The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(74)

“I identified them,” Blue said, flinching a little when all eyes landed on her.

“Are you a witch?” Ari asked, sounding more curious than afraid.

“I’m an alchemist.”

Hansel grinned again. “Smart and beautiful. Please tell me you aren’t spoken for.”

Blue didn’t dare look at Kellan. Instead, she said, “If we could focus on catching the witch—”

“Well, that’s a lot less fun than what I was going to suggest, but I suppose we can’t have everything we want.” Hansel winked at her, and Blue folded her arms across her chest.

Gretel laughed, a solemn, quiet sound. “This girl is immune to your charms.”

“Or maybe you aren’t as charming as you think,” Kellan said, and then hurried on when his mother shot him a questioning look. “I’m concerned about catching a witch when we can’t follow the ingredients. How do we find this person?”

Gretel met Kellan’s gaze. “Since magic is illegal in your kingdom, I’d start turning over every rock to find where a witch interested in hurting people might hide to practice magic in secret.”

Hansel nodded as the queen gave orders to her guards to clear the dock in preparation for the bounty hunters’ crates. “It’s unfortunate that you have a witch using spells to hurt people, but as long as you don’t have one feeding on the blood of children, you’ll be able to put the witch down easily once you find him or her.”

Blue froze, her eyes finding Kellan’s, the horror on his face a mirror for what she felt inside.

Hansel’s grin disappeared, and his body took on the eerie, predatory stillness of his sister’s. “You have a witch feeding on children, don’t you?”

“We have children disappearing,” Blue said softly. “Orphans. Homeless. The kind who won’t be missed by those with enough power to find them.”

Hansel and Gretel exchanged a long look, and then, finally, Gretel said, “We have to deliver this shipment to Akram on time. They run a tournament in a prison there, and the beasts can’t arrive late. But once we finish, we’ll return as quickly as possible and help hunt down your witch before it turns into a blood wraith.”

“The good news is that it takes months, sometimes even years, of feeding on the blood of innocents before a witch goes full blood wraith,” Hansel said. “We have time before this gets out of . . .” He looked from Blue to Kellan to the queen, took in their uneasy expressions, and sighed. “You already have a blood wraith, don’t you?”

The queen nodded, her lips pinched. “We caught and imprisoned it sixteen years ago.”

“Imprisoned?” Gretel sounded skeptical. “They’re practically invincible. You’d need powerful magic to do that.”

The queen cut her eyes once to Blue and then looked away. “We had . . . help.”

“And you’re sure this blood wraith is still in its prison?” Hansel asked.

When Blue, Kellan, and the queen remained silent, he shook his head. “That’s the first place I’d check. If children are going missing, and your wraith is still locked away, then we’re back to having another witch aiming to turn wraith. And if that’s the case, Gretel and I can help when we return.”

“Either way, we can help you kill the wraith you have,” Gretel said, a dark violence lurking in her voice.

“How do you kill a blood wraith?” Blue asked.

Hansel winked, though it looked more like habit than glee this time. “I don’t know. It’s hard to kill something that gets stronger every time it feeds on an innocent’s blood, but we’d figure it out, wouldn’t we, Gret?”

“We do love a challenge,” Gretel said quietly.

The queen nodded briskly. “We’ll do as you say. I’ll find someone to check on the wraith, and we’ll continue to look for places a witch might practice in secret. Thank you for your expert advice.”

As the crewmen began carefully bringing wagonloads of beast cages down the gangplank, Hansel and Gretel turned to oversee them, and Blue waved a little good-bye to Kellan and Nessa, who were already being drawn into conversation again with the royals from Súndraille.

Children going missing. A witch practicing in secret. A wraith no one had seen in years.

A chill went down her spine as she made her way back into the city and toward her home, all thoughts of watching the monsters in Hansel and Gretel’s cages forgotten.

How had her mother locked the wraith away in the first place? Blue had a feeling it was knowledge she might soon desperately need.





THIRTY-ONE

THE CASTLE WALLS were closing in on Kellan. He’d spent the morning checking with the royal magistrate about the state of the investigation into the murders as well as the investigation into the witch, triple-checking Nessa and his mother’s security protocols, and dealing with a steady stream of visitors from the various head families before heading to the docks to greet the new ruler of Súndraille, who couldn’t be much older than Kellan himself.

Most of his early afternoon had been spent lunching with the Glavans, fielding requests for investigation updates from various members of the head families, and answering correspondence from trade and political ambassadors across the ten kingdoms.