Page 109 of Vengefully Matched

The smile that snuck across Priscilla Hart’s face was impish and delighted, and she pointed to her feet.

“Down. This way.” Priscilla hurried around the house and toward the conservatory. Agatha thought for a moment that they would go in the entrance to the old greenhouse, but Priscilla turned instead to a prickly rosebush that grew to one side of it.

She snapped, and the bush pulled back, revealing a small stone plaque that looked like a gravestone, bearing only the script lettering “We feast eternally.”

Tapping the stone in each corner, she snapped and produced a few small rocks, placing them carefully on the gravestone.

“Only a Hart witch can do this,” she explained, snapping once more, and the plaque slid to the side, widening and revealing a stone staircase. Another snap and sconces lit the edge of it.

“What’s past that?” asked Agatha, pointing at the landing that the stairs spiraled down to.

Prissy grinned, wicked again. “The slide.”

They descended the stairs together.

“Typically, we go corpse first, but this calls for extreme caution, so I’ll go first with Kevin’s hand.” She winked and hopped onto the smooth stone slide, slipping into the darkness with a yelp of glee.

It was a sign of the trust between them for sure that Agatha paused, counted to thirty in her head to avoid collision, and jumped feetfirst down a dark chute she’d never seen before.

The trip down was a terrifying delight, the carved stone so smooth she slid as though it were a waterslide, down, twirling, past a portion lit by some magic she didn’t recognize, as though living shadows on the sides of the thing brightened it. She saw here that the reason the slide was so smooth was the shadows, running up and down the walls of it, and it must have been that shadow craft, too, that slowed her descent, dumping her gently on the floor of an epic mausoleum with such care that landing on more stone didn’t even hurt.

“Welcome to the resting place of every Hart witch since the manor was first built hundreds of years ago.”

Agatha looked around, and it was magnificent. To the right and left of the antechamber they stood in were carved shelves in the walls with plaques describing who or what they held, and stretching down in front of them was a long hallway, lit by the same strange magic.

“What now?” she asked.

“We go to the very core of Hart Manor, for storing the most dangerous things.”

Priscilla gestured, and they walked down the hall for several minutes, spiraling deeper and farther, so much so that Agatha had to wonder just how big Hart Manor was underneath. Whatever magic lay here was generational, built by bone and blood of witches, by craft upon craft, shadow, plant, maybe even rarer specialties, like dream and transmutation. They passed a few doors, and then a few final resting places, which Priscilla explained were for Harts who had good reason to be kept away from others—powerful magic gone bad, or violations of family code.

Finally, they got to a safe that looked as old as time, wrought in iron.

Priscilla snapped, and it opened. Agatha caught a glimpse of a vial that looked a deadly shade of green, a pair of handcuffs that radiated the kind of evil that suggested they would kill the wearer or something worse, and a box that made a disturbing thumping sound.

“Don’t touch anything or go in it,” warned Priscilla. “The consequences for non-Harts are irreversible.”

Agatha listened; she did not want to find out what those might be.

Prissy snapped her fingers. A canvas bag appeared under the Council-made glass containment box, fitting around the gloved hand and then shrinking. She snapped again, and another canvas fitted the box, locking together with belts and chains. A third time, and the entire box was in a small iron safe at the back of the larger one, which Priscilla inexplicably walked over to and locked herself, pressing a palm against it, and then snapping.

“He shouldn’t be able to get out of that without the help of a Hart witch, and each one of us knows better than to mess with anything in the high-security vault.”

“Good riddance to bad men,” said Agatha, and Priscilla smiled, running a fingernail across her cheek.

“And a good life to us, honey.” She closed the big safe, snapping, and took Agatha’s hand.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go live the rest of our lives without having to worry about Kevin Cross throwing knives or fire at us.”

“I’m not promising I won’t throw either of those, though,” said Agatha, smiling and squeezing her hand. “Just not at work. We’re done with the pranking at work.”

“Agreed,” said Priscilla, smiling. “Only pranking of a more… intimate nature.”

Agatha bit her lip at the thought of that.

Priscilla stopped and pushed her against the cold stone wall of the hallway.

“I think I’m rubbing off on you,” she whispered, skating her lips across Agatha’s jawline.