Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2) (34 page)

She remembered Mama’s words to her when she was a little girl:
If you want something badly enough, if you will give enough of yourself, it will come
.

She ran back into the bedroom, past Sebastian, stirring on the hearthrug, to feel in the pocket of her old, stained dress, where a scrap of paper lay. ‘Charles Darwin, crossed with a potato,’ Alexis had said, but to Rosa it would always be Papa, with his soft dark beard and his soft, dark eyes.

She touched her lips to the paper and held it in her hand for a long moment, and then she ran out into the corridor, to stand in front of the massive, spell-locked door.

‘
Ætýne
,’ she whispered, and then louder. ‘
Ætýne!
’

She clenched her fist around the scrap of paper, feeling it grow wet with her sweat.
I want this. I want to get out. I want to save Luke, and Cassie, and my own life
.

‘
Ætýne!
’

She felt the flames at her back. They were creeping along the skirting board of the hallway now, licking at the floorboards.

She opened her hand and she flung the paper at the flames.

I will give you anything. Anything
.

‘
Ætýne!
’ she screamed, her voice swallowed in the roar of the flames coming from Sebastian’s mother’s room.

And the door sprang open.

The house was quite dark, but the front door gave beneath Luke’s stiff fingers and he stumbled into the vaulted, shadowy hallway.

It was dark, but not silent. He stood for a moment panting, expecting to hear running footsteps, servants. But nothing. Only the faint sound of pattering snow against the panes. And from above, something far more worrying. The sound of . . . could it be . . . flames?

The air smelt of smoke.

‘Rosa!’ he called, his voice shockingly loud in the echoing hall. The sound bounced back at him from the high stone ceiling:
sa! sa! sa!
‘Rosa!’ he shouted again.

And then – from somewhere high above, he heard an answering shout.

‘Luke?’

And then there she was – running along the upper landing and down, down, down the stairs, like a ghost in pale lace that fluttered in the smoky darkness. There were smuts on her face and her hair had come out of its pins and streamed out like flames in the darkness. Her magic blazed – so bright he would almost have shielded his eyes, except that he could not look away from her face.

‘Rosa . . .’ His voice was a croak, his throat suddenly tight with wanting and a desperate, painful relief.

‘Luke! Is it really you? How?
How?
’

She came running into his arms, half laughing, half sobbing, and then her lips were on his, and her hands were at his face, kissing and then pulling back to look again, her fingers digging into his shoulders so hard it was almost painful, as if she couldn’t believe he were really here, really in her arms.

He kissed her back, her lips, her throat, her temples, everywhere his lips could reach, trying to ignore the roaring pain in his ribs. But he couldn’t suppress a gasp when she flung her arms around him in a fierce embrace.

For a second the pain was so fierce he could hardly speak, and he knew from the way she fell back, her face white and horrified, that it must have shown in his face.

‘S’all right,’ he managed, putting a hand to where his rib clicked and ground. ‘I’m . . . s’just a rib. Don’t – don’t crush it. I’m all right.’

‘Let me heal you!’ She put out a hand, but he shied away.

‘Not now.’ His breath was still coming quick with the aftermath of the pain. ‘When we’re away.’

‘Away?’

‘I’ve got Castor outside.’

‘But – but, Luke, I
can’t
.’

‘What?’

‘Cassie. She’s upstairs. The house is burning.’

So it was true. He looked upwards.

‘I must go and find her. I must!’

‘She’s a witch,’ he said, and his voice sounded brutal in his own ears, but it was the truth, wasn’t it? ‘She can save her own skin.’

‘She’s
blind
, Luke!’

‘So? She’s still got magic.’

‘The fire, it’s my fault! You don’t understand – I went to see Sebastian’s mother – I left her room unlocked. It’s her – she’s burning the house and if Cassie dies, it’s all my fault. I
have
to get her out. And the maids – we must warn them!’

He clenched his teeth, feeling the tiredness in his muscles and the scream of his rib. He’d come
so
far . . .

