Free The Witch's Betrayal by Cassandra Rose Clarke

 
     
    When I stepped out of the shadows, the scent of night-blooming flowers overwhelmed me . I wasn't expecting a garden, not this far into the desert, and the sight of it put me on edge. Everything about this commission suggested it was simple, routine -- but these flowers spoke of magic.
     
    I did not want to deal with magic tonight. I wasn't supposed to deal with magic tonight.
     
    I threaded through the garden, coasting on the backs of shadows, the metallic taste of the tracking spell lingering in my throat. The house loomed up ahead, wrapped in heavy ropes of jasmine. It was a simple house, white clay glowing in the moonlight, and it had been simple to track the target here. Simple, as I said. Routine.
     
    The windows were dark, no candles or magic-cast lanterns illuminating the night. Good : the thick shadows made my magic easier. I dissolved into darkness, sliding away from the garden and the scent of flowers and the cold night air. The darkness was a different sort of cold -- death-cold, a friend at the Order always said, and I knew what he meant, because of the way the shadows curl into your nose and mouth and lungs, as if to drown you. But I didn't mind. That drowning cold meant I was hidden. Protected. It meant I could watch unseen from the places people did not look.
     
    I passed through the walls of the house.
     
    I pulled myself out of the darkness.
     
    Something was wrong.
     
    I stopped, half-in, half-out. The air was charged, crackling with residual magic. Through the haze I saw that the garden was not confined to the outside of the house . Shrubs emerged out of the slats in the floorboards, vines grew along the walls, palm fronds hung from the ceiling beams. Every plant was heavy with blossoms, and I could make out the scent of them, heady and unnatural.
     
    Too much magic in too short a time. No one ever intended these plants to grow here, but the magic transformed the house so completely that they did anyway . They were a side-effect, a dangerous one.
     
    Fallout , we called it in the Order.
     
    By instinct, I sank back into the shadows and emerged a safe distance from the house, in the dry desert sands. The house and its garden rippled in the night wind. I took a deep breath, steadying myself. The fallout hadn't begun to affect me, not in that short a time, but no human could stay in that house for long without transforming with the magic. Fallout’s nature was such that it could never be control led. Not even by someone like me.
     
    I retreated into Kajjil, the Order's secret space between worlds, and cast the tracking spell again. I found my target immediately: he was in the house, still alive and still human.
     
    This wasn't right. If he was in the house, the magic would have subsumed him. If the magic had subsumed him, I would not have been able to track him with my spell.
     
    I cast it again and received the same results. Frustrated, I stepped out of Kajjil and stood in the wind and tried to decide what to do next. My first thought was that this was someone from the Order, a rival, hoping to ruin my commission – that sort of thing happens frequently enough that it was worth the consideration. But the magic in the house was not ack'mora. More likely, the target had received word that was I coming and had escaped -- although I didn't know how he could have heard, or what magic might have confused my tracking spell.
     
    The wind picked up, blowing from the direction of the house and bringing with it the scent of the garden, the scent of living magic. I couldn't leave, not with my commission incomplete. When I am given a target, they must be eradicated. I have no say in the matter. Ever since I was a little boy taken away from his mother, my act ions have belonged to the Order, and I’ve learned , over the years, to accept it.
     
    But if I wanted any hope of finding this target, I would need something, some clue, as to how he had evade d me.
     
    I traveled through the shadows. When I