9. There Goes My Escape Plan
An enormous crash shattered my devilish visions of fae princes. With a ragged gasp I lurched upright. Darkness pressed against me, obliterating my senses, and hiding the world. Rapid footsteps thudded toward me, bringing a glaring light that scorched my retinas.
“Isobel!” I snapped, screwing my eyes shut and shying away from the beam. “Turn off the torch!”
Instead of unyielding rock, something soft and warm shifted beneath me. A mattress. I wasn’t in the cave at all, and Isobel wasn’t waving her torch around without a care in the world for my vision. My thundering heart sank to the pit of my stomach as glimpses of the past day came back to me.
“Aliza, you have to get up.”
Light glared against my closed eyelids. “What?”
“Come on, quick. We have to hide.”
Hide? Why? What? Glimpses of my dream came back to me. A hand around my neck. Sharp teeth. The prince. Had he come for us? Were we hiding from him? No, that couldn’t be right. He was cursed, and I was supposed to save him.
I peeped through a crack in my eyelids. Pansy’s eyes stared back at me, ringed with white and brimming with fear. Her clammy hand closed around mine and she hauled me unceremoniously from the bed.
“Can’t see,” I muttered, stumbling over the duvet that had been dragged with me.
Pansy didn’t put out the light or offer an explanation. Instead, she tightened her grip on my hand and led me in a blind rush across the room. My bare feet scuffed the stone floor and tripped on rugs before finally slapping against the smooth cold of tiles. The faint scent of jasmine drifted up my nose. The bathroom.
“Pansy, what’s going on?” I dared to open my eyes wider. The light, though still bright, no longer threatened the permanent loss of my vision.
The sky outside the bare window was still fully black, and the glass reflected my dishevelled self and Pansy’s terror-stricken face with the clarity of a mirror.
“Get into the bath.”
“What?”
“Now, Aliza!”
I hadn’t imagined Pansy, sweet little thing that she was, to be capable of shouting. I lurched into action, hopping obediently into the empty crystal basin without another thought of protest. At once, the witch began circling the tub in short, hurried steps, muttering incoherently all the while. Her light came from an ornate lantern, swinging from one hand. The other hand sprinkled powder of some sort in a circular trail. I held my torrent of questions at bay and stayed silent apart from my thundering heart and shallow breaths. Was this normal witch behaviour? Some fun sleepover ritual? It had to be. They’d promised that Nairsgarth castle was safe. Any moment now, Pansy would smile and explain it all. Maybe it was an initiation into the coven.
No matter what explanations my sleep logged brain offered up, I couldn’t quell my unease, not when Pansy’s face told me everything I needed to know.
This, whatever it was, was bad.
I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself and thinking longingly of the duvet left in a heap beside my bed. I didn’t dare ask if I could retrieve it, or even just my robe.
Pansy finished her muttering and vaulted into the tub. At last, her eyes lifted to mine. I didn’t bother to repeat my questions.
“The castle is under attack,” she whispered. “Maelgwyn has sent his shades.”
“Shades?” I parroted, a chill skating down my spine. The same shades I’d narrowly avoided on my first night in Neath? The ones Jacques had warned me of? I glanced to the dark corners of the cavernous bathroom, where Pansy’s light failed to penetrate the shadows. Nothing stirred, thank God. Not yet, anyway.
The witch nodded. “Creatures of shadow. They travel by darkness. They’re immune to wards and weapons. We have no way to fight them off.”
Okay, so this was really bad.
“All we can do is wait for it to end and pray.”
Well, I wouldn’t be doing the latter, no matter how dire the situation. Then again, if witches and fairies were real, why not gods? I glanced around again. The bathroom was empty but for us. “Where are the other witches?”
“Hiding, with any luck.” Pansy sank down, crossing her legs. The lantern rattled as she placed it on the bottom of the tub with quaking hands. My heart forgot to beat as the flame guttered, plunging low, but it recovered, bathing the room in light.
I sat opposite Pansy, trying not to envy the knitted dressing gown she wore over her nightdress, or the slippers on her feet. The cold, smooth crystal nipped at the bare skin of my legs and seeped through the thin fabric of my nightdress, chilling my backside.
“My mother woke me,” Pansy continued in hushed tones. “This is her lantern. It’s not enough to stop them on its own, but combined with the protection circle, it should repel them.”
