We walked to the kitchen, and there, Lisbeth, pretending she was some kind of detective – despite how foolish it was – got to work. She slid her fingers over the kitchen bench, locked her tongue against her palate, and appeared to concentrate as hard as she possibly could. Would her brain be ejected out of the back of her skull? I certainly hoped it would. Watching her like this was ridiculous.

  But it gave me time with Grace. There was something I longed to ask. And it was there, dancing on the tip of my tongue, trying to push its way out, trying to clothe itself in syllables so it didn’t look so darn vulnerable. “Grace,” I said haltingly as close to the door as I could so Lisbeth couldn’t hear.

  It was my tone. It had to be. Grace, who hadn’t minded standing so close to me before, suddenly pushed to the side.

  She looked at me once. “My mother, Winchester,” she reminded me in a low tone, “my mother is missing.”

  “Are we quite sure she was kidnapped? What if she ran before she could be?” Lisbeth suddenly asked.

  Enough. I was done with letting Lisbeth play games with Grace’s heart. For, at the very suggestion of that, Grace’s eyes widened with delighted shock. “Do you think there’s a possibility—”

  “Enough of this. She is nothing more than an assistant.” I shoved a hand out. Though playing with Ley lines would be unlikely to assist me, I started interacting with them anyway. Not obviously, that said. I threw my hands up. I gathered together what looked like simple strands of air and started sifting through them.

  Grace, as always when I practiced magic, seemed so utterly absorbed. Lisbeth, on the other hand, rudely crossed her arms – something she was so very good at – and leaned back against the kitchen bench. She stared right at me.

  One of these days, I would pull her aside and remind her how a lady acted. Until then….

  There. There were dead energies in the room, after all.

  Dear God. Had Arlene been murdered?

  The energies… were not that thick. But the Ley lines certainly had been disrupted. What else could it suggest?

  There was almost something on the tip of my tongue. A foul creature I had read about. Once. A long time ago. Now I had to battle through the fog of memory to draw the recollection up once more.

  Right, that’s it. I had it. Half-ghosts. Dark magic, indeed. To create a half-ghost, one had to suspend life at the moment of death. Indefinitely. And the only way to do that was with some of the foulest magic around.

  I did not want to visibly react in case Grace took it as a bad sign.

  I quickly had to remind myself I also didn’t have any evidence. Something called a half-ghost must’ve been here. But did that mean it had kidnapped Arlene?

  “Have you found anything? Winchester, you’ve gone awfully quiet. What is it?”

  “I believe she was kidnapped—” I began.

  Lisbeth turned around quickly as if she had given me a test and I had just failed. “And I am quite certain that she has run away. No doubt forces came to kidnap her. But she managed to leave.”

  Grace clearly had no clue who to believe. Because Grace clearly had no idea how very treacherous Lisbeth was.

  I locked my gaze with her. If I’d possessed horns, I would’ve locked those with her, too. I let a guttural growl slide from my lips. I directed it at Lisbeth, but Grace was surprised. “Lisbeth—” I began.

  Lisbeth simply threw a hand my way, opened the palm wide in a dismissive attempt to stop me, and proceeded to get down on her knees. She locked her palm hard against the floor. In doing so, she angled the bust line of her dress down, and I… never mind. Never you mind, because as Lisbeth practiced just the slightest charge of magic, she revealed something.

  Magic leaves different evidence depending on what kind of magic was cast. It was why it was so easy – admittedly for someone like me – to detect dark magic. I could interact with the Ley lines. But beyond that, I could also guess which other forces had been cast by making a diligent assessment of the effect they’d had on their environment.

  Somehow either Lisbeth had already known there was magical residue on the floor, or she’d taken a lucky guess.

  Grace really did gasp now, and it was deep and reverberating. “That’s tunneling magic.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s evidence that somebody cast a space defiance spell here recently. Is your mother quite strong, Grace?”

