Page 100 of A Time of Witches

Finally, she hit send and her body tensed.

With hope.

With fear.

Three dots appeared and disappeared as Essie began to type then stopped, then started again. This repeated several more times.

Then came the reply:

Who is this?

Chapter Forty-Eight

Sybil

Sybil still could not sleep the following night despite her exhaustion. Edith’s loss that sat heavy in her chest, the emblazoned new mark of a crescent moon on Sybil’s skin, how such a mark placed Jacinda in grave danger. It was all too much.

“Sybil Brantham,” the guard called.

Her heartbeat staggered to a stop.

What now?

The key clanked in the cage. “Another visitor.” The barrel-chested guard churlishly waved her out, clearly vexed at the interruption to his day.

Jacinda?

The thought was met with a dizzying rush of hope and fear. Mayhap she had arrived to confess to the spell that marked Sybil’s arm, to ask how it might be undone.

If the enchantment could be broken, mayhap Jacinda could be spared the loss of her gifts for committing such an egregious enchantment.

But when Sybil was led to the small square room, her visitor was not Jacinda, but a man in dark robes.

The magistrate.

Her breath caught and she stepped back so quickly, she nearly tripped on her shackles.

The door closed and locked, the guard on the other side.

Leaving her alone with him.

Again.

Fear rattled loose in her chest.

She was not strong enough for this.

But then, the man turned, and surprise snatched the air from her lungs.

John Griffin. The man who had ensnared her heart with tender words and pretty promises he could not make good on.

And oh, how she had loved him. That young, unfettered girl she’d been, dreaming of traveling the world at his side, of having a bevy of children and lying awake every night to talk about everything and nothing.

She had made her love weep when last they’d met. When he vowed to defy his father’s demands to abandon her, choosing love over legacy.

But Sybil would not have allowed him to exact such a cost on her behalf any more than she could stomach his father seeing her as filth.

And now…