Page 11 of The Witch Queen

Joan frowns as she rearranges Fitz’s blankets. “You’re certain that’s the right course?”

“What other course is there?”

“I’m not sure,” she replies. “But isn’t this hard for you? Fighting Rycinthia is one thing, but the witches are your family.”

Family.Do I even know what that word means anymore?

“They might have been my family once. But they’re not now.”

Especially not one of them.

“I just don’t understand,” Joan goes on. “Why are the covens insisting on this war? Surely we all want to get rid of Malum.”

Not all of us. I pick at a loose thread on my blanket. Like everyone else in the realm, Joan views Malum as a curse, not as the power that saved me. That dark force swells behind my sternum, the shadows creeping close. I want no part of a world without them. But Joan wouldn’t understand that. And so I allow her to believe that I attempted to reach out to the covens. That they rejected my offers of peace and instigated the current war. It’s close enough to the truth.

“I’ve stopped trying to guess what they want,” I say.

Joan pauses. “You really haven’t heard from anyone? Not even…”

She trails off, but I can guess who she means: Jacquetta.

I stiffen. Because I have heard from the other witch. Just once, about three months after my coronation. I woke in the dead of night to a raven at my window, one carrying Jacquetta’s single question:

How could you?

Though I’m loath to admit it, the words had haunted me for weeks,rattling around inside my mind like thorns. But soon enough, any shame I felt hardened to anger. Jacquetta obviously knew where I was. She couldn’t be bothered to journey to the palace and speak those words to me herself. In fact, from what I’ve glimpsed in my mirror,she—like Mother—joined with the Heirs. Even after all that talk of tearing down the covens’ hierarchy. In the end, she turned out to be one of them.

She doesn’t matter,the shadows insist, curling around me.Forget her.

I would give anything to be able to do just that.

“No,” I tell Joan. “Not a word.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, sympathetically squeezing my hand. “You deserve better.”

I grant her a small smile in return, smothering the twinge of guilt at having lied to her for so long—about Jacquetta and countless other matters. But the deception is in the details, I reason. Not in the heart of the matter. Idodeserve better. And the witches, Jacquetta included, deserve what’s coming to them. Joan will understand that eventually.

And if she does not?that voice asks.

I roll my shoulders against it.

“Speaking of family.” Joan withdraws a letter from her satchel and passes it to me. “I received this from the princess.”

Blodwyn.A slight jolt runs through me, as it always does at the mention of the princess. She’s been staying with her aunt, Princess Margaret, the Duchess of Darryn, a realm to the east.

“It sounds like she’s well,” I comment, scanning the princess’s neat script. “Lots of archery and riding.”

“That’s good to hear,” Joan says. “The poor thing was so ill when she left.”

Which is why Blodwyn was sent away from court in the first place. Shortly after I took the throne, the princess battled fever and complained of visions: strange shapes stalking her through her chambers and terrible nightmares. For a while, part of me worried thatI—or at least Malum—caused her condition. I’m not sure how. Mortals can’t detect my shadows. And I knew Shade wouldn’t harm her without mycommand. Still, I can’t entirely dismiss the feeling that I was responsible.

She is not your concern,that voice reminds me.

In any case, Blodwyn recovered after a few months away from the palace. She remained with her aunt, though, and sends me regular letters about how happy she is at the estate, where she enjoys far more freedom than she did here. With the war continuing, it doesn’t seem like the princess will be returning anytime soon, which is likely better for both of us.

The carriage slows, interrupting my thoughts. I look out the window to find that we’ve reached a village. If it can be called that. The small houses,hutsmight be a better word, are in shambles, as are the pathetic remnants of what I assume used to be a market. At the clatter of the carriage, several people wander out to line the road, their clothes hanging off their frames. One is a child, a young girl, her cheeks gaunt and her eyes huge when they meet mine.

“How awful.” Joan unwraps the parcel of food at her side and starts tossing pieces of bread and cheese out the window.