Sisters' Fate

Book 3: The Cahill Witch Chronicles

by Jessica Spotswood

Genres: YA Fantasy; YA Romance

Synopsis

The stunning conclusion to the Cahill Witch Chronicles trilogy, for fans of Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches series

A fever ravages New London, but with the Brotherhood sending suspected witches straight to the gallows, the Sisters are powerless against the disease. They can’t help without revealing their powers—as Cate learns when a potent display of magic turns her into the most wanted witch in all of New England.

To make matters worse, Cate has been erased from the memory of her beloved Finn. While she’s torn between protecting him from further attacks and encouraging him to fall for her all over again, she’s certain she can never forgive Maura’s betrayal. And now that Tess’s visions have taken a deadly turn, the prophecy that one Cahill sister will murder another looms ever closer to its fulfillment.

Release date: August 14, 2014

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 368

Sample

FIVE MINUTES AGO

BRENNA IS DANCING UP THE MARBLE steps to the front door, and I’m following her when there’s a sound—flesh smacking against wet pavement—and I turn. Finn’s on his hands and knees; he’s tripped over the curb. He picks himself up, pokes his glasses into place, and walks back toward his carriage, but his gait lacks its usual gangly grace. He pauses, examining the carriage, looking as though he’s puzzled by it.

“Are you all right?” I call down.

He looks up at me, then ducks his head. His ears are red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, miss—is this my carriage?”

His voice is awkward, formal. As though he’s speaking to a stranger.

His words echo in my head: I’m sorry, miss.

I thought I was numb before. This is worse. I don’t understand. I glance around the empty street. It’s only Brenna and me and Maura here—

Maura.

My sister stands on the sidewalk, eyes narrowed at Finn. My Finn.

She wouldn’t do this.

Not my own sister.

CHAPTER

1

I LEAVE MAURA IN THE SWIRLING SNOW and ice. I cannot look at her scheming face one moment longer, or I will not be responsible for my actions.

Inside the convent, I lean against the heavy wooden door. My black cloak is dripping, but my eyes are dry. It all feels—impossible. Harwood is empty and Zara is dead and Finn won’t remember any of it, nor anything about us. Our future has been the touchstone guiding me through this war; the promise that at the end of it we’d be together has driven me forward, even when the odds against us felt insurmountable.

How can I go on without that? Without him?

Tess runs down the hall, flinging herself at me. She must have been listening for the door. “You’re back! How did things go at Harwood? I’ve been so worried, I—” But I’m stiff in her arms, and she draws back, eyes fastened on my face. “What is it?”

“Maura knows you’re the oracle.” I wrap my arms around myself as if it will prevent me from flying into a thousand pieces. I can’t help noticing the streak of scarlet on my right palm.

Zara’s blood.

Tess bites her lip. “How could Maura know that?”

My shoulders hunch. “I told her.”

“But—” My sister looks stunned. “You promised.”

It’s not like me to break a promise to my sisters. To anyone, really. I don’t give my word lightly.

That’s Maura’s fault, too. She’s made a liar of me.

Tess’s blond brows draw together over eyes that have gone as stormy as thunderclouds. “Why would you tell her, after we agreed to wait?”

That truth comes out easily enough. “I wanted to hurt her. I couldn’t think of anything else.” Maura wanted to be the oracle—the prophesied witch who would save New England—so badly. Badly enough to betray me.

What else did she erase, besides me? For the last few months, Finn’s life and mine have been intertwined. He won’t understand why his mother closed the bookshop. He’ll hate himself for joining the Brotherhood, especially now, with the Brothers subjecting innocent girls to their dungeons, to torture and starvation.

I clench my hands into fists, carving half-moons into my palms. It’s either that or scream, and if I start, I don’t know when I might stop.

“You wanted to hurt her,” Tess repeats, as if it’s incomprehensible. She stares at me as though I went away to free the Harwood girls and came back a stranger. “And you used me to do it. You shouldn’t—”

“Zara’s dead,” I interrupt, angry. I am so angry suddenly. “You saw that coming. You could have had the grace to tell me!”

