The right of E.V. Woods to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
The name Usborne and the Balloon logo are Trade Marks of Usborne Publishing Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems (including for text or data mining), stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 9781805077657
CHAPTER ONE
If You See the Montparsson Witches, You Must Die
Two witches stood at a dusty window in Montparsson House, deciding how the little boy in their garden should die.
Beyond the grime on the glass, winter was beginning to creep upon the world, etching itself into the bark of skeletal tree branches. Grey clouds sunk low, as if they were trying to drown the world.
Iris Montparsson watched the child play with her little sister with the sensation that something crueller than winter was creeping up inside her. That something darker than storm clouds were drowning her.
“She’s lonely, Phoebe.” Iris’s breath formed a fog against the pane, momentarily smearing the children in the garden into a melancholy watercolour. “You can’t punish her for that.”
She turned, risking a glance at her older sister, who stood gazing at the human clasping hands with a Montparsson witch. Phoebe might only have been twenty years old, but the weight of responsibility as the Montparsson Matriarch was already showing in the lines inscribed in her forehead, scratched around her mouth where her lips were pursed in thought. Her hair, deep
brown where Iris’s was as black as raven feathers, was tied into a braid she restlessly played with.
“She knows better,” she responded hoarsely.
Once, centuries ago, witches and humans had lived side by side. Witches had been healers, foretellers of misfortunes, ethereal beings that humans would pay good coin to visit. Until unease over the witches’ gathering power began to take precedence – until the telltale hitch in the air, the sharp tangy scent of magic and the tickle at the back of their necks that indicated a witch was nearby became something to fear, rather than revere.
Now, elite human hunters sought Iris’s kind, and witches had no choice but to conceal their existence. Hide from those who sought to destroy them.
“She does know better, but she’s desperate.” Iris turned away with guilt roiling uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach at the sight of those lines chiselled on her sister’s face. “She knows what her duty is, but her need to be a child is stronger.”
“You mean her need to be selfish?” Phoebe spat out.
Iris’s eyes darted towards her. “Phoebe,” she said softly. “She’s eight.”
Phoebe’s shoulders sagged. The Matriarch should have been someone much older, more experienced. But since their mother died two years ago and their father fled to find a new coven, unable to bear the thought of being ruled by a daughter who automatically inherited at eighteen as the eldest female, they were all that were left of the once great Montparsson coven. Phoebe, Iris, and Cora, who was playing out in the cold in the unkempt garden with a human boy.
Phoebe sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just… Her duty to this coven comes above everything else. It comes above anybody else. We are all she has and she can’t forget that.” Phoebe’s hands went to the windowsill, gripping it so tightly her knuckles pushed white against her skin. “We have to protect ourselves viciously and violently because we are alone, and we are in danger. And now, the boy has to die, just like the last one.”
That storm cloud feeling rose up with renewed force inside Iris. Thunder rumbled behind her ribcage, grief pushing at the bones. “Isn’t there another way?” she whispered, her throat suddenly raw. “Can we not spare some magic for a memory charm at the very least?”
Phoebe squeezed her eyes shut, her brows furrowing in a way that made those lines deeper. She swallowed, her throat bobbing as if she were holding back a sob. Cora’s laughter punctuated the quiet, followed by an unfamiliar, carefree giggle that made Iris feel sick with sorrow.
Eventually, Phoebe spoke. “No.”
Iris opened her mouth to argue, but Phoebe held up a hand.
“Believe me, Iris, I’m not doing this because I want to. We may fear humans, but that doesn’t mean I want to hurt their children. But until our magic starts to rejuvenate, we cannot spare a drop to save his life – not unless we’re willing to risk our own.”
Phoebe’s eyes lifted, tracing a path to the wrought iron fence that ringed Montparsson House, and the press of the gnarled trees beyond it. Iris followed her gaze.
“Cora has brought him through the wards, so they will not affect him anymore. If we let him go, he could come back with others. They’ll approach the wards and, honestly, I don’t know if
they will hold. I haven’t strengthened them for a year now because our magic is nearly depleted. I cannot guarantee they won’t find a way through.”
Phoebe turned to Iris then, her tone urgent. “I cannot guarantee they won’t summon Witch Hunters to drown us, all for that little boy. All for Cora’s loneliness.” She reached out and gently gripped Iris’s shoulders, bending a little until their faces were level, urging her to understand. “My main job as Matriarch is to keep you safe. To ensure the Montparssons survive. Sometimes that comes at a cost.”
