The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(38)

Come third winter’s night, go underground in green.

What holds him in death will lead you to thirteen.”



None of this makes sense to me. But Nicholas is hunched over the table, nodding and writing furiously. The room is so quiet I can hear his pen scratch the parchment.

“Trust the one who sees as much as he hears,

For always, things are not as they appear.

Betrayed by three, beholden to four,

One who lost two is loath to lose one more.”



Nicholas’s brows twitch together a little at this, but he keeps writing. Veda continues.

“Darkness comes; the circle closes its end.

The ties that bind do both break and mend.

The elixir of life will pass between,

Because she bears the numbered mark unseen.”



Nicholas jerks his head in my direction, a look of surprise on his face. It takes me a moment to realize what just happened. The numbered mark unseen: my stigma. Veda just named me for a witch hunter. Just as I thought she would.

My first instinct is to leap out the window and run like hell. But where would I go? So I force myself to stand still and face whatever happens next.

The last grains of sand slip through the hourglass, and Veda slumps forward onto the table. Nicholas takes her by the shoulders and gently leans her back in the chair. After a moment she stirs, her eyes slowly coming back into focus. She looks at Nicholas.

“How’d I do?”

“Beautifully.” Nicholas gives her a kind smile. “Now why don’t you run and see Fifer? She has a gift for you.” Beaming, Veda jumps off her chair and charges into the next room. He looks at Avis. “Would you mind if I spoke with Elizabeth privately for a moment?” She nods and leaves the room. I notice she avoids looking at me.

The door quietly shuts, and Nicholas leans back in his chair. He clasps his hands together, the tips of his fingers resting against his lips as he studies me. His gaze is hard; there’s no hint of the levity or kindness I’ve seen before.

“You’re a witch hunter,” he says, finally.

I don’t reply. My heart is beating somewhere in my throat, and my palms are damp with sweat. I slide them against my trousers, hoping he won’t notice.

“I wouldn’t have guessed it,” he continues. “You don’t look the part. Then, that’s probably the point.” He goes quiet again. “You wanted to kill me at Fleet, didn’t you?”

I still don’t reply. I quickly scan the room for something to protect myself with. The candlesticks, the stones on the table. The mirror I could break, use the shards as knives.…

“I think we should have a little chat.” He stands and pulls out a chair. “Sit.”

I don’t move.

“Sit,” he repeats. “I won’t harm you.”

I hesitate for a moment before moving to the chair. I watch him closely, waiting for him to make a move. He just sits down and resumes staring.

“I thought you were a witch,” he says. “An untrained witch. I thought it was how you knew to procure those herbs, how you survived jail. John said you should have died.”

“I heard,” I say.

“Your stigma protected you?”

“No. It protects against wounds, not illness. It makes me strong, so I can hold out longer than most. But if you hadn’t found me and John hadn’t healed me, I would have died.”

Nicholas doesn’t respond to this. Maybe he’s wishing I had died; there’d be one less witch hunter in the world. He can wish it all he wants; but if he wants to stay alive, he needs me alive, too. Just as I need him.

“John said you’re cursed. That you’re dying.” I don’t bother dressing up the words into something more tactful. Nicholas grunts in disapproval—maybe at my impertinence, maybe at John’s carelessness—but I continue. “Veda said the thing you seek only I can find. It’s a wizard, isn’t it? You need me to find the wizard who’s cursing you and kill him.”

“It’s not a wizard,” he says. “It’s a curse tablet.”

Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “A curse tablet?”

“Yes. Do you know what they are?”

I nod. I’ve come across a few curse tablets before. The idea behind them is simple: Etch a curse onto a flat piece of stone, lead, or bronze, then dispose of it someplace it can never be found. Wells, lakes, and rivers are popular choices. But while the idea is simple, the execution is not. To create the curse, you have to use a specific material, a certain stylus to write with, the correct runes. If a single step is done incorrectly, it won’t work.

And most of them don’t. The curse tablets I’ve seen were always incomplete, abandoned at some point in the process. But if done correctly, it’s one of the most effective ways that I know of killing another human being. The only way to break the curse is to find the tablet and destroy it. Which is nearly impossible.

“You may be looking for a curse tablet,” I say. “But it still amounts to me finding a wizard. A wizard cursed it, a wizard hid it. One of your enemies, I presume.” Nicholas raises an eyebrow at that, but I go on. “I find him, persuade him to tell me where it is. Then I destroy it. It’s really not that difficult.”

“You’re very confident,” Nicholas remarks.