The Malediction: Hidden Huntress Part 15

Cecile

Fleur's hooves made little crunching sounds as they punched through the ice-coated puddles of the muddy streets. I'd sneaked silently out of the house at dawn, running all the way to the stables to meet Chris.

Now, I was glad that I'd let him convince me go by horse to see Catherine that morning. Pigalle was always dangerous, but it felt even more so now that I was caught between opposing forces, both of whom were watching me closely via their agents. The King's messenger, I knew, would be keeping tabs on my progress; but now that I was nearly certain that Marie was in league with a.n.u.shka, I expected her to try to stymie me at every turn. Which begged the question: Why hadn't she tried to kill me yet? Unfortunately, even a night of lying awake thinking had yielded no answers.

Sliding off Fleur's back once we reached Catherine's shop, I looked up at Chris. "You'll be back in an hour?"

He nodded. "Don't even think of leaving without me." Wheeling the mare around, he started down the street at a brisk canter. I watched him ride out of sight, then I knocked once and entered.

"I was wondering when you'd show up." Reaching past me, Catherine turned the bolt. "Let's not have a repeat of last time."

I followed after her, careful not to step on the little dog who insisted on sniffing the hem of my skirt. "You're much quieter this time," I said to him, patting his head.

"He only barks at strangers." Catherine moved silently through her shop, collecting bits of herb, bark, and bone in a plain cooking pot. Holding a bit of kindling to the fire, she carried all the materials to the front of the shop. Sitting on the floor with the pot on her knees, Catherine closed her eyes, mouthing a series of words. Then she dropped the flaming bit of wood into the mixture. Green fire flared up into the air, and she repeated the words one last time.

"What was that spell?" I asked.

Her eyes flicked up to mine. "Something to repel. Anyone who comes near will believe he smells something unbearably repugnant the bone was from a skunk. It won't drive away anyone very determined, but neither will it raise the suspicion of magic."

I wanted to ask her to teach it to me to fill my head with all these little spells that I might one day find myself needing. But there were more important questions that needed answering.

She puttered around the shop, adjusting bottles and arranging papers. She was nervous, I thought, but who wouldn't be in her situation? I was half-surprised she hadn't fled the city, but then again, maybe she couldn't afford to. Judging from the threadbare hem of her dress the same she wore the last time we met she had little money to spare. This shop and its contents might well be all she had, and giving that up, even if her life was at risk, was no small thing.

"Which side did you inherit from?"

I jumped, Catherine's voice startling me. "Pardon?"

She raised one eyebrow, then picked up her dog. "Your affinity with the earth's power it's an inherited condition."

"I know..." I pressed fingers lightly against the long scar running down my ribs. "My grandmother. But she isn't..." I searched for a word, "... practicing. She's a healer of sorts, but she only uses plants, herbs, and the like. She taught me the basics."

"Then she is practicing."

"Really, it's a shame my sister wasn't the one who inherited the gift," I babbled. "She's much more interested in such things."

"It tends to fall to only one a generation," Catherine replied. Souris lifted his head, jumped to the ground, and hurried into the back. She watched him go, then asked, "What about your mother?"

"Oh, Gran is my father's mother," I corrected, following with a burst of nervous laughter. "My mother... No, my mother isn't a witch. At least not in the sense of magic." I laughed again, feeling unable to suppress it, the sound filling the room. "I didn't mean that. She can be dreadful sometimes, but she isn't..." I sucked in a deep breath and counted to five. "The magic comes from my grandmother."

Catherine's dark eyes seemed to bore into me. "You've a very loud voice."

I winced, feeling the skin across my chest and cheeks burn. "Sorry. Hazard of my profession." Apparently she wasn't the only one who was nervous.

"Indeed." She sat across from me at the table. "Why don't you go to her with your questions?"

I bit at my lip, praying I appeared more confident than I felt. "Because she doesn't know anything about the sort of magic I'm interested in."

"What sort of magic is that?" Her foot made a little drumming noise against the wooden floorboards.

"Blood magic."

Her foot stopped tapping.

"Curses, in particular," I added, before I lost my nerve.

"What makes you think I know anything about such things." She extracted a bottle of green liquid from her pocket and took several mouthfuls.

I lifted one shoulder and let it fall. "It's a long way from the Regent's court to Pigalle."

A muscle in her cheek twitched. "Far enough that perhaps I learned my lesson not to dabble in such things." It was as much admission as I was going to get that she was familiar with the dark arts.

"I'm not interested in casting a curse," I said. "I'm interested in breaking one."

The muscle in her cheek twitched again, but otherwise, she looked unsurprised at my question. "You can't," she said, then sighed. "Although that isn't precisely true. You can end a curse by ending the life of the witch whose will binds it."

"There is no other way?"

She hesitated for a heartbeat. "No. None."

Her reluctance made me feel uneasy. She was withholding information. "Why?"

Catherine took another mouthful from her bottle, refusing to look me in the eye. "A curse is an act of will, a desire, which is cemented by the magic of a sacrifice. It will continue until she no longer wills it, or until she dies."

I straightened in my chair. "Does one need a name to curse someone?"

She huffed out a heavy breath. "I should think the witch would know the name of the individual she was cursing, but I suppose it isn't necessary. Its only purpose is to create a focus."

I considered her words for a moment. "So the witch who cast the curse is capable of breaking it?"

Another hesitation. "If she no longer willed it, then it would cease to be."

I held my breath. There was something she wasn't telling me. I could not say exactly how, but I felt in my gut that the other woman was holding information back. But why? What cause or care could she have whether I tried to break a curse that, for all she knew, had naught to do with her. Unless...

Her foot tapping resumed. The air in the shop was cool, but tiny beads of sweat were forming on her forehead.

