Page 24 of Let Slip the Dogs of War

“Grant.”

The witch nods. “Good. We so rarely get visitors from your realm anymore. Welcome to my home.”

Dante nods, eyes down and respectful, but Grant offers her a smile. “It’s nice. I like it.”

My shoulders tense, but the witch only chuckles. Does she know what Grant is? She must have some idea. Whatever she knows, it does not seem to bother her. “Thank you,” she says, smoothing out her skirts. “You would do well to hide your nature, vampire.”

Well, that answers that question. Grant’s shoulders jump, but the trepidation that crosses Dante’s face does not flicker across Grant’s at all. He leans in instead. “I can do that?”

“You have fae magic. We deal in bonds and transformation, as I am sure you well know.”

Grant narrows his eyes in thought. Dante presses against me for a second before he opens his mouth, too. “Why do they call you a witch?”

Her dark eyes slide to him and I clench my hands in my lap. I cannot defend him. I will try—of course I will try—but I will only fail.

“I have never asked,” she says with a shrug.

“But you’re fae.”

“Yes.”

“High fae?” Grant asks, though the contemplative sweep of his eyes tells me he knows the answer to his question already.

“Of course.” The witch’s lips twitch in a smile and my heart hammers against my ribcage. “But asking after me is not why you are all here.”

“It is not,” I say, desperate to have her attention on me instead of them. “I came to retrieve my power.”

“When you came to me and asked me to take it, you were clear on the terms.”

“Yes.”

“You said you would no longer require it. That I could use it as I wished. You told me what you would sacrifice should you ever ask for it to be returned.”

What I would sacrifice? My mouth moves without thought. “Yes.”

She stares at me, drumming the fingers of one hand on the arm of her chair. I do my best to hold her gaze, aware from the way my skin prickles that I am still wearing my glamour, that I likely should have dropped it the moment I crossed the threshold.

She looks at Dante again. “Tell me about your friend.”

“My—” Dante looks at me, questioning, then at her again. “My friend?”

“The one you have come to retrieve.”

His mouth forms her name, but it does not fall from his lips. “She—She’s my best friend. We’ve been friends since we were in school.”

“Many years?” The witch smiles when Dante nods. “It is difficult to tell with you humans.”

“About twenty, yeah.”

“She has been by your side the entire time?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I spent a summer with her pack when we were eleven. And the summer after that, when she was twelve, and she—She came to stay with me and my mums. They bought her a whole new wardrobe.” Dante smiles faintly, apparently lost in a memory. “Well, Mamma insisted. It’s a cliché, but she doesn’t mind that.”

The witch nods, as though she understands where I cannot, and impotent rage flares in my chest. Whose fault is it that I have not come to know Dante better, other than my own? And now I may never get that chance. She has not thrown us out of her house. My powers are still on the table, a deal we can strike. I only fear what I will pay for them.

“Please,” I say. “We—”

“I will speak with you when I am ready.” The witch’s voice is icy, and her power, deeply entwined with every atom of this cottage, not to mention the forest that surrounds it, ripples and flares.