When I got back to the Couterie, I was met with another surprise. There were members of the Queen’s guard posted outside the front door. I surmised that it was another search. While I was all but certain that my sisters were gone, the Queen had continued to search all the Queendoms for the Entente.
Instinctually I retreated and plastered myself against one of the trees on the side of the ornate pale-pink stone face of the Couterie. Once again, my vengeance was postponed. I knew that there was no real way to detect my magic. You can’t detect what isn’t there. But I had Hecate with me. I needed to release her so that she would not be found.
Suddenly, a voice came up beside me.
“Don’t mind me . . .”
I gasped.
It was Tork. He was sharing my tree—leaning casually against it as if there was nothing at all going on.
“What are you hiding from? Oh, I see . . . The Witch Finder’s found us,” he said, his voice filled with amusement.
“The what?” I asked in a whisper. “There’s no such thing.”
“There is if the Queen says there is. She’s created a new unit of the guard. They’re going to finish what the Queen started with the Burning that day.”
I should not have been surprised, but still this news felt like a slap in the face. While I had been busy growing up without my magic, Magrit had been amassing her power. According to rumor—which was all we had—after the Burning, she had demanded that the Queens of the other Queendoms pledge their allegiance to her and give up their Entente for burning. But there were no Entente at their sides anymore. They had come to Hecate’s side the day of the Burning, only to meet an explosive, undeserving end. The Queen claimed they were in hiding, and she used the specter of the Entente as a means to subdue the people and wrest control of the Queendoms. This was just the next step in her tyrannical rule. A magic finder.
“Relax, they’re not looking for us—they’re looking for magical people. The Queen really is getting madder by the day.”
“Don’t—Madame Linea says never disparage the Queen,” I said dutifully.
Tork’s face suddenly shifted. “It’s okay . . . I understand, Farrow,” he whispered.
How could he possibly know that I would have reason to fear the Witch Finder? Even if that fear was irrational. I had no magic, after all.
I decided to feign ignorance.
“What do you mean?” I asked finally.
“Unlike the rest of us, you came here late. I can’t imagine which tragedies brought you here. The rest of us were brought here from the orphanage before we could even speak. Before we had anything awful to remember. You must have faced things in the world, in the orphanage, that we can’t even fathom. That’s why the guard looks scary to you—that’s why you hold yourself apart from the other Shadows.”
He was unintentionally right about what came before. My past before the orphanage had been horrific. But he was wrong about the orphanage. There had been a kind of peace in waiting there after the shock wore off. Little was expected of me except to eat and attend classes. Orphans were not expected to have much of a future in the Hinter, and no one really talked about the past because they had their own demons.
“I don’t like talking about that part of my life. I want to put it behind me. I want to keep my eyes on the future.”
“I respect that. I didn’t mean to pry.”
We stayed like that until the Witch Finder left. I was surprised that Tork could be good at being quiet and still when I needed him to be. The sight of the new guard in their new uniforms filing out of the Couterie empty-handed allowed me a sigh of relief. They looked like normal soldiers. There was nothing discernable about them that looked at all special. There was a cloaked figure, whose face I could not see, and the guard quickly closed ranks around him or her. I assumed that this was the Witch Finder. The Witch Finder was ushered into a carriage and the guard whisked him or her away. And since I was the last of the Entente, I had nothing to fear from them, I told myself, willing myself to believe it. It was the Queen who was going to be afraid.
Tork and I peeled ourselves off the tree and walked back into the Couterie as if nothing had happened. Because nothing had.
Like I said, Tork wasn’t my friend. But I could tolerate him a little more now. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing to have allies. Especially given what I was about to do next.