"That's unfortunate," I said. "But perhaps there is something else you might help me with."

"Oh?" Her eyes flicked to the door, then back to me.

"That spell you used to contact me through the fire, can you teach it to me?"

She settled into the chair. "That is a simple spell all you really need is something of the person you wish to contact and fire on both ends. There are some plants you can put in the fire to fuel the magic, but a witch of even moderate ability has no real need of them."

"What do you mean, something of them?"

Catherine shrugged. "A strand of hair. A fingernail. Blood." Her eyes met mine. "It sometimes works if you have a possession belonging to the person. Something important. But not always."

My heart sank. I most certainly had nothing of Tristan's. I didn't even have anything that belonged to him. I sighed the notion that I might be able to contact him had been foolish anyway. He wasn't human the earth's magic didn't know him. What's more, there was no fire in Trollus.

But I did have a.n.u.shka's grimoire. If I used it to contact her, I'd see her face. What more proof would I need? "What's the incantation?" I asked.

She laughed, her tone mocking and amused. "You really know nothing, do you?"

My cheeks burned. "I don't recall saying otherwise."

"I suppose not." She pursed her lips. "The incantation what you say matters not. What matters is that your thoughts are focused on what you desire to occur. Some find it easier to focus their minds by speaking words. By making a ritual of the spell. Some don't."

"I see. And after you focus your thoughts, you..."

"Consign the hair, fingernail, or whatever it is you are using to the flames."

I winced. That was going to be problematic. I'd only have one chance, and what if she wasn't near a fire? Then I'd have lost her grimoire for nothing.

"Magic requires something to be given up," Catherine said, as though reading my thoughts. "Only the dark arts require nothing from the pract.i.tioner, because blood magic is all about taking that which is not freely given. That's why using blood for even one spell is a slippery slope." Her hand slipped unconsciously into her pocket to retrieve the bottle of absinthe. "It always catches up to you in the end."

As it had obviously caught up with her. Nibbling on the tip of one of my curls, I considered how to phrase my next question. "I've heard that you were once Lady Marie's maid."

Catherine's face smoothed into the expressionless mask of someone trying to hide a reaction. "That's no great secret."

"Were you dismissed because she discovered you were a witch?"

She barked out a laugh. "Hardly. That was half the reason I was in her employ."

I blinked, surprised to have my suspicions so easily confirmed. The Regent, or at the very least, Lady Marie, was apparently not as opposed to witchcraft as the laws would suggest. Which only cemented my belief that she was helping a.n.u.shka hide from the trolls. "I'm performing at her solstice party," I said. "She's shown an interest in me, and I was starting to become concerned that it was because she knew..." I trailed off when Catherine blanched.

"You must go now." She leapt to her feet, knocking her chair onto its back.

"But I've only just arrived. You said you'd help me."

"That was before I knew Marie was watching you." s.n.a.t.c.hing hold of my arm, she hauled me with surprising strength to the front of the shop. "Don't come back."

"What is wrong?" I demanded, unwilling to leave with so many questions left unanswered. "What happened to cause her to turn on you?"

"I meddled in that which I should not," she said, twisting the bolt and shoving me out before the door was half open. "I will not make the same mistake twice."

The door slammed in my face, and I stood staring at it like a fool, trying to think of what I should do.

"Well, that didn't go well."

I whirled around in time to see Chris stepping out from the narrow s.p.a.ce between the two buildings. "You were listening."

He had the decency to look embarra.s.sed. "The back door was unlocked."

"Well, I suppose that saves me having to explain our conversation." I followed him over to where Fleur was tethered.

"Catherine's not going to help you, Cecile. She's afraid."

"I know." I squinted up at the sky, judging the time. "But she's got answers, so I'm going to have to think of a way to get her to talk."

"Maybe not." He held out his hand, revealing a mat of hair pinched between his fingers. "You'd think she'd know better than to leave a hairbrush laying around."

"Christophe Girard, you are brilliant," I breathed, taking the hair from him and carefully tucking it away in my pocket, mentally flipping through a.n.u.shka's grimoire as I thought of ways to use it.

Glancing up, I saw that Chris's face was tight and he was studiously examining his boots. "What's wrong?"

"I took something else."

I raised one eyebrow. "What else could you possibly have taken? I was in there for only a few minutes."

He grimaced. "I took it before. When we were hiding in the cellar, I saw those books sitting on the table and I took one."

My other eyebrow rose to join its mate. "You stole it?"

"I was going to put it back that was the reason I snuck in. But then I heard her talking and I knew she wasn't going to help, so..."

"So you kept it?" I struggled and failed to keep the eagerness from my voice. Part of me was annoyed that he hadn't told me he'd taken it in the first place, but a larger part knew he wouldn't have kept it from me without good reason.

"Here." He extracted a small, well-worn book from inside his coat. "I couldn't read much of it, but I recognized enough to know that it's a nasty bit of work."

Glancing surrept.i.tiously around, I flipped through the pages. It was full of spells, blood magic. And the instructions were both graphic and specific. I swallowed hard, remembering what Catherine had said about this sort of magic: Using blood for even one spell can put any woman on a slippery slope, and it always catches up to you in the end. I'd heard her warning, but when my eyes landed on a spell on a particularly dog-eared page, I knew I was going to disregard it.

Twenty.

Tristan

"So these are them?" Tips unfolded my plans across the scarred table, his face tightening as he noted the substantial differences between them and what my father had provided. I could see he was calculating the wasted months of work, and the effort that would be needed to pull down all the stone and begin anew. The emotional toll it would have on those who had already endured much loss.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at a red smear across a series of calculations.

I leaned forward. "Jam. Raspberry, if I recall correctly."

Tips snorted. "The plans your father gave us didn't have any food stains."