Page 4 of When Wishes Bleed

“Think about the question you need answers to as you blow the steam away.”

“All of it?” he asked.

“All of it.”

“I’ve been called a windbag, but even I couldn’t blow all the steam away. It’s piping hot.”

I leveled him with a glare until he gripped the counter’s edge, puckered his lips, and blew. The steam disappeared, and with it, so did the water. The pattern of leaves left along the bottom and sides began to morph into shapes.

“How…?” he asked.

“Watch. Don’t turn away.”

He followed my instruction, watching until the leaves settled. They formed a straight line that ran east to west, from him to me.

“How do I know you?” I asked.

He opened his mouth. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“What are you hiding? I know the robes you wear are stolen. I can’t sense an affinity, yet I feel something powerful inside you. Something dark.” Something that could be beautiful or deadly, I didn’t tell him.

“What do you see in the leaves?” he demanded firmly.

“Your entire world is about to be upended, and somehow, it has to do with me. You will need me for something. And this is not just your fate. Something… dire will occur.”

He muttered something unintelligible.

“What was that?” I asked, quirking a brow.

“Just… never mind.”

This was getting tedious. “The choices you are about to make are the most important of your life. Choose well.”

The boy stormed out through the back door just as the girl had, the stolen red cape swirling behind him.

2

Prickles of pain flitted through every muscle as I climbed the three hundred-year-old, stone steps of the House of Earth. At the landing, I steeled my rib cage and stared at the door. My frigid blue fingertips lifted the iron knocker and struck the plate. Once. Twice. Three times.

I turned around as I waited for an answer, hiding my hands in the pockets of my skirt, but there was no way to conceal the matching hue of my lips. It felt like there was a noose cinched around my middle, tugging me toward the House of Fate just across the Center’s cropped lawn. I didn’t have long to study the structure, because squeals came from inside the freshly-painted moss-green house, heralding the answer to my summons.

Twin girls with fawn-brown hair wrenched the door open, although their giggles and smiles faded when they saw me. Beyond them, bundles of drying herbs hung from wooden frames suspended from the ceiling. The walls beyond were as green as their robes.

Their eyes raked over my clothing, so different from theirs. Despite its age, my dress was black as tar, and a pinch too tight now. Awkwardness oozed between us and it became apparent that neither of the young witches was going to greet me.

I took a step forward and lifted my chin. “I would like a word with your Priestess, please.”

I wasn’t invited in and the door slammed closed, stopping an inch from my face. I took a step back and waited patiently for it to open again, turning to look out over the heart of The Gallows.

The hearty hue of summer leached from the grass of the Center more and more each day. It crunched under the feet of the witches walking across it. To the south were the gallows. A graying noose swayed in the wind as if it were dancing, as if hopeful that it would soon be useful again.

It wouldn’t. I preferred my own rope. The graying one was my mother’s. It was the one with which she’d been hanged.

I refused to touch it.

The door opened behind me and the High Priestess of the House of Earth stood across the threshold. Ela was older than the house itself, old enough to have seen three of them erected and demolished.

She was my maternal grandmother, though she disowned my mother before I was born and by extension, had disowned me before I drew my first breath.

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