  Grace nodded. “As I already said, she’s one of the best witches in the city.”

  “Then let us go after her. She must be in danger.”

  Grace opened her eyes wide and nodded in terror but acceptance, too.

  And I just stood there for a little too long with an empty mind. My head ought to have been filled with all of the things that Lisbeth was doing wrong. But instead, I watched her as her brow was marked with concentration, as the tiniest glimmer of sweat picked up on her temple and slid down to her lips. She practiced hard magic, but she didn’t shake, and she did not cry out.

  Soon enough, she had pumped enough magic into the floor to start to initiate the spell. But then her arm started to falter.

  “Oh, this is terrible,” Grace said. “What if the spell departs? She doesn’t have the power, Winchester. What are you doing standing there? Help your assistant.”

  Never in my life had Grace ever given me an order.

  And perhaps never in my life had I stood there so uselessly when yes, I could do something.

  I rushed over. I won’t admit to you how easy it was, how much my limbs knew how to do this. They pumped easily as if running to Lisbeth’s side when I was called was something I was made for.

  I threw myself down to my knee and rather unkindly shouldered Lisbeth out of the way, but not completely. She locked her defiant gaze on me but did not bite back. She nodded at the flickering, weak magic as if to say we could stow our war until afterward.

  Indeed. I had magic to practice.

  I honestly didn’t know what medicinal supplements Lisbeth had slipped me whilst I had been convalescing, but whatever they were, I felt stronger now than I had in some time. It only took one hand down on the floor for me to call my magic and sink it into the disappearing spell.

  Just before it could flee completely to disperse into the ground deep below the foundations, I reignited it. Fire chased from my fingers into the stones, and it lit up every single crack, illuminating them as if one was searching for the secret of life. This was not the secret of my life, but maybe the secret of Grace’s. As we finally recharged the spell and a tunnel opened beneath our feet, Grace rushed over.

  She grabbed my arm. She fixed her fingers in tightly. “If my mother is out there, we must find her, and we must save her before they get to her. Oh, please, Winchester, tell me you will help me.”

  I looked at Grace. When had I ever not helped her? I had always been by her side, but she had chosen another. And yet, in her time of greatest need, she had not called on my brother, had she? Maybe Bram was busy. Or, more likely, from the truly desperate glint in Grace’s eye, Bram could not do this for her.

  I found myself quite startled by Grace’s proximity. Lisbeth, as always, however, simply took the lead. She rucked up her skirts, didn’t even bother to practice illuminating magic, and proceeded to shove down the stairs. There could be booby traps. The spell may not have offered structural integrity. There was many a reason, in other words, to take a cautious approach.

  Lisbeth McQuarrie would kick cautious in the teeth, throw it to the side, and run when she wanted to. Which was precisely what she did now. She was soon out of sight, her clicking heels the last thing I could hear.

  I tore my gaze off Grace. It was faster than I’d ever managed it before. “Lisbeth,” I growled.

  “I’ll rush ahead. I’m the only witch here. I’m best placed to understand what I’m dealing with.”

  “You will not,” I said. I rushed off after her, and in that moment, I could not appreciate in doing so, I left Grace behind.

  She did follow, but that wasn’t the point. This was a delicate situation, and I ought to take the opportunity to be by her side. Instead, one hand on my hat, securing it to my head, I growled and raced after my indentured instead. “There could be traps.”

  “It would be an unlucky man who finally learned how to trap me,” she said snidely under her breath so it couldn’t carry to Grace.

  Indeed – indeed. Never a truer word was said.

  I did not slow down. These stairs were deep. They were cut of the earth, too, not by a skilled craftsman’s hands. It meant they quickly became compounded dirt. One could slip easily. There were also gnarled tree roots pushing at the edges of the tunnel. They could catch one’s arm and overbalance them. There were myriad ways to fall.

  So I should turn and take care of Grace behind me. Instead, I rushed forward until I finally reached Lisbeth’s side. “You will not hurry ahead. We do not know what’s out there.”

