Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

Author:Francesca May [May, Francesca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2022-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

Emmeline

It was already so much worse.

Since Arthur’s death—since we had murdered him—my blood was slower than ever, the pulse a dull, distant thud. It turned to tar inside me and there was nothing I could do. Fear was cloying, swallowing everything.

Until the moment Annie fired the gun I had believed, no matter how faintly, that there was hope. I had been wrong. There was no reasoning with the magic that congealed in my veins, the debt that hung around my neck like a noose.

I didn’t sleep. Normally I would wander the house, make preparations for the weekend, but what was the point? Besides, Isobel had spent the night working on a new recipe for an elderflower kazam—a quiet, focused activity she always turned to when she was on edge. She said it was soothing, finding the right formula as taste and magic entwined in a perfect match and knowing those ingredients had never been experienced exactly this way before. Every witch’s kazam tasted different, and Isobel’s was the best—brewed with love.

If she heard me she would want to talk instead. She would want to make sure I had a plan for how to handle Bea’s “disappearance” if the police traced her here; she would want to make sure we were safe from Arthur. The thought chilled me.

I could hear Nathan too, in his bedroom down the hall, the faint thud-thud-thud as he threw a tennis ball against the wall, a nervous habit he’d once used to avoid thinking about the things that Cilla made him do.

My bedroom was too hot, the air too close. I would suffocate if I stayed there any longer. So I did the only other thing I could—I climbed out onto the roof. The air was balmy, forecasting another hot day, but the tiles were damp under my bare legs. I crossed my ankles and sat looking out over the gardens below, panic coming in surges up my throat like brackish water trying to drown me from the inside.

I pulled a cigarette out of the pocket of my shirt and lit it with my last match to occupy my shaking hands. Nathan had got to my stash and replaced it with his herbal kind, and this one should be mint scented, smoke unfurling in a green-tinged plume—but it wasn’t right: it tasted like ash on my tongue.

I fumbled for logic, for reason I could latch on to to give me direction. I had a month left before my next planned Giving. I could make it go a little longer, could stretch it for maybe three days if I was lucky. That was enough time to make plans, set things in motion. To make sure Bea was safe, that we handled Arthur’s disappearance together.

Afterwards, either the debt would take my body, or it would devour my mind. I could feel myself slipping, day by day. More anger. More numbness. Less control. I could so easily have hurt Isobel on the roof the other day, and it

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