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?”
