Page 105 of Vengefully Matched

“Well, it won’t be gory. Blood isn’t an issue anymore for the immortal. Frozen, you see, magically stilled. Like cutting off the head of a doll, except it will give you much more sass than any toy, even a haunted one, would manage. The sort of people seeking immortality are never terribly pleasant.”

He adjusted his suit jacket, sighing. “I suppose since it’s clear that Azrael and Vickie don’t want me to join them, and you two have all the information I know about immortality, I’ll vanish into the night, as one does.”

In a flourish of perfumed smoke, he did just that.

“Well, that’s all we’re getting from him,” she muttered, frowning.

“We can try Madam Cleopatra again another day,” Agatha offered.

“Right. Tonight is for celebrating.”

“Hey,” said Agatha. “Tomorrow, after I’ve had some time, can I pick you up from your place and take you with me to the cabin?”

Agatha had rented the little cabin she’d been kidnapped to, now that she’d had time to set up the proper precautions. She said it was a Council expense, and insisted that they keep it on retainer until the perpetrator was caught. It had been warded and guarded to the fullest extent of the Council’s ability, and yet nothing had been triggered since. Agatha had said she had this hunch that something about that cabin could lead them to unravel the final strand of the mystery. Plus, the cabin had a truly epic bathroom that Agatha kept sending Priscilla pictures of, and Priscilla, personally, had a hunch that she could make Agatha scream her name five different ways in that tub.

Priscilla did not hate the idea of fucking Agatha Vanderbilt Voisin in a claw-foot tub, not one little bit. Her hair piled on top of her head, sweat gathering sweetly on her skin. Goddess, she was divine. A work of art, but one that Prissy wanted to touch, to sink her teeth into. They didn’t let her do things like that at museums, and once, as a kid, she had tried.

“I’d like nothing more,” she said, thinking of what she could do with candles and bubbles in a fancy glamping bathroom. “Now, put a pin in all the business, honey, and let’s see about that dance.”

It was nice, really, to have a moment of rest. She would take a few days away from stressing about the Council and the ominous quiet of the would-be murderer, and come back refreshed and ready to solve the case.

CHAPTER 36 Priscilla

When Agatha didn’t show up at 8 p.m. sharp, Priscilla worried. Agatha loved punctuality and schedules. She told herself that perhaps she’d got caught up in something, some sort of home project. She was always doing things like deep cleaning cabinets and organizing her filing system, the sort of undertakings Priscilla largely avoided.

Agatha found it comforting, which Priscilla sort of understood. The Benedict Hart cleanup method had always been to fetch the broom by magic but do the sweeping by hand, and it was a good one. Even if Priscilla was, at times, reluctant about putting it into practice.

It was this thought that led her to the library by 8:25, when Agatha also wasn’t replying to her text messages in a way that made her feel terribly reassured.

Priscilla: Are you on your way?

Agatha: Srry, at the cabin. Will call later.

She frowned. It wasn’t like Agatha to skip letters, but perhaps she was lost in paperwork. She did get lost in mountains of that from time to time. Priscilla figured that she would wait a little while and then call, and to pass the time, she did something that thinking of her father and his advice made her do. She went to the library to find the Hart family grimoire, the book imbued with the magic and wisdom of generations of Harts.

She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. Books fluttered out of the way, the sound of rustling seeping from the top floor down, and from the place where it hid, the grimoire skimmed through the air and into her waiting hands. The worn leather cover was aged, and had been handled by so many Harts, but it felt like pressing her hand against something shiny and new when she touched it. It felt like hers, and Azrael’s, of course—bone magic passed through bloodlines, born and chosen, and also through grimoires.

This heavy brown tome with the anatomically correct heart with magic eyes and runes encircling it bore the magic of every Hart before her. When a witch died a death not inflicted by their heir—to prevent murders for magic—their powers slipped into a grimoire. This one held not just Benedict and Persephone, but every Hart who had come before her father, and all their partners, all their people, all the love from years and decades and centuries of Hart witches. The patterned leaves on the binding looked like they could be alive, and the heart was so vivid in her mind that she often felt it was beating.

Only a Hart witch could summon this grimoire in this library, and the pages flipped with ease. She felt her parents in these pages, and saw them too: it was tradition for Harts to leave footnotes.

When they had died, she’d felt it, like suddenly stepping out into the sun, her body imbued with extra warmth once, and then a second time. The power passing through them to her, and into this sacred book. And something, at the corner of her eye, hard to even catch, something in the shadows, beckoned, and she knew she needed to check the book. That this was important.

She found the page for spells for patience and her father’s footnote underneath. The one she thought she had remembered, and knew she needed now.

When you love someone, you give them the time they need. And you tell them directly that this is what you’re doing: giving them time, giving them space. You tell them to their face that you’re doing it, and you don’t leave room for doubt or worries to sow their seeds. There’s a reason miscommunication is such a popular idea in books and movies; it’s so very human. And witches, we are human too. Mostly.

Priscilla knew then what she needed to do. She did love Agatha. She’d known it for a while, but now she knew it enough to trust it. She wanted to follow that trust into the rest of her life with this woman, and now that she knew that with certainty, she wanted the rest of her life to start right away. Priscilla sent the grimoire back to wherever it hid between other books, and she strode out of the library, down the hall and the staircase, and through the foyer to grab her keys.

The entire drive there, she practiced in her head what she would do. Find Agatha. Tell her that she would give her time. Leave respectfully if Agatha wanted it, but also, if she didn’t want it, take her in her arms, kiss her passionately, and carry her up the stairs. Tell her every way she could think of all the secret and not-so-secret affections and longings of her heart.

When she arrived at the cabin, the lights were on, and that made her heart hum with relief. Agatha was still here. She’d probably have a good reason for running late, and Priscilla could tell her that if space was what she needed, space was what she could have.

She snapped her fingers to unlock the door, figuring what she had to say was important, and that she wouldn’t actually go anywhere private without permission, so it would be all right to walk in and make an impression.

The cabin smelled like pinewood, and a crackling fire rose out of the grate, but the coziness seemed off, somehow. She walked up to the loft carefully, rounding the corner to the second-floor landing that looked out over the first floor.

Normally, she would have been happy to see the charming nook with a desk in the corner, but the feeling was overshadowed by the sight of Agatha herself, tied to a kitchen chair, hands in fingered gloves to keep her from doing any sort of magic.