more.
Stopping was more difficult than she had expected. The use of the power, the thrill of wielding her magic, was better than any drug she could imagine, more intoxicating than any wine she could drink. She struggled against it, pretending to be content producing the simples and salves her cousins wanted to teach her.
It was when she met the wealthy widower George Allington that her resolve failed. Fate had handed her exactly the prize she craved. She had only to reach for it, and the transformation of her life would begin. She would no longer be the poor relation from Brooklyn, destitute, dependent. She would be a lady.
She used everything she had learned to create the perfect philter. Persuading George to drink it had been simple, and its effect was gratifyingly swift.
The first step of her plan had been a great leap. The second step, acquiring a title in the family, was now within her reach. The third would be her acceptance into the Four Hundred, after which she meant to give up magic altogether. She would no longer need it.
It was unfortunate that she was having to bring Annis to heel through magical means, but the girl left her no choice. Surely Annis would be grateful, in the end. She would have a wonderful life, titled, privileged. It would be, indeed, the very life Frances would have wished for, had the opportunity presented itself. Since it hadn’t, her stepdaughter would be the beneficiary of her ability.
She dropped three of her fingernail parings into the pottery saucer and dripped a bit of the blood and wine from the glass vial over them. She shredded three leaves of dried mistletoe and crumbled the flowers, stems, and leaves of barrenwort on top. Finally she shaved a half inch of mandrake root, diced it fine, and mixed it in with the other ingredients.
She put a match to the candle and held the saucer above the flame until the mixture within began to bubble. When it had reduced to a speck of thick dark syrup, she scooped it up on her fingertip. She lifted the skirt of the manikin and rubbed the syrup on the little figure, down its belly, between its makeshift legs, whispering the cantrip she had devised for this purpose:
The power of witch’s blood and claws
Bends your will unto my cause.
Root and leaf in candle fire
Invest you with impure desire.
It was at such times, she knew, that Harriet sometimes experienced the knowing. Frances had waited for years for it to happen to her, but she had been forced, finally, to admit it wasn’t coming. She didn’t have that particular gift.
Still, each time she completed a rite, so carefully prepared, her intention hard and clear as diamond, she closed her eyes, hoping. It seemed terribly unfair that Harriet should have the gift and not she. It didn’t help that Harriet said it was not often a blessing. It was knowledge, and knowledge was power.
Frances needed power above all else. How else was she to erase the memory of the poverty-stricken girl from Brooklyn? How else was she to achieve her ambition, a lowly female in a world of men?
The simulacrum began to grow warm beneath her probing finger. Five minutes passed, then ten, until, ever so slightly, the thing wriggled under her hand.
Frances’s eyes flew open. The manikin still stared up at her, its eyes empty, its little fluff of hair and its red painted mouth just as before. It lay still beneath her hand.
But it had moved. There could be no doubt. It had vibrated under her fingers, and the magic of it brought a deep ache between her hip bones, a pain like that of childbirth. The pain surprised her, stealing her breath and making her fingers shake.
Carefully she set the manikin down so she wouldn’t drop it. She had not felt this way in the past, but she was wielding a far greater magic than she ever had before. She pressed a hand to her stomach. She had never given birth, but she thought this must be what it felt like, a sensation redolent with blood and pain and, in the end, triumph.
And sometimes death, of course. But Frances had no intention of dying.
She heard the outer door of the suite open and close, the voices of the maids chattering with Annis about dresses and dinner, cloaks and shoes, ribbons and necklaces.
Frances, breathing shallowly above the pain in her belly, rearranged the handkerchief dress on her manikin. She stoppered