The Vine Witch (Vine Witch #1)(48)

Not even three breaths later she smelled smoke again and propped herself up on her elbow, ready for an all-out fight. “I said put it out.”

“I did!”

Elena sniffed the air again, and her nose filled with the scent of frankincense too strong and immediate to be coming from the blanket. She sat up, eyes searching the darkness. As she traced the cell for the source, she spotted a seam of smoke snaking between the cracks in the overhead beams. More sweet smoke sank between the joists, and then the first of the flames begin to lick the underside of the beams.

“Get up, Yvette.”

“Why are you such an uptight bitch?”

The young woman rolled over, brandishing her sharpened hairpin like a dagger as a booming series of footfalls rattled the roof. Her eyes shot to the ceiling. A ribbon of smoke wafted down, deliberately wrapping around her neck like a noose. Properly panicked, she covered her mouth with her thin blouse and escaped to Elena’s corner of the cell.

“Guard! Fire!” Yvette shook the bars as the smoke drifted toward her again. “Fire! Open the door, you bastard!” She stepped back and desperately tried a spell on the lock. It fizzled the moment the words fell off her tongue.

“It’s no use,” Elena said, looking for something—anything—that might help them escape. Finally she picked up the blanket, started a tear at one end, and then ripped it into three pieces.

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking like a mortal,” she said and tied the pieces of blanket together so that she had one long piece. “Give me that hairpin.” The young woman handed it over, and Elena knotted it to the end of the blanket and gave it a hard tug. Hefting the blanket in her right hand, she slipped her arm through the bars and swung the blanket at the alarm bell on the wall. The knot in the blanket glanced off the metal, making a pitiful muffled noise.

“Harder!”

“I’m trying!” She took a breath and aimed again. This time the silver pin struck the bell, clanging out a note loud and clear. She did it again and again and again until the guard entered the corridor ready to curse them both for waking him.

Two trails of smoke snaked down the hall, twining around the guard’s head and neck.

Yvette banged on the bars to get the guard’s attention back on them. “Open the door, you fool! Let us out before we die in here.”

The guard hesitated, blinking as much, it seemed, against the blinding smoke as he did against the strict rules. At the last moment he relented and put the key in the lock. The door swung open, and they ran through the sweet cloud of burnt incense.

“That way,” the guard said, pointing to the stairs. Their feet skipped down the steps, hurrying toward the exit. They reached the ground level, eager to run for the door, when the guard ordered them to halt. Matron stood at the other end of the corridor shouting out dousing spells, but the flames licking the beamed ceiling only grew, her words hitting like water thrown on a grease fire. Even the stone foundation appeared to catch fire as the flames clung to the walls of the old fortress.

“It’s no use,” she called. “Evacuate the witches. I’ll see to the mortal prisoners in the east wing.”

The guard fumbled for his keys in a mad panic. “You two, in here.” He gestured toward a small room where metal restraints hung in rows along the wall.

Yvette balked. “You heard her—get us out of here.”

“Not until you’re shackled.”

“The whole place is going to burn down and you want to restrain us?”

“I’m not risking any more escapes,” he said and shoved them both face-first against the wall.

Vibrations from the rune spell buzzed along Elena’s skin as the guard snapped a shackle around her left wrist. Hope sank as the other cuff went around Yvette’s right wrist, binding them together. If she’d had a notion to run, it had just been pruned to the nub.

The giant oak door of Maison de Chêne opened. The guard escorted the witches down the steps and under the brickwork arch at the bottom of the hill. Free from the clouds of smoke, they sucked in deep gulps of fresh night air as they clung to the stone pillars holding up the arch. Fear dissolved into awe as Elena turned to stare at the massive flames crowning the roof of the ancient castle. Below, at the main entrance, Matron herded a dozen panicked women through the doorway, ordering them to stay calm as she waved her wand. But before she could spit the incantation out, the beams over the main entrance caved in and the shackled prisoners scattered down the stone steps like a stampeding herd of gazelles, tripping and tumbling over each other. The guards, including the one watching over Elena and Yvette, ran to contain the chaos and corral the mortal prisoners.

A familiar laugh echoed off the walls of the prison, prickling Elena’s supernatural instincts.

“It’s Sidra,” she whispered to Yvette. “She’s doing this.”

Yvette’s face lit up. “I knew she wouldn’t forget who gave her that ciggie. Come on, now’s our chance.”

“What, you mean run?”

“Yes!”

“And how far do you think we’ll get, bound together and unable to do magic?”

Yvette wrinkled her nose at the logic and yanked her arm, forcing Elena off balance. She tugged back, and a column of smoke rose up beside them. An overpowering cloud of incense prompted them to wave their free hands in front of their faces, while the shape of a human emerged from the smoke.