Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [47]
All eyes were upon Jenna as Marissa delivered the unwilling addition to the party. As they reached the table—which had two empty chairs—Marissa tightened her grip on Jenna, afraid that her prize might elude her at the last minute. This was her first test set by the Coven and she knew she’d done well. Both the Silent and the FootLock Spells had worked, but Marissa knew from past experience how elusive Princesses could be and she wasn’t taking any chances.
Marissa pushed Jenna down into one of the vacant seats and took her place beside her. Jenna did not react. She stared at the table in front of her, at first because she was determined not to catch a witch’s gaze and then because of a horrified fascination with what the witches were actually eating. It was, she thought, worse than Aunt Zelda’s offerings—and that was saying something. At least Aunt Zelda made an effort to cook whatever weird ingredients she used until they were reasonably unrecognizable, but the bowls of squirming salted earwigs and a large dish of skinned mice covered with a lumpy, pale sauce made no effort at disguise. Jenna felt sick. She switched her gaze to the tablecloth, which was covered in Darke symbols and old gravy.
Linda—the boss-with-the-stare from the jewelry stall—pushed her chair back with a teeth-on-edge scrape and got to her feet. Slowly and menacingly she made her way around the table toward Jenna. Linda loomed close and Jenna could smell the musty damp of the witch’s robes mixed with a stale, heavy smell of dead roses. Suddenly, as if to land a slap, Linda’s arm shot out and, despite herself, Jenna flinched. But Linda’s open palm traveled to a spot just above Jenna’s head and snatched something out of the air.
Linda drew down her closed fist and held it in front of Jenna. She muttered a few words to reverse the UnSeen and snapped open her fingers. Lying in the witch’s palm was the tiny shimmering bird that Jenna had—so long ago, it seemed—refused to pick up from the stall.
“There, little birdie,” Linda crooned. “You have done well. You have Brought the Princess. You may have your reward.” From inside her robes, she pulled out the tiny cage that hung around her neck, took it off and swung the cage and its prisoner in front of the terrified bird lying in her hand. “Here is your little friend. Take a look.”
Both birds looked at each other. Neither made a move or a sound.
Taking everyone by surprise, Linda suddenly threw the bird in her hand into the air. At the same time, she hurled the tiny cage to the floor. She raised her foot to stamp on the cage, but the Witch Mother shouted out, “Linda! Stop that right now!”
Linda’s foot stopped in midair.
“You made a bargain, you keep it,” said the Witch Mother.
“It’s only a poxy bird,” said Linda, her foot hovering above the cage.
The Witch Mother hauled herself to her feet. “You renege on a Darke bargain at your peril. Remember that. Sometimes, Linda, I think you forget the Rules. It is not good for a witch to forget the Rules. Is it, Linda?” She leaned across the table, eyeballing the witch. “Is . . . it?” the Witch Mother repeated menacingly.
Linda slowly lowered her foot away from the tiny cage. “No, Witch Mother,” she said sulkily.
Daphne, the dumpy witch who looked, Jenna thought, as if she had been sewn into a sack that someone had left some rotten rubbish in, got up quietly. She tiptoed up behind Linda and picked up the cage.
“You’re horrible,” Daphne bravely told Linda. “Just because you stamp on my giant woodworm all the time doesn’t mean you can go stamping on everything.” Daphne’s fat, mouse-stained fingers fumbled with the cage door and managed to open it. The trapped bird fell out onto the table next to a neat pile of mouse bones—which the Witch Mother was using to pick her teeth—and lay there, stunned.
Jenna watched with horror, all the while desperately trying to make a plan but unable to think of anything. She saw the hovering bird—the one that had brought her to Doom Dump—fly down to its companion and nudge it gently. The stunned bird fluttered its wings, shook its feathers