Page 180 of The Witch Queen
Their calls rise in a sinister chorus, the entire murder soaring together in a haunting rhythm. Then, like a hundred tiny cannon shots, they plummet. Mother bellows in outrage, flailing as talons rend her flesh and beaks peck at her eyes. Shade whirls away into his shadows.
“Stop this!”
A blast of power explodes from Mother’s outstretched hands, scattering the crows in all directions. Her gaze finds mine.Thislook, I recognize. It smolders with fury.
“It’s clear that you won’t see reason,” she says. “Not yet, anyway.”
Mother snaps her fingers and tendrils of shadows slither out from inside the cottage. Shade follows. My stomach drops. Because suspended in his arms is…
“Blodwyn!” I cry, sprinting toward them.
Shade sends a rope of shadow to wind around Blodwyn’s neck, halting me in my tracks.
“Let her go!” I demand. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this,” Mother replies. “And if you want her back so badly, then I suggest you find me. And comealone.”
With that, Mother signals to Shade. Shadows swirl in a cyclone around her and she swallowed into their depths, Shade and Blodwyn with her. All I can do is stare at the place where they disappeared, cursing my own helplessness. My own failure.
“Ayleth!” Joan rushes out of the cottage. “I’m so sorry. I tried to stop it but—”
“It’s all right,” I tell her. “I’m just glad you weren’t hurt worse. And—”
A groan reaches my ears.
Jacquetta.
Joan and I hurry over to where the other witch is struggling to push herself upright.
“What the hell happened?” she asks, wincing as she tests her limbs.
“Some…creature took the princess,” Joan explains.
“Not a creature,” I say, my jaw tensing. “Shade. And my mother.”
Jacquetta’s eyes widen. “Cassandra?But she—”
Chickens startle as someone else enters the yard. I lurch to my feet, raising my blade.
“Don’t come any—” The rest falls away as I register a Dwarvian man wearing a familiar red cap. I blink. “Roland?”
His mouth drops open as he surveys the damage. The goats’ stable is leaning precariously to one side. The chicken coop is in shambles. The door to the cottage has been blown off its hinges. The yard is littered with countless feathers left behind by the crows, not to mention the tree limbs and other debris.
“Mistress Witch,” Roland grinds out, fixing me with a murderous glare, “will youkindlyexplain what happened to my house?”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Ayleth
Dusk is falling by the time we finish recounting our stories. Tilda arrived with Roland, and the five of us sit around the now lopsided table, nursing our wounds and eating what food survived the explosion. Margaret’s shard of mirror is propped against a candlestick. But the glass is currently empty, the duchess out searching for wherever Mother took Blodwyn.
Mother.
My mind still reels from that discovery. She was here. She’salive.Andsheis the one responsible for the attacks. How long has she been plotting this? Watching me? Much more important, what does she have planned next?
“This,” Roland says, shaking an accusing finger at me, “is exactly why I left the palace. Thank you very much, Mistress Witch. I’m so glad I freed you from that dungeon so that you could ruin the rest of my life. Why don’t I just hand you some matches so you can finish the job? Dig my own grave while I’m at it?”
“Roland,” Tilda warns.
