Treacherous Witch

—her eyes widen when he comes over, his face intent.

"Turn around."

"What?"

"Do as I say."

He ties her wrists behind her back. She protests.

"What are you doing?"

*

Valerie felt rather than saw the Patriarch closing the distance between them. His footsteps reverberated through her. The comings and goings of the other senators faded into the background.

"Master Titus, are you quite all right?"

An old man patted her shoulder, his brows drawn in concern. She managed a stiff nod, leaning on her cane.

"I'm fine. Leg playing up."

The senator made a sympathetic sound. Valerie tried to move, tried to use the cane as a spring to get her feet off the floor. She was possessing Titus. She controlled his body. She would not allow another sorcerer to take what belonged to her. They needed Titus to get away.

She took one step, like wading through mud.

But the Patriarch was almost upon her. The sympathetic old senator looked over her shoulder. Others walked by, bidding their farewells.

"Your Eminence, a moment."

Avon! The Patriarch's hold on her slipped, and she turned to see that Avon had planted himself between them, blocking Titus from the Patriarch's line of sight. A momentary distraction, and one that she could not waste.

Feet unstuck, she hurried out of the chamber and through the main hall, away from the Patriarch's influence, away from the senators, a burst of triumph rushing through her when she emerged from the Senate House and into the open air.

She lifted her hand, shielding her eyes from the sun, and squinted up at the archway. On the roof, the wyvern unfurled its wings. Titus had not escaped the Patriarch's clutches yet.

One last chase, then. Abandoning all pretence of decorum, Valerie dropped the cane and made a dash for it, past the twin statues of the wyvern's brethren, past the startled gentlemen and their servants, and to the coach on the boulevard she knew would be waiting for her. It had better be waiting for her.

Yes—there was Rufus, standing by their carriage as planned. He waved at her, then his face changed to a look of alarm.

She knew why. Behind her, the wyvern screeched.

Valerie accelerated into a sprint, and Titus's long legs ate up the ground. Cries erupted around them. She reached the carriage and flung herself around it, flattening her body against the other side. The wyvern swooped over her, claws barely missing the top of the black cab. The horses spooked; Avon's valet in the driver's seat yanked at the reins while Rufus swore.

"Get in!" he hollered.

The carriage jerked forward. She had only moments before the wyvern banked around to dive at her again. Valerie pulled the carriage door open and jumped inside. On the other side of the cab, Rufus did the same.

"Go, go!"

The horses were already whinnying; they needed little encouragement to race away. The carriage bumped and jolted, Valerie gripping the seat with both hands, and she could sense the wyvern following them at every turn. They were supposed to be heading to the docks, where the Admiral awaited them on his ship. If the valet couldn't control the horses, they would never make it.

"Maska's arsehole," Rufus muttered. "Slow down!"

She peered out of the tiny window. They were racing down the central boulevard, galloping past other carriages, but the main bridge over the river was coming up soon. It wouldn't be wide enough to overtake the other traffic. They would either have to confront the wyvern, or…

She glanced back at Rufus. "We need to get out."

"Are you mad? We'll be crushed!"

"If we don't get out now, we'll crash on the bridge and the wyvern will pick us off. Trust me. You have to follow me, all right?

He pressed a hand to his heart. "If I die, tell Ophelia I love her."

"No dying," she told him firmly. "Come on."

She opened the carriage door. Wind whooshed in; the thunder of the horses' hooves and clattering of the carriage wheels magnified twice over. They had not slowed down. Worse, she sensed the wyvern keeping pace above them.

Valerie took a breath. Then she slid off her seat, braced herself on the edge of the open carriage, and leapt out.

Her feet hit the cobblestones with a painful jolt and she fell forward, hands smacking into the stone. A sharp Drakonian voice shouted something at her, drowned out by a high-pitched neigh, and Valerie scrabbled up and dashed across the street just in time to avoid being trampled by an oncoming horse.

She looked up. The wyvern had sailed past them after the carriage, but it banked sharply, wheeling around. It knew where she was.

"Shit!"