He thought of William, lying on the floor of the abattoir. He thought of all he had lost. He could
taste
the freshness of the air outside, the sweetness of Rosa in the saddle next to him. He thought of them riding into the night, in the silence, together. It was like a mirage, just beyond his fingertips.

‘I’m going back,’ Rosa said. Her face was streaked with smuts and she looked as white as a ghost in the moonlight that filtered through the unshuttered windows, but her expression was resolute. ‘You stay here, outside with Castor. Wait for me.’

‘No.’

‘But you’re hurt—’

‘No,’ he said again, his teeth gritted against the pain. ‘No. I’ve lost you too many times. Not again. We go together.’

She hesitated . . . and then nodded and stretched out her hand. He took it in the darkness, and together they ran up the thick-carpeted stairs, towards the sound of the fire. At the landing they met a housemaid coming the other way in her nightgown and shawl, her face pale and frightened.

Rosa grabbed her arm as they passed.

‘Are there others – other maids? Where’s Miss Cassandra?’

‘Let me go!’ the maid cried. She tried to tug her arm free, her magic crackling, thin and pale with fear.

‘What about the others?’ Rosa hung on like grim death.

‘Cook’s gone down to the village with the head footman. I’m the only one here. Let me go!’ She pulled her arm free and ran down the rest of the stairs.

‘Miss Cassandra?’ Rosa cried after her, but she was gone, out into the snow.

‘Cassie!’ Rosa shouted again. She had no idea where Cassie’s bedroom was, and it felt as if they’d been wandering the corridors of Southing for hours, past rooms with furniture shrouded like ghosts against the dust, and whole wings closed off for the winter.

‘Cassie!’ She shut her eyes, throwing out her magic into the darkness, but all she could see were the silent, empty rooms, dark grates, stripped beds.

‘Maybe she’s gone,’ Luke said, and she could hear the hope in his voice. ‘Maybe she smelt the smoke and got out. We should look outside, check we’re not hunting for a bird that’s flown the coop.’

Rosa wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t. It didn’t seem in Cassie’s character to flee the house when her mother and brother were still inside.

‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘She wouldn’t have gone without checking on her mother. She must be asleep, or not have heard the fire.’

But the noise of the flames was now so loud that was beginning to seem implausible too. Rosa shouted again and, when they stopped to listen for an answering cry from Cassie, they could hear the roar and crackle coming from the other wing and see the flames reflecting back from the snow-covered lawn.

Still, Luke went to the window, peering out into the falling snow. He stood with his hands either side of the frame, his shape silhouetted against the dim glow of the snow, and she took a breath. There was no time for this now – they should be going after Cassie, or getting out, saving their skins. But it might be now – or never.

‘Luke, I found out something. About – about your parents.’

He turned back. She wished she could see his eyes, but they were shadowed.

‘They died—’ Rosa said, then she choked. She forced herself on. ‘They died because your father was a good man. He – he was a . . .’ She stopped, searching for the word. What
was
Luke? Not a witch finder, with its cruel associations of burning and hanging and breaking, not any more. But something more – a man who could perceive magic, and resist a spell. ‘He could
see
, Luke, just like you. And was trying to expose the practices at the factory. He was a journalist – isn’t that right? And he went to the match factory and threatened them, threatened to write an article. And so . . .’ She stopped. She could not say the words, the horror that Luke had lived with and grown up with all these years. He had lived with that memory all his life, and she could not even say it.

‘So he killed them?’ Luke’s face was very white. ‘Sebastian’s father killed ’em – my father for what he planned and my mother because she knew? Is that right?’

‘Not Sebastian’s father.’ She swallowed. ‘His mother.’

‘His
mother
? A woman? But – but . . .’

He stopped, his face quite blank and white as he stared at something in the middle distance, and Rosa knew that he was reliving it again, seeing the scene in his mind’s eye. Hearing the crack of bone and the splat of blood on the floor. Seeing the black glove and the rolling cane . . . and realizing that it could be true – that he had never seen the witch’s face. That it
could
have been a woman all along.

‘I never saw his face,’ he whispered. His face was a frozen mask, as white as the snow that was blowing against the windowpane. ‘I never saw his face, that’s what I told ’em. But it was a lie – I never saw
her
face.’

