Frieda scoffed. ‘Pretty little fool. You deserve what you will get.’
‘You think loneliness so easy a thing to live with?’ I snapped. I may have hurt Frieda by resurrecting the pain of her brother’s death, but that did not mean I would take any jab she dealt.
‘I know very well it is not. But it is no excuse for murder.’
My heart raced. ‘You have no proof.’
‘Why are you so desperate to believe in her?’
‘Why are you so quick to doubt?’
‘Go on. Tell me then, what do you think happened to my brother? Why did he never finish that letter? Why has no companion ever been heard from again?’
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. There was nothing I could say.
‘There. You cannot defend her. She is indefensible,’ sneered Frieda.
I could not speak because the truth was not something I was ready to hear. I was ashamed of my own heart. If I had made a mistake choosing to return to the Witch, then my life truly had no future to it, not here and not in Blumwald. Perhaps there was danger in the castle, a secret that may hurt me, but between my old life and this, what choice truly was it?
At least here I mattered. There was something between the Witch and I now that was greater than the vow that had bound me as her companion, something almost tender in its own way. I thought of her gaze raking over me in the bath and a fresh blush rose to my cheeks. Tender, but also fierce and demanding. At first I had wanted answers from her; now I wanted so much more, and some undaunted part of me hoped she might feel the same.
I could not meet Frieda’s eye.
‘Go. Let Edgar lie in the past.’ I set a few coins on the table for her drink. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your family. But leave us alone. For your own good.’
b
The Witch and I dined apart that evening and I went to bed uneasy. I had done nothing in talking to Frieda, but still I felt somehow as though I’d betrayed the Witch.
I thought of her earlier, frightened and lashing out. She had taken the risk of trusting me, allowing me to share her life – even sending me back to visit my father. She was terrified that trust would be broken. With space between us, I could see that now. The Witch’s behaviour was not so hard to understand. I had been here mere months and it had broken me open. How many years had she spent alone?
Too many thoughts warred in my mind as I drifted near sleep. I was moved by her pain and frightened by her secrets. And I wanted what she could give me: a place to belong.
I woke suddenly to a noise – loud, discordant, and entirely human.
I sat up.
It came again, and a voice too.
In nothing but my white nightdress, I took up the candlestick from the mantlepiece. The castle was eerie at this hour, sliding and shifting underfoot, each little sound amplified. The moon was high and bright, and the air frosted with my breath. I followed the snatches of noise that wrapped around the castle, my unease growing. I had encountered many strange things, but this felt different. New.
I heard the voice again.
Something crackled, snapped. An acrid scent. A light ahead.
I realised I could no longer see my breath.
It was warmer.
In a panic I flew forward, nightgown flapping around my thighs, and rounded the corner to find the grand staircase aflame. I stood in the doorway of the second-floor corridor that opened onto the stairs, wreathed in smoke. Frieda stood at the bottom, torch in hand, her face uplit by the fire.
‘I have to end this,’ she called when she saw me. ‘I cannot let her continue to enact her evil upon us all.’
The smoke was thick, the ancient wood burning like tinder. I covered my mouth with the cloth of my sleeve.
‘You will kill us!’
‘If I must.’
