Page 15 of A Resistance of Witches

The terror ebbed away, leaving only a terrible sadness. “I know.” She looked down at Sybil’s lace handkerchief, crumpled into a knot in her fist. “Could you please not ask me today?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. Sybil rose from her seat and came around to kneel next to her. She held her tightly, like a child.

“All right,” she said. “Not today.”

•••

Later, after Sybil left,and the light streaming through the windows had turned a deep, sunken purple, Lydia went and stood in front of the red door at the end of the hall. This was the place where Isadora had once conducted her own private spellwork, the only room where even Lydia had never set foot. Any protective charms Isadora had placed on this room had been broken the moment she died, but Lydia still felt like she was violating something sacred as she stepped over the threshold. The walls and floor were painted a flat black, and a simple cherrywood altar sat in the middle of a white chalk circle on the floor. Lydia went to the glass-fronted cabinet standing against the opposite wall, which held all manner of provisions for spellwork—pungent oils; sweet-smelling beeswax candles; rough chunks of smoky quartz, amethyst, moldavite, and jasper; black scrying mirrors; hammered pewter bowls. Lydia noticed the silver bell she had given Isadora as a gift on her last birthday, and was seized by a fresh wave of grief.

A pile of fine ash lay on the center shelf, where Isadora had once kept her personal grimoire. It had been encyclopedic, a great tome bound in soft black suede, each page densely packed with Isadora’s own eccentric, looping script. The grimoire had been bound to her, as was tradition—a sort of magical failsafe to ensure total privacy, even in death. No witch could read or even touch another witch’s grimoire, and the book would be turned to ash upon the witch’s death. Seeing the pile of fine gray dust where Isadora’s life’s work had once sat drove the horrible truth home for Lydia all over again.

Isadora was gone. She was never coming back.

Lydia stepped from the chamber, closing the red door gently behindher, and stood before the sitting room window. The moon had begun her rise over the city. Already she was waning slightly, making her slow journey into darkness, and back again toward the light. Toward the next full moon, and with it, the moment the Nazis would be able to perform the tracking spell and find theGrimorium Bellum.

Lydia watched as lights winked out in homes across the city, preparing for the nightly blackout, and thought about the dead. Not only Kitty and Isadora but a hundred thousand others whose names she would never know. Countless Londoners, buried under the rubble. Entire families, mothers and fathers and children, dying in squalor, shoveled into mass graves. Soldiers and civilians, snuffed out, like so many lanterns. She couldn’t bring them back. Not a single one of them, no matter how hard she tried.

But there was one thing she could do. One thing that truly mattered. Because out there, somewhere, theGrimorium Bellumlay hidden.

Waiting for the next full moon.

Waiting to be found.

Six

It was a cold, bleak morning, and Lydia was sleeping on the floor.

She’d been scouring Isadora’s private library for days, searching for anything about theGrimorium Bellum—what it was capable of, where it came from, how she could find it. Sometimes she was sure she heard the sound of ticking, like that of some monstrous clock, counting down the seconds until the next full moon, to the moment when she would be able to track the book again. She dared not think about what would happen if the Nazis found it first. Lingering on it too long made her despondent, and so she pushed her feelings aside and carried on.

She’d started with Isadora’sEncyclopedia of Magical Objects, which made a single, fleeting reference to theGrimorium Bellumin only the vaguest possible terms. Lydia had tossed the useless thing into the corner in a fit of rage, and there it had stayed ever since, pages splayed and spine broken. There were other possible leads—murky references woven into texts like tangled threads. One story spoke of a living book thatwhispered lies into the ear of its unwitting host, until eventually the poor soul went mad. Another told the legend of the Witch of Bath, who carried a grimoire written in a dead language only she could read, and who committed atrocities before eventually being burned alive by her own coven. Before her execution, the repentant witch claimed it was the book itself that made her carry out these abominations. The witch was burned just the same, and the book was lost.

Then there was the witch who had murdered Kitty and Isadora. Lydia had become obsessed with her too. She read ferociously, learning anything she could about German witches—books on runes, Germanic lore, one book titledMagical Traditions of the Black Forest, with pages so brittle they crackled like dry leaves under her touch. There were ancient texts that described shadowy Germanic covens of myth—The Daughters of Freyja.The Cult of the Valkyries. All those groups were long dead and gone, with no ties to any modern coven that Lydia could find, and she was forced to give up, falling asleep in a fog of despair and frustration.

That morning Lydia woke gasping, a copy ofWarp & Weft: Advanced Warding for Magical Spacesclutched to her breast like a shield. Her mouth tasted sour, and she was shivering in her thin silk dressing gown and bare feet.

There was a horrible buzzing sound in the air.The doorbell. Lydia winced. She was certain it was Sybil. Samhain was coming, after all, and with it, the selection ceremony for the new grand mistress of the academy. Sybil would be wanting her answer.

Lydia stood on wobbly legs, cursing her aching body as she roused herself from the floor.

“Coming.”

She didn’t bother making herself decent before answering the door. Sybil would understand.

It wasn’t until she had opened the door to reveal Mistress Vivianstanding before her that Lydia realized her error. She quickly arranged her glamour, but could do nothing about the fact that she was still in her dressing gown. She pulled the neck closed tight against her chest and stood as tall as she could manage.

“Miss Polk.” Vivian’s eyes flicked down, then up again.

“Vivian,” Lydia said, abandoning the honorificmistress.Vivian’s mouth puckered at the slight. Lydia let her stand there in the doorway until the cold and the weight of Vivian’s gaze became more than she could bear. Only then did she step away from the door. “Won’t you come in?”

•••

Mistress Vivianlooked altogether out of place inside Isadora’s richly decorated flat. Lydia noticed how the color seemed to drain away around her, as if only the room was real and Vivian was some flickering image, captured on film in shades of gray. Lydia realized that this was the first time they had ever been alone together.

Lydia allowed a beat to pass. “It seems everyone knew about this place. Not so secret after all, I suppose.”

“I’m a Seer, Miss Polk.” Vivian stood in front of one of Isadora’s framed portraits—a vibrant, dreamy nude, wreathed in gold. She curled her lip. “There are no secrets from me inside the academy.”

“Except one.” Lydia spoke the words before she could stop herself.

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