The Wolf Witch Page 10

  Her hands itched and prickled, but she resisted the urge to let loose whatever force had begun to unfurl within her. Gripping the bouquet by the ribbon and paper, Emmeline tried to keep her head high as the bell twilled overhead and a gust of biting wind stung her cheeks. She had hoped that the cold would dowse the pressure building in her sinuses, but as tears came to her eyes from the wind, she felt the real ones nudging their way out. She didn’t need this. She had enough trouble with her fully human aunt; she certainly didn’t need a family of wolves to bully her into doing what they wanted. On top of it all, he had inadvertently cost her everything.

  Wiping at her nose with the back of her glove, she spotted the grey steamer parked halfway down the block with Nadir’s manservant leaning against the door bundled to the neck in wool with a cigarette smoldering from his lips as he read the paper. In one smooth motion, he folded the paper and crushed the butt out beneath his heel in time to open the door for her. Slipping inside, Emmeline dropped the bouquet of flowers beside her and stared at the dull, grey ceiling. Even as Perkins reappeared in her peripheral vision, she didn’t move. She couldn’t.

  “Here,” he said, offering her a handkerchief embroidered with a pomegranate.

  She batted it away. “No, if I start crying, I’ll never stop.”

  “You already are.” The words came gently, but they felt like a slap.

  “I’m not,” she replied through clenched teeth as she sniffed and snatched the linen from his hand. Dabbing her eyes, she blinked and fingered the stitches delineating each seed, but she didn’t cry. At the window, Perkins waited and watched her.

  “Well, what did he do?”

  “What did who do?” Emmeline snapped, eyeing movement at the tearoom door.

  “Talbot.”

  Emmeline crinkled the paper back on her bouquet until she could see the tops of the nightshade’s white butterfly heads. “Nothing. He’s been helpful.”

  Perkins scoffed and tossed his newspaper into the front passenger seat. “Nadir Talbot helpful? You must have the wrong person. He hired me just to clean up his messes.”

  “You’re very forward for a servant. Would he appreciate you telling his secrets?”

  “He appreciates my honesty. And I’m good at my job. That’s why he keeps me around.” Catching a blur of purple on the other side of the street, Perkins smirked and climbed into the driver’s seat. “And look, no tears.”

  Emmeline stared at the road through the windshield as her father and brother walked out of the tea room. When her father’s attention flickered her way, she ducked behind the front seat and tightened her features into what she hoped could pass for anger, but god was she tired of being angry. The only sign that Nadir had entered came from the rush of cool air fluttering under her cloak and the creak of the springs beside her as he sat down. Could he see the red in her eyes or the blotches she knew would appear on her cheeks even if she stoppered her emotions like a bottle? His gaze traveled over her as she looked from the corner of her eye for bruises or rips in his clothing only to find a wrapped box on his lap. She drew in a breath to steel herself for how he would admonish her for causing a scene or dragging her issues into his life. Instead she felt the light brush of his fingers against the back of her hand. The breath hitched in her throat at Nadir Talbot’s softened expression, but as soon as it appeared, it morphed into his usual smoldering smile. Clearing his throat, he leaned back against the seat and languidly stretched.

  “I was hoping you might accompany me on my errands. There’s a top hat I would like to get your opinion on.”

  “I’d be happy to tell you how awful your hat is,” she replied stiffly, stuffing the handkerchief into her reticule as they pulled away from the pavement.

  Clearing his throat, he slowly said, “Miss Jardine, I will be going out of town in a few days, but if you would like me to stay, I will.”

  That look in his eyes made her chest tighten. She knew what he wanted to hear but still she said, “No, go. I don’t want to keep you from your business.”

  He opened his mouth to speak only to shut it. Emmeline turned her gaze to the stores and crowds rolling past her window before she could see the disappointment written across his features. Better he learned now that she only brought heart ache.