Tears spring into Tess’s eyes. “I’m sorry. She asked me not to and I—I was afraid it would distract you. There was nothing you could do to stop it.” Her shoulders bow, and she looks much older than twelve. Her sigh pricks at my heart. “Is that why you told Maura? To get back at me?”

“No.” Everything is awful but it’s not Tess’s fault.

“The little one!” Brenna Elliott pops out of the parlor like a spooky jack-in-the-box. “You’re safe. I didn’t tell. They wanted me to, but I wouldn’t, not even when they hit me.”

Tess freezes as the mad oracle reaches out and pets her, stroking her blond curls. “Thank you?”

“They broke my fingers.” Brenna waggles them in Tess’s face. “But the nice crow healed me.”

Sister Sophia, she means. Sophia taught me to heal, too. It’s the only magic I’ve ever excelled at. I found satisfaction in nursing—and in proving the Brothers wrong, that not all magic is selfish and wicked.

Tonight I used my gift to stop Zara’s heart.

She asked me to help her die with dignity, and I did. But her staring brown eyes and the coppery scent of her breath already haunt me.

“You’ll be safe now, too. No one will hurt you here.” Tess pats Brenna’s arm.

“Rory will be here soon. With her sister.” Brenna’s eyes flit around like mad blue butterflies. “You and Cate-as-in-fate and the other one. The three sisters.”

“Is that Cate?” Alice Auclair strolls around the corner, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. “The Head Council is destroyed. Eleven of the twelve, anyway, including Covington!”

“I’ve heard.” If she’s waiting for my congratulations, they won’t be forthcoming. Her smile makes my skin crawl. She and Maura and Inez used their mind-magic on the Head Council, ravaging their memories so entirely that they’ll be reduced to mewling babies. The Brothers have already been teetering on the edge of violence. Less than a hundred years ago, witches were hunted almost to extinction—and a good many innocent girls were killed in the process. The Brothers have been wanting an excuse to return to their old ways, and now Inez has given them one.

The women of New England will suffer for Inez’s foolishness. Anyone a bit too educated, too eccentric, or too outspoken may be murdered outright instead of sent to Harwood. And what can I do to stop it? Nothing. There are tens of thousands of Brothers and only a few hundred witches to fight them. Our only hope is winning the public’s favor, and now Inez has mucked that up, too. The Brothers have trained the people to be terrified of mind-magic. After a horrific attack like this, we’ll be the monsters in the dark again, the stories told at bedtime to frighten children into good behavior.

Brenna grasps at my sleeve with her bony fingers, startling me out of my reverie. “It’s her,” she hisses. Her terrified eyes are trained on Alice. “The crow who pecked out all my memories!”

Alice stumbles back, looking from Brenna to me and then back to Brenna. Her porcelain skin flushes patchy and red.

Tess wraps her arm around Brenna, though she only comes up to Brenna’s chin. “She won’t do it again. It was an accident,” she soothes. Brenna whimpers like a child.

Alice turns, ready to retreat. I expect she never thought she’d have to face Brenna again. Her accident.

I step forward, blocking her way. “Look at her. Look at what you did.”

Alice looks. Takes in Brenna’s stained white blouse, her brown sack of a skirt, her tangled chestnut hair. Her emaciated face, one eye still darkened by a bruise where the Brothers hit her for refusing to cooperate. Her skinny scarecrow arms. The livid scars at her wrists from when she tried to kill herself six months ago.

“I’m sorry,” Alice whispers. “I didn’t mean to.”

She tried to make Brenna forget that the Sisters were all witches, but the compulsion went wrong.

Mind-magic is unpredictable that way.

“That’s not enough.” I take her by the shoulders. “You can’t undo it. You can never undo it!”

“Let go of me!” Alice struggles, but I’ve got a good grip. I give her a little shake.

It’s not a small thing to meddle in someone’s memory.

Our first kiss, with the Brothers just outside the door and Finn’s hands on my waist and feathers in the dark.

Our second, in the gazebo on the hill, with the wind whipping at my hair and the smell of sawdust and wet earth all around us.

Our third, on the day I told him I was a witch and he asked me to marry him anyway.

“Cate!” Tess pulls at my arm.

