Bones clicked together when Saule passed under the ice hemlock. The shiver that ripped through her had little to do with the cold and everything to do with the situation. 

As it turned out, the Circe coven wasn't difficult for her to find. Their information was easy to uncover among the proper channels and freely given, like a challenge issued to anyone stupid enough to go in search of them. Saule had thought it'd take her a few days to discover where the coven was hidden—but they weren't hidden. They weren't cowering in a bunk like the La Voisin girls, or way out in the boonies like the Chedipe women. 

No, the coven lived in a renovated mansion right across the bay from the syndicate's tower. They might as well hoist a neon signpost reading "Come if you dare, flash-bangs." 

Saule stood outside the iron gate and peeked through the sharpened struts, hoping the tree strung with bones was hiding her from sight. The Circe witches thought themselves the pinnacle of witch society and did not mix well with the women of over covens. They hated any witches who dared work with or cooperate with mages—and that included the Baba Yaga coven. Saule's coven had tolerated their mage overlords, however temperamentally, and that painted them as traitors in the eyes of a Circe witch. 

Bram nudged Saule's thigh and she almost jumped out of her skin.

"Seriously regretting this," she wheezed, touching a string of bones hanging past the fence line. Saule winced when the spell etched into the bones by an enchantress reacted to her own mana, but beyond the essence of a witch, she could sense the residual spark of a mage. They were flash-bang bones.

Saule didn't know what was more intimidating: the idea of entering the Circe coven's perimeter, or going back to the former Sin of Pride to tell him she'd chickened out. 

The Baba Yaga witch muttered a myriad of curses under her breath as she came to the gate and eased it open.

Hinges screeched, seeming to silence the morning wind. 

"Okay, Bram," Saule whispered to her dog as she trailed her fingers through his glossy feathers. He lifted his eyes to hers and licked his nose, tail whipping back and forth. "Go on."

The dog jumped forward and crossed the property line. The quirk of his mutation that negated spells bent and pried the coven wards apart, allowing Bram and Saule to slip through their blockade. Saule was quick to keep at Bram's heels as they came under the shadow of the southern style manor, and she knew someone would feel their spells changing in her passage. Someone was undoubtedly watching her. 

Swallowing her fear, she mounted the painted steps and crossed the porch to the double doors. Not spying a doorbell, Saule rapped her knuckles on the door's prismatic glass.

A woman years younger than Saule answered the Baba Yaga witch, easing the door open to peer at her. She wore a gossamer veil of gauzy blue material, the ends falling below her pointed chin, the top banded to her brow by a leather strap. It was a traditional alchemist's mask, enchanted to dissuade the inhalation of potentially poisonous fumes. Saule hadn't seen one of those since the last time she and her sister had rifled through her mom's boxes in the attic. Most alchemists just wore mundane gas masks.

"Uh...'etsey, tutghik-iksk—," Saule began, but the other witch interrupted her.

"You're no sister of mine," the younger woman stated without removing her mask, her messy hands still on the door's handle. "We are not open to outsiders. Leave."

She began to withdraw.

Before Saule could consider the consequences of her actions, she stuck her foot in the path of the closing door.

"I'm here to see the Mistress," she rushed to say, swallowing the fear threatening to creep into her voice. "A-and I won't be leaving until I'm granted an audience."

The alchemist glanced from Saule's foot to her face, dark eyes narrowing behind the blue veil. "Is that so?" 

Saule nodded when words failed her.

The Circe witch didn't move at first. She glared at Saule as she mulled over her decision and finally decided to grant the older woman entrance. The door opened and she stepped aside, sweeping her arm out in a wide, mocking gesture as Saule came inside with Bram at her side.

Unlike the light Southern charm of the exterior, the interior was dark, morose, and wholly of an antiquated witch style. The parquet underfoot was stained and etched with a myriad of spiraling carvings. Framed paintings on the wall depicted a various scenes of brutality: witches burning, witches being staked, witches being gutted like fish. An ugly feeling oozed from the paintings as if the artists had imbued each brush stroke with her vitric hatred—or the feeling could have been emanating from the chandelier of enchantress gems strung overhead. Each gem was a different color and thrummed with woven spells.