Phoebe dropped her hands and stood back, watching Iris carefully. Her expression was desperate, like she was hoping Iris would offer an alternative. As if Iris might breathe into life a way to spare the boy without sacrificing what little magic they had.
But all she could do was shuffle her feet. Slowly, the dim light of hope in Phoebe’s eyes died.
“Very well,” she whispered as Iris’s heart began to ache with a renewed ferocity. “It’s decided then.”
Iris hesitated, and then nodded, the storm inside her cowed.
Because Phoebe was right. It was the boy, or their lives. And what kind of question was that? What witch would put a human life over their own coven?
“How are you going to do it?” Iris asked.
Phoebe didn’t reply for a moment, lifting her fingers to her lips and gnawing the nails down to the skin.
Finally, Phoebe spoke. “I need you to do this.”
The chill in her body grew claws, tearing through Iris’s being. “W-what?” she stuttered.
“I need you to do it.” Phoebe refused to look at her. “Your talk
of sparing him has concerned me. I need you to show me you understand. That you truly understand and you’re willing to do what is necessary for this coven.”
Iris shook her head, her voice coming out weak. “I…I…no! I can’t… I can’t kill a child!”
“You can and you will,” Phoebe replied sharply. She turned to stare Iris down, her eyes suddenly beset with shadows. The sight made Iris quieten. “I might not be around forever. Things can change quickly and I need to know you can be there for her, Iris. For Cora. That you can honour our ancestors by doing what is necessary to survive if I’m not around to do it for us.” Phoebe stepped closer. “I need to know you can be a true Montparsson.”
Iris’s face crumpled. “Phoebe,” she said, but whatever was meant to follow never wormed its way out into the frigid air. It was Iris’s duty to respect her Matriarch’s wishes, to do what was asked of her. Phoebe was young, only three years older than Iris, but to disobey her in such a way would be a shocking demonstration of disrespect. Her Ancestors watching from the stars would not look kindly on the slight – and Iris had already failed them so terribly in her lifetime.
She took a deep breath and nodded.
Phoebe nodded back, satisfied but unsmiling. She didn’t offer Iris a moment of comfort, the weight of the world pulling her lips down into a sad curve.
“Make it quick and clean. And for Ancestors’ sake, try and make Cora understand what she has done this time. It’s the child’s death, or ours.”
Iris trailed out of the room with Phoebe’s last words haunting her.
CHAPTER TWO
A Woven Crown
“Cora!” Iris called out into the overgrown garden, her voice nearly stolen by the sharp wind. Cora turned at the sound and began to cross the dewy grass.
Three crows screamed above Montparsson House, flapping over the wrought-iron fence that ringed the manor. Beyond the fence, gaunt trees that hid the Montparssons away from the world were slowly succumbing to winter’s embrace, the sky a sallow grey. Woodsmoke plumed from the chimney above Iris, the scent as familiar as the sensation of her own heartbeat.
Iris shivered despite the woollen cloak she had thrown on over her dress. But it wasn’t the cold causing her to shake.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Iris said as Cora approached, offering a warm smile she didn’t feel. “Who’s that boy?”
Cora’s shoulder-length hair, as dark and curled as Iris’s, snapped in the wind as she turned to look in the direction of the boy. “That’s Julian. I found him near the gates and said he could come in to meet Thaddeus.” Cora turned back to Iris, her expression suddenly tight. “I made him promise he won’t tell anyone about us, which means it’s fine. Right?”
Iris swallowed as she knelt down, rubbing her hands up and down Cora’s arms and ignoring the cold biting into her knees. “Cora… You know it isn’t okay.”
Cora’s mouth downturned to become the perfect match to Phoebe’s earlier expression.
“Do you remember the last human you brought home?” Iris continued softly.
Cora’s hands clenched into fists. “Phoebe killed her,” she said through gritted teeth. “But she said it was because she couldn’t let the girl tell anyone about us. Julian has promised he won’t.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“He won’t tell,” Cora hissed. Frustration and despair entwined inside Iris’s chest like a physical weight dragging her to the floor. She wanted to agree – she wanted to tell Cora she could play with her friend – but it wasn’t fair to allow her to play with a child destined to lie in a shallow grave.
She forced her voice into something stern.