I relinquish Alice, stepping away. My breath is coming fast, my throat choked with tears that I will not—will not—let out. I stare at the wooden floor. At the round green rug wet with snow from my boots.

“Have you gone mad? What’s wrong with you?” Alice demands, skittering back down the hall to the sitting room. She pushes through the group of younger girls peering out the door at the commotion.

“What did Maura do?” There’s dread in Tess’s voice.

I raise my head. “She erased Finn’s memory. He doesn’t remember me.”

Tess raises a hand to her lips. “Why would she do that?”

“She’s jealous of what we have. What we had,” I correct myself. “She wanted me as lonely and bitter as she is. It worked. I’m so angry, I could kill her.”

Tess stares at me with eyes round as saucers. Those aren’t just words. Not since we uncovered the prophecy that one of us will murder another before the turn of the century. I’ve always found it impossible. We’re sisters; we love and protect each other. Nothing is stronger than that.

Nothing was.

Brenna peeks out of the sitting room doorway. “That’s not how it goes.”

“Hush!” Tess snaps, whirling on her.

Tess never snaps.

What has she seen?

“No one is going to kill anyone.” Tess grabs my arm again, fingers pinching, trying to tow me toward the steps. There’s a touch of desperation in her voice, and I wonder if it’s me she’s trying to convince, or Brenna, or perhaps herself. “We’ll fix this. Let’s go upstairs, Cate.”

“It can’t be fixed.” Finn’s memories are gone forever; no magic can put them back. Maura betrayed my trust and there’s no way to get that back, either. I spot Tess’s friend Lucy Wheeler pacing at the other end of the hallway. “And I’m not going to run away from her. Besides, I’ve got to tell Lucy and the others how things went at Harwood.”

I wave Lucy forward, and she comes running, her chipmunk cheeks flushed, eyes full of worry. Before I can open my mouth to tell her that her big sister is fine, that we got her out of the asylum, the front door opens again and girls spill in, all dressed in the black cloaks of the Sisterhood.

“We’re home!” My roommate, Rilla, announces the obvious. “The other carriage will be along shortly. They’re going in the back.”

She’s beaming, delighted by our victory. We freed hundreds of girls who were falsely imprisoned in Harwood Asylum. Some of them fled on their own; some are being transported to safe houses in the country; six girls with important talents or ties to the Sisterhood are coming here. They’re safe—or safer than they were at Harwood with the Brothers out for blood, at any rate. Zara was the only casualty; our mission was an unqualified success—and yet I can’t find any joy in it.

“Grace!” Lucy shrieks.

“Lucy?” Grace Wheeler is a taller, skinnier version of Lucy, with snarled caramel hair and brown eyes too big for her gaunt face.

Lucy hurls herself at her sister, tears streaming down her face. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

“I thought I’d never get out of that place. I thought I’d be there until I died.” Grace looks around with trepidation. “You’re a—a witch, they said?”

Lucy nods. “All of us. But we’re not like the Brothers preach, Grace, we’re not bad—”

“I don’t care if you dance with the devil every night,” says another stranger—an older girl with vivid orange hair and a smattering of freckles. “You’re angels as far as I’m concerned, for saving us from that hellhole.”

“Caroline,” Maud chides. The redhead must be her cousin, then.

Caroline rolls her blue eyes expressively. “I believe in calling a spade a spade. That place was full of rats, and the meat they gave us was crawling often as not, and the Brothers who visited weren’t above giving us pretty ones a pinch or two. If we fought back, they gave us extra laudanum.”

My eyes flit to the third newcomer, a pretty Indo girl around my age leaning against the hall table, fiddling with the lyre-shaped letter holder. According to the nurses, Parvati was the Brothers’ favorite target.

“You’re safe now,” I assure her. “No one will—”

My words die in my throat as Maura steps out from behind the others. “Welcome to the Sisterhood, girls. I’m Maura Cahill. You’re safe here—so long as we can expect your loyalty.”

My body goes taut as a bowstring just before the arrow sails home. “Oh, you’re a fine one to talk about loyalty!”

