A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (36 page)

‘You’d rather let us all die?’ Em said angrily.

‘I’m tired,’ Seth said. ‘And I’m in pain. But I can sail. Heal Abe. He needs it more than I do.’

Em looked at Abe, who shrugged as if to say,
What can you do?
Em nodded and lifted his shirt.

What she saw made her suck in her breath and Seth made a noise like a choke and turned away. There was a half-healed split across Abe’s stomach, black and gummy with congealed blood.

‘Oh my God,’ Em managed. ‘And you walked all this way – with that?’

Abe said nothing, he just closed his eyes. Em laid her hands on the oozing, gaping wound and I saw her lips move in silent pleading incantations.

I found I was cold, lying on the ground – cold, and wet, and there was a rock digging into my cheek. It was the first time I’d felt anything but numb since leaving the cave. Snow had melted on my cheek and was trickling down my face. It tickled unbearably and I wished I could move to wipe it away. If I could have cast a spell to stop the feeling I would – but there was nothing there. Nothing. Just a terrifying hollow emptiness. My whole body yearned towards the jar that Emmaline had put down the ground. It felt like my heart had been pulled out of my body and imprisoned, just metres away, where I couldn’t touch it.

I made a sound – a mew of despair – and Seth turned towards me, his face suddenly alight with a fierce hope.

‘Anna?’

‘S … Se …’ I managed. His hands gripped my shoulders and then he pulled me on to his lap and into his arms, in a heavy, slithering rush.

‘Anna!’ He cupped my face with his free hand, the other arm holding me against his chest so hard I could barely breathe. ‘You said something. You said … Did you say my name?’

I couldn’t nod, my head lolled heavily against his chest, but he hugged me fiercely.

‘Hey, Em!’ he called hoarsely. ‘Abe!’

‘What?’ Em turned from kneeling over Abe. Her face was white and drawn. I could see she was as tired as Seth, almost ready to drop.

‘She said something.’

‘What?’ Her dark eyes stared into mine, full of hope. ‘Anna, can you hear me?’

This time I managed a nod, just the smallest movement possible, but she caught it and her tired face broke into a smile.

‘Abe,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘she’s still there – Anna’s still alive.’

‘I never doubted it,’ Abe croaked back. He stood, shakily, but his face was a better colour than before. ‘Anna – we’re going to get you back home and get your magic back. Do you understand?’ Then he looked at Em. ‘Thank you, Em,’ he said quietly. He took her hand in his and pulled her to standing, bringing her clenched fingers up to his face. For a minute I thought he was going to kiss them, but he didn’t, he just touched her knuckles gently to his cheek.

They stood for a moment, silent, Em’s hand against his face, then there came another howl from the woods, a long drawn-out sobbing noise, and Emmaline shivered and dropped her hand from his.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I can hear the sea – can’t you?’

‘I can see it,’ Seth said. ‘At least I think I can. See that glimmer through the trees?’ He pointed towards a gap in the forest. It looked like every other gap to me, but Emmaline craned and then nodded her head excitedly.

‘I think you’re right. I can definitely see something. Can you manage? Anna, I mean – can you manage the last bit with her?’

‘I can manage,’ Seth said shortly. He stood and then heaved me into his arms with a little catch of breath. Abe looked at Emmaline and she nodded and then picked up the heavy jar of magic. Together they began to stumble slowly down the last few hundred yards of track, towards the cliff.

Snow flakes speckled the black rocks of the clifftop, stark white in the moonlight. At the edge Seth stopped and we looked out to sea.

The boat was there.

It was only when I heard Seth’s shuddering sigh of relief that I realized how fragile it was, how easily something might have happened to it – destroyed by a storm while we were in the mines, or holed by the witches and sunk. But it was still there, floating on the dark waves. There was frost glittering on the rigging and it had drifted out a little way from the beach when the tide rose, but the anchor had held firm.

Seth set me carefully down on the cliff-top and this time I managed to stay sitting upright against a rock, supporting myself on shaking arms.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. I managed to nod.

‘I’m … OK.’ My voice was cracked and hoarse, but it seemed like a miracle to be able to speak at all.

Seth’s exhausted face broke into a smile.

‘You can talk!’ He crouched in front of me on his heels and touched my face. ‘I was so frightened, Anna. I thought … I thought you were going to die.’

