“What was that spell?” I asked.
Her eyes flicked up to mine. “Something to repel. Anyone who comes near will believe he smells something unbearably repugnant—the bone was from a skunk. It won’t drive away anyone very determined, but neither will it raise the suspicion of magic.”
I wanted to ask her to teach it to me—to fill my head with all these little spells that I might one day find myself needing. But there were more important questions that needed answering.
She puttered around the shop, adjusting bottles and arranging papers. She was nervous, I thought, but who wouldn’t be in her situation? I was half-surprised she hadn’t fled the city, but then again, maybe she couldn’t afford to. Judging from the threadbare hem of her dress—the same she wore the last time we met—she had little money to spare. This shop and its contents might well be all she had, and giving that up, even if her life was at risk, was no small thing.
“Which side did you inherit from?”
I jumped, Catherine’s voice startling me. “Pardon?”
She raised one eyebrow, then picked up her dog. “Your affinity with the earth’s power—it’s an inherited condition.”
“I know…” I pressed fingers lightly against the long scar running down my ribs. “My grandmother. But she isn’t…” I searched for a word, “… practicing. She’s a healer of sorts, but she only uses plants, herbs, and the like. She taught me the basics.”
“Then she is practicing.”
“Really, it’s a shame my sister wasn’t the one who inherited the gift,” I babbled. “She’s much more interested in such things.”
“It tends to fall to only one a generation,” Catherine replied. Souris lifted his head, jumped to the ground, and hurried into the back. She watched him go, then asked, “What about your mother?”
“Oh, Gran is my father’s mother,” I corrected, following with a burst of nervous laughter. “My mother… No, my mother isn’t a witch. At least not in the sense of magic.” I laughed again, feeling unable to suppress it, the sound filling the room. “I didn’t mean that. She can be dreadful sometimes, but she isn’t…” I sucked in a deep breath and counted to five. “The magic comes from my grandmother.”
Catherine’s dark eyes seemed to bore into me. “You’ve a very loud voice.”
I winced, feeling the skin across my chest and cheeks burn. “Sorry. Hazard of my profession.” Apparently she wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
“Indeed.” She sat across from me at the table. “Why don’t you go to her with your questions?”
I bit at my lip, praying I appeared more confident than I felt. “Because she doesn’t know anything about the sort of magic I’m interested in.”
“What sort of magic is that?” Her foot made a little drumming noise against the wooden floorboards.
“Blood magic.”
Her foot stopped tapping.
“Curses, in particular,” I added, before I lost my nerve.
“What makes you think I know anything about such things.” She extracted a bottle of green liquid from her pocket and took several mouthfuls.
I lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “It’s a long way from the Regent’s court to Pigalle.”
A muscle in her cheek twitched. “Far enough that perhaps I learned my lesson not to dabble in such things.” It was as much admission as I was going to get that she was familiar with the dark arts.
“I’m not interested in casting a curse,” I said. “I’m interested in breaking one.”
The muscle in her cheek twitched again, but otherwise, she looked unsurprised at my question. “You can’t,” she said, then sighed. “Although that isn’t precisely true. You can end a curse by ending the life of the witch whose will binds it.”
“There is no other way?”
She hesitated for a heartbeat. “No. None.”
Her reluctance made me feel uneasy. She was withholding information. “Why?”
Catherine took another mouthful from her bottle, refusing to look me in the eye. “A curse is an act of will, a desire, which is cemented by the magic of a sacrifice. It will continue until she no longer wills it, or until she dies.”
I straightened in my chair. “Does one need a name to curse someone?”
She huffed out a heavy breath. “I should think the witch would know the name of the individual she was cursing, but I suppose it isn’t necessary. Its only purpose is to create a focus.”
I considered her words for a moment. “So the witch who cast the curse is capable of breaking it?”
Another hesitation. “If she no longer willed it, then it would cease to be.”
I held my breath. There was something she wasn’t telling me. I could not say exactly how, but I felt in my gut that the other woman was holding information back. But why? What cause or care could she have whether I tried to break a curse that, for all she knew, had naught to do with her. Unless…
Her foot tapping resumed. The air in the shop was cool, but tiny beads of sweat were forming on her forehead.
“That’s unfortunate,” I said. “But perhaps there is something else you might help me with.”
“Oh?” Her eyes flicked to the door, then back to me.
“That spell you used to contact me through the fire, can you teach it to me?”
She settled into the chair. “That is a simple spell—all you really need is something of the person you wish to contact and fire on both ends. There are some plants you can put in the fire to fuel the magic, but a witch of even moderate ability has no real need of them.”
“What do you mean, something of them?”
Catherine shrugged. “A strand of hair. A fingernail. Blood.” Her eyes met mine. “It sometimes works if you have a possession belonging to the person. Something important. But not always.”
My heart sank. I most certainly had nothing of Tristan’s. I didn’t even have anything that belonged to him. I sighed—the notion that I might be able to contact him had been foolish anyway. He wasn’t human—the earth’s magic didn’t know him. What’s more, there was no fire in Trollus.
But I did have Anushka’s grimoire. If I used it to contact her, I’d see her face. What more proof would I need? “What’s the incantation?” I asked.
She laughed, her tone mocking and amused. “You really know nothing, do you?”
My cheeks burned. “I don’t recall saying otherwise.”
“I suppose not.” She pursed her lips. “The incantation—what you say—matters not. What matters is that your thoughts are focused on what you desire to occur. Some find it easier to focus their minds by speaking words. By making a ritual of the spell. Some don’t.”
“I see. And after you focus your thoughts, you…”
“Consign the hair, fingernail, or whatever it is you are using to the flames.”
I winced. That was going to be problematic. I’d only have one chance, and what if she wasn’t near a fire? Then I’d have lost her grimoire for nothing.
“Magic requires something to be given up,” Catherine said, as though reading my thoughts. “Only the dark arts require nothing from the practitioner, because blood magic is all about taking that which is not freely given. That’s why using blood for even one spell is a slippery slope.” Her hand slipped unconsciously into her pocket to retrieve the bottle of absinthe. “It always catches up to you in the end.”