Saule didn't make it more than a few hesitant steps into the foyer before the alchemist stopped her. "You'll wait here," the woman ordered before disappearing up the marble steps, heavy boots thunking every other step. Saule remained by the door and was relieved to have an excuse not to wander farther into the Circe lair. Already curious witches were appearing in the archways that opened onto the expansive foyer, their faces transfixed in various expressions of derision or amusement.

No sense of sisterhood hung in the air here, no communal bond of mutual witch respect. Saule was an outsider. They looked upon her as if she was a flash-bang.

A few minutes passed in ominous silence before Saule heard the measured rap of hollow heels. She jerked her gaze to the top of the stairs, her brown curls bobbing as an older woman came into view. Her stomach quaked with terror.

A gown of black velvet trailed upon the floor in the Mistress's wake as she walked, swaying upon towering heels Saule would have broken her legs with if she'd worn them. The material of the dress complemented the woman's dark complexion, turning her into an elegant predator of the night with unkind eyes and red claws. Her hair was restrained in dreadlocks that tumbled to her waist, each braid threaded with strands of gold, while diamonds and rubies glittered at her slender throat. 

"Mia tells me we have a visitor," the Circe Mistress crooned as she came down the stairs and the gown parted at her ankles to allow her feet motion. "What is it, I wonder? Another wayward syndicate lapdog come to beg for asylum?"

Bram growled and Saule laid her hand on his head, biting back a measure of her own growling. Others had come before her? Had the Circe turned them away, too? What had become of them? "I'm not seeking asylum," Saule explained as she forced herself to meet the woman's heavy stare. "I'm here to bargain with you, Mistress."

"Bargain?" the woman stopped at the foot of the stairs and seemed to gather herself, hands soothing the exaggerated sleeves of her gown. "What is this nonsense?"

She knew it'd be wise to keep a civil tongue and speak respectfully to the woman, but the Baba Yaga witch was upset by the dynamic before her. For the duration of Saule's life, Mistress Voronin and her own mother had always taught the importance of sisterhood, of coven-clad bonds that helped fellow witches survive in a world dominated by a preternatural patriarchy—but there was no sisterhood here. No kindness or understanding. Just elitism.

Witch elitism was poison to their society. To stand alone was to doom them all to annihilation.

Saule jerked a thumb toward the closed doors. "If you haven't noticed, there's a war going on out there while you and your coven stay nice and cozy in here. I'm a witch just like you, but you're treating me like some unwanted normie salesman. Where's your coven-pride? Why aren't you doing anything against the flash-bangs?"

"Listen to you," the woman tutted with an upward tilt of her nose. "Coven-pride. Flash-bangs. Like you were raised in a barn."

Saule shrank as a guffaw echoed among the watching witches.

"Don't falter now, little witchling," the Mistress said, grinning. "Come, what is your name? From which so-called coven do you hail?"

"My name is Saule Ozlin." Saule rounded her shoulders and was grateful for Bram's presence at her side. "I'm from the Baba Yaga coven."

"Surprising." The Mistress's hands moved with her words, the light catching the white scars on the top side of her palms. She had to be a sorceress, as Saule didn't believe for an instant that the woman was a priestess. "Before I throw you from the grounds, tell me: why has a west coast witch come to the heart of syndicate territory? Are you not cowed by your mage overlords?"

"I didn't have a choice." Saule took a breath, shaking her head. "Or maybe I did. I don't know—all I do know is that the flash-bangs—mages—have taken the coven Mistresses and are holding them in the Facility. They're threatening to dissolve all the covens and to destroy our entire way of life!"

The woman folded her arms before herself and adopted an contemptible pose, and though her answer was snide, her expression was serious. "Your way of life, little witchling. Your life. We will endure without a problem."

"You'll let them do this to other witches without protest?"

"You're hardly witches. Your kind doesn't hold to the culture, doesn't practice the craft as it is meant to be utilized. You have a touch of magic in your veins and think that entitles you to name yourselves witches. Why should I or any of my girls care if the other covens are dissolved?"

Saule didn't have an immediate response for her. She opened and closed her mouth, unable to form the words to answer what she thought to be an obvious, indisputable question. "Without other covens, you'd be...alone."

"And?"

"And?" Saule splayed her hands before herself. "How will you survive alone? You may not like us, but the witches of other covens are still witches, whether you like it or not. Standing aside and doing nothing while the other covens are ruined makes you just as culpable as the syndicates in the destruction of your own species. You know what happens to us if they kill the Mistresses."