  ***

  Collapsing onto her bed, Emmeline’s feet ached from traipsing all over London looking at hats, shoes, and a myriad of accessories. Her mind danced with the bright silks and intricate brocades Mr. Talbot had laid before her for her opinion. Now, she had a dress on commission in a bright Japanese silk she still wasn’t certain she had the confidence to pull off. So much for pinching pennies. But she didn’t mind. Nadir Talbot had done everything in his power to make her forget that her current life dangled from a fraying string. He hadn’t even asked about her father and brother, though she caught a question on his tongue that he didn’t say.

  Running off to America was now out of the question. She doubted her father would hold grudges considering how he handled Wesley, but she didn’t want to get entangled in their drama right now. She had plenty of her own. Rolling onto her stomach, Emmeline eyed the jewelry box on the vanity table. More than anything, she wanted to speak to her mother and ask for her advice, but— Emmeline sighed and rested her head on the coverlet. It would hurt. Each meeting with her mother felt like a knife to the heart. She couldn’t do it today, not after all that had happened.

  Behind her, the Corpus Grimoire whispered to her. As much as she wanted to take the book downstairs and stuff it on the shelf farthest from her room, people were still after it, and she couldn’t risk leaving it where she couldn’t reach. Grabbing it from the table, she dragged her vanity chair into her dressing room and pulled down a hat box from the uppermost shelf. The book’s incessant chatter grew louder before being snuffed out beneath a wad of scarves several seasons out of fashion and enough tissue to paper the walls.

  “Now, be quiet,” she hissed as she stuffed the box back in its place and hopped down to the carpet.

  Emmeline’s lip curled in disgust at the dust coating her palms, but as she wiped her hand over the side of her robe, her pocket crinkled. Reaching into her pocket, Emmeline frowned as she turned over the envelope from breakfast. Apart from being creased, it had no address or seals to denote its sender. Nothing good ever came from letters that kept their secrets. Tearing open the missive, Emmeline’s throat tightened at the words written within.

  They knew everything. They knew of Cecil Hale’s death at the hands of his aunt and of the creature from beyond the veil Lady Rose had tried to conjure. They knew Emmeline had been instrumental in stopping it when Immanuel Winter could not. They even knew of her involvement in Lord Rose’s death and the failed reanimation of Prince Albert. The sight of her tumultuous, short life on the page should have scared her. Anyone could turn her actions against her, they already had, but they didn’t reproach or threaten her. Instead, they offered assistance. They had seen what she did to get Wesley Bisclavret out of gaol, how she went as far as to bring his father, the Rougarou, to leverage the Interceptors into sanctioning his release. For her inadvertent assistance to their cause, they wanted to send her an offering: her book. In addition, they would like to extend an invitation to her, to a gathering of like-minded individuals who have found themselves on the wrong side of English extra-normal justice. In three days’ time, they would meet at St. Herve’s Abbey in Gloucestershire near Stow-on-the-Wold to discuss how they could shift the balance in their favor. If they succeeded, they could offer her support and the assurance that her contributions would no longer be ignored for those who pandered to the Interceptor’s whims.

  Relief washed over her. England had nothing to offer but hostility. Abroad she had seen the way France and Germany embraced all breeds of magic, even those that might disturb the common man. It wasn’t that she wanted to bring forth a creature or wake the dead, but after seeing how the Interceptors reacted, she feared her connection to the grimoire and what it might say
about her own proclivities. Returning to the dressing room, Emmeline dropped the hat box on her bed and went to find her trunk. She had a trip to pack for.

  Act Two

  “You have seen my descent. Now watch my rising.”

  Rumi

  Chapter Nine

  Headstones and House Parties

  Emmeline held her breath as the steamer passed a sign for Oxford. She knew they would have to pass through to reach St. Herve, but she hadn’t anticipated the effect it would have on her. Everything was familiar, yet it felt as if she had aged ten years since she last saw it. Part of her wanted to pull down the window shades or feign sleep until it passed. She surprised even herself when she blurted the directions to her old home to her driver. Emmeline didn’t look as the cab wound through the trees surrounding her home, yet her body still knew their familiar curves. She had no idea what she would see at the top of her the hill, but she had to see her home one more time. She had to see where her mother died and her life diverged so drastically.

