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“I’m sorry,” Alice whispers. “I didn’t mean to. ”
She tried to make Brenna forget that the Sisters were all witches, but the compulsion went wrong.
Mind-magic is unpredictable that way.
“That’s not enough. ” I take her by the shoulders. “You can’t undo it. You can never undo it!”
“Let go of me!” Alice struggles, but I’ve got a good grip. I give her a little shake.
It’s not a small thing to meddle in someone’s memory.
Our first kiss, with the Brothers just outside the door and Finn’s hands on my waist and feathers in the dark.
Our second, in the gazebo on the hill, with the wind whipping at my hair and the smell of sawdust and wet earth all around us.
Our third, on the day I told him I was a witch and he asked me to marry him anyway.
“Cate!” Tess pulls at my arm.
I relinquish Alice, stepping away. My breath is coming fast, my throat choked with tears that I will not—will not—let out. I stare at the wooden floor. At the round green rug wet with snow from my boots.
“Have you gone mad? What’s wrong with you?” Alice demands, skittering back down the hall to the sitting room. She pushes through the group of younger girls peering out the door at the commotion.
“What did Maura do?” There’s dread in Tess’s voice.
I raise my head. “She erased Finn’s memory. He doesn’t remember me. ”
Tess raises a hand to her lips. “Why would she do that?”
“She’s jealous of what we have. What we had,” I correct myself. “She wanted me as lonely and bitter as she is. It worked. I’m so angry, I could kill her. ”
Tess stares at me with eyes round as saucers. Those aren’t just words. Not since we uncovered the prophecy that one of us will murder another before the turn of the century. I’ve always found it impossible. We’re sisters; we love and protect each other. Nothing is stronger than that.
Nothing was.
Brenna peeks out of the sitting room doorway. “That’s not how it goes. ”
“Hush!” Tess snaps, whirling on her.
Tess never snaps.
What has she seen?
“No one is going to kill anyone. ” Tess grabs my arm again, fingers pinching, trying to tow me toward the steps. There’s a touch of desperation in her voice, and I wonder if it’s me she’s trying to convince, or Brenna, or perhaps herself. “We’ll fix this. Let’s go upstairs, Cate. ”
“It can’t be fixed. ” Finn’s memories are gone forever; no magic can put them back. Maura betrayed my trust and there’s no way to get that back, either. I spot Tess’s friend Lucy Wheeler pacing at the other end of the hallway. “And I’m not going to run away from her. Besides, I’ve got to tell Lucy and the others how things went at Harwood. ”
I wave Lucy forward, and she comes running, her chipmunk cheeks flushed, eyes full of worry. Before I can open my mouth to tell her that her big sister is fine, that we got her out of the asylum, the front door opens again and girls spill in, all dressed in the black cloaks of the Sisterhood.
“We’re home!” My roommate, Rilla, announces the obvious. “The other carriage will be along shortly. They’re going in the back. ”
She’s beaming, delighted by our victory. We freed hundreds of girls who were falsely imprisoned in Harwood Asylum. Some of them fled on their own; some are being transported to safe houses in the country; six girls with important talents or ties to the Sisterhood are coming here. They’re safe—or safer than they were at Harwood with the Brothers out for blood, at any rate. Zara was the only casualty; our mission was an unqualified success—and yet I can’t find any joy in it.
“Grace!” Lucy shrieks.
“Lucy?” Grace Wheeler is a taller, skinnier version of Lucy, with snarled caramel hair and brown eyes too big for her gaunt face.
Lucy hurls herself at her sister, tears streaming down her face. “I thought I’d never see you again!”
“I thought I’d never get out of that place. I thought I’d be there until I died. ” Grace looks around with trepidation. “You’re a—a witch, they said?”
Lucy nods. “All of us. But we’re not like the Brothers preach, Grace, we’re not bad—”
“I don’t care if you dance with the devil every night,” says another stranger—an older girl with vivid orange hair and a smattering of freckles. “You’re angels as far as I’m concerned, for saving us from that hellhole. ”
“Caroline,” Maud chides. The redhead must be her cousin, then.
Caroline rolls her blue eyes expressively. “I believe in calling a spade a spade. That place was full of rats, and the meat they gave us was crawling often as not, and the Brothers who visited weren’t above giving us pretty ones a pinch or two. If we fought back, they gave us extra laudanum. ”
My eyes flit to the third newcomer, a pretty Indo girl around my age leaning against the hall table, fiddling with the lyre-shaped letter holder. According to the nurses, Parvati was the Brothers’ favorite target.
“You’re safe now,” I assure her. “No one will—”
My words die in my throat as Maura steps out from behind the others. “Welcome to the Sisterhood, girls. I’m Maura Cahill. You’re safe here—so long as we can expect your loyalty. ”
My body goes taut as a bowstring just before the arrow sails home. “Oh, you’re a fine one to talk about loyalty!”
“This isn’t the time, Cate. ” Her sapphire skirts rustle as she positions herself in the middle of the hall, a bluebird surrounded by crows. “We’d all be executed if the Brothers discovered what we are. The secrets of the Sisterhood are not shared lightly. Particularly not with outsiders. ”
“Grace is my sister,” Lucy protests.
“But she’s not a witch. ” Maura waves a dismissive hand at Grace. “The Sisterhood comes first, Lucy. ”
Lucy shakes her head, braids dancing. “Not before my own flesh and blood it doesn’t. ”
I give a strangled laugh. “Oh, not according to Maura. ”
Rilla wrinkles her freckled nose. “I don’t see how Maura gets any say in this. She didn’t lift a finger to help these girls. ”
“It was all Cate. Elena and Cate and that marvelous beau of hers. ” Violet van Buren gives me an arch look, and my stomach twists. “Now I see why you wouldn’t give Finn up. My Lord, the way he looks at you!”
“Vi—” Tess begins, her fingers fluttering like trapped moths.
“I’d give my eyeteeth to have someone look at me like that. ” Vi clasps her hands to her bosom, sighing. “It’s so romantic. You’ll marry him, won’t you? When all this is over?”
That’s what I wanted. More than anything.
I’ve kept Finn a secret for weeks. I was afraid that the more people who knew he was spying for the Sisterhood, the more danger he’d be in. But all the girls at Harwood tonight saw him. Now they’ll ask me about him and—
I don’t know if I can bear that.
“I don’t think so,” I choke out.
“Why not?” Vi’s plummy eyes are puzzled.