‘Was it true … ?’ It was hard to speak; the words felt like pebbles in my mouth, each one having to be spat out. ‘W-what … you said … in the cave?’

‘That I …’ He stopped, looked away. ‘That I wished …’

‘You wished …’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’d die.’

‘No.’ His voice shook.

‘Please … don’t … l-lie,’ I said painfully. He ran his hands through his hair, his face white and haggard. I knew that feeling: wanting to say the right thing, not wanting to lie.

‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘It
was
true. But not – not like that. I thought about it – when I wanted the pain to stop. I wondered what would happen – if you died. I wondered – if I’d be free …’ His voice broke and he knelt in front of me. ‘But I don’t want to be free – if freedom means being without you. That’s what I realized in the cave … I …’

I was too tired to speak. We only looked at each other in the moonlight, full of pain and fear for each other’s safety.

Then, over his shoulder, I saw Abe stumble out of the trees. His face was clay-coloured, his hand pressed to his side. He tripped on a rock and fell to his knees, and then just lay, slumped against a boulder.

‘How will we get down to the shore?’ Em said worriedly.

‘We climb,’ Seth said curtly. ‘That’s how we got up.’

Em said nothing. She looked at Abe and then down at the jar of magic in her arms. I knew what she was thinking. But there was no other way.

‘How will we do this?’ Em asked at last.

‘You take the magic,’ Seth said. ‘I’ll help Abe. Then I’ll come back for Anna.’

‘No,’ Abe said, his breathing panting white in the cold night air. ‘I need – need to rest. Just for a minute.’

Seth looked at him, his face twisted with sympathy and worry. Then he nodded shortly.

‘All right. Anna first. Then we’ll come back for you. Ready, Anna?’

I nodded, steeling myself.

The descent was a nightmare. A grim, slithering nightmare of stumbling and swearing and scraped limbs. Seth carried me against his chest and he gasped with pain every time our combined weight landed on his bad leg. Once he slipped on a loose boulder and I thought we were going to fall to our deaths on the sharp black rocks below, but he managed to save himself, holding my weight on his arm and scrabbling with his fingertips for a hold while we teetered over the drop.

Em climbed in silence. Her face was grim and she clutched the jar of magic with cold determination, leaving no hand to save herself when she stumbled.

At last, after what seemed like hours of sweating agony, we reached the beach and I heard feet scrunching on the black shingle. Seth lowered me slowly to the ground. Then Emmaline slithered down the scree with a last rush and set the jar of magic down on the sand, wiping her face with her sleeve. She looked out towards the boat and her voice came drifting on the sea wind.

‘So that’s your boat. How are we going to get out to it?’

‘I’ll have to swim out and row it back.’

‘Swim!’ Em’s voice was full of a horror that seemed almost comical after all we’d been through. ‘It’s snowing!’

‘Well since I can’t yet walk on water, got any other ideas?’ Seth asked. Em looked out at the boat, floating on the black waves, and then she nodded, reluctantly.

‘All right. You get the boat, I’ll go back up to Abe.’

‘He’s too heavy for you.’

‘We’ll take it slowly,’ Em promised. ‘I’ll stop, if I can’t manage him, and wait for you to get back.’

Seth nodded and he began unlacing his boots.

‘Seth,’ Em said awkwardly. She twisted her fingers together. ‘I wanted to say – you’ve been … I mean, I couldn’t have …’ She swallowed and then began again. ‘I know we haven’t always been very welcoming, Abe and me, but if we get out of here safely then it’ll be down to—’

‘Let’s wait until we’re out of here before we talk about getting back safely,’ Seth said.

Em nodded. Then she turned and began clambering slowly back up the cliff.

Seth was prising off his boots, one after the other, and unbuttoning his shirt. The moonlight shone on his body, showing every scar and sinew in sharp relief, right down to the goosebumps that shivered across his skin as he put his shirt down on the black sand.

He looked at me for a moment and bent to kiss my forehead. Then he began to walk into the sea.

I heard his gasp as the icy water bit. But after that one sharp sound he just waded in grim silence into the dark, choppy sea. A few metres out he crouched and then dived into the waves. I watched the surface and saw his sleek, black head surface far out, halfway to the ship already.

Then a hoarse cry split the night and I looked up.

A crow was wheeling above the cliff top, huge and black against the moon, its wings spread to an impossible span.

