Page 38 of A Resistance of Witches

“Good.”

Henry looked around. “Will it, uh…hurt?”

“Not at all. I’m simply using the energy left behind on you from the book to project my consciousness to where it’s being kept now.”

“Right. Sounds simple.”

“It may feel strange at first. Tracking like this has a way of opening up a channel between people. You may see things you don’t understand. Memories that aren’t yours, sensations—”

“Are you telling me you’ll be able to see inside my head?” Henry looked as if he were about to turn and walk right back out of the cave.

“Only for a moment. And you’ll be in my head as much as I’m in yours.” Henry didn’t look reassured. Lydia cleared her throat, desperate to relieve the tension. “It may take me some time. I’ll need to look around once I get there, to know where I am, and where we need to go to find the book. And, well…”

“What?”

Lydia hesitated. “I won’t be alone. I expect the Nazis will be casting their own tracking spell at the same moment we are. That means when I project to the book, they’ll be doing the same.”

Henry shifted back on his heels. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Neither of us will be in our bodies. If René is still there, no one will be able to harm him. I promise.”

Henry didn’t look convinced, but nodded. “Midnight.”

Lydia reached out and took both of Henry’s hands. His palms felt warm and smooth pressed against her own. Around them, the hum of the cave became more urgent. Lydia let her gaze go soft as she reached for Henry in her mind. He was there—reticent, suspicious, but present, just the same.

The first sensation she noticed was a smell—a sweet, green forest smell, like the woods around Château de Laurier, one that reminded her of dappled, dancing sunlight and fresh, cool water. Then, something else—a stale, dusty book smell that could only have been a library. Then tobacco smoke. Horses. Cooking smells, onions, citrus, peppers so hot they made her nose prickle. Then something almost like coffee that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.Chicory. The word appeared in her mind like something rising from deep water, then receded again.

Sounds followed. She heard drums and singing, and felt a swell of something she could only describe asjoy. She saw complex, looping symbols she didn’t understand, but knew carried strong magic. She saw a glimpse of a beautiful, middle-aged woman dressed all in white, hair tied beneath a cloth, with sharp eyes and deep bronze skin.Mama, Henry’s mind whispered, and Lydia felt a steady warmth blooming beneath her rib cage like jasmine blossoms.

The scene changed, and for one strange, disorienting moment she saw herself. She was standing on the hillside outside of Château de Laurier, but through the lens of Henry’s memory she hardly recognized herself. She looked different in his mind, all dark, windswept hair and flashing gray eyes. Not prim or severe like she’d always imagined herself, but wild and mysterious, and achingly, searingly beautiful.

That image disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and slowly, Lydia began to feel something like dread churning up from the riverbed of Henry’s memories. She saw things she didn’t understand—doors, dozens of them, standing open, with nothing on the other side but a black, yawning void. She saw eyes, all pearly white and glowing, set into faces that looked like death masks. She heard whispered voices making demands. She felt cold hands pawing at her, fingers scrabbling at her face, her eyes, her mouth. One of them worked its way into her throat, and Lydia gagged.

Reeling, she stumbled away from the dead eyes and the desperate, probing fingers, fighting toward the silent, lurking thing at the center of Henry’s mind. It was a cold, empty space, far away from everything else, as if whatever lived there had driven every other memory into hiding. And there, surrounded by the droning of corpse flies, she saw it—an ancient book, with a cracked leather binding.

Lydia braced herself as the power in the cave awoke, as it began to thrash and howl. It was wilder than any magic she had ever encountered, and more powerful—nothing like the tame, orderly magic she had experienced in the ceremonial chamber of the academy. She felt her breath quicken as it coursed through her, lifting her up out of her body on a current, electric and intoxicating. She felt a stomach-churning tug as she was pulled through space and matter. For one terrifying moment it felt as if she would be torn apart and become one with the magic itself. She tried not to scream as she twisted and writhed within it. Then, abruptly, all was quiet.

She was in a farmhouse.

She let the frenzied magic of the cave leave her, feeling her pulse return to normal. She blinked to clear the spots from her vision and looked around.

The place was abandoned. A bitter wind blew through the open door, and the hearth was cold. Remnants of some long-ago meal sat forgottenat the kitchen table, the bread gone moldy. A chair lay overturned on the wood floor, surrounded by shards of blue and white crockery.

“Hallo.” A woman stood by the open window, moonlight turning her blond hair silver. Even though her image trembled like water, Lydia recognized her.

“You.”

The blond witch tilted her head and grinned. Lydia could make out faint shapes in the darkness behind her. Other women, standing shoulder to shoulder in some candlelit room, far, far away.

“You’re not alone,” Lydia said.Isadora was right, she realized with a rush of grief and pride.They have a coven.

“But you are.” Her English was clipped, with a distinctly Germanic flavor. “Interesting. Has your high council abandoned you, then?” She chuckled softly. “Oh dear. That is unfortunate.”

Lydia wanted to hurt her. She wanted to do it with her hands, no spells, no magic. She wanted her to die the way Kitty and Isadora had. Bleeding and afraid.

The witch seemed to know what she was thinking. “It’s not personal, you know. We have no quarrel with you. We are not so different from one another, after all.”

Lydia was filled with revulsion. “We have nothing in common.”

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