13 August On his way to château—?couldn’t stop him. Tell the Mada.
Anouk gripped the franc coin—?Luc had been here! Mada Zola had lied to them and here was proof. She ran downstairs and into the garden, over stone paths that were damp on her feet, realizing too late that she’d left her shoes inside. She banged on the potting-shed door.
“Let me in, witch! Luc is here, I know it!”
Mada Zola opened the door. She had dark circles beneath her eyes. The shed smelled of wood smoke and something bitter, and Anouk spotted a bubbling pot and jars of tonics amid the shovels and clay pots.
Anouk held up the franc coin like an accusation.
“Come in.” Mada Zola’s voice was calm. She motioned casually to the vials and bottles. “I’m concocting a tonic that I found in a Persian spell book from the fourteenth century. It’s used to slow one’s aging process. If it works, it might buy you and your friends another few days until your proper age catches up with you. I need thorns and a couple more ingredients from the garden before it will be ready for testing.”
Anouk clenched her jaw, focusing on why she’d come. “I found the scryboard logs. Luc—”
“He was here, yes,” the witch admitted, cutting her off. “He isn’t anymore.”
“Then where is he? He disappeared a week and a half ago.”
Mada Zola shook her head, returned to her pot, and stirred it slowly. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that. He was here two months ago. Long before you say he disappeared.” She set down the spoon, and her eyes dropped to Anouk’s bare feet, to the missing toes, but she didn’t seem surprised. She picked up an empty bottle. “Take a walk with me.”
Anouk wasn’t inclined to obey, but neither did she want to stay in that reeking shed. She followed the witch into the gardens. “Luc said that you loved your mistress so much that you didn’t see the rotten part of her.”
Anouk didn’t answer. How could she? Yes, yes, she understood now how vile their mistress had been, and yet the memory of her soft hands stroking Anouk’s hair was still too fresh.
“Your friend Luc contacted me two months ago, and when I didn’t answer, he showed up at the gates with an awful story to tell. He’d overheard Mada Vittora negotiating with a Goblin broker who dealt in small mammals. She wanted four very tame, very mild-tempered rabbits. Young and in good health.”
Anouk slowed. “I remember that.” She wiped her hands on her sweater, though they were already clean. “Luc thought he was supposed to slaughter them for stew, but he was wrong. Mada Vittora was furious.”
“Did you ever wonder why she wanted four live rabbits?”
Anouk curled her toes. “No.”
Mada Zola stopped at a nettle plant and pulled off long, spiky leaves to go in the bottle. “According to Luc, she felt that her beasties were growing restless. He and Cricket and Beau were more disobedient every day. And the assassin Hunter Black had become too attached to her boy. So she decided she’d kill her beasties and start over with more docile creatures.”
Anouk felt as though she’d been slapped. She pressed her hand to her cheek, feeling a sting she couldn’t make stop.
“She was going to keep you,” the witch continued evenly. “She bought only four rabbits, not five. You were her pet. Her obedient little beastie.”
Had the day suddenly gotten darker? Anouk looked up, but no clouds blocked the sun. Was it true? Of course it was. She felt like a traitor, like she’d somehow sided with Vittora, that she was complicit just by sweeping floors and serving cake.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“I explained to Luc that whoever possessed your pelts possessed you. If he could steal the pelts, then he wouldn’t be forced to answer to any mistress. He left and I haven’t heard from him since. Of course, that advice was true only as long as your witch was alive. Now you have much bigger problems. Even if you had control of your pelts, the beastie spell would still expire at midnight tomorrow.”
They had entered the thorn garden, though Anouk had barely noticed.
“Do you have your pelts?” the witch asked.
But Anouk was too deep in her thoughts to answer. Luc had been trying to steal the pelts . . . had Mada Vittora caught him? Had she killed him out of anger?
Mada Zola suddenly took her arm, cupped her chin, and turned her face toward the warm sun.
“Breathe, my dearie. You look on the verge of shattering. You are each so strong in your own way. Beau has a steady strength, like a tree. Cricket’s is a bright strength, like lightning. But your strength, ah, yours is quiet. There’s a reason magic is called whispers, not shouts. Whispers require a quiet soul, a still mind. I could train you. Teach you to truly handle magic, to be what you were meant to be. You’re like these thorns, you know. Dangerous by your very nature.”
The wind was picking up, clouds moving in.
“Think about it, little mouse,” the witch said. “But think fast. You’re running out of time.” She bro
ke off a small handful of briars, flinching as one pricked her palm. A few drops of blood spilled out before she pressed a cloth against the cut. She touched Anouk’s cheek gently with her other hand, and then went back to the potting shed and shut herself up again.