain white plates are carried through the bustling dining area, delivered to the seated locals and sailors and drinkers.
The atmosphere is pleasant, talkative, and distracted.
That’s good for us—because Serena spots the toilet signs down the hall that stretches by an old staircase.
Serena drags me into the women’s bathroom, then locks me in a stall with her.
With the toe of her boot, she brings down the lid on the toilet, then rests her satchel there. She rifles through the pockets for a beat before sliding out a thick envelope, then setting it down.
She turns on me.
Pressed against the stall wall, I watch as she brings her hands to my face.
The trickling sensation disturbs my skin again.
And she brings it down and down and down, all the way to my boots, before turning on herself.
In front of my eyes, she transforms.
Not back into herself, but into a woman who is a stranger to me. She wears the pale face of a woman with brown hair and brown eyes, a mole on her cheekbone, another on her smooth neck.
I wonder what I look like.
Serena plucks the envelope from the seat, then drags out a set of passports.
She hands one to me.
I flip through the pages until I settle on the photograph. But it’s the same as Serena’s illusioned face.
“I think this one is yours,” I say and hand over the passport.
She shakes her head. “Twins.” Her voice is soft, a whisper, and she adds, “Only until we’re safe.”
That word strikes me like a plucked cord.
Safe.
I don’t know what that means.
I don’t know if it means until we’re on a boat, which I assume is what the next move is because we’re at the port, or if it means when we’re out of the country, or across the seas, or gone for a year, two, three…
A wave of nausea rolls over me.
I sink against the wall, feeling my brow furrow and my breaths grow heavier.
Serena doesn’t notice.
She’s repacking her bag with the envelope, checking how much cash she has in her coin purse, and as she does, my brain is melting in my skull.
Years.
Years away from them, my family, my world—my people.
But it won’t just be years… It will be forever, until old age comes for me, until I die.
“Hey.” Serena snaps her fingers in my face. “If you’re going to fall apart, bottle it for later. Now is not the time.”
Numb, I nod, but her words seem distant, an echo down a never-ending cave,
And my insides are still constricting.
The loss of the adrenaline, the fear of my parents, the panic of getting through the veil and out of the city—it has all faded away.
“Let’s go.”
Serena grabs the satchel and stalks out of the bathroom. The smell of roast dinners floods us in the hall—but as we pass the bar, a shout strikes us, “Oi!”
My gaze flings to the man.
His crinkled face is turned to us, hand pressing into the wooden bar. He points to an obvious sign above the hallway leading to the toilets.
“Customers only!”
Serena grabs my arm and runs out through the front door.
The winds welcome us, harsh and icy, like whips. That coastal Scottish weather beats us down the street to the port.
The gate to the walkway is shut.
The booth—sprouting from the paved road—rattles as the window slides aside.
Before the woman in the booth can even speak, Serena requests, “Two tickets.”
On the back wall of the booth, the board of departures is tacked with timesheets that look like they’ve been cut with paper.
I consider the times.
I feel the sinking weight of the disappointment in my chest before the woman says, “There are no departures for the rest of the day.”
Serena blinks, her lips parting, and she turns down her blank gaze. Her watch reveals the same as the darkness around us.
Seven o’clock.
Desperation clutches Serena’s tone, “What about a charter? Private, paid in cash.”
The woman shakes her head. Her tight bun glistens in the booth’s dim light.
“Then why are you even here,” Serena hisses the accusation.
The woman’s mouth twitches. “One late arrival.”
“Is that a tour?” I ask, and she slides her narrowed gaze to me. “Or a charter?”
She doesn’t answer, not beyond an oily smile.
A surge strikes through Serena and just as she’s about to lunge for the woman, I grab her by the arm and haul her away from the booth.
I drag her back to the street, throwing a look up and down the way, before turning back to her. “Why the port?”
Serena frowns at me, that rage for the woman still burning in her. “What?”
“Why not the airport? Or the train station?”
Her scoff is curt. “Those are the first places they will look for us.”
“How much cash do you have?”
“Thirty thousand.” She shrugs. “It’s not much—but it’s all I could put away over solstice.”
“But that’s enough to get us far from here, right? Say we got a cab down to London, how much would that be?”
“London?” She throws a shrill look at me. “The last place we need to be going.”
