The Once and Future Witches - Alix E. Harrow Page 0,64
inches from her nose and two arms held high on either side of her face, shielding her. The heat fades and leaves her cold and dazed, terribly tempted to press her forehead into the heat of that gray wool vest.
Mr. Lee steps back with a slight crunch of glass beneath his boots. His eyes are very wide. A red line gleams across his cheekbone, and another two or three score his forearms. Shouts and grumbles rise around them as men wave the shattered handles of beer mugs at them in an unfriendly fashion.
Mr. Lee dusts splintered glass from his hair and meets her eyes. “Well now, Miss Agnes Amaranth. What was that address?” He smiles as he says it, wry and crooked and a little abashed. The smugness has been replaced by an intent gleam in his eyes.
“South Sybil Street. Come after dark and keep quiet in the hall—the landlady disapproves of gentleman callers.”
She turns to leave, picking her way through glittering shards and spilt liquor, and he calls after her, “May I bring flowers?”
Agnes does not look back as she leaves, so that he cannot see her smile. “I’m sure you may bring whatever you please, Mr. Lee, so long as you bring magic also.”
Juniper is sitting cross-legged on the bed, tossing a slightly wizened apple from palm to palm while Bella reads from one of her dustiest and most dull-looking books, when Agnes returns to South Sybil.
She’s sweaty and cross, with glittering specks caught in the dark swirl of her hair. “Any luck?” Juniper asks her.
Agnes gives a dark ha. “I found Mr. Lee, if that’s what you mean. But there’s nothing lucky about him—he’s arrogant, feckless, probably criminal—not nearly as handsome as he thinks he is—” Agnes is frowning at her own reflection in the cracked shard that serves as her mirror. She tugs and fusses at her hair, dissatisfied in some unfathomable fashion.
“To hell with him, then,” Juniper says mildly. “We’ll find some other boy to teach us men’s magic. Somebody’s bound to have an uncle or a brother—”
“No!” Agnes’s voice is several degrees sharper than is strictly warranted. “That is, Mr. Lee has already agreed to help. He’ll be here soon, maybe tomorrow evening.” She casts a disgruntled look around the room, eyes lingering on the tumbled piles of papers and books, the frayed lengths of black cloth, the herbs strung in drying bundles before the window, and the Mason jars rattling with seeds and bones. South Sybil bears an increasing resemblance to Mama Mags’s house.
“I’m going out,” Agnes announces.
“What for?”
Agnes gestures vaguely behind her as she sweeps out. “A vase.”
Juniper watches her go with her jaw slightly slack. She looks at Bella and finds her eyes crimped behind her spectacles. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just—our sister has always had low taste in men.” Juniper finds this so baffling and absurd that she can think of no response.
She changes the subject instead. “I saw Cleo here earlier. What did she bring us?”
Bella blushes. Juniper has noticed lately that she blushes often at the mention of Cleo Quinn. “Oh, I asked if she could find us anything about Miss Grace Wiggin. Since you continue to insist that she’s a wicked witch of nefarious powers.”
“She is a wicked—”
“Miss Quinn made some inquiries. Grace grew up in the Home for Lost Angels—the orphanage,” she clarifies, in response to Juniper’s blank stare, “before she was adopted at sixteen by an older gentleman who had no heirs and a generous inheritance from an uncle. A gentleman who is now a member of the City Council.”
“Who?”
“A Mr. Gideon Hill.”
Juniper puzzles over this for a while, wondering if it clarifies anything or merely obscures it further. “So. She’s just campaigning for her daddy? Writing to the papers and waving banners and making a nuisance of herself ?”
Bella shrugs.
Juniper returns to her apple-tossing, whispering words to herself, only some of which are profanities. Sometimes she pauses to inspect the apple closely, as if looking for worms, then resumes her whispering. She touches the apple with various objects—coins and bones, red strings and crow feathers, to no discernible effect.
Nearly an hour later she taps her thumbnail against the skin of the apple and grins at the delicate tink-tink sounds it produces. “Well, I hope our sister has her head on straight by the full moon.”
Bella makes a distracted mmm? noise without looking up from her book. Juniper sets a small, heavy object in its pages. Bella peers at it through her spectacles and gives