There’s a whip of scales, a cavernous mouth, and they both sink, blotted out by a wave. I scan back and forth, heart in my throat, but neither of them emerges. My hand trembles as I wave at Sember and Heath to hurry, dragging them up and out of the churn as a tail whips up, then crashes down no more than a few lengths away.
‘Stay out of the water,’ I say quickly, pressing them back into an opening in the ship’s side. ‘If any other contenders get close …’
Sember nods, tightening her fist round the spear. ‘I’ll be ready.’
I take a few halting footsteps into the near dark of the wrecked ship. It was always Agnes’s role to hunt for treasure and cargo back on Rosevear, but now it must be mine. As I move deeper into the belly of the ship, the sound of cries outside snatches at my focus. But I keep moving, edging towards a doorway out of the cargo hold, and slip through.
There is a corridor on its side, and I clamber along it, listening intently for any sign that I’m not alone. But there are only the creaks of a dying ship, and my own heart thundering inside my ribs. I kick each door open, peering in, but find only a scatter of barrels or coiled rope and sack cloth. When I reach the ladder stairs, I crawl up at an angle, emerging on to the level with the captain’s cabin. This door I open softly, the light catching in jewelled pools along the walls.
The first thing I spy is a blade on the floor, as though it has fallen off the wide table in the centre of the room.The second is a small, ornate box, set with mother of pearl that glints and lures on the other side of the room. If there is treasure inside it, then that counts as two pieces, surely. I can swipe it and run. Then I look up at a stirring of movement and freeze. The creature in the corner smiles, all long dark hair, pale lidless eyes and row upon row of sharp, shiny teeth.
‘You took your time,’ the creature says, and lunges.
it’s not until they reachthe Leutewild Inn, nestled in the foothills of a mountain range in Skylan that Brielle senses they are being followed. They step off the stagecoach that Brielle, Dreska and Inesh have shared with two others on the journey into Skylan so far. A governess, who will now change coaches to reach her final destination, the capital city of Bergstat and a man who peers at them quietly from under a wide-brimmed hat, muttering a farewell before setting off to his farm, a few miles east on foot.
Brielle moves through the press of pipe smokers and travellers to a table under a window by the bar, shuffling her two young charges into seats. Inesh droops in her chair, a little green still from the stuffy coach and bumpy lanes, but Dreska, keen-eyed as ever, is already signalling to a barman. She holds Inesh’s hand, squeezing it gently. ‘You just need to line your stomach.’
Brielle hides her smile, a flare of pride startling her.She’s never mentored anyone before, but, for the first time, she wonders if it will suit her. If this might be her calling after all.
That’s when she hears it. A low hum of voices, words indistinct, the cold touch of a witch’s eyes brushing the back of her neck. She freezes, then forces herself to joke with her young charges, handing out the glasses of water from the barman, as though nothing is amiss, but it’s unmistakable. There are witches in this inn, hunters like her, and they’re searching for Brielle.
She accepts a plate of roast meat and seasonal vegetables, cooked slowly with the local herbs grown in the loam of the fields. She pours thyme sauce over the meat, relishing how Inesh eats a full plate and asks for seconds, the colour and life returning to her after her time as a wraith and the long, arduous journey. Casually, she glances around, signalling for ale and a second helping for Inesh, sweeping a long, unhurried look over the other patrons. A flash of silver, a pair of eyes snagging on hers, and she knows for sure. There are hunters from a coven here, and they’ve marked the three of them.
Nova winds through the chair legs, pausing at Brielle’s side and she pretends to drop her fork, bending down to scoop it up. ‘At least two witches and they’re watching us. Will you find our driver?’
Nova yowls.I see them. Witches indeed and no friendly purpose, I fear. I will search for the driver so we can be on our way.
Brielle gulps down her ale before wiping her mouth with her sleeve, and finds Dreska watching her.
‘Something is amiss, isn’t it?’ she asks.
‘Do you sense it?’
Dreska shrugs, crossing her cutlery on her plate and leaning back. ‘I sense a press, or a brush of eyes. Someone, or something, studying us.’
‘Good,’ Brielle says with a nod. ‘That’s your witch sense. Some never develop it, but as a hunter it’s vital.’
‘Do you know who they are?’ asks Inesh between mouthfuls.
‘No. And as they have not approached us openly …’
Dreska nods in understanding. ‘We should leave.’
‘Quietly,’ Brielle agrees. ‘And swiftly.’
Inesh watches wistfully as a server carries a tray of treacle tarts to another table. ‘I suppose there’s no time for pudding?’
‘Sadly not,’ Brielle says as she spies Nova by the door. She pushes back her chair and raises her eyebrows. ‘We must return to the coach at once. Be alert.’
Outside the Leutewild Inn it is eerily quiet compared to within. The ostler has taken in the horses to be fed and watered, the coach left in a row with two other carriages and a cart. Brielle eyes them thoughtfully before seeking out Nova. ‘No sign of the driver?’
None, Hunter. I’ve searched high and low, but his scent begins and ends in our coach. As though he didn’t even make it inside the inn.
‘Can you sense magic? Any ill workings?’
Nova scrunches her nose.I cannot be sure. There is an odd, cloying scent masking almost everything.
For Brielle, that’s enough of a warning. She’s learned over years of assignments that when your own senses clang like discordant bells it’s time to move. She flags down a passing stableboy, pressing a copper into his palm to bring the horses round. The ostler appears a few minutes later, grousing until Brielle presses more coin into his palms too. Her eyes dart everywhere as the ostler secures the horses to the coach and she checks the horses herself, inspecting the coach, the wheels.
