The Witch Hunter (The Witch Hunter #1)(49)

“Oh,” I say. “No.”

“You’ve never done any spells? Curses?”

I shake my head.

“Not even by accident? Say, wished harm on anyone and caused it to come true?”

“No,” I repeat.

“Well, do you get lucky a lot? That’s what happens to untrained witches, you know. They do magic without realizing it and think they’re just lucky.”

“Do I seem lucky to you?”

Fifer snorts, her face softening a bit. “I guess not. Although you did survive jail fever. I guess now you know why.” She purses her lips, thinking. “There must be something you can do. Otherwise—”

She’s cut off by Horace, soaring toward us and clipping the tops of our heads with his outstretched wing.

“Run!”

We sprint across the muddy road, hurling over the wall and into the fields, searching for somewhere to hide. The grass is too low to offer cover. The only trees are in the distance, but if we’re fast enough we might make it.

I grab Fifer’s sleeve and start toward them when I hear it. Softly at first, then louder: the unmistakable thundering noise of horses, their hooves pounding through the mud. Whoever’s coming, they’re close. We won’t make it to the trees before we’re spotted.

Fifer grabs my arm and yanks me to the ground.

“What are you doing?” I say. “They’re going to see—”

“No, they’re not.” She reaches into her cloak and pulls out a long silk cord with three knots tied in it. I recognize it immediately: a witch’s ladder. Witches use them when they need to perform difficult or time-consuming spells quickly. Their energy and power are stored in the cord, and they’re released whenever a knot is untied. Blackwell showed us what they were in training, how they worked.

I suppose he would know.

Fifer yanks a small tuft of grass from the ground and starts to untie one of the knots from the cord, her fingers trembling as the sound of the hooves grows louder.

“Enlarge.” She flings the grass into the air. The blades expand and shoot upward, forming an enormous overgrown hedge. It’s at least four feet high and ten feet long. The grass is so high it curls over on itself, thick enough for us to hide under.

We crawl beneath it, pulling our cloaks and bags tightly around us so they can’t be seen from the road. In the distance, I see them: four men riding under the king’s standard. Fifer watches them, wide-eyed. We both go still and wait for them to pass.

They don’t. The horses slow to a canter, then a trot, then stop completely, less than fifty feet from us.

“I’ve had to piss for miles!” grumbles one man. I hear his feet splash in the mud as he dismounts his horse.

“Hurry up and have done, then. Nothing here is stopping you.”

“I’m coming, too,” says another, slipping from his saddle.

The two men make their way across the field, heading in our direction. They march straight up to our hedge, stop, and proceed to unbutton their trousers. Fifer grimaces; she looks horrified. I smile a little. I can’t help it. Pissing men don’t bother me in the slightest. I was the only girl among twenty male witch hunters. I’ve pretty much seen it all.

“So what do you think?” one guard says.

“Dunno,” says the other. “Ten more miles, maybe?” He shakes his head. “Bloody Stepney Green, middle of nowhere—”

“Not that. I’m talking about her.”

Her. They’re talking about me. Fifer shoots me a look. She knows it, too. I stare at the guards through the hedge, willing them not to say more.

“Aye. But I wouldn’t worry too much,” the guard continues. “D’you really think Pace would send us if there was any chance of her being there?”

Fifer’s expression turns to confusion.

Shut up, I plead silently. Shut up, shut up.…

The other guard looks doubtful. “If you say so.”

“I do. Look, she can’t be in three places at once. And if you ask me, Stepney Green’s the least likely of all.”

Three places? Where else does Caleb think we are?

“Even still. You’d think they’d at least send a witch hunter with us.”

“What for? You don’t think we can take a little girl?”

“She’s not just a little girl.”

Fifer narrows her eyes at me. I shrug, as if I hear this sort of thing every day. But my heart is pounding so hard it’s a wonder they all can’t hear it.

“She’s dangerous,” the guard continues. “Who knows what she’s capable of now that she’s with Nicholas Perevil. I say we search the place as we’re supposed to and get out of here. If we find her, we’ll let Pace take care of her.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” The men button up their trousers and turn to walk away.

I breathe a sigh of relief. That was close, I think. Too close.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? That she’s a witch hunter and a witch?” He tuts. “Blackwell ought to be more careful about who he recruits next time.”

Damnation.

I look at Fifer. She stares back at me, her expression blank as a fish’s. I open my mouth to say—I don’t know what—but she turns away, either in fright or disgust. Probably both. She sits, unseeing, unmoving, as the two guards join the others in the road. They mount their horses and ride away, kicking up a fountain of mud in their wake.