“We cannot risk our lives for the word of an eight-year-old. When you’re older, you’ll understand a little more. You know the Montparsson magic—”
But Iris’s words were cut off when Cora’s fists suddenly came swinging towards her, pounding against Iris’s chest in a burst of tears.
“I hate this coven! I hate being a Montparsson!” Cora struggled away from Iris when she reached out for her and dashed past to flee inside. Iris sighed as a wolf hound silently appeared from within the dark depths of the house and sat, cocking his head at Iris as Cora’s furious footsteps faded.
Iris ground her teeth as Thaddeus watched her with sad,
forlorn eyes.
“I know. We shouldn’t have let it happen twice.”
Thaddeus was the Montparsson familiar – a supernatural spirit that had chosen to serve the coven. He preferred to take the shape of a wolf hound and had been living in their ancestral home for centuries – longer than Iris cared to fathom. His long years translated into a wisdom that weighed heavily in his deep brown eyes, his every thought and emotion plain in his expression.
She sighed. “Can you follow her? Please? And don’t let her look out the window.”
Thaddeus huffed in an almost identical way, before heaving himself upright and padding away. Iris waited until his grey tail had swished around the corner, before turning her attention back to the boy.
Back to Julian. If she was going to kill him, he at least deserved to die with his name in her mouth. She pulled her cloak tighter and moved down the patio steps towards him.
The boy, Julian, was sitting cross-legged in the garden where the dying lawn gave way to wild shrubbery that somehow defied the tightening grip of winter. She watched as he reached into the bushes, drawing out a fistful of sticks before bowing his dark head, elbows jutting as he worked on something in his lap.
The moment ended too soon when Iris loomed over him.
“Julian?”
Julian paused, his head turning towards her. Iris swallowed as she took him in for the first time. The sweet slope of his nose, the dark eyes set deep into his warm brown skin, framed by glasses that were clearly too big for him and crudely repaired at the
bridge. His eyes darted past her.
“Where’s Cora?” he asked.
Iris offered him her sweetest smile. “She’s gone inside to check on our dog. Have you met him yet?”
The boy looked at Iris a little longer, before he returned her smile with a grin of his own that made her ache.
“No.”
“Would you like to?”
Julian nodded. “I just need to finish this first.”
He turned his attention back to the undergrowth, his little tongue poking out in concentration as he pulled out another stick.
Iris crouched beside him. “What are you making?”
Julian took a few beats to respond, too wrapped up in crafting what looked like a woven circlet in his lap.
“A crown.”
His brows furrowed as he added the finishing touches to the crown. It was a crude thing, with snapped twigs jutting out at odd angles, dirt caught in the twists and turns. Julian tilted his head to admire his finished work. After a moment, he raised his hands, leaning forward to place the crown atop Iris’s head.
Her heart stuttered. The kindness of the gesture nearly snapped her in two.
“Thank you,” she whispered, as Julian climbed to his feet and brushed himself down, completely unaware of how he had crumpled the Montparsson witch crouched beside him.
“Can I see the dog now?” he asked.
Iris stood and reached for Julian’s little hand. “Come with me.”
She glanced back at Montparsson House as she began to lead Julian away, further into the grounds and out of sight of the room where she and Phoebe had stood.
The two-storey manor was grand in the way old things always are, even as they’re falling apart. Paint flaked from the black beams, ivy, dying in parts, growing the length of the walls. The windows were so fine and fragile they looked as if they would snap under her touch, though they had withstood more storms than Iris could remember. She caught a glimpse of Phoebe’s face boring down on her, as drawn and pale as a ghost.
Iris swallowed and hurried away. She led the child around to the other side of the house, where two crusted doors leading into the kitchen were wrapped by a once grand patio that now tilted with the press of weeds. The patio bore a stone fountain that had long since stopped running, but stood proudly in the centre of a stagnant pond regardless.
“Have you seen our pond?” Iris nodded her head towards it, watching Julian’s swivel in turn. “Sometimes we get frogs in there.”
“Frogs?” he asked as he stumbled, keenly inspecting the water as they stopped by the edge and peered down together.
Iris’s chest cracked open, becoming as cold and empty as an endless void. There was emotion in there, somewhere, she was sure. But she drowned out the voices that told her to stop. To let the child go. She had to drown them out so she could hear the voices of her ancestors – the demands within her very blood that insisted she protect herself. Protect her coven.
She spoke again, the words painful as if they were dragging pointed spines along her tongue.