Should. The word did nothing to comfort me. “What happens if it”s not enough?”
The witch’s plump lips thinned, and she held my gaze for a long moment before answering. “The shades come at night and take people from their beds. Usually fae, but sometimes witches. They never come back. Nobody really knows what happens to them, but knowing Maelgwyn…”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence. The other witches had mentioned children being taken from their beds to be used by Maelgwyn. I’d only discovered the sorcerer”s existence a few hours ago, but I’d heard enough that my imagination ran rampant with ideas of what ‘used’ might mean, each worse than the last. I shivered, opening my mouth to ask another question, but my words dried up on my tongue.
The darkness at the edges of the room swelled and grew, spreading across the floor like fingers of smoke. Pansy gave a tiny, squeaking gasp and huddled in on herself, eyes screwed shut. I did no such thing. Paralysed by fear, I stared open-mouthed as the shadow rose into the air, the hairs on my arms rising with it as it shifted into a vaguely human form. Glowing, white eyes sparked to life, and though they were devoid of pupils, the shudder in my soul told me the shade looked straight back at me.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stare into those glaring, white eyes.
Maybe it was because I was huddled at the bottom of a bath, or maybe it was because I had a vague idea of what the creature was capable of, but it seemed much larger than the one I’d spotted on the riverbank. It towered over us, a shifting shape of dense darkness.
Worst of all, it wasn’t alone. Identical, wispy figures rose from the floor all around us, their impossible forms wafting like smoke. They drifted to the tub, pressing close, shoulder to gently whirling shoulder. Were they smoke or shadow? How could they exist? Why were they here?
Many blank eyes drank in the sight of us. They clamoured closer, crowding my end of the tub, their shadows merging. Were they after me?
God, no. This was the last thing I needed. Pansy’s protection circle seemed incredibly feeble as the wall of shades grew denser, blocking everything beyond the tub. A ring of darkness, with only a sprinkle of powder and a skittering flame preventing them from snatching me away.
What would become of me if the murderous, human-hating king got his hands on me?
The nearest shade grew denser, its shadows bordering on solid form. What was, unmistakably, a claw like hand lifted, reaching for me.
With a shuddering gasp, I leaned away, only to remember my assailant’s fellows on my far side.
Shit. This was it. This was how I died. Somehow, I couldn’t tear my horrified eyes away as death itself reached for me.
The shade’s hand sizzled as its fingers crossed the circle, and the beast snatched it back, letting out a hideous hiss.
Fervent relief surged through my terror. It worked. Pansy’s magic worked.
The witch began muttering again, rocking back and forth. Whatever she said only seemed to aggravate the monsters. The tendrils drifting from them snapped and jerked, like flames caught in the wind. Another drawn-out hiss sent a shiver streaking down my spine.
The shades grew agitated, their coiling and furling movements becoming sharper, as though a brisk wind tugged at them. They faded back a step, circling the tub. Were they searching for a way through Pansy’s protection circle? Was the light not strong enough to drive them away?
I glanced again at the dark window. No hint of dawn offered to save us from whatever fate the shades had in store. Hours of night lay ahead. Shuffling closer to Pansy and the lantern, I reached for the witch’s hands. She clamped her small yet surprisingly strong fingers around mine and squeezed.
Please, I begged a god I didn’t believe in. Please make them go away. Don’t let us die.
If there was an old man in the sky looking down on us, I had no right to ask him for anything. I didn’t believe a word of any religion. I scoffed at it. I believed in science. As far as I knew, witches were the natural enemy of the church, but there I was, clinging to Pansy and praying for our survival while monsters swarmed around a giant magic crystal. The pope would burn me at the stake for this.
My pulse thudding in my ears was my only indication of time passing us by. A drumbeat, leading us to morning, to the safety of sunshine. I focused on the sound, letting it ground me with its insistent reminder that I was still alive, somehow. At times, I could have sworn an echoing beat answered from the crystal pressed against my skin.
The shades made no further attempts to reach me as time slithered by. I tried to resist the urge, when my eyes slid sideways. My heart swelled with hope. Most of the monsters had vanished, faded back to wherever they’d come from. Only three remained. One lingered nearby, maintaining its vigil, but the other two meandered closer to the dark edges of the bathroom. Even as I watched, one faded out of existence as though it had never been. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe this was all one drawn-out, hellish nightmare.
