It had been a full day since Cyril had been taken away and no one would tell Louisa anything. All that she could get from the novices and cathedral guards were vague promises about how he would likely be released soon, so long as he was acquitted of any wrongdoing. There was also the subtle suggestion that the mere act of asking about his wellbeing implied a lack of faith in the One, and by association a lack of trust in the Church’s actions. If Cyril hadn’t done anything wrong, she wouldn’t be worrying about him, would she?

“That funking bitch.” Louisa hammered at the glowing iron without rhythm, nor any obvious plan for what shape the metal was intended to take. Sparks exploded outward with each wild strike, burning her exposed arms and singeing her short, sooty hair. She welcomed the sting, happy to feel anything other than the anxiety and apprehension. “That funking,” strike, “gangly,” strike, “ugly,” strike strike strike, “evil funking bitch!” Strike. “Okay, turn it over.”

Raul twisted the tongs and flipped the lump of iron, even though it was obviously looking nothing like a ploughshare-in-the-making. “You still haven’t told me what he said!” He had to shout over the clanging as Louisa continued hammering.

“Nothing that isn’t true! Nothing the bastards don’t already know for themselves!” Louisa swung the hammer and missed the anvil, almost falling over from the unchecked momentum.

“Careful, sis.” He set down the tongs and handed her a rag. “Maybe we should close up for the day, eh? Jeremiah’s horseshoes are ready for pickup, and I fixed that old Paladin’s helmet. Planting season is way off, this can wait.”

She mopped the sweat from her neck and brow, then threw the rag and hammer onto the tool bench. “I know…I just need something to stop me thinking…about…you know…” She collapsed onto a stool. Without the sound of hammering filling her ears, the unwanted thoughts surged to the surface and her voice wavered. “You know what they’ll do.” She looked at her brother, eyes wet. “You know!”

Raul touched the scar on his neck, tracing the line of it with the tip of a finger, then rubbing the back of his neck where it continued all the way around. “Yeh, Lou, I know.”

“Funk it!” she stood up, knocking the stool over. She stood in front of the wall rack and started picking up different hammers, hefting them, swinging at the air and imagining how effective they might be against a skull, specifically one encased in the stupid little white hats of the clergy. “What should I do, Raul? I can’t just sit here waiting for them to deliver his head in a basket!”

“Lou…”

“Come on, man. You’ve got…friends…right? Friends with magic?”

“Shit, Lou. That might just make things worse.”

“But you do? The witch girl? All I need is a few potions and I can do the rest myself. Just ask her for an invisibility one, and maybe some kind of disguise thing? And something that will make me strong enough to bend bars and lift gates! I can pay her, whatever she wants I’ll get it!”

“Then what? They know where to find you.” Raul fetched a stool, then righted the one Louisa had knocked over and gestured for her to sit. “Let’s just slow down for a moment and think about this, okay?”

“I don’t…”

“Just sit. Please, Lou.”

She rolled her eyes and snorted, but she did sit down, arms crossed. Raul took his seat, facing her and leaning forward with elbows on knees. “Look. We can’t fight the whole gods damned godless cult by ourselves, magic or no. They’ve got the whole city, even the King, shitting themselves with paranoia. If we want to get Cyril back, we need to offer them something they need more than just another head to lop off.”

“Like what?”

“They need weapons for their crusade, right? Spears. Swords. Helmets.” Raul pointed at the stack of old, warped ploughshares at the back of the forge, waiting to be smelted down and reforged. “We’ve got the iron. We’ve got the skills. We can give them what they really want. If nothing else, we can buy him some time.”

Louisa was silent while she thought about it. “Time, huh?” Raul nodded. “Okay.” Louisa stood up and retrieved her hammer, sticking it into her belt. Then she found the tongs, and used them to plunge the iron back into the heart of the forge. Working the bellows to bring the temperature back up, she said, “I’ll make their swords, and their spears, and I’ll buy Cyril some time. But you are going to find that witch and bring me those potions. And then I’m going to kick that funking cathedral down one funking brick at a funking time. Got it?”

Stolen novel; please report.

* * *

Aggie tried to say goodbye, sorry and thank you to Hunter and Saturnii as they left, but only managed an awkward, “Good sorry you.” Emotional moments were not really her thing, but they knew her well enough to just go with it.

“Good sorry you too, Ag.” And with that they were gone, sinking into the earth and carried away by that weird fairymoth magic that always left a gross, silky residue in its wake. Goblin poked it.

“Eww! Don’t touch it! No! Don’t bring it near me! Bah! You’re riding on Monkey.” The monkey hooted, then clambered up the goblin and sat on his head, examining his finger. Monkey in turn climbed up onto Ignivolus who waited patiently with his head in a trough, eating whatever the property owner had dumped there for the sheepigs. Not that there were any to be seen.