The Circe Mistress frowned, her slender brow lowering. "I am well aware."

Of course she was. Every coven, be they progressive or traditional, urban or rural, was built upon a single custom and without that custom, a coven couldn't exist and wouldn't be recognized. To be a coven, the Mistress must prove she is willing to make sacrifices, to do what must be done in times of crises. Every new Mistress must killed her predecessor. If the current Mistress died before the custom could be fulfilled, the coven was dissolved.

Saule pursed her lips and eyed the Circe witches lurking about the edges of the foyer.

"What is it you want?" the Mistress asked as she took a few steps forward. "What would you will of me, witchling? Your grievances aside, you obviously had a goal in mind when you came trespassing on my property. What is this bargain you speak of?"

The Baba Yaga witch nodded in rapid succession. "I need your coven to fight the syndicates, to force the Blue Fire Syndicate to retreat and stop assaulting the covens."

The Mistress frowned, drawing a hand across her cheek in thought. "Allow me to guess: you wish to release the Mistresses held in captivity. You wish for a distraction."

"Of a sort."

"Of a sort, she says." The other witches laughed again as their Mistress drew herself to her full height. "Who am I to refuse my girls the chance to forage for mage bones and flesh? But what is it you offer in return for our services, Saule Ozlin?"

Saule didn't have anything to offer the Circe woman that she didn't already have. Saule didn't have money, didn't have connections, didn't have any special skills to give the woman or her coven. Sensing Saule's hesitation, the Mistress began to turn, and her pack of loyal enforcers began to creep nearer. Bram whined.

"Wait!" Saule called out as she dipped her hand into her pocket. "W-wait!"

The Mistress paused, her back to the Baba Yaga witch, her foot on the first step.

"I don't have anything to offer, but I'm aware of many of our traditions. I invoke the right to a Zoxretqu Kaiuxs."

The flurry of conversation among the onlookers was instant, and the Mistress lifted her hand to silence her girls' chatting. "You mean to challenge me to a duel?"

Grim, Saule nodded.

The Mistress's amusement was apparent as she approached Saule and folded her velvet sleeves to bare scarred forearms. The scars upon her hands continued past her wrists, her skin littered with a myriad of ropey, cross-hatched lines. "I am Theodora Stavros, Mistress of the Circe coven. Do you understand what it means to duel me?"

Saule shook her head as she nudged Bram back toward the front door. "You agree to my request?"

"Why not? If you win, I'll send my girls out to harass the mages. If I win...I believe we need another kitchen servant, and I'll have your dog. It's an interesting mutt."

Bram whined and pawed at Saule's leg. The Baba Yaga witch shooed him, though she felt a flutter of panic in her middle. She wouldn't lose him.

"Let's duel then, shall we? A battle until one side submits. Mia?"

The witch with the blue veil jumped to the main floor and paced the length of the foyer, stopping at a middle distance between Mistress Stavros and Saule. The Baba Yaga witch's heart thumped painfully in her chest. Everything was happening too swiftly, too suddenly. Was this really happening? Had she really challenged the Circe Mistress to a duel?!

The demon's words replayed in her thoughts, repeating over and over in unending succession. "You will convince them, or you won't be getting your Mistress back, witch. Remember what is on the line."

Crap.

Saule gripped the razor in her pocket until it slit the soft skin of her palm. As a priestess, she always carried the razor to cut the side of her hand when her spells required blood—but if she had any hope of winning, any hope of coercing the help of the Circe coven and saving Mistress Voronin, she couldn't use priestess magic. She needed to employ much...darker magic.

Blood soaked into the pocket of her sweater. It was warm against her skin.

Mistress Stavros didn't bother to find a knife or a razor. She drew the sharp point of a manicured nail across her forearm and crimson welled from the resulting scratch. "By the way, what are you, little witchling? Not an alchemist, as you don't have any potions. Perhaps an enchantress? Do you plan to enchant me?"

Another bout of jeering chuckles and sounds of amusement. As the Mistress took her place, Saule tried to remember all the times she'd dueled with her sister Ona when they were teenagers. Of course, their duels had been products of silly sibling rivalries or tests done to examine their growing abilities. They'd never been this severe. She'd never done anything serious like this, had never been this serious.