  At the lurch of the engine stopping, Emmeline threw open her door before she could change her mind. Time ground to a halt as she crunched through the layer of frost toward the remains of her home. She wasn’t sure what she had expected. Lord Rose had set fire to her house and killed her mother in the process. She had pictured nothing but a charred patch of grass, maybe a few boards strewn about. She hadn’t expected to see the house—her house—still recognizable. Snow coated the ground and rained in through holes in the roof. Sunlight filtered in through the broken windows and soot-stained frames. Parts of the back wall were missing and the chimney listed precariously, but she could still see the purple shutters and the flap of the drapes in her bedroom. Surely, there were things she could save, things she could salvage and bring back home. In her mind’s eye, she walked through her mother’s bedroom and smelled her honeyed perfume in the air. She would gather her books to take back with her and the portrait they took earlier that year. Would she find a blackened spot on the carpet where her mother had fallen? She hadn’t died in the house, but Emmeline couldn’t help but feel it was a tomb. Their lives had ended there that night.

  A hand wrapped around her elbow as she took a step forward.

  “I wouldn’t go in there, miss. The floor’s unstable and besides, I don’t think the owner would like you trespassing,” the driver said, keeping his voice low as if the ghosts of the inhabitants would hear.

  A scoffed laugh escaped her lips. “I am the owner. I won’t go in, but give me a moment alone.”

  The man searched her face before hesitantly stepping back to the cab. The only footsteps in the snow as she trailed the edge of the house and went down the hill were hers. Unseen creatures scrabbled through the underbrush and ahead a twig snapped in the shadows, but Emmeline wasn’t afraid. The most terrifying thing in these woods was her, after all. At the bottom of the hill, the trees opened to reveal an iron fence encircling a patch of neat graves. In the center, slightly ahead of the rest was a new headstone standing at the top of a patch of sunken ground. She didn’t have to read it to know it was her mother’s. Emmeline stood outside the fence, her eyes avoiding the name carved across its face. If she read it, she could no longer pretend that her mother wasn’t simply trapped somewhere instead of gone. Sitting atop the grave marker was a shiny black stone the size of her palm.

  “I paid a visit to your mother when I went to England. When I didn’t see your name in the graveyard, I thought you might visit someday. I didn’t think it would be so soon,” the crone in Paris had said. Although the skin of Madam Treves’ face had gone soft and deeply lined with age and she leaned heavily on a scuffed cane, Emmeline still felt herself shrink in the woman’s presence.

  “You knew my mother?” Emmeline asked softly, trying to picture her mother buying herbs in the shop below.

  “We all knew her. Lady Jardine was accomplished in many arts. A notorious beauty and an even more notorious voyant. But why have you come? You don’t come because of your mother, obviously.”

  Why had she come? She had seen the shop as she turned the corner on a street in a part of town she never should have been in. Her eye had immediately gone to it despite its nondescript exterior. The moment she stepped inside it felt as if the world had flipped upside down and righted itself. Every sense had magnified. The dead. There were so many dead. Not just spirits but below her feet. It was as if she could see beneath the floor into the depths of the catacombs below and taste the dusty earth. It wasn’t until she heard a door close that she saw the shop. Every inch of the cramped space had been filled with jars of powders and dried plants, candles of every color and shape, books stacked to the ceiling, and objects she couldn’t identify but knew well enough not to touch. When she looked back, Madam Treves stood behind the counter, watching her with a knowing grin.

  “Come, let’s have something to drink. Lock the door for me, Mademoiselle Jardine.” Emmeline had done as she was bid, dumbfounded even as she sat in the woman’s narrow parlor above the shop. It smelled of the same rose perfume her grandmother had worn.

  Staring into her teacup, Emmeline hoped to find the answer to the woman’s question. “I— I need to know what I am. What I’m capable of.”

  Madam Treves’ tapped against her cup. “You’ve noticed something more than ghosts, eh?”