No. Even I couldn’t convince myself of that anymore.
I squeezed Pansy’s hands again, as real as my own. As much as I didn’t want to accept it, this was my life now. No amount of wishing or pretending or even praying would get me out of it. Only action. I had to get home. I couldn’t survive another night like this one. I wanted my normal life back, where the only things keeping me from sleep were assessment jitters or handsome men. Plan or not, I was leaving. When the sun rose, I’d take my map and knife, and I’d make for the Blood Gate, which I would find open. The witches had to have lied about them being sealed. I would not live like this. I would find my way home.
With a faint hiss of frustration, the nearest shade jerked away, its shadows whipping. It sank into the depths of darkness clinging to the corners and disappeared. On the far side of the bathroom, its companion followed suit.
“Pansy,” I croaked through my tight throat. “They’ve gone.”
My unlikely friend snapped her head up, staring around as though she doubted my words. “Thank the Mother,” she breathed, her hushed voice dripping with relief. “I thought they would be the end of us.”
I eased into a new position, stretching my stiff, trembling limbs. “Does this happen often?”
Pansy shook her head. “Not here. Never in my lifetime.”
Should I be relieved or concerned that the first attack on Nairsgarth had happened the very same day I’d arrived at the castle? Could it be a coincidence that the loony human-hating king would send his minions to the bathroom of the only human to set foot in these lands in centuries? I shivered again.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen for another few hundred years. Are they gone? For real? Can we get up?”
“I’m not sure.” Pansy glanced over her shoulder. “What if they come back? Maybe we should just stay here until morning.”
I was far from brave, but the thought of sitting in a cold, empty rock until daybreak was almost as terrifying as the shades. Sleeping in a tree had been bad enough. “No, I saw them leave, and besides, we have the lantern. Come on. Let’s find the others.”
If the shades did return, I’d rather have the protection of the entire coven over one relatively young witch.
Pansy opened her mouth as though she wanted to argue but instead, she peered around the innocently empty bathroom before rising to her feet, clutching the lantern. “Alright, but stay close to me. Don’t stray into the shadows.”
Trying hard not to imagine what it would be like to have the dark edges of the corridors swell around me and whisk me off to a grizzly, unknown fate, I clambered awkwardly from the tub, leaving the protection of Pansy’s circle behind. Nothing rushed out to grab me.
The witch spoke in those strange words she’d used earlier, no language I’d ever heard, and followed me.
“What powder did you use for the spell?” I asked as we crept back to the bedroom, shoulder to shoulder.
“Salt from the Emrallt Sea. It’s the best you can get, very powerful, but any will do in a pinch.”
Would I ever recover from this ordeal, or would Pansy’s information prove useful to me? Would I go back home, only to become paranoid and afraid of my own shadow? What would Mum think when she found circles of table salt all over the house and crystals on every surface?
Mercifully, my dark room was completely devoid of creepy shadow men. I tugged Pansy to my bedside, sliding my freezing feet into my slippers and donning my robe, glancing over my shoulder all the while.
“Emrallt? Is that the one I can see from my window?” Why was I asking when I didn’t care in the slightest? To ease my frazzled nerves, or distract Pansy from hers?
“Yes. That’s why the coven originally settled here, thousands of years ago. The area makes our magic more powerful.”
“That’s handy.” I only half-heard the reply leaving my lips. My galloping heart drowned out everything else with its incessant drum roll.
Our slippers scuffed as we shuffled out into the corridor. To my relief, candles gleamed in all the sconces, and Pansy and I huddled our way through their skittish light. We lapsed into silence, but somehow ended up clasping hands again as we crept along the deserted corridors. With every corner, every gloomy alcove, my muscles clenched, braced for an attack from an otherworldly being, but all was quiet and still. Unnervingly so.
Pansy led the way down to the bottom levels of the castle, and narrower, tunnel-like corridors.
“My room is down here,” she whispered. “It’s not much. We’re supposed to get better quarters as we progress, and younger witches take up the basic rooms. But there are no younger witches, not anymore.”
The plain doors lining the corridor were all firmly closed, most with light beaming under the gaps. Hopefully that meant the inhabitants were safe.
