Half Spent Was the Night: A Witches' Yuletide (Ami McKay's Witches Book 2) by Ami McKay

Author:Ami McKay [McKay, Ami]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Goodreads: 40946432
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2018-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Mr. Gideon Palsham sits in his parlour in front of a roaring fire. Every so often he spits whiskey between his teeth at the flames. He likes to make things dance and leap.

A soft thud sounds at the window behind him, followed by the loud, steady purr of a cat. He’d left the window open, anticipating her return. He smiles when the feline’s purring changes to footfalls at his back and her breathing assumes the cadence of human form. “Miss Miles, I’m so glad you’ve come home.”

A naked, lithe, Sophie Miles comes to him and sits in his lap, clutching Beatrice’s hair ribbon between her teeth.

Palsham had plucked her from the lunatic asylum on Blackwell’s Island after he’d discovered that she’d been the person responsible for Adelaide Thom’s disfigurement. They’d quickly formed a pact: she is to do his bidding (in whatever manner he wishes) and he’ll refrain from killing her (for the time being). He may have also promised her immortality, but that doesn’t really matter much right now.

Sophie runs Beatrice’s hair ribbon between her teeth, then drapes it around her master’s neck. “Mr. Palshammmm,” she says, rubbing her cheek against his beard and sinking her nails into his arm.

He appreciates the pain. “Does this mean you went inside her room?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t like the bird.”

Palsham laughs. “Scaredy cat.”

“You’re mean,” Sophie complains. “Just like the raven.”

Palsham grins and runs his tongue along the edge of his teeth. “I know I am.” Taking the young woman’s chin in his hand, he holds it steady and stares into her eyes. He can see Beatrice in her room, sitting at the window, wearing her fox mask. “She’s going to the ball,” he says, pleased.

Sophie writhes against him, hungry for affection.

Palsham shifts in his seat, shrugs her off. “Be gone.”

As the young woman passes through the firelight, she resumes the form of her imprisonment. With a hiss she scampers out of the room and down the hall.

Winding Beatrice’s ribbon around his finger, Palsham can barely control his excitement. And why should he? He’s been working hard for the moment when the girl will be delivered to him. He’s followed her for months, watching her from the shadows, always from a distance, waiting for his chance. Soon she’ll be mine.

For the longest time, he’d had plans to destroy her, just as he’d done away with countless other witches throughout the ages. But she was singular, powerful, different. His plan to have that incompetent preacher end her had gone horribly wrong, and he’d only had himself to blame. Now the places where she lives and works are fortresses of vexation, heavily guarded by witchcraft he can’t overcome. One should never send a man to do a demon’s work.

As bothersome as that failure had been, it’d given him time to see how truly spectacular the girl was meant to become. One evening, while sucking the marrow from her dead dog’s bones he’d seen the light. He’d come to realize that destroying her wasn’t the thing that would be of greatest benefit to him, but rather possessing her.

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