Reeve’s heart thumped, his eyes flicking up from the page. Across the room from where he sat on the floor stood Celeste. Er, the witch. Already half obscured by the doorway, that long length of her black hair swept down over her face so that she was almost entirely hidden. He snapped the book shut and thrust it along the floor so that it slid under the bed, pages again scattering.
Oh, Valcord, please don’t let her see any of those vulgar words. Actually, could you not look either?
The witch’s gaze lingered on the fluttering parchment and then crept back to him. Reeve willed the heat out of his face and scrambled to his feet. No longer exhausted, he was ready for whatever fight she would bring to him this time.
“Oh, you ate the tea cakes! Did you like them?”
Reeve opened his mouth, but no words came out, glancing over to the empty plate he had set up on the mantle, the saucer and cup stacked neatly atop along with the empty bottle of milk and full bottle of wine. Yes, he liked the cakes, quite a bit in fact, but it felt too charitable to say. Yet, he should say because it would be polite, and it was true. But she was a witch. A witch whohadn’tpoisoned him. By Dawn’s Light, why was she being so confusing?
He had contemplated his response for too long, and the moment passed simultaneously with the hopefulness from her face. She sidled into the room, carrying with her a jar and the wyvern on her shoulder, but the knight had an ominous feeling she had not come bearing treats this time. “So, um, I was hoping we could talk, Sir Reeve.”
Sir Reeve. Oh, was that how she wanted to play this? There were villains who liked to feign respect with their opponents, but Reeve would not be tricked by sarcasm this time. He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head. “There is nowhere else for me to go, witch, so talk.”
She clung to the jar, long fingers spread over the black ceramic, and she frowned. “I find myself in a situation that it appears you might be able to resolve.” Her eyes wouldn’t meet his, but her words felt sincere, if practiced.
“You are plotting something dastardly and wish for my assistance?”
“Not dastardly,” she insisted, and the wyvern waved one of its wings with a dissenting croak. “The opposite, actually. I need help trapping something.”
“A hunter would be better—”
“With magic.” She looked back up at him then, taking a step closer to the barrier. “With holy magic.”
“Divine arcana is not meant for doing evil.”
“Oh, crickets, it’s notforevil.” Frustration rose in her voice. “I need to catch something evil. I think it’s evil anyway. And it can only be done with your kind of magic. Good magic.”
The way she stood there, pinched in and hugging the jar, she looked quite sad and small, nothing like the corruption it was said had taken over the temple in Briarwyke. The Denonfy Oracle had told him of a great evil, and though their words had been difficult to decipher, Father Theodore expounded that Reeve’s duty and indeed his destiny was to see to this evil’s destruction. But this witch seemed like neither a great evil nor something to be particularly proud of destroying.
In fact, she was already damaged, a bandage wrapped around her upper arm, and another on her opposing hand. “Why are you hurt?” The words came out with more bite than he’d meant, his brow furrowing on its own. Had that been…been because of him?
“I did something stupid.” She awkwardly moved her arm as if she could hide the injury. “There was broken glass, I tried to clean it up. Tried to clean up…well, that’s why I need your help. There was something inside this, and it got out. Here.” Quickly, she moved right up to the barrier, placed the jar at the edge, and with a few swipes, pushed it through.
Reeve went to pick it up, but Sid’s voice cut in. “Careful, bud.”
The knight considered the container as he leaned over it, black and simple, though when he looked closer, almost every inch was covered in shallow carvings. “These can’t be,” he whispered and lifted the jar.
Murkiness. The light of Valcord pulsed inside him. There had once been something greedy and unkind and cold inside the jar, but it was gone now. He looked quickly up at the woman—no, not her. This thing, whatever it had been, was nothing like her.
Mother Mariesa had been an expert on the kinds of carvings all over the jar, and she had taught many of the holy knights how to replicate them and infuse them with divine arcana. They had an array of uses, but never had he seen so many scripted sigils meant for protection and warding in one place. He looked up at the woman. “When you touch this, you feel nothing?”
She was scratching the wyvern under its chin. “It feels important, I suppose.”
“But it doesn’t burn your skin? Or make you want to smash it into pieces?”
“The apotrope?” She shook her head.
Reeve made a thoughtful sound at the fact she was unbothered by its push to reject evil. An apotrope—he’d never seen one, but there was talk of them being made at the temple. Some of the holy knights had taken to Mother Mariesa’s teachings, but Reeve hadn’t been one of them, much better at wielding a sword than a reed or tome.
He took off the lid and peered inside, then quickly covered it up again. Oh, no, he didnotlike that. “How did the evil get out?”
“Well, you know…” She glanced up at the patently uninteresting ceiling. “The top came off.”
Reeve tested it, but the lid was crafted rather well to remain in place. He could also see the carved binding marks, able to imagine the arcana there—it was good work, work that wouldn’t just fall apart. “It sounds as though you are leaving something out.”
“Okay, well, that’s because I opened it.”
“You released the evil—”
