Page 5 of A Lady’s Guide to Witchcraft

And it was not particularly clean.

Was that dried blood on the hilt? Briar swallowed.

“Where is it?” he demanded. He smelled like lemon balm, like the dark magic of warlocks. It was soothing, meant to lull you into complacency.

She wanted very much to spin on her heel and run.

Why wasn’t she spinning on her heel and running, dodgy hip notwithstanding? Her walking boots were glued to the floor.

“Answer me, gel.”

She frowned at him. She might be scared, but she was also annoyed. Very, very annoyed. “Do you know how much that teapot cost me?”

“I’ll break your face next if you don’t tell me where it is.”

“Where what is?” Her knees were soft. Even her eyelids were droopy.

This was not the time for a nap. What was wrong with—

The truth hit her like cold water, but it still wasn’t enough to rouse her body.

Sleeping spell.

She tried to call up her magic, felt it burning through the witch’s knot that marked every witch’s palm.

It did not reply.

The witch knot was a circle with four interwoven petals, and hers lay like a dead coin in her hand. The yellow larkspurs in a vase on a nearby table glowed briefly, searching for her, but it wasn’t enough. The spell had already taken hold. Her swan jumped into her chest for safety, sparking light, eyes glinting malevolently.

“Never mind,” the Iron Crow said. “You’ll answer me now or you’ll answer me screaming later.”

A crash sounded at the back door, but she was disappointingly certain it was not the oak tree come to save her. At least Petal wasn’t at home.

“Step away from her.”

The Iron Crow looked past her and cursed. He was trying not to appear frightened, but even through her blurry vision, Briar could tell that he was. Sweat broke out along his dirty hairline. “Wot you doing here?”

Briar was slipping away. She had just enough energy to turn her head.

The man looming in the doorway looked like nothing so much as a pirate, though he also wore the cross-belt of an Iron Crow across his chest. A pale woman stood behind him, wearing violence the way a lady might wear a bonnet. Instinctively, easily, habitually. There was another man next to her, roughly the size of a bear, with tattoos on his chin.

“I was here first,” the first Iron Crow spat, fingers flexing around his knife hilt.

“And now I’m here.” The accent was Irish, the tone forbidding.

Her attacker cursed again and then fled through the side door.

Briar was still falling. She tried to smile her relief, to say thank you, anything. The not-quite-a-pirate came into focus, everything around him bleeding colors like a wet painting. He had dark hair, a sharp jaw. He was handsome in that hard, confident way. As if he knew perfectly well that he could handle anything the world threw at him. Fainting girls in pink houses were nothing to him.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

He raised an eyebrow, mildly amused even as he caught her before her head hit the floor. There were creases at the corners of his eyes from squinting into the wind.

“Oh, sweetheart, what makes you think I’m here to save you?”