PROLOGUE
FIVE MINUTES AGO
BRENNA IS DANCING UP THE MARBLE steps to the front door, and I’m following her when there’s a sound—flesh smacking against wet pavement—and I turn. Finn’s on his hands and knees; he’s tripped over the curb. He picks himself up, pokes his glasses into place, and walks back toward his carriage, but his gait lacks its usual gangly grace. He pauses, examining the carriage, looking as though he’s puzzled by it.
“Are you all right?” I call down.
He looks up at me, then ducks his head. His ears are red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, miss—is this my carriage?”
His voice is awkward, formal. As though he’s speaking to a stranger.
His words echo in my head: I’m sorry, miss.
I thought I was numb before. This is worse. I don’t understand. I glance around the empty street. It’s only Brenna and me and Maura here—
Maura.
My sister stands on the sidewalk, eyes narrowed at Finn. My Finn.
She wouldn’t do this.
Not my own sister.
Chapter 1
I LEAVE MAURA IN THE SWIRLING SNOW and ice. I cannot look at her scheming face one moment longer, or I will not be responsible for my actions.
Inside the convent, I lean against the heavy wooden door. My black cloak is dripping, but my eyes are dry. It all feels—impossible. Harwood is empty and Zara is dead and Finn won’t remember any of it, nor anything about us. Our future has been the touchstone guiding me through this war; the promise that at the end of it we’d be together has driven me forward, even when the odds against us felt insurmountable.
How can I go on without that? Without him?
Tess runs down the hall, flinging herself at me. She must have been listening for the door. “You’re back! How did things go at Harwood? I’ve been so worried, I—” But I’m stiff in her arms, and she draws back, eyes fastened on my face. “What is it?”
“Maura knows you’re the oracle.” I wrap my arms around myself as if it will prevent me from flying into a thousand pieces. I can’t help noticing the streak of scarlet on my right palm.
Zara’s blood.
Tess bites her lip. “How could Maura know that?”
My shoulders hunch. “I told her.”
“But—” My sister looks stunned. “You promised.”
It’s not like me to break a promise to my sisters. To anyone, really. I don’t give my word lightly.
That’s Maura’s fault, too. She’s made a liar of me.
Tess’s blond brows draw together over eyes that have gone as stormy as thunderclouds. “Why would you tell her, after we agreed to wait?”
That truth comes out easily enough. “I wanted to hurt her. I couldn’t think of anything else.” Maura wanted to be the oracle—the prophesied witch who would save New England—so badly. Badly enough to betray me.
What else did she erase, besides me? For the last few months, Finn’s life and mine have been intertwined. He won’t understand why his mother closed the bookshop. He’ll hate himself for joining the Brotherhood, especially now, with the Brothers subjecting innocent girls to their dungeons, to torture and starvation.
I clench my hands into fists, carving half-moons into my palms. It’s either that or scream, and if I start, I don’t know when I might stop.
“You wanted to hurt her,” Tess repeats, as if it’s incomprehensible. She stares at me as though I went away to free the Harwood girls and came back a stranger. “And you used me to do it. You shouldn’t—”
“Zara’s dead,” I interrupt, angry. I am so angry suddenly. “You saw that coming. You could have had the grace to tell me!”
Tears spring into Tess’s eyes. “I’m sorry. She asked me not to and I—I was afraid it would distract you. There was nothing you could do to stop it.” Her shoulders bow, and she looks much older than twelve. Her sigh pricks at my heart. “Is that why you told Maura? To get back at me?”
“No.” Everything is awful but it’s not Tess’s fault.
“The little one!” Brenna Elliott pops out of the parlor like a spooky jack-in-the-box. “You’re safe. I didn’t tell. They wanted me to, but I wouldn’t, not even when they hit me.”
Tess freezes as the mad oracle reaches out and pets her, stroking her blond curls. “Thank you?”
“They broke my fingers.” Brenna waggles them in Tess’s face. “But the nice crow healed me.”
Sister Sophia, she means. Sophia taught me to heal, too. It’s the only magic I’ve ever excelled at. I found satisfaction in nursing—and in proving the Brothers wrong, that not all magic is selfish and wicked.
Tonight I used my gift to stop Zara’s heart.
She asked me to help her die with dignity, and I did. But her staring brown eyes and the coppery scent of her breath already haunt me.
“You’ll be safe now, too. No one will hurt you here.” Tess pats Brenna’s arm.
“Rory will be here soon. With her sister.” Brenna’s eyes flit around like mad blue butterflies. “You and Cate-as-in-fate and the other one. The three sisters.”
“Is that Cate?” Alice Auclair strolls around the corner, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. “The Head Council is destroyed. Eleven of the twelve, anyway, including Covington!”
“I’ve heard.” If she’s waiting for my congratulations, they won’t be forthcoming. Her smile makes my skin crawl. She and Maura and Inez used their mind-magic on the Head Council, ravaging their memories so entirely that they’ll be reduced to mewling babies. The Brothers have already been teetering on the edge of violence. Less than a hundred years ago, witches were hunted almost to extinction—and a good many innocent girls were killed in the process. The Brothers have been wanting an excuse to return to their old ways, and now Inez has given them one.
The women of New England will suffer for Inez’s foolishness. Anyone a bit too educated, too eccentric, or too outspoken may be murdered outright instead of sent to Harwood. And what can I do to stop it? Nothing. There are tens of thousands of Brothers and only a few hundred witches to fight them. Our only hope is winning the public’s favor, and now Inez has mucked that up, too. The Brothers have trained the people to be terrified of mind-magic. After a horrific attack like this, we’ll be the monsters in the dark again, the stories told at bedtime to frighten children into good behavior.
Brenna grasps at my sleeve with her bony fingers, startling me out of my reverie. “It’s her,” she hisses. Her terrified eyes are trained on Alice. “The crow who pecked out all my memories!”
Alice stumbles back, looking from Brenna to me and then back to Brenna. Her porcelain skin flushes patchy and red.
Tess wraps her arm around Brenna, though she only comes up to Brenna’s chin. “She won’t do it again. It was an accident,” she soothes. Brenna whimpers like a child.
Alice turns, ready to retreat. I expect she never thought she’d have to face Brenna again. Her accident.
I step forward, blocking her way. “Look at her. Look at what you did.”
Alice looks. Takes in Brenna’s stained white blouse, her brown sack of a skirt, her tangled chestnut hair. Her emaciated face, one eye still darkened by a bruise where the Brothers hit her for refusing to cooperate. Her skinny scarecrow arms. The livid scars at her wrists from when she tried to kill herself six months ago.