He ran a hand through his slicked-back hair and smirked. “Then my job will be easier than I thought.”
I wanted to strangle the fool. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he got to me. If he wanted to come along, then who was I to stop him?
“Fine. Let’s go. Try to keep up.”
He picked up a canvas rucksack I hadn’t noticed and swung it onto his back. “I’m ready.”
I set off down the hall, knowing he would follow. “Our first stop is the cottage.”
“What? Why?” His voice sounded distant. I turned around and realised he wasn’t following me.
“Because,” I said, marching towards him and lowering my voice so we wouldn’t be overheard. “That is where the only copy of the Book of Enchantments is, that I know of. And we’ll need the book to figure out how to break this bond.”
He looked stricken, his tanned skin the palest I’d seen it. “But I told you, I burned it down.”
I shook my head. “We kept the book in an underground compartment. There’s a chance it could have survived the fire. It’s the only plan we’ve got.” I furrowed my brow. “Why did you burn our cottage down, anyway?” It didn’t make any sense to me; he’d arrested Sal and Lavender. Did Prince John not require evidence in order to convict a person of witchcraft? Why burn up everything that could have led to their conviction? Unless it was an attempt to smoke me out by taking away my home; my safe space. But they could have simply surveilled the house day and night to see if I returned.
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, shoulders hunched. I’d never seen him look so…vulnerable. It left an unsettling sensation in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not sure. I saw the young girl lying there and I wanted to do the right thing by her. She was just a child.”
My head spun. He’d felt something—pity? Sorrow? Guilt? For a witch. And he’d decided to burn down the cottage in response.
“I don’t understand. You’re saying you did it for Rosemary?”
He growled, expression darkening. “I’m not as heartless as you’ve let yourself believe,Eleanor. And she deserved a proper burial, but that would have been difficult to explain to my men. So, I lit the place on fire to make it look like I’d burned her remains. There, are you happy?”
“Happy?” I spat. “That your men murdered a young girl under my protection? And then burned down my home? No, I wouldn’t say I’m happy.”
His voice was quiet and weak. “It was an accident. I never meant…”
Conflicted, I turned and headed out of the Burrow via the trapdoor without another word. If he thought he could talk me around to his way by pretending to have cared about a witch, no matter how young, no matter how dead, then he had another think coming.
My nails left crescent shaped marks in my palms and my jaw ached from gritting my teeth. This trip had gotten off to an excellent start already.
The sightof the blackened patch that had been the coven’s cottage brought a lump to my throat. The sheriff had been lucky; only the drystone wall that encircled the house and garden had prevented the fire from spreading any further and razing the entire Royal Forests to the ground.
I picked my way through the ash and rubble until I found what I was looking for—the underground space that had been hidden by a trapdoor and a threadbare rug. Until the cottage had been reduced to cinders.
I knelt in the sooty remnants of what I thought to be the cottage’s one bedroom and sank my hands into the dust,disturbing a cloud of ash that I promptly inhaled, making me cough and splutter. A moment later, I heard a soft mewing from somewhere nearby.
“Kipper?” My heart stuttered at the sound of the coven’s cat. “Where are you, boy?”
He appeared from behind a pile of rocks, black fur a filthy shade of grey, but otherwise unharmed. A rush of relief made me momentarily lightheaded, and I lifted the fur-covered bag of bones to my chest.
“Where have you been, Kip?” I kept my voice low to prevent the sheriff from hearing. I could only imagine what he’d think if he knew I could converse with animals.
Home.I felt the word more than heard it inside my mind.
“You’ve been here all this time?” I felt my eyes stinging at the thought of the feline prowling around the burnt out area, waiting for us to return. “You’re coming with me, Kip. There’s nothing here for us anymore. Well, just one more thing.” I opened my satchel and let Kipper climb inside.
I sifted through the wreckage with my bare hands, knee-deep in the crumbling ruins, and finally I found what I was looking for. The Book of Enchantments had been protected from the worst of the fire by the underground hiding place and the weight of everything that had fallen on top of it as the cottage disintegrated. I pulled it free with some effort and dusted it off as best I could. Flipping through the pages, I was amazed to find it intact.
My heart skipped a beat as I turned the page and found the Life Bond enchantment, illustrated with spidery marks like those I’d seen on the sheriff’s chest. And there it was on the other side of the page; the ritual to break the spell.
“Well?” Stefano called from outside the stone barrier. Too precious to dirty his hands digging around in ash of his own making. “Have you found the book? What does it say?”
I stood and dusted my hands off on my skirt. “We’ll need to gather some things, items for the disenchantment ritual. And it needs to be done under a new moon. But it doesn’t look too complicated.”
“So, the bond can be broken?” The relief in his tone was palpable, and I almost felt offended for a moment, until I remembered I too was desperate to be separated from this cruel, savage man. He had killed my kind, and been responsible for many more deaths, and I couldn’t wait to be free of him. For good.