“Ok, I know, I just mean down that way—to the English Channel. We can get a ferry from there to France. Or—what if we got a taxi to the west coast, and a boat to Ireland from there?”
She shakes her head, face firm. “We need to get out of the UK in the next twelve hours. That’s how long they need to move through the veils and cover every airport, every major train station, every port, and circle us in.
It takes one witch with the sense, or one to read our minds—and we only need to cross their paths to be found. ”
The breath I loosen is weighty.
I nod, more to myself than to Serena, then bite down on my bottom lip. It stings, more than it should, then I remember, Asta got some serious hits in.
“Wait here.”
Serena makes to argue, but she silences the moment she realises my direction.
Back to the booth.
My smile is tight as I knock on the glass window.
The woman’s stare is dark—but she slides it open. “Can I help you?”
The sarcasm drips from her the same way the oil glistens through her caked-on makeup.
“How much will it cost for you to call a charter boat that will take us now?”
“No charter will go tonight; the port is closed—”
I cut her off with a smile. “How much will it cost for you to make that call now? It’s an inconvenience and I would like to appropriately compensate you for your troubles, given that you make that call, of course.”
Her face shutters.
For a beat, she considers me, studies me, and I think she’s trying to work out if I’m bribing her or she’s misunderstanding me.
“One hundred?” I urge her along. “No, of course not. Two hundred.”
She blinks—stunned… then, “Three.”
“You make those calls, get a charter organised for us tonight—and I will give you three hundred cash.”
Her nod is brisk, then she’s immediately reaching for the radio. “It’ll be quick,” she tells me. “He’s coming back with passengers now, maybe another ten minutes away, and he’ll take you where you want to go for the right price.”
The smile that splits my face is relieved. “Thank you.”
She starts on the radio—and I rush back to Serena. I get three hundred cash from her and, after dropping it off at the booth, we wait.
By the booth, in the open winds, being chased down by the Coven of Europe, ten minutes feels like a long time.
But eventually, that time ends.
Three passengers are coming up the boards, a little wobbly in their steps, and I don’t think it’s sea legs that has them swaying with the winds.
The woman jerks her chin—
And that’s all the signal we need before we’re rushing down the boardwalk to the boat whose white light bobs in the dark.
Scraggly hair is what I notice first.
A man in overalls and a woollen jumper stands in the cascade of light, waiting for us.
He sounds as gruff as he looks, “Where?”
Serena answers, “Out of the UK.”
The man considers us for a moment.
His mouth tilts, and it’s all wrinkled like a cat’s bum. “Best I can do is take you to the Dutch. We’re safer stickin’ close to the coastline down the North Sea—and that’ll take…” He tuts. “With the winds, we’re lookin’ at maybe seventeen hours.”
My brows raise.
Seventeen hours.
Sea travel is slow. I didn’t realise it was that slow.
Serena juts her chin. “What is your price?”
His tongue rolls along the bite of his teeth as he eyes us over. Then, with a tongue-smack, he decides, “A thousand.” His grin spreads around his glossy teeth. “Each.”
We have the cash—or rather, she has it.
So I decide, “Done.”
His grin hangs in place as he steps aside, gesturing us onto the boat.
The only boats I’ve known are yachts.
So I get instant anxiety prickling through me as I step onboard.
Serena is a few moments behind me after paying up.
She finds me at the bow.
It’s crammed and narrow, a stark difference to the yachts I’ve come to know in my life, and much more like the little dingy boats that take us from the yachts to private beaches.
Serena drops onto a bench pressed up against the wall. Above her head, the windows look into the small room with the wheel. I think it’s only called a bridge if it’s a large boat.
And this is no large boat.
My mouth purses as I look around, from the creaky floorboards to the rusty barriers.
I deflate with a sigh.
“You lasses might want to get inside,” the man shouts—and I think we should at least know his name. “It’s about to piss down.”
Like he’s a witch—an elemental—thunder cracks overhead.
But Serena doesn’t budge from the bench.
She faces the point of the boat, watching as it turns away from the dock, and starts pushing into the darkness of the sea.
I slide onto the seat with her.
My bag rests on my lap. I hug it, embrace it, and in a blink, the rain starts to fall.
I think of the bus stop.
Only, it’s not Mother who sits with me.
It’s Serena Vasile.
And she has no words of comfort for me.
She has a curse instead—
“I’m pregnant.”