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“I should have thought you’d be pleased to be rid of the fledgling. Isn’t he something of a nuisance to you?”

Gabriel’s blood had reached its boiling point. He shoved Obedience a final time before releasing his hold on her and retreating out of the back room. At the front door, he pivoted to face the witch, who had followed close behind, still looking faintly amused.

“If you ever so much as come near my family again, I will make sure I undo what was done all those years ago.” Gabriel couldn’t help the furious tremor in his voice.

Her sandpaper laugh was possibly the most grating thing to have ever assaulted his ears. “Is that a threat, Gabriel?”

Blair’s ring was cold against Gabriel’s left palm as he curled it into a fist. He wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of a reply. He thrust open the door, too overwhelmed to admit to himself that his worst fear had finally been realized.

Gabriel’s past was a snake eating its own tail, and it had slithered back around to haunt him. It had snuck up from behind, silent and stealthy.

Now its fangs were poised at his throat.

PART III

THE SORCERER

32

NEW ENGLAND

AUGUST 1805

Obedience travelled west on foot, hood pulled over her head and face averted until she was far enough away that she prayed no one would recognize her as the ship builder’s daughter. Her shoes rubbed blisters into her heels, but she continued onward until the sun searing the back of her neck began to wane, when she stumbled into a small seaside tavern that stunk of spilled ale and boiled cod.

She lost a good portion of her coins renting a room for the night and buying herself a meal, which she ate, ravenous, having saved most of the food she’d brought in case of emergency. That night, she used a hairpin to break into her mother’s carpet bag and retrieve a clean dress. Then she ripped two pieces of cotton from the sleeves and tucked them into the backs of her shoes.

At daybreak she set out again, reaching a second tavern just after dusk.

As she devoured her fish stew and ale that second night, Obedience thought about what she would do once she inevitably ran out of coins. Charity would be her most likely avenue for survival, at least for a while. Spearing a boiled potato with her fork, Obedience pictured the scene: a flutter of eyelashes, her smile like a thornless rose as she begged for food, for shelter. She felt confident that most victims of her entreaty would give in. Anything to help a lovely, hapless orphan girl.

It was then that she saw them—or rather they saw her.

Four women were seated at a round table by one of the murky back windows, shrouded in dark cloaks. Their eyes were locked on Obedience, taking in everything from her matted blonde hair and tired green eyes to the beaded bag clutched in her lap.

Later, she would learn that the four of them had been blinded by her witch’s aura, the suppressed magic that flashed at the edges of her being like oil tossed into fire.

Later still, Obedience would develop her own abilities enough to see their auras, too; stable and vibrant, their magic flaunted in steady hums of color.

Obedience lived with the West Sandwich witches for six short months, until just after her sixteenth birthday. They taught her how to use her innate magic to connect with the energy of the world around her. How to concentrate her magic. How to bend it to her will. They warned her about the unregulated power held by the men who ran the witch’s council, and showed her how to shield her aura from them, so that only those few witches with extraordinary abilities of perception would be able to recognize her for what she was.

During her first few months with the coven, Obedience came to establish three clear objectives for the rest of her new life as a sorcerer.

First, she would find a way to bring her sister Modesty back to her by learning how to free the spirit trapped inside the witch ball, which remained safely tucked away inside the velvet comfort of the reticule hidden beneath Obedience’s cloak.

Second, she would discover the key to immortality, so she could stay alive and out of hell—where she was sure to go after murdering her father and thus disobeying two commandments in one go—and so she would never be forced to lose Modesty a second time.

Third (but no less imperative), she would need to learn to wield significant power in order to protect herself and her sister.

Up until August, Obedience, her sisters, and her mother had been helpless when it came to fighting back against her father. And if society would not protect her from the men who would seek to harm her, it was up to Obedience to devise her own weapons, her own methods of shielding herself and sweet, innocent Modesty from the horrors of the world.

Within the coven’s small stone sanctuary tucked like a secret against the sand dunes, surrounded by nothing but beachgrass and piping plovers, Obedience began to feel at home for the first time in her life. Trust—an emotion she had once reserved for her sisters alone—built up like a foundation beneath her skin, and she soon began to share her ambitions, the hidden dreams that pulsed inside her like a second heartbeat.

As time passed and Obedience set out to uncover the knowledge she would need to carry out her plans, her coven grew increasingly concerned, even disturbed. In what Obedience saw as close-mindedness, they refused to tell her an ounce of what they knew about necromancy. Instead, they urged her to coax her sister’s spirit from the orb so that Modesty’s soul could find peace in the afterlife. They told her that the pursuit of immortality was equally frowned upon amongst witches, that it went against the very laws of nature.

But it was the young witch’s talk of devising weapons that the coven found truly disquieting, for they saw themselves as non-violent, peaceful people.

And it was this endeavor that ultimately earned Obedience her expulsion from the only harmonious home she’d ever known, thus forcing her to pursue her ambitions in isolation.