“This is m–oh…”
A little way ahead, a door stood open. Pansy stumbled to a halt, holding her lantern aloft. The light washed over the otherwise dark room, revealing the carnage within. Covers were torn off the bed, baring a slashed mattress, its feathery guts spilling over the sheets. Colourful cushions littered the floor, and a chest of drawers lay on its side, its contents pooled around it like the blood of a fallen soldier.
“Pansy!”
I almost leapt clean out of my slippers at the shriek echoing along the corridor. I snapped my head around to find Hyacinth barrelling toward us, eyes wild. The witches collided, forcing me to concede a step, but I lingered closer than I might usually have done. Though I’d seen no hint of a shade on our journey here, I wasn’t sure I’d ever leave the little patch of lantern light ever again.
“Mother.” The lantern’s glow dipped as Pansy hugged the older woman, clinging to her as though her life depended on it. “You’re alright.”
Hyacinth stepped back, gripping Pansy by the shoulders and examining her. “I came by your room and saw–I’ve been worried half to death–I thought I told you to hide!”
“I did! I hid with Aliza.”
Hyacinth threw a glance at me. I returned it with a shifty smile and a small wave.
“She was alone, Mother. She’s new here, and she had no idea what to expect or do. Nobody but me thought to go to her. The shades were in her room! We’ve only just found her, and we could have lost her on the first night! You said it yourself, she’s our only–”
“Alright, dear, it’s alright,” Hyacinth interrupted her daughter’s increasingly hysterical tirade. “You’re safe, and so is Aliza, that’s all that matters. I just had a fright when I saw the state of your room. I thought…”
She thought Pansy had been taken. My eyes slid back to the trashed room. Hyacinth’s fears could have easily been the truth. Pansy could have been, even now, enduring some God-awful fate, never to be seen again. My guts twisted at the thought. I barely knew the witch, but I liked her. She was cheerful and sweet, and she’d risked her own safety to protect me. What if she hadn’t bothered? Would those monsters have crept from my bathroom to find me sleeping, unaware and unprotected? Would I have woken to find them towering over me, surrounding my bed, or would I have died in my sleep without ever having the chance to make it home?
My shudder had nothing to do with the chilly night air.
“What of the others?” Pansy asked, drawing my attention from the slashed mattress. “Is everyone safe?”
Hyacinth’s brown skin paled slightly, her brow puckering. “I’m afraid not. Three were taken.”
Pansy pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling a shuddering gasp. “Who?”
“Rosemary, Lavender and Daisy.”
I wracked my brain, but the names meant nothing to me. Whoever the victims were, they hadn’t been present at my curse induction. That didn’t mean they weren’t real women though. Real women who could very well be as gutted as Pansy’s mattress. The knot in my stomach tightened.
“How do we save them?” My voice came out small and hoarse, but the knowledge that three witches were suffering steadied me, strangely. It made things clearer. Helping them was the only thing to be done, but how?
Hyacinth’s gaze softened as she turned it on me, her lips pressing together in a sympathetic smile. “We don’t. They are beyond our reach now.”
I didn’t mean to laugh, but the scornful scoff burst from my lips anyway. “That’s it then? We just give up?”
The idea was ludicrous. There was almost always something to be done. Some course of action to at least try, however bleak the outlook.
“It is not a matter of giving up, Aliza–”
“Has anyone ever tried to get people back from the shades? They can’t just disappear. There has to be something we can do.”
“Oh, there is,” Hyacinth agreed earnestly. “But it will not make a difference to those we have lost tonight. It will, however, save countless innocent lives in future.”
My argument dried up in the face of what was coming next. The answer. The experimental solution, untried and undesirable, but the last hope. Like a rabbit in the headlights, I waited for the blow to fall.
“Prince Anwir is the only known wielder of lightning magic, which, incidentally, is the one brand of weapon effective against the shades. Only he can kill them. The curse must be broken, Aliza. There is no other way.”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, damming whatever excuses might otherwise find their way out.
The two witches watched me, as though waiting for an answer to what hadn’t sounded like a question.
Along the corridor, doors creaked open and wary faces peeped out. Innocent faces. Any of them might have been lost tonight, might still be lost in the future. It could have been Pansy. It shouldn’t have been possible for shadow to slash fabric, but the evidence was undeniable. What if Pansy had been in her bed tonight? Would something other than feathers have been spilt? This was bigger than me. Bigger than my parents. How could I turn my back on an entire world?
“Okay.” I nodded stiffly. “Okay, let’s break this curse.”