Her wounded hand shook in its pocket.

"No answer?" Theodora dabbed her fingers in her own blood. "On your head, then."

Mia lifted a hand into the air, counted to three, then dropped her arm with a singular jerk of motion.

Saule didn't have a chance to take a breath before a burst of raw energy flung her backwards into the doors. Black spots burned in her eyes as Saule slumped to her knees in a puddle of shattered glass, jerking her hand clenched around the razor from her soiled pocket. The Baba Yaga witch was desperately outclassed by the Circe coven Mistress, but she wagered she could surprise the Mistress and win the duel.

She'd read the La Voisin grimoire from front to back. She knew the spells inside—and would utilize them to get by Theodora's defenses.

The sorceress let out a single incantation and her magic answered, knitting into a complicated net aimed at Saule's legs. The Baba Yaga witch managed to dodge, skinning her knees on the broken glass as she scrambled out of the way. One of the witnesses shouted from the sidelines, "She's not even kitchen staff material!"

"The dog's better than this one!"

Bram was barking, jaws snapping, but he remained where Saule told him to. The Mistress flicked her wrist and Saule fell to the side, avoiding a burst of energy that cracked the parquet. She was panted, trembling so intensely she wasn't sure if she could rise to her feet again—but the spell that came tripping off her tongue didn't need her to be standing.

The stolen spell Saule had mastered drew upon a skein of the void, pulling a thin slip of it out of position so it lay between the Circe Mistress and the Baba Yaga witch. Theodora's next incantation was slung forward with the speed of an unfurled whip, but it fizzled when it collided with Saule's conjured ward. The ward was paltry and dissolved when the Mistress struck it, but it did give the older woman pause. The lines about her mouth intensified as she frowned and red dripped from her fingers.

"Sikrik sko xrees!" Saule cried as her cut burned and her blood seared the split flesh. The air rippled as her energy spilled from her hand and reached for the coven Mistress. Theodora reeled despite her inability to see the spell, but her mastery alerted her to a shift in the atmosphere's essence. The void's veil rippled and slung itself toward the woman, threatening to crush her—but the Mistress managed to dodge, grunting with the effort.

Shit, Saule swore as she tried to shove herself upright. She'd lost her element of surprise.

Theodora was smiling, her eyes bright as she looked up the Baba Yaga witch. "You're not an enchantress—not an alchemist, or a priestess. Not even a sorceress. You're a necromancer."

Saule fired another incantation toward the woman and the Mistress sidestepped the distortion created in the void.

"Cease this."

Saule didn't cease. She tried again, and again—cutting her palm anew when Theodora continued to thwart her efforts. Saule was surprised the woman could sense the coming attacks before they manifested. The Circe Mistress's powerful reputation was well-earned.

"I submit."

Saule froze, breath coming in the choked gasps as she cradled her injured hand. What is she doing? Is she lying?

The coven witches gathered at the foyer arches were stunned into silence as their Mistress held up her scarred hands as she slowly strolled across the ruined parquet. "I submit, little Baba Yaga witch. You win—however, I demand something for my capitulation."

Theodora's shadow crossed Saule as the younger witch looked up at her. The Mistress extended her hand to help Saule rise to her feet.

"I will send my girls out to fight the mages," Theodora said, lowering her voice so the others couldn't hear as she tightened her hold on Saule's hand. Saule winced at the strength hidden in those smooth fingers. "But you will spend your summers here, Saule Ozlin, and I will train you."

"What?"

"I said, I will be training you, little necromancer." Theodora's smile widened as she released Saule's hand. The light coming off the chandelier glowed on her warm skin, glinting on the strands of gold woven into her long braids. "You have raw skill, the likes of which I haven't encountered in quite some time. You will spend the summer months here in Itheria. That is the condition of my submission."

Saule didn't trust the woman and could barely believe she'd thrown the duel, but her options were limited. Theodora knew she was practicing nercromancy. With a given word, the Circe Mistress could have Saule tossed from the Baba Yaga coven and branded a criminal. Besides, was this not what Saule had come for? Did she not come here to get the Mistress's help?

Saule sighed as her heart continued to race. "Okay," she replied, feeling as if she was signing away her life. "Okay."

The Circe Mistress nodded with approval, and lifted her voice to address the others. "Come, my girls," Theodora called. "We're going to war."