that. “Dana,” Luc said softly, and: “Dana!” a little louder. “Find yourself. Go to your fleshly home. You know where it is . . .” Fleetingly, her eyes met his. Then there was a sound like a rush of wind, and the vapor was blown away, and the vacant jar fell to the floor, cracking into pieces, and Luc started at the sound as if wakened from a trance. “Did I do it right?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
“I must go. I must go to her.”
“If you want. Freeing Dana was your task; the rest is mine.”
He looked around the cellar, no longer searching, only skimming. “You need me. I’ll wait, but hurry.”
She walked along by the shelves, stopping beside the flask containing the eyeballs. They lined up against the glass, focused on her; she fancied there was a kind of pleading in that dreadful lidless stare. She picked up the container and unscrewed the cap, murmuring a charm similar to the one Luc had used. “Be free,” she whispered. “Pass the Gate. Vardé!” The eyeballs bobbed in the preserving fluid and then went still, revolving slowly, no longer in alignment. A thin chill fled past her and was gone. “Rest in peace,” Fern adjured, “whoever you were.” A vision flickered through her brain of a golden island sea-ringed and a young man with a beautiful face whose bright brown eyes were narrowed against the sun. She turned and saw Luc was standing close by her, and she knew he had seen it, too.
“Come on. If you want to look over the rest of the house . . .”
“One moment.”
There were few cupboards, but all were marked with runes of guard. She opened them with her lizard’s paw, scanning the contents: spellbooks plastic-wrapped against possible damp, more flasks and phials, what appeared to be a winged fetus curled up in a greenish fluid. She took nothing, though she retained the bottle with which she had destroyed the magic symbols. The last cupboard was set deep in the wall, its double doors padlocked.
Luc asked: “Can you break the lock?”
“Not with magic. For a lock, there must be a key. What have you got?”
Luc’s collection of house keys proved unhelpful, but Fern found the right one in an adjacent drawer. “Almost as if the padlock is for show,” she remarked. “A gesture.” She unfastened it, and the doors swung wide.
It was Luc who screamed, a cry of astonishment and horror abruptly cut off. There was a single big jar inside, and it contained a human head. Fern, more accustomed to such things, merely froze and stared. It was the head of a woman with her eyes closed as if in sleep and her long hair floating in the liquid around her. Her skin was almost translucent, showing the faint blue tinge of veins at her temples, though no blood beat there; her mouth was as exquisite as a half-opened rose, but very pale. Luc said: “What kind of a hellhole is this?” And: “Do you know her?”
“I think so,” Fern answered slowly. “Don’t worry: this isn’t human. It is . . . fruit. Unalive and undead. We will not disturb her now.” She closed the cupboard, replaced the padlock. She added with the edge of a smile: “Of course this is a hellhole. It’s a witch’s lair. What did you expect?”
“I don’t know.” Luc shrugged. “Black velvet curtains—black candles—an altar to worship the devil.”
“Witches worship no one but themselves,” said Fern. “You’re thinking of Satanists. They have no true power, only the crumbs they can borrow from whatever Spirits they invoke.”
“Can we go now?” The voice of Skuldunder piped from the corner where he had retreated as soon as they entered the cellar.
“Where next?” Luc demanded.
“The spellchamber. That might have black velvet curtains. I wonder what Morgus did with the Tree? She must have planted it somewhere.” Fern checked the level in her stolen bottle: it was still three-quarters full. As they passed through the kitchen, ignoring the sounds of the hag hammering inside the chest freezer, Luc helped himself to the longest of the skewers and thrust a vicious-looking knife through his belt. “You look like a pirate,” Fern commented. “Aren’t you going to carry one in your teeth?”
Skuldunder muttered something and appropriated the nearest implement, which turned out to be a carving fork. Wielding it, he resembled a clumsy miniature Beelzebub, rendered even more comic by the hat brim screening most of his face. But nobody laughed. The emptiness of the