“Yes, you have to look closely, though.”
Julian uncurled his hand from hers, bending down closer to the water.
“Can you see any?” Iris all but whispered.
The boy was distracted. He was looking so curiously into the water, searching for frogs Iris knew hadn’t thrived there in a decade, that he wouldn’t notice her hands reach for his head. His mind would be elsewhere when his body shut down. She nudged closer, a single tear forcing its way out of that cold void inside her.
“Look closer,” she tried to say, but she wasn’t sure if the words came out. She began to reach forward.
She had snapped the necks of hundreds of animals before with her bare hands, knew how to do it just right so that the creature didn’t feel a thing and Iris could secure her coven’s dinner with as little guilt as possible. Her eyes marked the space on the boy’s head where she would lay her palms.
And then, it would be over.
The Montparssons would be safe once more.
Iris glanced once back to the house, but no ghostly face looked down at her. No sombre eyes tracked her progress, and she knew Phoebe hadn’t followed, unable to watch. Iris’s woven crown dug into her scalp, causing a sweet pain to snake across her head.
She took a deep breath.
She lunged.
CHAPTER THREE
Where Magic Should Churn
She grabbed Julian’s hand and pulled him abruptly from the pond’s edge.
“It’s time to go home.” The words were out of Iris’s mouth before she knew what she was doing. Before she could comprehend that she wasn’t lowering a limp body to the ground but instead pulling a very much alive boy away from her ancestral home as quickly as she could.
Julian blinked in surprise, his legs pumping as fast as they could to keep up as Iris hurried away. She glanced back only once to see if Phoebe was watching with her mouth shaped in horror at what Iris was doing – that she most certainly wasn’t doing what she was meant to be doing – but the windows were still empty.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t harm him. Not when he made crowns out of twigs. Not when he gazed so curiously into the water with a taste for life that she herself had long since lost – if she had ever had it at all.
She checked her wrist as they approached the towering wrought-iron gate that protected their home, ensuring her
human ward was safely tied there. The small string bracelet with the blue gem charged with Montparsson magic was useless against Julian now. Cora had brought him through the most powerful wards surrounding their land, which meant she had broken all concealment spells for him.
But where she was going now, she would still need her human ward.
The cold gate clicked open upon Iris’s touch, and she darted away from Montparsson House without another backwards glance, dragging the boy with her.
The witch and the human hurried along the narrow lanes through the press of trees surrounding Montparsson House, downhill to where the fires in Folksleigh were beginning to pop into the twilight like a trail of drifting fireflies. The wind had become unforgiving, tearing Iris’s hair back from her face. Though somehow the crown kept its grip, snagging her curls in its gnarled twists and edges.
Iris glanced behind them as they hurried, her eyes darting across the shadowed woods that pushed in around them. But no footsteps chased her. No hint of her name was caught on the wind. So she focused on the warmth of Julian’s hand curled in her palm and pushed through the burn in her legs, racing the dipping sun.
Before they reached the town, Iris directed Julian off the path, forcing a new one through the shivering woods. They pushed through the undergrowth until they came to the edge, and she could see the smoke-haloed rooftops just beyond the
shrubbery. She kept her eyes on the figures – humans – moving between the stone and timber buildings as twigs and leaves crunched underfoot, the movement stirring up the heady scent of earth and petrichor.
Pausing to peer through the branches, her heart began beating chaotically in protest at her proximity to the humans. If she didn’t have her ward and they so much as glimpsed her, they’d be able to sense her magic, as weak as it was. Smell its tang, feel it prickle at the backs of their necks. They’d call for the Witch Hunters immediately.
They had come to the very edge of Folksleigh’s marketplace, set in an open cobblestone square just beyond the wilderness of the trees. Stallholders were packing up their wares to head home for the night, chasing away children that tried their luck one last time to swipe staling bread loaves. Dyed red and green awnings flapped in the harsh wind, eagerly wrestling those who fought to control them. The sharp scent of salt from the ocean beyond the town sat heavy in the air, wind howling in the distant sea caves.
The Montparsson sisters often relied on their human wards to pay visits here, to steal milk and cheese, cloth and thread. Iris always hated getting too close to the humans, even if their eyes did glaze over at her approach when her human ward took effect – addling their minds the moment they looked at a witch and wiping their memory when they looked away so they’d never even remember the witch snatching wares from their table.
