The Once and Future Witches - Alix E. Harrow Page 0,87

she has more time.

But the light swells like a scream. Someone is coming.

She isn’t ready. The first time, two officers held her arms while a third delivered timid, random blows to her body, seeming half-afraid that she would transform into a serpent or a harpy. They asked her questions—Who were her co-conspirators? Where did they meet? When had she last lain with the Devil?—and seemed spooked by her silence.

The second time, they’d brought a professional with them, an expressionless man in a leather apron who did not seem afraid at all. He placed a finger against the iron collar around her throat and whispered a word. Then he merely waited while the iron grew hotter and hotter, steaming in the damp, drawing red lines of blisters around her neck. He stopped only when she begged.

He left without asking her any questions at all. The cooked-meat smell of her own flesh lingered for a long time after.

The lamp-light rounds the final turn of the stairs. Boots slosh in ankle-deep water. A face moves toward her, glowing pale in the darkness of the Deeps.

Gideon Hill. Alone, except for the dog walking like a collared shadow beside him.

He stops outside her cell, lantern raised in one hand, watery eyes watching her. She looks back at him and slouches purposefully back against the damp stone of the wall, arranging her bad leg across the rusted iron of the bed-frame. “You gave me a scare,” she drawls. “For a second I thought it was somebody important.”

She expects him to snarl or spit or curse her as a sinner; she can’t figure why else a city councilman would be ruining his suit in the fetid dark of the Deeps.

He laughs. It’s a genuine laugh, low and appreciative. It sends a chill prickling down Juniper’s spine, like a warning.

“Excuse my delay. It’s so difficult to make time to visit the condemned, during the middle of a campaign.” His voice is fuller than she remembered it, round and rich. Maybe it’s just the echo of the walls around them.

She crosses her arms behind her head, speaking to the sagging ceiling. “It’s rude to come calling after supper, my daddy taught me.”

“I was concerned the presence of your jailers might inhibit your honesty. I wanted to speak more . . . frankly.”

“Well frankly, Mr. Hill”—Juniper does not look away from the ceiling, does not change her tone in the slightest—“you can go fuck yourself.”

Another low laugh. Then a sibilant mutter too soft to hear, the clink of a tugged leash.

Juniper startles at the sudden sloshing of boots beside her: Gideon Hill and his dog are standing inside her cell. The door remains closed and locked behind them.

Juniper feels the fine hairs of her arms stand on end. All the scathing swagger drains away from her.

He draws so close she can smell the fresh moonlight on his suit and feel the heat of his hound’s breath against her bare skin.

He smiles down at her. It isn’t the craven, cringing smile she remembers from the Women’s Association, or even the hearty, false one that beams from thousands of campaign posters. This smile is all canines and red gums. It seems to be stolen from someone else entirely; Juniper would very much like to know who.

“You girls have done very well.” Juniper wants to write the word girls on a ribbon and strangle him with it. “You chose nice, visible subjects, ideal for stirring up a fuss. It will cost the city a considerable sum to replace the statue of Saint George, by the way.”

Juniper doesn’t think she’s ever cared less about anything. She watches him through narrowed eyes, wary as a cat.

He shrugs at her silence. “I can’t say I’m sorry, honestly. It was always a terrible likeness. But what I want to know is—”

“I’m not telling you a single name. So why don’t you save yourself some time and slither on home.”

Hill flicks a disinterested finger. The gesture has more authority than Juniper thought Hill had in his entire body. “I’m not interested in names. Your friends are far more useful to me playing witch, putting the fear of God in the common folk. If I wanted them locked up with you, they would be.”

Juniper’s fingernails cut crescents into her palms. “How did you know about the graveyard? Who blabbed?”

Hill makes a soft, pitying sound. “No one, James.”

He holds a hand in front of his lantern. It casts a five-fingered shadow against the scummed water between them, perfectly ordinary, until