The Once and Future Witches - Alix E. Harrow Page 0,66

a soft, devastating snort. “You wouldn’t know a front line if it bit you, boy.” It’s Gertrude Bonnin, the clay-colored woman from one of the Dakotas.

Mr. Lee looks at her, not so much offended as despairing, and Juniper slings an arm around Gertrude’s stiff shoulders. “Our girl here fought in the Indian Wars out west, Mister Lee. She and a bunch of other girls busted out of their boarding school—using Saints only know what kind of witching, because she won’t tell us—and joined their mamas and aunties on the front lines.”

Gertrude pats Juniper’s arm and says, without a trace of apology, “Not every word and way belongs to you.”

“What about the uplift of women around the globe? What about the universal union of our sex, and the comradeship of womankind?” Agnes is fairly sure Juniper’s store of three-syllable words has just been exhausted; she suspects her sister is quoting from a pamphlet they received from the Witches’ Franchise League in Wales. It was accompanied by a substantial donation to their cause from a Miss Pankhurst and an invitation to the summer solstice ritual at Stonehenge.

Gertrude gives another of her devastating snorts. “When I see you out west, standing beside us against the U.S. cavalry, I’ll consider us comrades.”

Juniper flicks the bent nail at Gertrude in response and mutters about stubborn Sioux girls and useless men. At this point the Hull sisters intervene, insisting that they wouldn’t need Mr. Lee at all if instead they summoned the dead souls of their ancestors for instruction. Juniper makes a lewd suggestion about where Victoria can stick her crystal ball, and the tone of the evening descends thereafter.

Mr. Lee watches the rising debate with his jaw slightly slack and his blond hair tousled. Agnes sidles closer and pitches her voice beneath the noise of the room. “What’s the matter, Mr. Lee? Is this not how you pictured our little women’s club?”

“I . . . not entirely.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “What’s all this?” He nods at a pile of black felt and silken scraps, a scattering of dark feathers.

“Oh, nothing that would interest you, I’m sure. Just another show.”

For some reason this provokes another of his bright, boyish grins. “My what sharp teeth you have, Miss Eastwood,” he murmurs. “Will you be sprouting wings? Riding broomsticks across the Thorn?”

Bella, who was apparently eavesdropping, begins to say something about the absence of historical evidence that witches specifically preferred broomsticks, and that such stories likely refer to any number of spells for flight or levitation—but Agnes interrupts her on the grounds that it’s boring and no one cares. “That information is for Sisters only, Mr. Lee.”

“August, please.” He looks up at her with a dare in his eyes. “And how would one petition to join the Sisters of Avalon?”

Agnes never liked to back down from dares, either. “Bella. The roster, if you please?”

Bella hesitates for a long second before sliding her little black notebook across the table. Lee writes his name beneath the others—AUGUST SYLVESTER LEE—and tosses the pen down like a dueling glove.

“And now your oath, sir. Prick your finger and draw a cross, then repeat after me.”

“Witchcraft? Are you sure a man can work it?”

“Are you sure you’re a man? You strike me more as a mouse.”

August barks a laugh before he pricks his finger and speaks the words. The two of them grin a little giddily at one other until Juniper squints over at them and mutters darkly, “Oh, for the love of God.”

Later—after most of the Sisters of Avalon have slunk back through the halls of South Sybil and out into the damp green darkness of the June night, after August left with a tip of his hat so low it was nearly a bow and Agnes watched him go with a hand on her belly, reminding herself the price a woman paid for wanting—Bella clears her throat.

She’s standing at the door with her black notebook tucked beneath her arm, looking back at Agnes with deep lines around her mouth. “Be careful, Ag.” It’s almost a whisper. “I heard Annie saying he’s just here for a month to lie low. I don’t think he’s the type to stick around.”

“It’s not—it’s none of your damn business,” Agnes hisses back.

“I just didn’t want you to form any attachments that might be . . . unwise.”

“And what about the lovely Miss Quinn? Is she a wise attachment?”

Bella’s face goes gray, her shoulders hunching around some unseen wound. “I—I don’t know what you