  “You must go back to Grace, Winchester,” Lisbeth said. She paused – the longest she had ever paused in my presence – and she looked into my eyes. “With your brother not here, who else will look after her?”

  I saw knowledge dance through her stare.

  The deep kind of knowing one gets when they’ve actually learned some fact and haven’t just guessed it.

  How… did Lisbeth know that Grace belonged to my brother? More to the point, how did she know I had feelings for her?

  Yes, Lisbeth could’ve guessed, but this didn’t feel like an assumption.

  “Winchester,” Grace said, voice soft, “it’s quite dark. I think I might—”

  I heard her trip before she could finish her sentence.

  I whirled around faster than I thought I’d ever moved. But strangely my body was trying to tell me I had moved yet faster recently.

  I thought… I caught a flash of someone moving toward me in peach taffeta. It was a curious spark of a recollection I did not have time to sort through. For I caught Grace with magic.

  She fell against my chest.

  For a blinking moment, my heart gave up. It reminded me how much I longed for her.

  I should’ve paid more attention to my indentured. For in the time it took me to straighten Grace and stow my longing for her, Lisbeth was already out of sight. For I was about to learn something very important about Lisbeth McQuarrie. You never turned your back on her. For Lisbeth was not the kind to ever stop.

  Chapter Four

  Lisbeth McQuarrie

  I would let him waste his time with that Grace character.

  If she really was engaged to his brother, then it seemed like quite a trap indeed.

  But I was starting to learn something about Winchester. He appeared smart on paper. He certainly did not act smart when push came to shove.

  And… this would sound rather naughty, but technically I had shoved Grace. Just a little. With the slightest amount of magic. And I’d done it knowing that Winchester would be there to catch her.

  That left me free to forge ahead to fight the enemies. Because yes, there were enemies. Did you remember how I had just finished telling you that Winchester was rather stupid in real life?

  He’d been surprised that I’d found this tunnel. He had never, however, asked if anyone else had found the tunnel.

  I’d watched him when he’d interacted with Ley lines earlier. I knew that he had detected a dead creature. I’d quickly recognized that the exact way the Ley lines were bending had suggested a half-ghost. It made perfect sense considering what I’d been up against recently.

  But where had the half-ghost gone? Simple. Down here, through the underground tunnel.

  I did not honestly know if Arlene had managed to escape her foes. But I could tell you the enemy was still down here.

  And it would be up to me to forge ahead, find them first, and dispatch them.

  Fortunately, this tunnel branched into multiple paths. But just as fortunately, most of them didn’t lead anywhere. They were dead ends.

  I could tell that without running down them quite easily. All I had to do was let my magic branch out for me instead.

  I was not a cave dweller myself. But I was a firmly rooted earth witch, and at the end of the day, we were quite similar. So it was easy enough to read the magic of this tunnel.

  As, fortunately, it was easy enough for me to use my dead magic to recognize a half-ghost was nearby.

  The last time I’d fought, it had been terribly hard.

  I had gotten out by the skin of my teeth. I’d also possessed a soul crystal.

  I had gathered another before I left Wintersmith. Considering current circumstances in the city with the new king, it behooved me to be prepared at all times.

  I did not intend to use the soul crystal, that said. I was quite determined to learn how to fight without them.

  Now I knew that half-ghosts hunted in packs and one could bamboozle them by breaking their ability to communicate, I would try that. And if it didn’t work? I would try something else. You were about to learn that once I had a target, I went after it with everything I had until I found the most efficient way around it.

  And that, eventually, would include Winchester. I did not care what Wintersmith had promised. He might think there was no way around the indenturing spell. I would most definitely find one.

  As I surged ahead, I hoped Winchester would be a good boy and look after Grace. There was… now, I did not quite know how to say this, and it was taking some time to put it into words, but there was a slight chance that he would leave her and come after me instead.

