Lilith Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 15 of 21

Rosalind's warning still hung over the house when the knock came. Not the polite tap of a neighbor. Three hard raps on the front door. Lilith opened it and found the town's leading townswoman on the step, wrapped in gray wool, her chin high. Two men waited behind her. "You granted us open inspection," the woman said. "I mean to use it. Now." No warning, no plan. Upstairs, a horned kitten dozed on a bed, and pale-eyed creatures filled every room. Lilith stepped back to let them in. Her hands stayed still, but her mind raced. If the woman climbed the stairs, she would see eyes that did not belong to any barn cat, wounds that healed too fast. Rosalind would not lie for her. There was no time to hide anything. Then a small voice spoke behind her. "Let me go first." Shelly Thornveil came down the stairs, her braid swinging, a blue stone glinting at her throat. She was Lilith's oldest friend, a healer who could mend the dying and cast illusions that hid what no human eye should see. Lilith had not sent for her. Shelly only smiled, as if she had felt the trouble from across town. "I'll show you the upper floors myself," Shelly told the townswoman. She raised one hand, low and quiet, and traced a shape in the air. Lilith felt the room shift, a soft press behind her eyes, like heat off a stove. The woman climbed the stairs. Lilith followed, her heart loud. In the first room, a tiger-striped creature lay healing, its wound too clean for any ordinary animal. But the townswoman looked at it and saw only a plain gray cat curled on a blanket. In the next room, the horned kitten yawned. The woman leaned close and cooed at what her eyes told her was a sleepy tabby. Rosalind stood in the hall, watching. When the townswoman asked her plainly what breed the striped one was, Rosalind said, "A rescue. Half-starved when she came." True words, every one. She did not have to lie. Shelly's illusion had already answered the harder question. The townswoman walked all twenty-three rooms. She found beds, bowls, fresh water, animals mending under warm light. She found nothing she could not explain. At the door she paused. "It runs cleaner than I expected," she said, almost sour about it. Then she left, her men behind her, boots fading down the path. Lilith shut the door and leaned on it. "You saved everything," she told Shelly. Shelly's smile thinned. "I hid it this once. But the spell holds only while I stand near it." She rubbed her fingers, tired already. "She'll come again. And I cannot live in your walls forever." The secret had survived one visit. It now depended on one woman's presence.