Alex was just about to do so when an angry voice shook through the crowd. “Witch! Witch!”
A pale-haired man staggered toward the shoreline, pointing a long, thin finger at the rising popcorn stall. “Stop that witch!”
Alex frowned, having no idea who the man was but no interest in stopping to inquire. Drawing his gun, he stepped forward to save the situation. But he was too late.
A bag of roasted nuts plummeted from the stall onto the man’s head. He collapsed at once in a tumble of elbows and spindly legs, and the crowd cheered with delight at this clownish addition to the show.
“That’s my girl,” Ned murmured with a smile.
“Actually, that was my girl,” said a new voice. The pirates glanced around to see Tom arriving. In his arms was an iron ball, its chain still attached to his ankle. Ned smacked him cheerfully on the shoulder, making him wince.
Alex turned back to watch the popcorn stall close in on Armitage House, Charlotte riding its roof with perfectly calm balance. “Does anyone else get the feeling,” he said, “that in fact we’re their boys?”
Charlotte rose to stand upright on the corrugated iron roof. Wind rushed against her face and her heart. Magic rushed out. She did not look down, for she did not care who might be watching her or what they might be thinking. She kept her eye on the open window of Armitage House and the shadowed figure inside. It wasn’t that she particularly worried about regaining the amulet. That was a job to be done, but it no longer possessed her heart. The chase was what she’d come to love. The chance to stand in the wild, being wild.
She had always thought pirates needed to be more like Wicken League ladies, decorous and sensible, with smaller hats. On the whole, she still did. But goodness, mixing piracy with witchcraft certainly was exhilarating.
How had other witches not known about this? Had they never experienced magic surging through them like hot, sensual passion? Or were they prim and proper because they had, and feared it?
“Well,” Charlotte told herself, “I am not frightened of being afraid.” At least, she hadn’t been ever since a wicked pirate pushed and shoved and kissed her right off the plank, into the depths of herself.
For example, she could admit that falling from this popcorn stall scared her. Although she might easilydescendeo lente,she would still drown, since swimming was unladylike; and besides, witches had always been too haunted by the cultural memory of witch-trial dunkings to tolerate anything more immersive than a bathtub. But the fear did not own her. She laughed in its face! (Or, more accurately, she frowned in its face and thought of how it might be improved upon—a shark, perhaps, or a sudden gust of wind.) Furthermore, she did not think she would actually fall, for she was determined to have her happy ending, and therefore reality could just do as it was told for the next little while.
In the interior below, Cecilia was expertly maneuvering so as to draw level with Armitage House’s cockpit. Constantinopla was shouting insults at the old pirate—an enlivening, if ultimately useless, contribution. Lady Armitage, clutching her great wheel, laughed with disdain. Her face was smoke-smudged, her hair sagging, but a light in her eyes suggested she had enough spirit (or cocaine lollies) to stay in the fight.
Charlotte raised her arm slowly, pushing against the buffering force of magic, and pointed the gun at the mad pirate. “Give me back my amulet!”
“Do you mean this thing?” Lady Armitage held up the amulet,swinging it back and forth tauntingly. With the chain wrapped about her fingers, there was no hope of Charlotte incantating it without bringing the whole woman along too, and that much magic would probably destabilize both airborne buildings. “Why don’t you come and get it, little girl?”
“Just surrender, Aunty Army,” Cecilia called out. “Then we can all go and have a cup of tea and some biscuits.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. Even the more reasonable pirates were essentially mad.
“Oh well, if there are biscuits.” To Charlotte’s astonishment, Lady Armitage moved away from the wheel. But her smile was crooked like an old moon and held just as many secrets. Charlotte took an instinctive step back.
“I’ll jump over and hand it to you, shall I?” the pirate asked through that smile.
Charlotte thought she was merely teasing, for surely it would be impossible for an old woman in heavy clothing to make a jump of some twenty feet unless she used witchcraft—and Lady Armitage was no witch. For one thing, her dress sense was far too vulgar. But as the pirate stared at the gap between the houses, her eyes squinted, gauging the distance, and Charlotte realized she was serious. She intended to make that leap, regardless of its certain failure. Charlotte could not comprehend such madness!
Then again, no doubt Alex would make the same leap. Witches feared too much, but pirates did not fear anywhere near enough.
Sighting along the length of the gun, Charlotte began calculating. Not the head; she didn’t want to actually kill the woman. But not the legs either, risking ricochet from the crinoline petticoat. Probably the shoulder would be safest. One good shot, then make the leap herself to recover the amulet—which would beentirely safeandnot at all mad,as she’d be supported by witchcraft. (Never mind that ArmitageHouse would surely plummet if its pilot was shot, not to mention the lady pirates on hand who’d immediately snatch the amulet from her, and a dozen other considerations that pirates would have known to factor in. Although, to be fair, they’d make the leap evenwiththat understanding, thus leaving no actual difference between a witch’s arrogance and a pirate’s insanity.)
Now if the stall, house, and pirate could just stop swaying in different directions for a moment...
“For goodness’ sake, Isabella, this behavior is deplorable, even for you!”
Charlotte looked from the corner of her eye at the other battlehouse. Miss Darlington was frowning out through her open cockpit window, one lace-gloved hand on her wheel, the other holding a cup of tea. “Besides,” the grand lady called out, “magical amulets are passé these days. Every hero and her sidekick has one. You must learn to take a modern perspective, Isabella. I hear Countess Strabe has a cursed sword that would suit you much better.”
“Indeed?” Lady Armitage seemed piqued by this information. She took another step away from her wheel. Her skirt swept against it and something fell out of the shaft, clattering across the floor and out the window. Charlotte remembered Miss Dearlove sitting up from beneath the wheel, screwdriver in hand, a professional degree of mystery in her eyes. “I’m sabotaging the wheel,” she had said in that dangerously calm, quiet voice of hers.
The wheel spun, untouched. The house began to tremble. Inside the popcorn stall, Cecilia gave a horrified gasp as she realized what was happening. “Aunty!” she called out—although which aunt she meant, Charlotte did not know.
Suddenly the house tilted. Charlotte saw startlement flash onto Lady Armitage’s face. For one hideous moment, it looked like sanity. She clutched at the air, trying to keep her balance. Charlotte’s heartbegan to race. Dropping the gun, she held out her hand in an instinctive offer of rescue. A dozen words of the incantation rushed up—
The house tilted again.
And just like that, Lady Armitage was tossed out the window. No grandiose death speech. No wail to wrench at the heart of even those who feared her. In gruesome silence, she fell a hundred feet into the sea.