“Do you know your way home from the market?” Iris crouched and gently turned Julian to face her.
Julian nodded a hesitant affirmation. Iris pursed her lips, not wholly convinced. “Well get going, and if you get lost, find
someone you recognise.”
Julian nodded. “Yes, miss,” he said, and he slowly untangled his hand from hers.
Iris felt a splinter of something cold the moment the warmth of his little palm abated. Something that felt a lot like regret. Like fear.
She wanted to honour her ancestors by protecting her coven. But she couldn’t do this. She would just have to live with the shame of it – it was an emotion she had already spent so many nights sitting with back when she had given her love to someone she never should have, so what was a little bit more?
As Julian took his first step towards Folksleigh, his back to the witch who was meant to take his life, Iris took a deep breath. Her next words chased Julian into the dark.
“Obliviscere quod vidisti. Oblivisci qui sum.”
The blood in Iris’s hands tingled weakly as Julian stumbled, as if he had forgotten to take a step. But then, he recovered and walked on, his face turned rigidly to the marketplace.
Iris watched the little boy forget about her as the memories of the day were smeared from his mind, replaced with nothing but emptiness. It wasn’t the best memory charm, but it was the best she could do with what little magic she had running in her veins. The most she could bear to spare.
She thought, with a bitterness that had plagued her entire life, that the tingling in her hands should have felt like a tsunami. An incredible tidal wave of power she should have spent her childhood learning how to control so as to not let that power drown her. But all that was left was this ancestorsforsaken tingle, a bitter scent that barely scratched her nose and a weak memory
charm she could only pray would last on as oblivious a child as Julian.
A sick feeling took root in her stomach and crawled up her throat as she watched Julian walk away, like the tendrils of a thorned rose bush. She had disobeyed her sister, her Matriarch. She had used magic unnecessarily when there was so little left and dishonoured her ancestors yet again. She had put herself and her coven at so much risk.
But she had saved a life. She had saved Julian. And if her memory charm worked as she hoped it would, nobody would be harmed.
Iris shook her head. She needed to get back home. She could mourn her decision later, but now, she needed to convince Phoebe she had simply been taking her time burying the little boy’s body.
She turned to leave, but hesitated at the last moment when the sensation of being watched sharpened her senses, the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly standing on end. Her stomach plummeted when she realised her ward must have failed, because somebody was standing still, frozen mid-step, the bustle of the marketplace splitting like two streams around them with their wide eyes glued to hers.
Realisation settled in and her heart ricocheted.
August Landeville. The youngest of House Landeville, the only other coven on this side of the Shade Woods.
And the Montparssons’ enemies.
August must have sensed her use of magic, because he was looking directly at her. Iris knew she should run, but still, she stayed rooted to the spot in the same way he was, his copper-
toned curly hair blowing in the sharp breeze against his olive skin – several shades darker to Iris’s deathly pale. His chin was buried inside the upturned collar of a navy wool coat, widened eyes darting between her and Julian who had wandered past him, oblivious to the second witch in his midst.
Despite the rush of shock and fear that coursed through her bones, something else beat beside the frantic hammering of her heart. Something that felt like a sweet sickness. A sugar-laced poison.
Laughter by moonlight. The shy press of lips.
As his eyes froze on her and the shape of her name began to form on his lips, Iris turned, tore the twig crown from her head and vanished into the trees at a sprint.
CHAPTER FOUR
When Hope Abandons
Iris couldn’t sleep. The day played out in her mind over and over again, becoming slower and more dreamlike the further the world slunk into the arms of night. Though she knew she couldn’t fathom the alternative, she couldn’t understand why she needed to let Julian live. Why she had burst back into Montparsson House after thrusting her hands into the dirt and showed Phoebe her muddy palms, promising she had taken so long because she was ensuring the grave was deep enough.
And… August Landeville. She’d seen August.
Why couldn’t she be the formidable Montparsson witch she was meant to be? One who would never dream of risking a weak memory charm over the neat and simple closure of a life. Who wouldn’t be awake for hours at night recovering from the shock of seeing her coven’s enemy once more.
Why was she tossing and turning, filled with ache and anger at seeing the boy she had once loved deeply, after so long apart?
Three years ago, she knew the Landevilles were their enemies, but not to what extent. She didn’t understand just how much the Landevilles’ ancestors had brought her own coven
close to ruin.