‘Luke—’

‘Where is she?’ he interrupted.

‘What?’

‘Where is she? Sebastian’s mother?’

‘Luke, no, you don’t understand. She’s burning the house. If you go after her—’

‘
Which way?
’ he roared, but she stood her ground, her breath coming fast and panicked, trying to work out what to say, how to persuade him of the stupidity of what he wanted to do. For a long moment they stood at loggerheads, like two bulls facing each other down.
I have magic
, she thought, a fleeting, unworthy realization.
And he does not. I could compel him
.

But even as the thought flickered through her mind, he took a deep shuddering breath and took her hand in his, the injured hand. As he held it in both his hands, her heart missed a painful beat.

‘I turned back,’ he said very quietly. ‘In the factory. I turned back for you. I gave up my chance at revenge for
you
. I came back here, for
you
, and you wouldn’t come away with me. You went back for Cassie. You did what you had to do, even though you knew it was dangerous, maybe even might cost you your life to try to find her. And I didn’t try to stop you. Please.’ His hands around hers were warm, and he shut his eyes, his expression wringing her heart. ‘Don’t try to stop me, Rose.’

She said nothing. The roar of the fire was in her ears, louder and closer now.

‘Which way?’

‘Back the way we came,’ she said at last. The words stuck in her craw, and she had to force them out. She wanted so badly to find Cassie and get
out
. The thought of Luke plunging into that inferno – to what? To his death? To pursue some long-dead vengeance? To put hate above love, as the Malleus did? ‘Past the green baize door at the end of that long corridor. But, Luke—’

But he had already turned, striding back along the corridor they had already taken, back to the stairwell and the passage that led to the green baize door.

For a minute she stood, watching his back disappear into the wreathing smoke, and she thought of turning and leaving, finding Cassie, letting him pursue his obsession to the death. It was his choice, after all.

But as his shape retreated into shadow and her heart seemed to pull from her very body, trying to follow, she realized she could not.

‘Luke, wait!’ She began to run, feeling the heat on her face and the smell of smoke grow stronger as she followed him. ‘Wait!’

Luke was almost at the green baize door before he heard the footsteps behind him and, above the roar of the fire, a voice calling desperately.

‘Wait!’

He turned – and his heart leapt and clenched with joy and fear at the same time. Rosa.

‘What are you doing here?’ he called, coughing against the smoke. ‘Go back!’

‘No.’ She ran up next to him. Her face was flushed and her eyes were red and watering. ‘No, I will not.’

For a minute Luke wavered, and then a crash of a falling beam decided him. They could not stand here arguing; every moment that they did the danger grew.

‘Come on then.’ He put his hand towards the door, but even before he touched it he could feel the heat coming off it, and as he looked properly he saw it was smouldering, the baize blackening and smoking before their eyes, far too hot to touch.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Rosa said shortly. She shut her eyes and whispered the words of a spell under her breath. Luke saw her magic shimmer and flare and it seemed to wrap around them both, with a sensation like a cool breeze in his face. Suddenly the heat of the fire was less, and then she bent her head and he saw the struggle in her face, her lips moving in a silent exhortation.

‘What are you doing?’ he whispered, but he did not expect her to answer. Her lips kept moving in that silent prayer, those strange foreign words, like a half-remembered tongue, whispering in her magic.

And then the door sprang open.

The wall of flame beyond was like hell. The blaze curled up the walls, arching overhead like a cathedral of fire, blazing into glory as the air from the open door fed the inferno.

‘Where can they be?’ he shouted over the roar of the fire. ‘No one could survive in that!’

Rosa made no answer – she just pointed down the corridor of flames to where a door stood open at the end. For a moment Luke couldn’t understand – they were on the second floor. The door could not lead anywhere but to open air. Then he remembered: a fire escape ran along the two end walls of Southing, a metal zigzagging ladder that scaled the east and west end, leading down from the servants’ rooms in the attics to the grounds below.

‘They must have gone that way!’ Rosa shouted. ‘Come on!’

She took his hand and he felt her magic gather and build, wreathing him in its cool embrace.