Julia Vanishes by Catherine Egan Read Free Book Online

ankles, wrists, and necks, supposedly to impede their magic. A witch cannot cast a spell unless she writes it down, but witches are nevertheless preternaturally strong, and a superstitious fear of them makes their captors bind them in silver. There are eight of them today, and no children, thank the Nameless. Only one of them looks a proper witch—an old crone with a wicked face and bony hands like claws that grip the silver binding her. There is a giantess too, fair-haired and hideous, towering over the guards. A plump, dark witch sobs and sinks to her knees again and again, but the guards behind her keep forcing her back up. The rest of them mostly look like the kind of women you’d find selling silks or bangles at markets in the Twist. I find it interesting how convicted witches seem to come mostly from the lower classes, though now and again a rich girl just learning to write reveals her power and gets turned in by her parents or her governess. One year, the wife of a wealthy banker was drowned as a witch, and the excitement of it rippled through the city for days, but that sort of thing is rare.
    “More guards than usual,” I say, frowning, for they line the entire deck, dressed in their royal white and blue, rifles at the ready.
    A moment later a slender man in a fur-collared black coat steps out of the cabin and climbs up onto the platform at the stern of the boat. The crowd roars—an ambiguous response, it seems to me. I’ve never seen him in person before, but I recognize him from likenesses in the newspaper: This is Agoston Horthy, the prime minister, and arguably the most powerful man in Frayne, for old King Zey reportedly spends his days in prayer and fasting and has little to do with affairs of state anymore. No wonder there are so many guards.
    When King Zey came to the throne, nearly half a century ago, he outlawed element worship, potion making, palmistry, wish writing, elemental charms, tattooing and any other form of writing on the skin, even the old songs and stories—but still those practices flourished in secret for a time. Then Agoston Horthy came to power. For twenty years now he has been the king’s bloodhound, a young man from a landowning family, handpicked by the aging king himself, nosing out all hidden corners where the old ways still hung on. Soldiers have destroyed the last of the shrines to the elements, and there aren’t many folklore practitioners left, even in the Twist. Those who love him claim that he used to work the fields side by side with the farmers on his land and that he holds the common people close to his heart. Others remember only his ruthlessness in crushing the Lorian Uprising and the stern line he has hewed to since then. In my lifetime, the king has been a vague, holy figure, growing older and vaguer and, by all accounts, holier, behind the palace walls, while Agoston Horthy has emerged as the terrible, unswerving captain of the ship of state.
    In person, he does not look nearly as formidable as his likenesses would have him. He is thin and small, with a lined, doggish face, pouches under his eyes, and gray in his hair. His coat is worn at the shoulders, and the fur collar is rather shabby. In fact, he looks like a weary grocer, but that impression is erased as soon as he speaks.
    “Like you, I am here to bear witness,” he says in a thunderous baritone. The crowd falls silent. “For the glory of the Nameless One and the safety of Frayne, we do not tolerate unnatural magics within our borders. Helmed by our great king Zey, Frayne is a holy nation, a nation that thrives on the hard work and honest faith of its people, a nation that rejects false worship and evil magics. We have led the way, and the rest of the New Porian kingdoms have followed. It is our duty to show the world what a holy nation looks like, but more than that, it is our duty to keep our children safe, to protect one another and be true to one another and to the Nameless One. I am here to witness