One day, she’d strayed too far in the wrong direction as she hunted – and saw August in the depths of the dark woodland that separated their ancestral houses. He was curled up with a sketchbook and a tiny orb of light cupped in one hand to work by. When she spotted him, his expression the picture of soft innocence, she couldn’t understand why she had to be afraid of him. In that moment, she was not at all scared. She was intrigued. He had reacted as fearfully as she expected him to when she approached, but she disarmed him with her smile. She liked the way his stare had eventually softened when he realised she was not going to hurt him, growing into a kindness in their brown depths that made her want to sit cross-legged beside him in the darkness and share in his light.
He tentatively showed her what he was drawing – a quiet charcoal rendering of moss creeping up the bark of a tree in full plume. The next night, Iris crept out again at the same time and brought a book to read beside him as he drew, leaning in close so his light fell across her pages and she could smell his dusty, woodsmoke scent. As long as she returned home with a rabbit or two, she knew her coven would never know what she was truly doing.
Slowly, they came to know each other, both in words and in the silence that enveloped them as they read and sketched side by side. Until the words and silence became touches of the hand. Until the sketches of trees and flowers became portraits of Iris, capturing the way her dark hair fell in waves about her shoulders perfectly, life and talent seeping from every textured page in his sketchbook. Until the kindness in his eyes became something
more reverent as he watched her laugh, a warm feeling building in Iris’s belly at that look that had her stupidly, recklessly, leaning in towards him one night, wondering what in ancestors’ name she was doing but knowing deep down, that it felt right.
Until he closed the gap between them and then her questions disappeared along with the last of her doubt and guilt with the innocent press of warm lips.
Iris and August made a binding, one night. A kind of promise that no matter what, they would always love each other. So convinced was Iris that he had been made for her – and she for him – that their covens’ hatred for each other seemed an inconsequential thing. One they could silence with their bond. One they would solve one day with their love, when the time was right.
But she wasn’t careful enough, and one night she found her mother waiting for her. Alexandra Montparsson was a harsh woman, was not one to cuddle her daughters or entertain their fear when they woke in the dead hours with night terrors. But she was never so harsh as the night Iris admitted she was meeting one of their enemies.
After a berating unlike any Iris had known and with her cheeks still burning and her eyes stinging from the tears she had shed, Alexandra had pushed a warm cup of blackberry leaf tea into her hand and sat her down, ready to explain the full truth without preamble.
“Though our rivalry with the Landevilles has spanned millennia, one hundred and fifty years ago, that hatred became something more. Elias Landeville was responsible for the death of one of our own – Maya Montparsson.”
“Wh-what were we feuding over before Maya and Elias?” Iris
managed to ask through the last of the sobs that still tried to force their way out of her after surviving her mother’s initial fury. She had heard the basics of this story plenty of times before, but never the details. Never the intricacies.
She waited for Alexandra to take a long sip of her own tea before answering.
“Details of what exactly had passed between the Houses have been lost to time, because her disappearance overshadowed all else. Her body was never found, so she was presumed dead and our coven accused theirs of murder.
“That accusation caused so many more deaths in both covens as we fought viciously for revenge and justice. So much ire and pain that it can still be felt in our very blood, a hatred passed down as a birth right. And that fateful night still echoes down the tendrils of time to shape our entire existence. Because the Montparsson magic stopped rejuvenating the very same day Maya disappeared.”
Iris had wrapped her hands around her warm mug thoughtfully. The tremors racking her chest from crying had started to calm in the hush of the midnight kitchen, with only her mother’s story to fill the quiet.
“But how? Why would our magic stop rejuvenating?”
Alexandra had rubbed the bridge of her nose as if she couldn’t stand her daughter asking so many questions, despite offering to explain everything. Her expression had made Iris tense and fall silent. But eventually, with a sigh, Alexandra continued.
“We don’t know, Iris. Covens can lose their magic for all sorts of reasons – if ancestors deem them unworthy, if they stray too far from their Altar and cannot return – we don’t know exactly
why our magic never replenished after that night. All we know is they were together, something happened to prevent Maya ever coming home and our magic dried. But knowing the Landevilles, he damned us, somehow.
“We were once so powerful – renowned in Arunterre for the potency of our magic, the skill of our ancestors. But now, because of the Landevilles, we are nothing. We only have a few more years left of our magic if we’re careful with it, and then our wards will begin to drop. We will be left vulnerable and exposed. The Witch Hunters will come, Iris, and we will be drowned or burnt to ash.”