“This isn’t the time, Cate.” Her sapphire skirts rustle as she positions herself in the middle of the hall, a bluebird surrounded by crows. “We’d all be executed if the Brothers discovered what we are. The secrets of the Sisterhood are not shared lightly. Particularly not with outsiders.”

“Grace is my sister,” Lucy protests.

“But she’s not a witch.” Maura waves a dismissive hand at Grace. “The Sisterhood comes first, Lucy.”

Lucy shakes her head, braids dancing. “Not before my own flesh and blood it doesn’t.”

I give a strangled laugh. “Oh, not according to Maura.”

Rilla wrinkles her freckled nose. “I don’t see how Maura gets any say in this. She didn’t lift a finger to help these girls.”

“It was all Cate. Elena and Cate and that marvelous beau of hers.” Violet van Buren gives me an arch look, and my stomach twists. “Now I see why you wouldn’t give Finn up. My Lord, the way he looks at you!”

“Vi—” Tess begins, her fingers fluttering like trapped moths.

“I’d give my eyeteeth to have someone look at me like that.” Vi clasps her hands to her bosom, sighing. “It’s so romantic. You’ll marry him, won’t you? When all this is over?”

That’s what I wanted. More than anything.

I’ve kept Finn a secret for weeks. I was afraid that the more people who knew he was spying for the Sisterhood, the more danger he’d be in. But all the girls at Harwood tonight saw him. Now they’ll ask me about him and—

I don’t know if I can bear that.

“I don’t think so,” I choke out.

“Why not?” Vi’s plummy eyes are puzzled.

“Ask Maura.” I jerk my head at her. “Tell them what you did.”

Maura won’t meet my eyes. “Don’t make this about us. There are more important things to discuss.” She turns her back on me, and her condescension makes me want to yank her red curls out by the roots. I wish we could settle this as easily as one of our old childhood brawls.

“I’ll tell them, then.” I step into the center of the hall, the center of attention—a place I’ve never relished. The words spill out of me, jumbled and passionate. “Finn joined the Brotherhood for me. He hated every minute of it, everything they stand for. He knew I was a witch, and he loved me anyway—no, not anyway. He was proud of me. He risked his life to spy for the Sisterhood and to help free you all. If they’d caught him, he would have been executed.” I feel as though I’m giving a eulogy, and perhaps I am. “But Sister Inez wanted Maura to prove just how ruthless she could be. She didn’t approve of a Brother knowing our secrets. And Maura—she’s always been jealous that I had Finn, so she went into his mind and erased me. That’s the kind of girl she is—the kind of sister. She would betray any one of us in a heartbeat.”

Maura stares at me, wordless, cheeks flaming. The other girls draw away from her as if the brush of her skirts contains some contagion.

“Go, Maura. Go to your room,” Tess says finally, her voice low. “Cate shouldn’t have to look at you right now. Frankly, I don’t want to see you, either.”

Maura whirls on her. “Who are you to tell me what to do?”

The oracle. The prophesied one. I want Tess to toss it in Maura’s face, but I know she won’t. She’s not power-mad like Maura or vengeful like me.

Tess purses her lips. “I’m the sister who’s still speaking to you.”

Maura’s face falls. “You haven’t even heard my side of things!”

Tess hovers between Maura and me, her gray eyes like knives. “I don’t know what you could possibly say that would make me understand why you’d do this.”

“Fine. Take her side, like always. I don’t need either of you! You’ll see.” Maura pushes through the crowd of gaping girls and runs upstairs, boots clattering on the wooden steps.

And I’m left feeling—how?

Unsatisfied with my petty vengeance.

Rilla is the first to recover her wits. She takes my hand, hazel eyes full of sympathy. “Come upstairs, Cate. You must be—”

I yank away. “No.” She means well—she always does—but her kindness makes me want to fling myself onto the floor and cry.

I look around at the girls gathered in the hall. I can’t fall to pieces, because they need me. I’m not the only person Maura hurt tonight. Even now, the Head Council’s subordinates will be finding them, childlike and confused, unable to recall their own names. Tomorrow, New London will be in an uproar against witches, and it will only get worse once the town learns of the mutiny at Harwood.

The Brotherhood will strike back. We’ve got to prepare ourselves for that.