  Emmeline nodded slowly. Her hand slid across her sternum, searching for that familiar heat. “Sometimes I feel something deep in me. I can’t explain it, but it wants to come out and I’m afraid of what will happen when it does.”

  She told Madam Treves everything. Of Immanuel reviving her and the spirit tether that bound them both, of the book that had fallen in and out of her possession but not before possessing her, of the creature that lurked behind her eyes and knocked at the gate of their world. But this feeling was different. It burned through her veins and traveled along her skin like the blade of a knife, yet it had no form or voice. Worst of all was the way it urged to be let out. It would be a relief to do so, but she couldn’t risk what might come forth. Like so many things, she held it down until the urge smothered.

  “You will hurt yourself doing that,” Madam Treves cautioned, pointing to Emmeline’s head and then her body, “here and here. You should let it out and see what it is.”

  “But what if it’s a creature or it hurts someone?”

  “I’ve never seen that sort of creature come out of a person unless it was invited. Did you invite any?”

  “The book?”

  “That’s different. And it’s more likely to hurt someone if you aren’t in control of it. The only way to control it is to let it out.”

  Madam Treves looked at her expectantly.

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  Closing her eyes, Emmeline focused on the heat in her breast as it crackled along her ribs and traveled up her arm. In a rush, she felt it flow over the backs of her knuckles in a prickle of static. A gentle heat warmed her finger tips as the tension that had been coiled inside her eased. Emmeline opened her eyes to find the thinnest of flames dancing over her nails. Panic and triumph warred with each other as she stared at her hand. It should have hurt, yet she barely felt the heat. When she looked up, she found Madam Treves watching, her expression unreadable.

  “I didn’t know I could do that. I thought I was a medium.”

  “You are and more. Being a medium is more of a state than a power. One does not preclude the other. Some gain all their gifts at once; others gain them little by little. You’re the latter.” She eyed the flames as they danced close to the fabric of the chair. “I’ll give you a word you can use when you need to snuff it out. Focus on the word and picture the flame blowing out.”

  The syllables were nonsensical and foreign on Emmeline’s tongue, but after three tries, the flames disappeared without a whiff of smoke.

  “Keep water with you anyway. Eventually you won’t need the word. So you wanted to know what you are, right?”

  “Yes.”

/>   “Then, let me see you,” Madam Treves said, motioning for Emmeline to come to stand before her.

  Doing as she was bid, Emmeline carefully knelt before the older woman until their faces were nearly level. Madam Treve’s ringed fingers slipped along the curves of Emmeline’s cheeks until her thumbs settled on her temples. Emmeline could scarcely breathe as Treves closed her eyes and a low hum rose in her throat. The pressure on her face shifted ever so slightly in time with the vibration as if she were probing for something. When Emmeline thought she might shudder or pass out if she didn’t breathe, Madam Treves opened her eyes. Her face betrayed nothing as she stared into Emmeline’s features. After a moment, she motioned for her to go back to her seat. Gracelessly wobbling back until her legs hit the chair, Emmeline sat and waited for the other woman to speak.

  “You are a complicated creature, but you already know that. Most aren’t. Life is never easy for the complicated ones, but you have someone to share the burden with.”

  Emmeline raised a questioning brow.

  “Your other half. The boy whose soul you share.” Curling her lip, Emmeline wanted to rebuke her, but Treves continued, “You are two sides of the same coin, so you strike a balance between you. What you have, he has the converse in equal measure.”

  Equal. The word reverberated through her mind, striking all the times she was made to feel like Immanuel’s inferior. He had never done it. He was polite to a fault, and sometimes she hated him for it because she didn’t deserve it yet he gave his goodwill freely. Others weren’t so kind.

  “Separate you both are strong, but together you could be great.”

  “Why should I work with him?” Emmeline asked coolly as she poured them each another cup of coffee.

  Madam Treves’ eyes bored into hers, forcing her to raise her gaze. “Don’t be foolish, girl. You do it because fate has irreparably entangled you, and more importantly, because others would seek to separate you.”