Iris’s hands had begun to shake, rattling the mug against the table. The calm that had started to return to her all at once vanished.
“I didn’t tell you the full truth before, my darling,” Alexandra continued, “Because I didn’t want you to live your childhood beneath the shadow of the full horror of who you are. Of the fate that awaits you if we cannot find the solution in our lifetimes.”
Alexandra reached out and slowly pulled one of Iris’s curls through her fingertips, her voice dropping to a whisper in one of the only moments of Iris’s life she could remember her mother displaying affection.
“But I blinked, and suddenly you are not a child anymore. And I know you think you love him, Iris. But love does not damn you.”
Iris would never forget the fear she felt that night. The revulsion that she had loved the very cause of her coven’s ruin.
The next night, she set out for once last meeting with August, with Alexandra’s permission, and told him she loathed him with her entire being. Hated him with the full force of every ancestor
who had suffered because of his coven.
Now, as the spiteful dawn light had begun to crack against the shadowed sky, Iris slowly returned from the depths of her thoughts as a strange noise caught her attention. She pushed herself upright as claws skittered in the hallways beyond her door, and then swung her legs out of bed as Thaddeus burst into her room at full tilt.
“What in the world?” Iris only stared as Thaddeus leapt onto her bed and thrust his muzzle towards her. Only then did Iris see the piece of parchment carried carefully between his teeth. She grabbed it and stared.
Iris.
It was a letter for her. But how did Thaddeus have it at ancestors know what time in the morning? Without hesitating, she unfolded the letter.
And saw two words that made her stomach plummet. They’re coming.
She jumped to her feet and raced to the window. She stared out into the gloom as her every sense unnaturally sharpened.
An early fog had settled in, the first dew drops of morning shining in the rays cutting through the haze. She scanned the grounds frantically, picking out only the grass as it shuddered in the breeze and the wrought-iron fence ringing the property standing steadfast and stoic, holding back the wilderness that threatened to devour their home.
And then she saw the human shapes emerging from the fog beyond the front gate.
Iris flew into motion. The floorboards protested as she raced through Montparsson House, the stairs grumbling like
threatened thunder on the horizon. She heard a door open and a sleepy voice call her name by the time she reached the bottom of the staircase, but didn’t stop to respond. She slipped on the heirloom rug in the hallway and tore open the front door to race head first into the gloom, Thaddeus at her heels.
Stones cut into her feet as Iris reached the gravel path that wound to the front gate, the wet of her blood soon hot on her skin. But she ignored it, only coming to a stop once the iron gate loomed high above her.
Iris stared at the group of humans who were standing on the other side, fists wrapped around the iron bars. Three of them were inspecting the gate, looking for a lock.
And each of the three wore the tall, sloping hat her family had taught her to fear that made clear their profession.
Witch Hunters. Humans trained to hunt down lost witches whose magic had failed, whose wards were no longer protecting them. And they were here. At Montparsson House.
Two others stood back from the gate – a man and a woman. The woman had her arms wrapped protectively around…around Julian.
Iris collapsed to her knees.
They were here because of her. Here to capture and drown the witches Julian had led them to.
“Oh, ancestors,” she heard Phoebe’s faint voice. And then, louder, as her footsteps raced to meet Iris, “Cora! Stay inside!”
Iris flinched as one of the men rattled the gate, his hand pushing through the bars. A deep growl sounded in the back of Thaddeus’s throat, his heavy breath forming clouds in the sharp cold of morning.
“No way to open it,” the Witch Hunter grumbled as Iris’s chest heaved. “Must be welded shut or something.”
The second Witch Hunter man looked at Iris. No, through her. Towards Montparsson House.
“We’ve never found a witch’s home before – they’re almost impossible to find if they’re not out and about. If the kid is right, he’ll deserve a medal. It will change the way we hunt for good.”
The wards were holding, but just. They could see the house, but only its shell, an illusion forced by wards whose crumbling Iris could swear she could taste – like bitter ash and the sharp tang of hot blood. Like they were burning under the strain of the Witch Hunters’ scrutiny.
The humans and hunters gathered at the gate couldn’t see Iris. Nor could they see Phoebe, who had skidded to a halt at Iris’s side and begun to chant a protection spell, punctuated with the sound of Thaddeus’s paws skittering away.
A light haze shimmered over the gate as Phoebe’s magic began to work, but it was weak as it fought the Witch Hunters’ attempts to break through.