The Harwood girls have been starved and drugged and brutalized. They need a place to heal, and the convent isn’t that kind of haven anymore. Not with Sister Cora dead and Inez in charge. She’ll do anything to oust the Brothers and put herself in power; she doesn’t care who might be destroyed in the process.

But I do.

I’ve cast off one sister tonight, but now I’ve got dozens.

I mean to make New England safe for all of them.

My magic rises, sparking through my fingertips. The candles on the hall table burst into flame, followed by the old-fashioned brass candelabras along the hall.

I am tired of hiding what I am. There’s got to be a better way. Not Inez’s way. Not Brother Covington’s, either.

If it’s war the Brothers and Maura want, it’s war they’ll get. I’ll fight both of them.

“Welcome to the Sisterhood.” I tilt my chin up, meeting each girl’s eyes in turn. “As you’ve probably figured, I’m Cate Cahill, and this is my sister Tess. Let’s get you all something to eat, and then we’ll show you to your rooms. This is your home now. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you’re protected.”

• • •

We get the six Harwood girls settled before the fire in the sitting room, eating yesterday’s bread with slabs of butter and strawberry jam, drinking cups of hot cocoa. Once I assure myself that Rilla and Vi will take care of them, I make my way up to the third floor, to Sister Cora’s suite.

Sister Gretchen opens the door at my knock. Her hazel eyes are bloodshot and rimmed in red. “Cate. You’ve heard?”

I nod, brushing a hand through my tangled blond hair. “I’ll miss her, but I’m glad she’s at peace now.”

Gretchen swallows a sob. “I knew it was coming, but I don’t quite know what to do without her.” She and Cora have been the best of friends since their days studying in the convent school.

“I know.” I press her hand. “I’d like to say good-bye, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” Gretchen ushers me in, and we cross through Cora’s shadowy sitting room to her bedroom. Her body is laid out on the four-poster bed, dressed in a plain black gown. Her white hair cascades over her shoulders; her thin hands are as bare as winter trees without her dozen rings. “I’ll give you a moment alone.”

“Thank you.”

I step closer to the body. Most days, I don’t know what I believe insofar as religion, but I suspect Cora’s soul is elsewhere now. Instinctively, I glance toward the ceiling, as though expecting to find her spirit floating there.

I’ve never found much comfort in the notion of my mother watching over me. At her funeral, that was the Brothers’ favorite platitude. They stopped short of suggesting I should ask her spirit for guidance. That would be sacrilegious; a girl should turn to her father or her husband or the Brothers themselves for wisdom. But they insisted she would still be looking after me from heaven, thinking that would bring me solace. Mother’s instruction to keep my sisters safe weighed heavily enough on me, though; I didn’t relish the notion of her spirit peering over my shoulder, judging whether I was doing a good enough job of it.

Sister Cora set me an even bigger task—to protect the entire Sisterhood. Tess may be the prophesied witch, but she’s too young to lead, and neither of us trusts Inez to do it for her.

“I won’t let Inez ruin everything you worked for,” I vow. My voice is soft, swallowed up by the rug and the heavy green curtains pulled shut against the snowy night.

I rather like the idea of Cora looking down on me, I discover. She demanded a great deal, but she made her own mistakes, like with Zara. She’d forgive mine.

The notion gives me courage.

“Thank you,” I add. “For believing in me.”

I leave her with candles burning on the dressing table to chase away the darkness. In the sitting room, Gretchen is slumped in Cora’s green flowered armchair.

“You’ll sit up with her?” I ask, and Gretchen nods. “Do you want me to take a turn?”

She shakes her head, gray sausage curls bouncing. “You need your rest. How did things go at Harwood? I should’ve asked straight off.”

“It went well, for the most part.” I purse my lips. “Zara’s dead. Shot by a guard.”

“Oh, Cate.” Gretchen’s lip wobbles, but she masters it. “I’m sorry to hear it. Zara was a good woman. She would have been a great help to you.” Gretchen squares her shoulders, her hazel eyes meeting mine. “If there’s anything you need, I’m on your side in this. What Inez did tonight to the Head Council—it wasn’t right. It’s certainly not what Cora would have wanted.”