I’d never seen a bird so huge, not even an eagle, and it flew so strangely, drunkenly almost, dipping and swooping and then recovering itself just before it hit. It swooped down towards the beach, so fast that I felt sure it would fall and smash on the rocks. But it flapped its wings furiously at the last moment, pulling back from its spiralling fall. I felt the wind from its wings ruffle my hair as it swooped across – then it thudded on to the black sand … and turned into Marcus.

He staggered towards me, naked, covered in blood and feathers, his one good eye still full of the inhuman blankness of the crow. The other was a bloody hole in his head.

‘Anna,’ he said. His voice was half human and half a rasping caw.

‘Marcus,’ I tried to keep the fear out of my voice – but it still shook. There was something so horrible about him, about his battered body and bloody face, full of hate and madness.

From far above, I heard Emmaline’s cry of fear.

‘Marcus,’ she shouted down the cliff, ‘Marcus, walk away. There’s three of us – you won’t win this.’

‘I don’t want to win any longer.’ He spoke to me, rather than Emmaline, as if I’d said the words. He coughed and spat blood. ‘I’ve nothing left. I want revenge. Revenge for destroying me, destroying my plans. Revenge for wasting the greatest gift witchkind ever had.’

He lashed out suddenly, a spear of fire shooting across the dark rocks towards me – and there was nothing I could do. I had no shield, no spells, no defence.

‘No!’ Em shrieked. She flung out a spell from her precarious perch halfway up the cliff and somehow the spear ricocheted off her shield. It glanced away, towards the cliff-edge, smashing into the black rocks and sending a cascade down towards Em.

She screamed, clinging with her knuckles to a crevice as sharp stones showered down on her.

‘Abe!’ Her voice was half strangled with fear. She clung to the rocks with one hand, trying to protect her head with the other. There was the sound of more rocks rattling down and then one struck Emmaline full in the face. She gave a scream and let go, her body thumping horribly as it began to tumble slowly down the cliff, ricocheting off jutting outcrops of rock. Her hands clutched as she fell, desperately scrabbling for a hold, trying to save herself from the final, sheer drop. If she fell to the rocks on the beach, that would be it.

‘Em!’ Abe cried. He reached out towards her from the cliff-top – I saw his fingers stretching desperately across the space between them as he threw the last dregs of his magic into stopping her fall – and she did stop, her fingers clutching at the sharp stone, her legs dangling into space. Abe’s magic held her there, the air seeming to shiver with the intensity of his effort. How long could he hold her? Long enough for Emmaline to scramble on to the ledge?

Marcus wasn’t even watching. Instead he began to walk towards me.

‘I’ve nothing left to lose,’ he croaked. He pointed at his face and his heart, where the huge charred wound gaped and oozed. ‘See this? You’ve broken me, Anna. You’ve broken everything.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I gasped. I pressed myself back against the rock, trying to conjure a shield. But there was nothing there. Just the terrifying emptiness. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

‘I could have led the Ealdwitan to greatness. I could have fulfilled my father’s dream: one man, a single vision …’

‘You
killed
your father,’ I sobbed.

‘No,
you
killed him,’ Marcus spat. ‘With your questions, and your probing, and your stupidity. You were given a gift we’ve searched for for centuries – and you
wasted
it.’

He was very close now, his single eye locked on me, full of hate.

There was something in his hand. It shone in the moonlight. A knife.

‘Marcus,
no
 …’

‘You’ve survived drowning, Anna. Having your head bashed in with a rock. Excision. But no witch, not even you, can survive having her heart cut out.’

He raised the knife, the moon and the black rocks reflecting off the long, hungry blade.

I pulled together all my strength and managed to move, dragging myself backwards, away from him, across the beach.

‘Where are you going to go?’ Marcus asked softly. Feathers shivered across his skin and his panting breath was a white cloud against the moon. ‘There’s no one left. No one to save you. You can’t even save yourself.’

He raised the knife above his head. It flashed in the moonlight – cold and bright as death. His lips moved, but I could no longer hear what he was saying – I couldn’t hear anything except for a roaring in my head, my blood pounding in my ears as if it had to use up all its beats in these last, dying seconds. My hands shook. I dug my fingers into the sand, hoping that from somewhere I could find the strength to pull myself upright and run.