Burn Mark by Laura Powell Read Free Book Online Page A

name. ‘Hello,’ Bea said, a little breathlessly.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘I liked what you did back there,’ she told him. ‘You were right to intervene; it was getting out of hand. Though Nell should have known better. She’s got this ridiculous crush on Gideon, you see.’
    ‘Doesn’t everyone?’
    ‘Oh-ho – that sounded a touch bitter.’
    Bea’s smile had a mischievous slant. He liked that. Lucas approved of girls who were confident without being too assertive about it. He also liked her thin gold top, and the way the droplets of her earrings had got tangled in her hair.
    He tousled up his own hair and grinned back. They sat down together on the raised stone rim of the pond.
    ‘I think people are generally on edge today,’ Bea remarked. ‘About witchwork, I mean. It’s because of the attack. Dad was saying that coven witches keep clear of capital offences, and so only fanatics like Endor could be responsible. He said normal witch-criminals wouldn’t risk the Burning Court. Is that right?’
    ‘Well, it’s true that covens keep their witches behind the scenes. They tend to do the groundwork rather than committing the actual crimes. But the . . .’ Lucas paused. Though his reflection looked as pale as ever, waves of heat had begun throbbing through his body. The sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant but he plunged a hand into the water, hoping the coolness would steady him.
    ‘Yes?’ Bea prompted.
    ‘Uh . . . the death of that cleaner was clearly a mistake. Creating a whistle-wind is one thing, controlling it quite another. That storm was meant to scare people, not kill them. That’s not Endor’s style. And Endor hasn’t been active in the UK for over twelve years.’
    ‘Do you ever wonder . . .’ She hesitated. ‘I know about the Oath of Service, and how inquisitors are legally bound to respect witchkind rights. But do you ever wonder how you could . . . what you would do . . . if some atrocity happened, and you found yourself face to face with the witch responsible?’
    ‘Like the one who killed my mother, for instance?’
    Her cheeks went pink. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.’
    ‘It’s OK. It’s something I’ve thought about. I’m sure Dad has too. I hope I’d do the right thing. One has to bear in mind that witches . . . well, they’re subject to impulses that normal people can’t understand. There’s something primitive – unnatural – inside them.’
    ‘You’re saying we should make allowances?’
    ‘No. I’m saying we have to remember they’re not like the rest of us. If I found the witch who killed my mother, I’d want to do the right thing because it would prove I was better than him or her. Better than them .’
    ‘More humane?’
    ‘Or more human . . .’
    A motorbike revved noisily in the road. In the glinting wrinkles of the pond, the imagined scene of his mother’s murder swam up at him. The swerve, the jump, the downwards fall – the crumpling of metal and crushing of glass. The sheet of flame.
    It might have been written off as just another road accident, if it wasn’t for a witness who had seen his mother struggling at the wheel, her face frozen with horror and her movements stiff and jerky, as if not her own. Since a witch had to be in view of his or her target to hex a bane, a second onlooker would also have been present on that bend. There they would have watched and waited for the car, holding a poppet of Camilla Stearne in their hands. Somewhere in the background, this witch would have wound the shadow-strands of fae through the manikin and into its human counterpart; spooling their darkness through his mother’s blood and brain, binding her limbs to their will.
    The car crash had come at the height of Endor’s campaign, after the Southampton bombings and the assassination of the Home Secretary, before the sabotage of HMS Thrace. The authorities said that the murder was intended as a warning for Ashton Stearne. But Camilla came from an old