“We will be otherwise occupied.”
“Doing what?”
“Burning, I expect.”
“Excuseme?”
On previous occasions Agnes has enjoyed rendering Mr. Lee speechless, but now her lips barely twitch. Now the sun is swinging low and they are running out of time. “Because there’s no other way. Because the witches always burn in the end. BecauseI want my daughter back.” The last sentence is a strangled growl. The barman casts an admonitory take-it-outside-boys look at their booth.
Everything leaches away from August’s face, the hurt and irritation and puzzlement. He stares at her for a long, searing second. “When? Who?”
But it doesn’t matter when and he already knows who. “I’ll kill him.” His voice is casual but perfectly sincere. The scar shines white along his jaw.
“No,” Agnes answers, just as evenly. “You won’t.” She looks at the carved statue of the hawk between them, the killing curve of its beak, and knows she does not need to tell him who will.
She takes another breath, less steady. “I’m not asking for your outrage or your concern or your advice. I’m asking for your help. Do I have it?” She is distantly surprised by how easily the wordhelpslips between her lips. Is this what it is to draw your circle wide, to need and be needed in turn?
August studies her, from the black-snake coils of hair slipping out from under her cap to the hard line of her mouth to the steel of her eyes, not looking away. Who does he see? A helpless girl, a hysterical woman? A mother gone mad with grief?
But it isn’t pity she sees in his eyes. It’s something several degrees warmer, far more dangerous. “You have it.” His voice is too low, rough with unsaid things. “I am yours to command, Agnes Amaranth.”
Agnes feels a heady heat through her, like summer wine. Men really ought to try offers of fealty rather than flowers.
She lets her fingers rest on the back of his hand. The hand turns palm up and their calluses slide against one another, fit smoothly into place. His fingers close around hers very carefully, as if her hand is a bird likely to startle.
Agnes thinks she should leave. She thinks about circles and costs, weakness and wants. Then she thinks these hours might be her last as a free woman and figures she can linger in this beery basement just a little longer, with the heat of his hand around hers.
She feels their bodies tilting toward one another, pulled by some secret gravity.
“It’s going to be dangerous.” The words come out crowded, slightly breathless. “If it goes wrong, if we fail—you could lose everything.”
August makes a consideringhmmmin his throat. “And what do I get if I win?”
Still a man who can’t back down from a bet, still a man who likes his odds long. Agnes feels a helpless smile curling the corners of her lips, despite everything. “A kiss.”
She finds the distance between them closing, the careless blue of his eyes fragmenting into a hundred shades of slate and lapis, his lips parting in wild hope—
She stops a bare inch from his face. “Be at the Home for Lost Angels by dusk today. When you see Pan, it’s time.”
August exhales a soft but heartfelt string of curses as she pulls away, running his fingers through the bright gold of his hair.
Agnes stands, straightening her cap, and tucks the wooden hawk into her skirt pocket. It knocks softly against her hip.
“Oh, and we’ll need three branches. Good stout rowan-wood, if you please.”
The last time Juniper visited Inez Gillmore’s house it was glowing and gilded. Her Sisters were with her, laughing at their own daring, at the pop of champagne on their tongues.
Now the house is dark, quiet except for the tapping of Juniper’s black-yew staff across the tiles. She wades through drifts of shattered crystal, torn pages from books, tangles of drapes; the house has been searched at least twice since Inez’s arrest. It isn’t safe to linger, but Juniper won’t be waiting long.
She isn’t alone. Miss Jennie Lind sits at the polished dining room table, staring at nothing, her face framed in long chestnut curls. The bruise around her eye has mottled to yellow and gray, like bad fruit.
“You don’t have to come, you know.” Juniper doesn’t mean it to come out so hard. She starts again. “I only mean . . .” But she doesn’t know how to say what she means. That Jennie doesn’t have to keep following her deeper and deeper into trouble, like that Italian witch who walked through nine circles of Hell; that she is the first friend Juniper made in her life, and the thought of her harmed on their behalf takes all the air from Juniper’s lungs.
Instead, she says, “I only mean this isn’t your fight. You’re not like us. You have a home to run to—a rich daddy, a place to weather the storm—”
“I really don’t.” Jennie’s smile is brief and bitter.
“Why’s that?”
