“Why not? I feel like I could use some practice at extracting answers.” Ellie smiled tightly. “Are you going to try to tell meyou’venever done something awful with magic? I don’t know, ordered altering a mind?”
“Ellie…” Prospero said warningly.
Walt simply stared at Ellie for a long moment.
Ellie felt a nudging from her temper rise.I could make him listen, confess, just like I could make the witch Prospero brought back talk to us.
The chief witch was speaking to Prospero as if Ellie were no longerpresent. “Maybe there’s one of them that might make a good temporary house head…?”
“No.” Prospero sounded pained. “Scyllawillrecover.”
“Their illusion might hold until Scylla’s up.” The chief witch gestured toward the general direction of the barrier.
And Ellie knew that was what he was motioning toward. Her thoughts of interrogation fled as an image of the barrier filled her mind.
How do I know where it is? What it looks like?
She frowned at that thought. Maybe she remembered from when she arrived here? She could picture it, though, even the path to it. She was fairly sure she could find it—and knew what waited outside the barrier.
“Take me there,” Ellie told her wife, ignoring the chief witch now. He gave her an unpleasant feeling. She turned so she was looking mostly only at Prospero and said, “I don’t think I have the energy to fullybuilda wall, but I can weave some vines or something.…”
Ellie didn’t miss the way her wife glanced at Walter questioningly, as if she were asking permission for something. Ellie kept the old man in her peripheral vision, and his answering nod made fear trickle over her.
Why did Prospero look at him that way? Does he know what I forgot? What does the barrier have to do with it? Why does she obey him?
With the same surety that warned her when someone lied, Ellie knew that asking was dangerous. Herwifewas dangerous. Prospero might be vulnerable right now, and she might genuinely want and care for Ellie, but Prospero made no secret of the fact that she would live, die, or kill for Crenshaw.
“Well, go on with you,” the chief witch ordered with obvious exasperation. “Even I can’t tell you where Aggie and the other two went until magic leaks or is used. You and the headmaster will feel it, too.” Walt made shooing motions at them, as if they were errant hens rather than grown women. He stepped closer and shooed again.
Prospero paused. Then she finally spoke. “I need permission, Walt.”
“For?”
“Justice,” Prospero said tightly. “AllanshotScylla. Aggie—a head of house—was involved. We know that. I saw it in Scylla’s memory.”
“We will need a new head of house then.” Walt reached past her and opened the door. “Sondre’s the next in line for House Grendel. I’ll get a new headmaster figured out soon, and—”
“I don’t give a damn about who heads the house. I won’t be bringing back three badgers. Tell me I have sanction to do so. To question the next one and deal with the other two. Aggie and Allan areheads of house.”
Walter sighed. “I know. It makes their treason worse. You may… handle Agnes and Allan as best you see fit. There will be no consequences to you—” He paused and glanced at Ellie. “—eitherof you or the headmaster if they can’t be brought back.”
Prospero bowed her head respectfully. “Consider it done.”
With that, Allan’s and Agnes’ death warrants were just sealed. Prospero had permission to kill. There was a slight chance that Walt meant siphoning, but that was as good as murder for a witch who was powerful or old or both. Two heads of house would die for their actions.
And Prospero would be the one to deliver that death—at her own request.
13Dan
Dan had decided to use the hidden library at Crenshaw Castle as his personal meeting space. Technically, the students ought to still be unaware of its existence, but Dan had been sharing the knowledge of it with other witches. Today there were roughly a dozen witches in the library with him, and it made Dan feel pleasantly rebellious to have let that many people know about it. Knowledge ought to be freely accessible, and only a corrupt soul would lock away books.
Maybe Dan was wrestling with his own sins a little, and maybe telling others about the library was a little bit of salve on his guilty conscience. Still, he was pleased that others were happy to be here. So far, the vast space was occupied solely by remedial witches, but the library was more and more active every week—although no faculty came here, and no one from the village visited. No hobs, either.
Axell, his sort-of, maybe, kind-of boyfriend, asked, “Are you okay?”
Dan nodded. It was the truth, more or less. He was “okay,” but since he’d done a Bad Thing to witches he’d been trying to make into his friends, he never felt quite “okay.”
It was that or risk being booted out of Crenshaw. It was that or have his friends face near-certain death.Dan could explain his actions away, but he still thought he’d been wrong to help enforce Crenshaw’s ruling body’s decision.
