Page 53 of Autumn of the Witch

“She does?” Micah frowned. “How does she know?”

“That’s my question. I’ve let it slide, because it’s easier to avoid unpleasant conversations. But I’m done avoiding. If she’s keeping an eye on me to the point that she knows when I’m sick, I want to know why. This can’t keep happening. So I’m going to the Compound to ask her. Sasha, you’ll come with me, yes?”

“I can come with you, too,” Micah said, as Sasha descended the ladder.

Viv shook her head. “I’d rather have something nice waiting at home.” Micah’s cheeks went hot. “This feels like we’re starting new, doesn’t it? All of us. I want to do it right.”

Micah understood. If he could talk to his mother and father again, even if only to tell them they were wrong and that hewasworth it, that they’d wasted their chance as parents, he’d do it. Viv needed this. But she also needed to know she had people who loved her.

“I’ll make you something.”

Viv kissed him, and then Sasha, not to be outdone, kissed them both. Micah understood the Lukoi rule saying only mates could kiss. There was something thrilling there, now: a promise.She likes me. She wants me to stay.

Sasha helped Viv into her boots, and Micah watched them go.

Then he closed the door and turned back to the house—their house—and got to work.

He cleaned the bedroom and changed the linens. He made another tart, grinding nuts into a paste and slicing fruit into the shape of a rose. He drizzled maple syrup over the whole thing before placing it on the fire. The air went sweet, and he thought of his old house: the giant kiln, the cluttered shelves, the bed shoved into the corner like an afterthought. He touched the letters he’d received from the kids in the Compound, now with his toy designs in the margins. He had space here, and quiet when he needed it, but he wasn’t lonely. Not anymore.

When the tart was cooling, Micah decided to gather herbs to make their clothes smell fresh the next time they were washed. It was an old trick from his great-grandmother’s book, and he stepped outside just as dusk started to fall over Lukos.

The sun was an orange spot on the horizon as he began stuffing herbs into a bag. The plants were abundant, growing between little spiky flowers that had nuts Micah’s great-grandmother wrote could stave off hunger in a pinch. Even if all the deer fled Lukos, they could still survive. It was amazing how an island an ancient emperor thought was a death sentence had so much potential for life.

He wandered amid the drifts of fall leaves with the scent of herbs on his fingers, taking his time, and barely realized that it had gotten dark. He turned back to the house, swinging his bag, and stopped when he saw a figure slumped at the steps leading down to the cave. Their cloak fluttered in the breeze, and their hair was pale yellow, their hands grasping at the earth.

Viv.

Micah wasn’t thinking. All he could focus on was Viv, collapsed on the ground, without Sasha, falling ill so soon after her last fever. He went to his knees next to her and reached out to touch the delicate wisps of her hair.

A pale hand grabbed his wrist with the speed of a striking snake, and Micah shuddered as the creature, stinking of moss and earth, looked up at him with Viv’s face.

“You’re not Viv,” he said.

“Vivian,” the creature said. It grabbed at Micah’s shirt. “Vivian. My baby. I need to protect her. Where are you keeping her?”

Micah trembled with revulsion. The voice wasn’t Viv’s. It was lower—a woman’s voice, but without Viv’s usual tone or dominance. “What do you want with her?”

“She’s in danger,” the thing said. Its mouth was a black hole with no teeth, no tongue. “They’re all in danger. My babies. My girl. So weak. I can protect her. Make it stop.”

“Viv’s in danger?” Micah winced as the grip on his wrist tightened. “What do you mean, babies? Are there more of you?”

The thing tilted its head, and Micah fell back as it tried to climb over him, fingers solid as stone. “No. No, no. I saved them. I can save her. You are a witch, too, aren’t you? I sense it in you. Power. As strong as the one who is of me. Strong as blood. As fire. Let me eat of you, witch, so I may have my Vivian.”

It tried to shove its fingers into Micah’s mouth, and Micah pushed at it, calling on the warmth of his magic. He dragged at it, and fire sprang up in the creature’s hair, which changed from pale gold to the tangled gray of moss. It screamed, an inhuman shriek like the cry of a hawk, and tried to beat the fire out.

Micah called more fire, and the shredded bark that was the creature’s dress burst into flame. He called on it again and again, over and over, until the creature’s wails died out and it collapsed in a pile of charred bracken at his feet. A wind rolled past him, and he heard another shriek, in the woods.

Where the creature was waiting for Viv.

Micah sat at the steps of their house, his gaze fixed on the distant trees, as moss and twigs burned like a signal flame beside him, sending smoke into the darkening sky.

* * *

The last time Viv set foot in her mother’s home, she’d been nineteen.

She’d just married Sasha, who had stood in the middle of an empty fighting ring, waiting for someone to challenge him for the right to her hand. It happened sometimes that a person didn’t have any challengers, but there were usually friends who playacted at it, throwing a few punches to make the lovers appear desirable. Viv had been surprised that Zev hadn’t challenged Sasha—they were friends, after all, and he was there when Sasha announced his intent to marry her—but she learned later that he’d been afraid Evgen might order him to win. At the time, though, the lack of challengers stung, and Viv had snuck into her mother’s home to retrieve her things while her mother was out hunting, rather than risk having to talk to her.

Then she’d gone to Sasha’s family home, which was a larger cave system in the Compound, and hugged her favorite quilt close while Sasha’s family fussed over her and Sasha held her, showering her with so much affection she felt dizzy.

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