The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(39)
“Inspector!” At that moment, the deputy sent to search the house came running outside, pointing to the wall near the gate. “I could see it from the upstairs window.” The young man ran to the wall and then reached atop the capstone with his upstretched hand. When he brought it back down he held a desiccated cat in his hand, one recently drained of blood.
The inspector clucked his tongue at the sight. “Madame, I believe in her guilt with all my heart. Take the witch away.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The stone steps leading up to the witch’s tower had been worn smooth at their center, as if a thousand previous feet had trod the same wretched path Elena now took. With her wrists shackled, Nettles led her by the arm and prodded her through the main gate. The blue light of a spell-wall glowed in her shadow vision. She’d been nervous on the long ride out of the valley, watching the vineyards disappear behind her, but now she visibly quivered at the sight of the impending oak door and iron lock before her. How could this be happening? She’d returned home with the intent to kill Bastien, yes, but the thought had never made the leap from her mind to her hand. Not even when he’d stood before her in easy reach of her knife, the temptation slick as sweat in her palm.
The doors to Maison de Chêne yawned open as if prepared to swallow her inside the imposing granite walls of the tower. Was this yet another curse? Her mind careened back to the moment just before the curse touched her seven years ago. She’d been picking stems of eyebright along the road to make a tea when she got home. But she’d let her mind drift into shadow, anxious after her fight with Bastien, when a stabbing pain in her liver forced her to her knees. Locked in metamorphosis, her true self had been bundled and wrapped inside the skin of a toad, the confinement squeezing her consciousness until only the dimmest of mental light shone through the amphibious eyes. From that narrow point of view she’d watched the wheel of time turn round for seven seasons.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
She’d had only a moment to grab on to something meaningful, something to trigger memory. Her nose pressed against the grass, the green blades a curtain before her eyes. The stems of the eyebright gripped in her hand. And then another hand reached down to retrieve a dropped pocket watch. A green eye with a yellow slit. With her last wisp of clear thought she clasped on to the color green, making it a talisman if and when she woke again. It was the last thing she saw before sinking inside the curse.
She stared up at the prison gate, the terror of a second imprisonment draining her veins of warmth until she shivered uncontrollably. The prison matron, a middle-aged woman dressed in an iridescent blue robe, cut her a measuring look, then greeted Nettles in a curt yet professional manner. “This is the one?”
“She is. Got her dead to rights on summoning dark magic for murder. We’ve got weapon, means, and motive, and we even found her with a dead cat.”
The matron tapped a thoughtful finger to her lip before turning a wormy eye on Elena. “In that case, welcome to Maison de Chêne. I am Madame Dulac. You will address me as Matron. You will be housed here until your trial. Know that we do not coddle nor cosset, and we do not give in to whims of privilege. We are here to take in the dangerous, the deranged, and the derelict. But I warn you we house only the harmless here. Done so by plucking out the stingers of would-be wasps such as yourself.” To emphasize her point, Matron withdrew a yew wand from her sleeve, running the smooth wood through her fingers before pointing it at Elena. “You will not cast spells here. You will not conduct magic of any kind. Be assured any witch caught trying to manipulate the physical matter inside her cell will feel the sting of this queen bee.”
“But it wasn’t me. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The matron shook a weary head at Nettles. “Have you ever brought me one that didn’t say that?”
Elena shrugged free of Nettles’s grip. “You’re making a mistake. Someone else murdered Bastien, and they’re still out there.”
“You should be grateful, you know,” Nettles said, brushing his hands free of her. “You’re being granted a speedy trial. Seems the higher-ups want to make sure word gets out that we’ve caught the witch who’s been killing cats and conjuring blood magic for who knows what purpose. Though if it were up to me, I’d probably hang you on the spot.” Nettles cleared his throat. “Never mind I said that, Eugenie.”
“I’m the soul of discretion, Aubrey.” The matron locked her lips with a pantomimed key.
Shards of panic needled into Elena’s skin. The world had tipped on its axis so that up was down and down was up. To be held captive, cut off from magic, unable to clear her name—she’d go mad if she had to go through that again. Her icy blood retracted from her heart. Damn the consequences. She had to get free. Uttering words she’d vowed never to use as a vine witch, words of shadowy, summoning magic, she bent her wrists to hold her hands in an upside-down sacred pose, ready to unleash hell to escape.
She called on the sun, the moon, and the east wind, hoping to create a tornado of energy out of the torment building inside her. Her hair lifted slightly, as if a gentle breeze had wafted over her shoulders . . .
. . . and then nothing. No destruction, no magic, no escape—only the desperate silence of a failed spell. She stood trembling.
“The magic is stronger with this one than most,” Matron said to Nettles. “She got the energy to stir around her. Most can’t even finish an incantation.” Matron yanked at the handcuffs on Elena’s wrists as the runes glowed in neon blue. “But now that you’ve tried your little trick, you can be satisfied your spells and hexes are of no use in here.”