keep the curious away?” He stomped his foot in the face of a large rodent that had come to inspect him from the alley.
She nudged her chin at the rat and pointed, and it scurried away. “This is a witch’s tavern. I let you come this far, but it really would be best if you wait outside while I do this.”
“I can’t let you go in there alone if it’s dangerous. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
She tried to peer through the window, but the usual dingy, yellowed grime coated the glass, obscuring the view. “I’ll be all right,” she said, patting her pockets. “I’m prepared.” And she was. She’d brought every protective talisman, amulet, charm, and herb she possessed. This time she would not be blindsided.
Jean-Paul began to protest, but in the end he had no choice but to trust her. He kissed her cheek and said he would wait with the horse. He was learning. Still, she was grateful to know he would be nearby as she opened the door to the seedy tavern.
The main room, normally half-empty on a good night, bustled with customers. There wasn’t a seat to be had. Elena threaded her way through the crowd, ever more aware that it wasn’t the usual locals. A group of sorcerers who looked as if they’d just disembarked a train from the other side of the world shook their turbaned heads and blew smoke into the air as they debated the number and meaning of the dead cats. She gave a wide berth to the cloud of tobacco and gin hovering near them and emerged next to the table by the window, where a sagging cobweb hung precariously low over the patrons’ heads. Two young witches sat across from each other studying their tarot cards. The one with the city accent tapped her finger on the Empress and smugly noted she’d foretold the death of the demon-dancing witch a week earlier. The other pointed to the Wheel of Fortune and said it was pure luck. Elena stood on her toes to look for Madame Grimalkin and ended up bumping into a man whose face was tattooed with black swirls and dots that she was sure contained its own type of magic. He took her measure with a curious glance, one absent of attraction yet fully inquisitive, then inhaled. His eyes widened with excitement. “You’re a winemaker. Like the evil-hearted one,” he said. “Did you know this woman? Is it true she drank the blood of a mortal man?”
He was talking about Gerda. They all were. Everyone in the room, it seemed, had come to revel in the details of her crimes and death. How many doves had been busy flapping their wings over the countryside to spread the news?
“No, I didn’t know her,” she lied, suddenly struck by the realization that any one of the strangers in the room could be the one who had cursed her. And then she saw them. The long ringlets of gold hair and the embroidered jacket with the faded flowers. The Charlatan sisters were there, raising their glasses with everyone else and cheering Gerda’s death. Or perhaps her accomplishments.
She was about to confront them when a bony hand grabbed her by the arm. Before she could protest she was shuttled into a dark corner. Her hand went to her knife.
“Thank the All Knowing you got my message.” Madame Grimalkin checked over her shoulder, then looked straight at her. “It was just like you said. A green dragon’s eye.”
She released her grip on the knife. “You saw the watch?”
Her gray head nodded. “It’s a gentleman that owns it.”
“Gentleman?” She glanced again at the Charlatan sisters, laughing and dancing across the room. “Are you sure?”
“Well, that’s how he presents himself, though I wouldn’t say it of a man who goes around cursing his own kind, if it’s him.”
A man? Of all the times she’d fantasized about this moment, it had never occurred to her she’d be facing a male witch. But who? Why? She felt as if she’d drifted even further from the answers she’d been looking for.
Grimalkin set her serving tray on top of the bar and held up two fingers to her husband as she shouted for beer. “So what are you going to do?” she asked. “I don’t want any trouble. No more than the usual anyway. We’ve got a good crowd tonight on account of that demon witch dying. People are hoping the authorities’ll sell off her bones and