“There is one thing.” I take a deep breath. “I’d like to get word to Brother Brennan. Arrange a meeting as soon as possible.” Brennan was Cora’s spy on the Head Council. His mind would have been erased tonight along with the others’, but Finn slipped herbs into his tea to make him sick and ensure he’d miss the meeting.

I hope that Brennan will be voted the new leader of the Brotherhood. By all accounts, he’s a progressive sort. If I can make him understand that not all of us supported Inez, perhaps he’ll guide the Brothers along a less vengeful path. It’s asking him to forgive a great deal, I know. The men on the Head Council were Brennan’s colleagues. Perhaps some were his friends. And unless we can figure out some way to render her powerless, Inez will be in charge of the Sisterhood until Tess comes of age in four years.

“There’s a stationery shop, O’Neill’s, down in the market district. We left messages for Brennan with the proprietor,” Gretchen explains. “You already know the code he and Cora used. I can transcribe a letter for you, if you like, though I daresay Tess could, too.” Tess is brilliant at cryptography, just as she is at nearly everything else.

Gretchen unclasps the ruby necklace around her throat. The gold chain pools in her hands, reminding me that Zara’s necklace—the locket with Mother’s picture inside—still rests in my cloak pocket. As I watch, the ruby transforms into a brass key. “The key will get you into the shop through the back door. We could use magic, of course, but the others have keys and they’ll be more likely to trust you if you’ve got Cora’s. In the storage room, there’s a staircase to the cellar. That’s where they hold the Resistance meetings.”

She hands me the key. It’s small and cold and slight in my palm, but this intelligence feels momentous. I sink into the chair next to hers. “Resistance meetings?” I echo.

Does she mean to say there are people working in secret against the Brothers, besides witches? Zara alluded to such a thing, and we gambled that they still exist, sending the Harwood refugees to several of their safe houses. I had no notion Cora was involved with them.

Gretchen brushes a hand over her plump cheek. “Brennan isn’t the only man in New England who disagrees with the Brothers’ methods. The Resistance leaders meet once a week. The next meeting is scheduled for Friday night. I’ll go with you, if you like. It won’t be an easy thing to win their trust; it took Cora years. They knew she was a witch, but they don’t know we all are. And even those who don’t mind a witch don’t believe a woman their equal. I won’t lie to you, Cate. Trying to win over Alistair Merriweather will be no picnic.”

I frown. “Who is he?”

Gretchen raises her eyebrows at me. “Good Lord, girl, don’t you read? He publishes the Gazette.”

Truth be told, I’ve never read the Gazette. The Sentinel is the official New London newspaper, the Brothers’ mouthpiece. It’s forbidden to be caught with a copy of any other paper, though I’ve often seen half-hidden copies of the Gazette when we’ve delivered rations to the poor.

“You should find a copy and educate yourself a bit before you meet him,” Gretchen suggests. “If you can get him on your side, it will be a great boon to us. One-fifth of New London reads his paper, as he’ll be only too happy to tell you.”

I lift my head, a spark of hope racing through me. “That’s quite a lot of people unhappy with the Brothers.”

“And those are only the ones bold enough to buy the paper. How many borrow it from a neighbor, or can’t read to start with?” A wry smile kicks up the corners of Gretchen’s mouth. “The poor are frustrated by the new restrictions. Look at the hundreds who protested last month in Richmond Square.”

“Half of them were thrown on a prison ship for their trouble,” I point out, remembering Mei’s sisters. “Don’t you think that put a damper on any ideas of rebelling?”

Gretchen shakes her head. “I suspect it only fanned the flames. They protested peacefully enough. That shouldn’t be an offense that warrants getting sent away for years, should it? How do you think those unfortunate souls are managing now? Barely, that’s how, with the help of family if they’ve got it, or our charity. The people are angry, especially the working poor. They’re looking for leaders.”

“Like Tess,” I suggest. She’s the oracle meant to win the people’s hearts back to the witches.

“And you,” Gretchen says. “You and Merriweather working together could be a formidable team.”

I glance over my shoulder at the half-open door to Cora’s bedroom, confidence wavering. If it took Cora