Page 10 of Familiar of the Witch

I slid into the back of the car with Bastion close behind me. Oscar started the engine and we moved off. Now we were alone, I could demand some answers. As I turned to him, Bastion held up one finger. He rooted around in his backpack then pulled out a small handheld device, turned it on and started waving it around the inside of the car.

‘You’re checking for bugs,’ I surmised.

He nodded then switched off the device and put it back in his backpack. ‘We’re good.’ He was still eyeing the shadows in the car intently. ‘How do you feel about Frogmatch?’ he asked. ‘Do you trust him?’

‘As much as I trust anyone, I guess. He’s definitely helped us a lot these last few days.’

Bastion settled back in his seat. ‘Tell me about the vampyr.’

‘Not much to tell. It turns out my father is a necromancer and he sent a vampyr to have a tête-à-tête with me. I killed it. End of story.’ I wanted to brush aside the whole episode. ‘Now, more importantly, how the hell did you lieunder truth runes?’

He looked at me intently. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Obviously you did! I’m Ellie Tron and I killed Hilary.’ And now I had a vampyr to add to my list of victims; I was turning into quite the serial killer. I shoved the dark feeling down. That was the healthy way to deal with it. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘How did you lie?’

Bastion looked frustrated and exchanged a glance with Oscar.

‘What’s going on?’ I repeated, letting my frustration with them both leak into my voice. I’m not into swearing, but at that moment cuss words were starting to feel like a good addition to my vocabulary. How had Bastion avoided the truth runes? Had he somehow built up an immunity to them?

‘We can’t tell you,’ Bastion sighed. ‘You’ve got to work it out for yourself. It seems obvious to me, but I guess it’s different when you don’t know. You have to put all of the clues together.’ Obviously frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair.

Great: now I was feeling stupid on top of everything else.

‘You’ve been stubbornly avoiding the biggest clue,’ Bastion added. ‘I know you hate it, Amber, but it’s time to go to the Seers.’

My stomachlurched. The prophecy; the prophecy about me. The one Mum had mentioned a number of times, the one I’d been avoiding at all costs. I hated fate, hated prophecy. Dammit, I was the mistress of my own ship. ‘The Hall of Prophecy,’ I shifted uncomfortably at the thought.

‘Not there,’ Bastion disagreed. ‘Melva. We need to go to Melva.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Because Melva never registered it.’

I started. Melva was the Seers’ High Priestess and their laws are clear: theyhaveto register a prophecy within three years. Melva had never struck me as a rebel. ‘She never registered it? Why the heck not?’

‘The prophecy paints a target on your back, Bambi. Your mum didn’t want your dad getting wind of it. The prophecy was spilled just before your father … left. If he’d learned of its existence, as your parent he could have accessed it until you were eighteen years old when it became your property.’

‘You think that’s one of the reasons Mum kicked him to the kerb when she did,’ I statedslowly.

Bastion nodded. Great. Now I not only felt stupid, I felt guilty, too. My parents’ marital breakdown could be laid at my prophecy-cursed door.

I frowned. ‘The Seers are supposed to register the prophecy within three years, right? Couldn’t Melva have registered it after my father disappeared?’

Bastion looked serious. ‘Yes. If her omission becomes known, she could lose her position as High Priestess.’

Oh heck. Melva had risked a lot to keep me safe. As I’d done errand after errand for her over the years I’d thought thatsheowedme, but it turned out the scales had always been weighted in her favour. I just hadn’t known it.

‘Good luck getting an appointment,’ Oscar grunted bitterly. ‘Her secretary is a right ogre.’ He paused. ‘Not a real one, obviously. She actually appears to be a low-level Seer herself.’

‘This is fascinating,’ a little voice piped up. ‘I do love a good prophecy!’

Bastion didn’t move a muscle, didn’t so much as blink. He’d known we’d had a stowaway from the start.

‘Hello, Frogmatch,’ I said to the disembodied voice, amused. ‘Did you sneak into our car?’

‘I did, yourladyship, I did.’

‘Do you promise not to break it?’ I pressed. Imps adore sabotaging cars, trains and planes. If it moves, they want to break it. The last thing we needed was a flat tyre on top of everything else.

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