Iris’s eyes caught on Julian’s. The little boy was staring at her, nose crinkled in a frown. He couldn’t understand that the others couldn’t see her. But they hadn’t been led through the wards by a Montparsson witch just twelve hours earlier.
The Witch Hunters’ hands hesitated as the spell fought to take hold, but only slightly, before they reached to shake the gates again. The smell of burning ash and blood filled Iris’s mouth as she listened to her sister fight a losing battle.
“There’s something here alright… Can you smell that? It’s tangy, like magic, but subtle as if they’ve tried to hide it. Let’s try and get over the gate,” one of them said before his boot came within inches of Iris’s face, and he began to heave himself upwards. Phoebe’s chanting grew more voracious.
Iris balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her forehead as the Witch Hunter scaled the fence. If he reached the top, the wards would break. He would see the house as it was, see Phoebe with her hands in the air chanting with the force of a Goddess with so little to show for it, and Iris, a stain on the Montparsson name, helplessly kneeling in the gravel.
It was all her fault for letting the little boy live. For putting her faith in a memory charm that didn’t even last a day.
But her failure didn’t mean she couldn’t try and save this now.
She felt for the telltale buzz of her magic in her body, letting the weak sensation fill her palms. It was an echo of what it should be, and the feeling sickened her. But she had always been strong. She was a Montparsson and had inherited power, however quiet, however weakened. She made herself stand, raised her hands and began to chant along with Phoebe.
The buzzing intensified for a moment, like a wave crashing on a beach, and then Iris had to fight to prevent it from receding. She had to fight for every ounce of magic that answered her call from deep within her bones and blood, coax it out in slithers and demand it billow out into the air. Her body quickly weakened, the exhaustion from forcing out such restricted power in such an
intense way, pummelling her like punches, the feeling of a thousand bruises rising up beneath her skin. Like crawling away from water while dying from thirst.
No matter whether she deserved to be a Montparsson or not, she was one. And she was going to die like one; with magic singing at her fingertips, fighting until the end. She closed her eyes, unwilling to witness the moment the Witch Hunter broke through the wards. She focused on the flow of the chant, the words rolling off her tongue, the fizzing sensation building inside her as heat tore at her skin.
“What is THAT?”
Iris’s eyes flew open at the shout. Her chanting paused, her magic cutting out in a way that knocked her breath out from her chest and left her staggering. For a moment, she thought what she was seeing was an after-effect of draining herself, her head spinning from the effort. But then she heard the throaty growl, chased by a vicious hiss that sliced through the air like a knife and silenced even Phoebe’s magic.
Thaddeus was little more than a shadow with two bulbous, menacing eyes glowering out from the dark. He darted out of the bushes on the other side of the gate, snapping at the humans’ ankles, salivating like a rabid animal – no longer a dog but something much more sinister. Like a Hell Hound out of a nightmare.
The Witch Hunters launched into action. The one climbing the fence dropped, joining the others as they reached for weapons. Iris watched morning light glint off the edge of a rapier, a length of rope thrown at her coven’s familiar – but both simply cut through him as if he were made of shadow.
The Witch Hunters fought for only a moment, Julian and his
parents long since vanished into the trees, before the cry to retreat came.
“Fall back!”
Thaddeus, or this new, hellish form of his, chased the retreating Witch Hunters for a few moments with his jaws snapping, before he paused and stood stoic to watch them flee. Iris rushed to the gate, wrapping her hands around the iron bars as she watched the group running, running…and then slow.
Until they stopped. They looked around, confused. Unsure where they were. Iris could hear their mumbling voices carried on the sharp wind as the renewed wards slammed into place without the pressure of the Witch Hunters attempting to break through. It interfered with their minds, wiped their memories. They had already forgotten what had happened, the house in the woods they had discovered – likely already forgotten the little boy claiming to have visited a witch’s house.
As long as they didn’t turn around, as long as they kept going… they would forget. They would forget everything.
Iris found herself slipping to the floor again, unable to tear her gaze away from the group huddled at the end of the path with dawn breaking over the trees beyond them, as the taste of ash and blood softened. Aftershock growls twisted their way out of Thaddeus’s throat as he stared them down too.
And then…and then they simply walked away.
The Witch Hunters calmly strolled away, ambling like they had nowhere they needed to be, until their forms disappeared back into the gloom.