  I knew he trusted the indenturing spell to stop me from telling his enemies who he was.

  But any excuse to get close to me, he seemed to take.

  I shivered slightly. It only encouraged me to race forward faster.

  And finally, I knew I got closer to my first half-ghost. I rolled my sleeves up as far as they would go. I hooked my skirts up. I was much fonder of fighting in trousers, but I didn’t have access to them.

  I’d already tied a length of ribbon around my wrist.

  I grasped it out now, fashioning trousers for myself as best as I could. It would be much easier to be athletic in them. And trust me, I would need my skills.

  I raced around the corner. I could feel the dark, dense energies of a half-ghost. It had detected movement, but it had no clue what it was about to fight.

  It looked at me once, opened its mouth wide, and went to cry out. I would not let it. If it made even the slightest noise, it would call Winchester to me.

  I climbed the wall. Not with my hands, mind you, but with my feet and magic. As it burst around my ankles, it gave me the speed required to launch up. I flipped behind the half-ghost. While I certainly had this agility, I hadn’t shown it in some time. The pressure of knowing that Winchester was right there behind me and could discover me at any moment was pushing me to new heights.

  I shoved into the half-ghost from behind. Its face was hardly made to register human expressions, but I could still see its shock. The surprised emotion widened its brow, opened its mouth, and saw it let out half a hiss before I finished up my attack by elbowing it in the stomach.

  It was thrown to the side.

  So far, I had been the only one to fight. It was the half-ghost’s turn now.

  It, like one of the ghosts I fought in the palace, possessed a weapon. I suddenly saw something flash from my side. There was the color of gold, a glimpse of sharp steel, and something swept toward me.

  I couldn’t afford to be attacked. If I was cut, it might damage the dress – and mark my words, the sharp-eyed Winchester would notice.

  But I would be cut. There was no way around this attack. It was too strong and too quick.

  I had to make a very fast mental calculation.

  I could either sacrifice my hand, or my ankle. Only one could be hidden by my dress.

  I kicked out, wincing all the way, knowing how much this would hurt. And hurt it did. For as the dagger sliced across my flesh, it brought exquisite pain in its wake. This was not some mere cut. Magic darted into my flesh. With alacrity, it tried to tear me down. It was clearly laced with some kind of poison.

  If I allowed it to move further through me, I would crumple.

  We earth witches always had special ways. Especially when we were connected to the earth as deeply as I was now. I might’ve hated the tunnels of the palace, but that’s because they had been manufactured without witch magic in mind. One of my sisters in force, however, had constructed this tunnel, and it gave me ready access to the magic within.

  I stamped my foot down. At the same time, I practiced quick magic to distract the half-ghost from attacking once more. Splaying my fingers out wide, the thumb almost detaching from my wrist, I pulsed force forward in a wave. It created a mist-like effect. While the half-ghost certainly had senses beyond an ordinary human’s, it still relied on sight. And I discombobulated it for a few seconds. It gave me the time to connect to the dirt. I called it up into my body with nothing more than a directed hiss of breath.

  The dirt wrapped itself around my ankle. It pushed into my blood. And before you could shudder back in fear, wondering if that was the worst thing I could do, it drew the poison back before it could climb my leg higher.

  It still weakened me up until the point where the poison was stripped back at my shin.

  I would be able to move around it, but sometime soon, I would have to return to Winchester’s abode and apply the correct potions. That was for the future. And this was still the deadly present.

  I had claimed that I would fight this half-ghost without using my soul crystal, but as it slashed toward me and I saw poison splatter out of the tip of the dagger, I wondered how sound a plan that was.

  We can back ourselves into a corner by foolishly giving ourselves challenges we are not yet prepared for.

  That sounded like the kind of thing Winchester would do. And I was quite different from him, correct?

  Perhaps not. For even as my hand had a chance to stray toward the soul crystal in my pocket, I ignored it.