LITMIR.BIZ

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the eldest, was tall, with hair the colour of primroses. Nia, the middle sister, was pale and dark. There was something … unusual about her.’ He described them exactly as Merry had last seen them, standing with Meredith in their fire-lit cottage, asking – commanding? – her to deal with Gwydion. She took a deep breath, trying to control the sudden swirl of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. How was it possible for her to have been talked to by people who’d been dead for almost fifteen hundred years?

      ‘What about Meredith? Did she seem really powerful? Did you know she was a witch as soon as you met her?’

      Jack shrugged and plucked a daisy out of the grass. Its petals were closed up against the night. ‘None of the sisters were as I imagined witches to be.’

      In the darkness, she tried to make out Jack’s expression. He obviously didn’t want to talk about Meredith. Maybe he hated her. After all, she hadn’t freed him from Gwydion, and she hadn’t killed him; she’d just left him buried alive under the lake for fifteen hundred years. I can kind of understand it, if he hates her. I’m not exactly a big fan either.

      ‘I’m sorry. You must’ve been really lonely.’

      All at once, Jack covered his face with his hands.

      ‘Jack—’ Merry started to scramble to her feet, thinking only of what Jack was suffering; of whether he was OK. But Leo grabbed her arm and pulled her back down, frowning and shaking his head. Merry muttered under her breath, but she didn’t disobey.

      ‘We will find a way to stop Gwydion,’ Leo said gently. ‘Meredith must have believed he could be defeated. And at least while we’re here the King of Hearts isn’t hurting anyone else.’

      ‘That’s right.’ Merry cast around for reasons to be cheerful. ‘And hopefully, that means Gwydion isn’t getting any stronger, that he’s no closer to escaping from the lake.’ She looked at Jack for confirmation, but he shook his head.

      ‘I do not know. The wizard still struggles to shake off the effects of the black holly, but he sleeps less than he did.’

      ‘Oh. Well …’ But Merry couldn’t think of any other comforting suggestions to make; she just didn’t know enough, that was the trouble. She didn’t know how much of Gwydion’s strength was drawn from the King of Hearts. And she didn’t know why the King of Hearts was – so far – sticking his sword into people but not cutting out their hearts.

       Maybe he just hadn’t got his mojo back before we got in the way …

      Merry shuddered a little and shook the thought away.

      ‘So, you really were completely alone until the witches showed up?’

      ‘Not exactly.’ Jack looked at her strangely for a moment. ‘There was a … a kitchen maid. She came in the autumn after I’d been captured. Gwydion made her cook for us, and she would come to sweep the floor and lay fresh rushes. We became friends. I – I liked her. A lot.’

      ‘Oh. Did she like you too?’

      ‘I believe she looked upon me with favour.’

      Merry felt herself straighten up and pull away from Jack a little. Seriously? I’m jealous of a dead Anglo-Saxon maidservant? She forced herself to smile. ‘I’m glad you had someone to talk to. What was she like?’

      ‘Both fair and fearless. When the wizard – when he tortured me, whether for sport, or because I tried to resist him, she would come afterwards and take care of me, even though she knew he would hurt her if he caught her. I remember one day …’

      And Merry was no longer sitting in the dark by the lake. She was in a small room, faint light coming from a deep-cut window high up in one wall, and next to her was –

      – Jack, lying on the floor of his cell, barely breathing, his skin torn and discoloured with bruises. So pale, she’d feared he was dead when she first knelt on the rushes next to him. But he was frowning now, flinching as she washed the blood away from the welts on his back and arms. When she was finished, he opened his eyes a little and murmured her name.

       ‘Oh, my poor Jack, what has he done to you?’ She lifted his head and pressed a cup to his lips. ‘Drink a little, then I will look to your wounds.’

       ‘No – don’t …’

       ‘Please, Jack, try the medicine.’

       Jack swallowed a little of the liquid. She dipped one finger into a pot of sweetly-scented cream and gently smoothed it across a graze on his cheekbone. He caught hold of her hand.

       ‘Don’t help me. I should suffer. I deserve to suffer. I nearly killed – I nearly—’

       ‘Shh, don’t talk now. Rest, and I will put poultices on the rest of these cuts. Then we will talk …’

      Merry blinked and coughed as a gust of cold air blew across the lake. Leo was shining his torch in her face.

      ‘Leo, what the—’ She squinted, pushing the torch away.

      ‘Why didn’t you answer me? Are you OK?’

      ‘I don’t know, I—’ She stopped.

      Was she now daydreaming about Jack, too? It had been so vivid: the sensation of his bare skin beneath her fingertips …

      She felt her face grow hot.

      ‘Merry?’ Leo shook her gently by the shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’

      ‘Nothing. I’m just tired, that’s all.’ She’d pretend nothing had happened. Act normal. ‘Um, Jack, do you remember—’ But there was no time for more questions. Jack had gone, the King of Hearts had taken his place, and Merry had to say the words that would send him back into the lake …

      

      Standing in front of the sink, doing the washing-up, Merry yawned. She couldn’t help it. Since her meeting with the coven just over a week ago she’d spent four evenings at the lake. The three free evenings she’d spent at Gran’s, having several hours of ‘remedial witchcraft’ lessons. A few of the spells were going OK: she could now produce a globe of witch fire fairly reliably. Most were not: she’d failed to perform any kind of healing spell to Gran’s satisfaction, and her shielding charm consistently collapsed less than two minutes into an attack. The manuscript was still telling her to follow Jack under the lake, and so far she was still ignoring it.

      But she was – slowly – forming some sort of a plan.

      The idea of boiling the lake away seemed too insane to contemplate, regardless of what she’d managed to (inexplicably) do at Mrs Knox’s house. But maybe she did have some special, unexpected skill with water. And maybe there was some other way she could use that skill to get past the barrier of the lake.

      The house was empty – no one else around to get hurt if things went wrong – so Merry took the last pan out of the sink and stared down at the water.

       Supposing I just … push the water out of the way?

      She concentrated, trying – as Gran had told her – to focus on what she wanted to achieve.

      Nothing happened.

      She tried harder, gripping the edge of the sink, glaring at the water until the muscles around her eyes and her jaw started to ache.

      Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the water in the centre of the sink started to dip.

      The dip became a hollow, which became a deep conical depression, the displaced water spreading up the sides of the sink. Her fingernails began

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