The Chase

Book 0: The Witch Hunter

by Virginia Boecker

Genres: YA Action & Adventure; YA Wizards & Witches; YA Historical Fantasy

Synopsis

A witch and a revenant. One full of life, the other technically dead. Fifer and Schuyler's relationship is nothing if not unusual. Some might even call it ill-advised. But try as they might to push each other away, something keeps bringing them back together. Then a force stronger than their attraction comes between them: Lord Blackwell, the Inquisitor and most powerful man in Anglia. He sends Schuyler on a mission--a mythical sword, rumored to make its owner invincible, lies somewhere in Anglia and it's Schuyler's job to find it. Meanwhile, left behind in Harrow with her studies, Fifer can't help but worry what's become of her undead paramour. Schuyler's been missing for weeks and Fifer may be the one who can--or who cares enough to--find him. An enthralling new Witch Hunter series novella.

Release date: August 9, 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 63

Sample

It’s been said never to open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. But when the evil at that door stands with swagger and speaks with seduction and you know it’s here just for you, that makes it all the harder to close it.

I should have closed it.

Schuyler leans against the frame, looking over my shoulder into the drawing room of the tiny cottage, presumably to see if I’m alone. Which is rubbish: He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t already know I was alone. A smirk walks up one side of his mouth and he says, “Are you going to let me in, or…?”

“Or,” I want to snap; I almost do. Then I stop. If he knows I’m angry, then that’s one more thing he’ll know about me and I don’t want him to know anything at all. I shrug. “If you wish.”

He scowls a bit but doesn’t move. Schuyler likes the hunt, the chase, the kill. But it’s only by giving him precisely what he doesn’t want that I will find out precisely what he does.

Finally, he eases over the threshold, past me and into the slight front room, glancing around as if taking inventory. At the desk under the window, piled high with books and parchment and pens and clutter. At the chair beside it, draped with a short, black, and threadbare cloak. All John’s—he’s a complete slob—but I don’t bother to point this out. Then to my table, laid out with yet more books and parchment, candles, and herbs.

“You studying?”

I don’t reply; the answer is obvious enough. I only ever come to this cottage when I’m studying. It once belonged to Nicholas—he was born and raised here before he bought the surrounding land and built his own home, the nearby bricked manor I’ve lived in since I was six. But he gave the cottage to me when I turned sixteen, as a space to have to myself where I could develop my own magic within the rigors of study he laid out for me. Nicholas’s words, not mine. Also his words: The cottage is a space to maintain quiet friendships, not to entertain paramours.

But then, Schuyler is not my paramour.

He strips off his long black coat, places it deliberately over John’s, then moves to the settee in the corner and flops down on it. Rests one elbow against the back and crosses a foot over the other knee, as if he plans to stay longer than a few minutes.

“When are your exams?”

I turn to shut the door so he can’t see the begrudging surprise on my face. I told Schuyler about my level exams the last time I saw him, two weeks ago when he took me to a tavern in Harrow and plied me with drinks and words and smiles and charm. Half of it was complete bullshit, I knew that even then, but the other half had enough truth for me to invite him back here and allow him to ply me with more than words. I even agreed to see him again, which he said he wanted to, desperately, the very next day.

He didn’t show.

“Less than a month away,” I reply. “I have to pass them if I want to continue studying magic, and I intend to pass.”

Schuyler nods. “I remember you said that.”

“I didn’t.” I look directly at him then; I’d been avoiding it until now. Everything about him is wrong. His eyes are blue, unnaturally so, the color of butterfly wings. His hair, blond and overlong, almost touches his shoulders. He’s too tall, his face too sharp, all angles and corners except for those lips, his black coat too big and his black boots too scuffed. But the worst, the very worst, is his mouth. The way it sits in a constant half smile, half smirk, knowing and amused, as if he’s lazily picking through the recesses of your mind, turning over your thoughts and feelings and making them his, all for his entertainment.

Without thinking, my hand flutters to the neck of my tunic, for the chain around my neck. Brass ampules filled with salt, quicksilver, ash. The one I created the day after I met him at last year’s Winter’s Night party, to keep him from hearing my thoughts, to keep him from knowing what he did to them, and to me. His eyes follow the movement, then settle back on mine, his face revealing nothing.

“You’re angry,” he says.

This is a guess, else he’s using his century-old powers of observation to note the stiffness in my shoulders or the set of my mouth, which is puckered up like a sour old cat. Even so, I let my eyes go wide and feign surprise. “Why would I be angry?”

“With me,” he clarifies.

“Why would I be angry with you?”

Schuyler lifts a hand, idly tracing a fingertip against the white plaster walls, his pose as lazy as the words that come next.

“I thought we got on nicely last we met. Had a nice chat. You made sheep eyes at me, I made cow eyes back. Then you invited me here.” His eyes flick to the narrow, framed doorway leading into the cottage’s small bedroom, then back to me, that damn knowing smirk on his face again.

I grit my teeth against the bait; I will not be outplayed. “Right, right.” I nod slowly, as if it’s all just coming back to me. “I recall now. I had such a headache the next day.…” I trail off with a laugh and a grimace and . . .