Rufus nearly smacked into the horse that she'd avoided, its rider cursing at him too. Other carriages had stopped. Pedestrians gave them a wide berth. They'd caused a minor kerfuffle, and they were about to cause a greater one as the wyvern angled into a nosedive.

Valerie didn't hesitate. She dashed into the nearest store, not caring what it was, only that it was a place to take shelter. Rufus hurried after her, almost knocking over a lady carrying an enormous cake.

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"Excuse me! Really!"

"Sorry!" he panted.

She moved away from the entrance, afraid that the wyvern might try to get inside. As she did so, the most wonderful smell reached her nostrils. They'd entered a bakery, its decor like the most homely of kitchens—stone floor, whitewashed walls—and shelves upon shelves stuffed with bread, cakes, pastries, tarts and biscuits. Like many places in the capital, the bakery was a visual display of Drakonian conquest. She saw pita bread and sweet breads from Maskamere, baklava and cheese cake from Enyr, macarons and pastries from Carthal, all accompanied by handwritten cards that proudly proclaimed their place of origin for Drakonian patrons to coo over.

At the wooden counter, a shopkeeper served a small queue of customers. A storage room was just visible behind it, and a half-open door—another exit. Just what they needed.

She stopped by a cake stand to get her breath back. Two ladies with children harrumphed at her. She wondered what they'd do if they realised the wyvern had landed on the roof.

Rufus joined her. He looked a little worse for wear, his jaw bruised, a few visible scratches, but nothing serious. She'd grazed her hands and knees—Titus's hands and knees—and she did consider leaving the bruises alone but decided against it, quietly healing herself.

"All right," said Rufus. "What now?"

She pretended to be interested in the admittedly scrumptious-looking ginger cake on top of the stand. "The wyvern is on the roof. It knows we're here. It'll wait for us to come out."

"Right," he said. "And we lost the carriage. I'll be honest, I'm not seeing why this was a good idea."

She met his scepticism with a direct look. They were the same height, the same colouring. Two Maskamery pretending at being Drakonian gentlemen, she thought.

"Here's what's going to happen," she said. "Right now, the wyvern knows where I am because it can sense my power. It's like a scent it can track. So I'm going to let go, and then you and Titus are going to leave through the back. I promised Titus that we'd help him escape. If he wants to survive, if he wants any chance of going home, he'll follow you."

"Right," said Rufus, perhaps realising that she wasn't explaining this on his behalf.

"If he gets caught, he won't be a passenger when the Patriarch takes over. He'll be dead. If he tries to run, kill him. He is not going anywhere except with us, understood?"

"I think you've made your point," said Rufus.

Yes, she thought. She probably had. She loosened her hold on Titus's body and felt a wave of fear. Good. Fear was sensible. Fear would make him do the right thing.

"Ready?" She curled her hand around the glyph on Titus's wrist, reaching for its power. "Three… Two… One."

Valerie abandoned Titus's body.

Her eyes flew open, and for a moment she couldn't make sense of her surroundings. Everything seemed dark. She couldn't tell which way was up and which was down.

It took several seconds for her perception to clarify itself. She was disoriented because she had shifted from an upright position to lying down on a soft mattress. The room seemed dark because she had been browsing a sunlit store, and now she had woken up in a bedchamber where flimsy curtains were drawn, leaving her in a peaceful sort of dim.

Sitting up, Valerie breathed in and out, getting used to being herself again. She did not recognise this chamber. It wasn't one of the rooms in the hunting lodge. That was where Doryn was supposed to have taken her body… so where had she ended up?

Something about the place felt familiar, even more so when she ventured out of the room and into the hallway. These mosaic tiles looked far more like the interior of a Maskamery home than a Drakonian one. And surely that tapestry on the wall depicted priestesses dancing around a silvertree…

She descended a creaking spiral staircase and caught sight of a girl packing a leather bag in the entrance hall below. The girl's hair was pulled into a prim bun, her skirts sweeping the floor. She was dressed like a Drakonian lady, but her features were Maskamery.

"Priska?" Valerie said in astonishment.

The girl looked up. Her face turned white. Just then, Doryn emerged from another doorway, catching sight of her too.

"Lady Valerie. Is the election done?"