The homestead was a sorry sight in the light of day. The blackened patches of earth and the new graveyard were almost as disturbing as the empty shells of the barn and the farmhouse. Whoever had attacked the murder had looted everything, right down to the metal hinges on the doors and gates. Aggie had hoped to find a wagon they could use for the return trip, but there was nothing. She was surprised they hadn’t taken Ignivolus’s slop.

Aggie mounted the beast, sitting in front of Monkey. Nightstallions, as one could maybe guess from their names, were generally creatures of the night. That’s when they were strongest, when their hellish powers allowed them to soar across the night sky like a flaming star, striking fear into pyrophobes and equinophobes alike. In daylight, however, they were really just horses. Their manes and tails still burned, but you had to squint to see it. “Giddyup!” And so they started moving. Slowly. On the ground.

Mycal and Mycal rode on her shoulders, each now about the size of an apple. They hid from the sun beneath her feathers, occasionally whispering something disparaging about himself in her ear. After a few miles the rocking motion lulled one of them into a sleep-trance, and she was able to attempt a proper conversation with the other.

“Sooo…are you, like, really you? Do you have all your memories? Wait…silly question. You wouldn’t remember what you’ve forgotten, if you’d forgotten what you remembered.”

“Ummm…” Mycal’s voice was still much higher than she was used to, but it was becoming less squeaky as the day wore on. “I don’t think I’ve forgotten anything. I remember my home, and growing up, and other things. I remember you.”

“Well, that’s good.” The road back to the forest passed a number of busy farms, but no one seemed inclined to get in the way of a giant black horse carrying a witch and a goblin. “I’m…sorry. About what happened. You do remember what happened?”

“Oh yes. You cut me half.”

“You don’t seem…upset.”

“Should I be? You don’t seem very upset about your coven.”

A pair of children in a tree whispered to each other as Ignivolus trotted past. Aggie hissed at them, just to keep up appearances. They squealed.

“I was pretty mad, actually! You didn’t see it because you were dying. Upset though? They’ll all be back soon enough.”

“Back? How? Like a…like a lich? Can witches be liches?”

“Pfft. That would be silly. A witch lich? Lich witch? No. But there is something…” She twisted around to look behind her. Monkey was on his stomach facing backwards, head on Ignivolus’s rear as he snoozed, Goblin curled up on top of him. She lowered her voice. “Listen…what I’m going to tell you is a pretty big secret, okay? This is the kind of secret you really have to take to your grave. It’s serious stuff. But I kind of killed you, so…yeh…I feel like I owe you something. Do you swear to keep it secret?”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Mycal put a little grape-sized hand over his heartcoil. In his most solemn voice, he said, “I swear, Aggie. Your secret will never pass my lips, as though it were the name of an unloved father who died alone and unmourned.”

“Wow. Dark. Anyway, here’s the secret…witches can create…lay…special eggs. Phylactery eggs. They contain a tiny sliver of our souls. When we…expire…our death essence, our soul, will seek out that hidden sliver and fertilise the egg.”

“Sounds a lot like a lich.”

“Well it’s not!”

Mycal sat pondering this for a while. “So…the laying part…”

“No. Not answering that.”

The landscape sprouted hundreds of tree stumps and log piles as they neared the forest’s edge. A group of bandits sprang out from their hiding place behind a stack of trunks, only to be incinerated by a gout of invisible fire as Ignivolus gave a startled sneeze.

“I was wondering, why don’t you fly on a broom? The stories all say witches fly on brooms, not ride on horses.”

“I do fly on a broom, sometimes, when the conditions are right, which is not actually all that often. Think about it. Brooms are attracted to dirt, so they only work when you’re in between the moon and the Yarth. The moon is dirt, you see? But so is the world. When you’re between both of them, the dirtonic fields pull the broom in both directions and suspends it in the air. That’s why you always see witches flying in front of the moon.”

“Oh.”

They entered the forest proper, the road becoming a path, becoming an animal trail. Ignivolus caught a hoof on a tree root, jolting Monkey, Goblin and the other Mycal awake and putting an end to their conversation. Finally, as the last light of day vanished and the v-wolves started howling in the distance, they arrived back at Aggie’s cottage.

After dismissing Ignivolus in a puff of smoke and planting the Mycals at opposite ends of the garden, she went inside and clapped twice to light the candles. She kicked off her boots, quaffed a meal replacement potion and flopped onto her bed. Still in her murder clothes, she felt the stress of the last day and night finally lifting, feeling herself slipping into a deep, warm sleep.

A sound intruded on the velvety darkness, a repeating series of chirpy notes in a pattern that was sending her subconscious into a quiet panic. There was also a soft, flashing light coming from somewhere, just visible through her closed eyelids. She cracked her eyes open and looked around, confused. Pushing herself up just enough to look out the bedroom door into the sitting room, she saw the source of the flashing, resting on a small cushion on a shelf.

Her scrying ball was ringing, and it was playing the song of a dead man.