"Yeah." She descended the last few steps. "I… We're in Titus's house?"

She recognised it now. This was the old Maskamery embassy and Titus's place of residence. Priska had been living here since Avon had dismissed her from his service. The girl backed off at her approach, clutching the leather bag to her chest.

"We had to move," said Doryn. "What happened with the vote? Did all go well?"

She nodded. "Yeah. We won. Titus and Rufus are on their way to the dock."

But she'd left them in a critical situation. Would they escape the wyvern and make it to the Admiral's ship? She hoped so. Like any sorcerer, the wyvern could sense magic. Just as Mithras blazed brightly, just as the queen did, the goldentree's power shone within her too. The moment she'd left Titus, all that power would have disappeared from his body. It wouldn't make him invisible, but she was counting on them being harder to track.

"Then it's time for you to go too." Doryn directed that at Priska. "Are you packed?"

The girl nodded.

"Then be off."

He called for two of his guards to accompany Priska, who looked small and frightened. The house servants joined them. Despite herself, Valerie felt a stab of pity.

"Priska," she called, as the girl reached the front door. "I promised to look out for you. I want you to know that even if it doesn't seem like it, I'm still looking out for you. There's a place for you and your brother in Maskamere."

Priska's eyes shone like a rabbit's. She didn't look as though she was being rescued. She looked as though she was being kidnapped. But she said nothing, and then the guards bundled her out of the door and away, the servants trailing after them.

Valerie sighed.

"Lady Ophelia has made herself at home in the drawing room," said Doryn helpfully. "If you'd like to join her."

"I would." She paused. "Are we safe?"

"I don't believe anyone saw us, my lady. I'll keep watch until His Lordship returns."

"Thank you." She touched his arm gently, and he frowned.

She approached the drawing room, only for Edrick to come tearing out, his face flushed with excitement. Valerie made a startled sound, but the little boy only laughed and darted off down the hallway.

When she entered the room, she found Ophelia sitting on her knees as if in prayer by the fireplace. She was counting down.

"Forty nine… forty eight… forty seven…"

"Ophelia?"

The other girl opened her eyes and squealed. "Valerie! You're awake! Oh, you missed a dreadful adventure! How was the Senate? Did we win?"

"We won," Valerie confirmed, allowing herself a grin. She'd barely let herself enjoy their victory, but it was a victory. We won!

Ophelia hugged her, then explained that she was playing hide and seek with Edrick.

"You must tell us the full story! Help me find him?"

Valerie readily agreed. It gave her a chance to reacquaint herself with the house's nooks and crannies after her last visit with Titus. They searched the ground floor first, but Edrick had not hidden in the dining room, and the guard at the back entrance would not have let him into the garden.

As they explored the upper floor, Ophelia regaled Valerie with the tale of her dreadful adventure.

"Father very nearly caught us," she whispered. "He sent that horrid man of his sneaking around the lodge. We had to hop in a boat and sail around the lake for hours to evade him. Poor Doryn carried you all the way. He was as red as a lobster by the time we arrived."

But they'd escaped, she thought. She'd fulfilled her side of the bargain with Avon by helping him to win the election. Now it was his turn to make good on his promise to take her home.

For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to think seriously about returning to Maskamere. She imagined the goldentree in all its glory, imagined walking through the forest of silvertrees, passing the dead stumps until she found one of the last living trees remaining: the silvertree at St. Maia. She imagined stepping through the tree and wiping out all of the pain, horror and loss of the past two years. She would bring back her family. She would restore the silvertrees.

And she would find herself caught between the queen and her ancient enemy.

When she had made that bargain with Avon, they hadn't known that the Patriarch would prove a worse threat than the queen. And since the Book of Shadows had refused to tell her how to kill an immortal, they'd had to come up with a different plan. Shipping Titus off to Maskamere was the first part of it.

"There you are!" Ophelia exclaimed.

She opened a wardrobe in the third and smallest bedchamber, and a laughing Edrick tumbled out.

"Is Father back yet?" he asked.

"Soon," Ophelia promised. "We'll all be together very soon."

She said it with bright-eyed conviction. Valerie hoped that she was right.