Free Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski

thought. I threw myself on my hands and knees so I could look over the side of the bed. “Are you all right?” I said, but it was clear the girl was anything but. She was curled into a ball on the floor, her head completely bare except for a fizzing black splatter that covered most of her brown scalp. It was a burn — a deep, black burn. The water had branded it into her skin where it hit her. More burns, black and dry as charcoal, snaked down the girl’s once-flawless neck and arms. Clouds of steam sizzled out from her skin, and her blackened toes bent inward, petrified in pain.
    “I’m sorry!” I whispered to the poor corpse below me. “I didn’t mean to — I didn’t want — Look, I’m sorry!”
    In response, the corpse whimpered and hugged her cracking arms. “That really hurt,” the girl croaked. She sat up and sulked down at her broiled arms. “Oh, look what you did. Now I’ll have to change.”
    Which is exactly what she did. With a whoosh , the black flames rekindled on her skull. The girl winced as the burns gradually disappeared from her body, and the wet spots on her ivory dress slowly faded away. In a few more seconds the girl had completely transformed. She now looked exactly the way she had looked before.
    “Amir didn’t tell you I’m an ifritah,” the girl said sadly, as if that explained what I had done to her.
    I didn’t know the word, so I shook my head.
    “You really don’t know where he is, do you?”
    I shook my head once more, jaw slack. The girl floated up from the floorboards and landed beside me on the mattress. This time I tried not to flinch away from her as she came near.
    “Who are you?” the girl said to me at last.
    “Baltasar,” I answered, and I offered her a timid handshake.
    She didn’t take it. Distress or something like it was wrinkling her brow, and tears were forming in the corners of her eyes, singeing the skin near the bridge of her nose.
    The girl reached out hesitantly and touched my cheek with one of her thin hands. “You can’t be Baltasar. It’s a joke. Tell me it’s a joke.”
    Feeling uncomfortable, I turned my face away from the girl’s hand. “Here,” I said. “Look, I can prove it.” I bent over the side of the bed so I could pick up the scroll from the floor. I unrolled it between us on the bedspread. “It’s from the Malleus Maleficarum. It should have my name on it somewhere.”
    The girl dragged a ringed finger across the parchment as she read to herself in a whisper. “Warrant for the arrest of Baltasar Infante, son of Amir al-Katib, the Moor. Should be treated as an enemy of the Spanish crown.” The girl looked up at me with those huge violet eyes. “What is this? When was this written?”
    “There’s probably a date on it somewhere. Here — the thirtieth of July, the year of our Lord fourteen-hundred and ninety-two —”
    The girl, stiff and unblinking, shook her head. “No. Read it again.”
    Not sure of what she’d do if I refused, I reread, very carefully, “Warrant for the arrest of —”
    “No, the year! The year! Tell me the year!”
    “1492?” I said, shocked that I bothered to repeat it.
    “No.” The girl’s body quaked in terror or rage. “No, it can’t be!” The girl grabbed the top of my tunic and yanked me roughly toward her. “If you really are Baltasar, you must know where Amir is! Where is he? Tell me! Where is your father?”
    I tried to back away, but the girl’s hold on my shirt was too strong. “I already told you. I have no idea where he is!”
    “And I already told you to stop lying!”
    “I’m not!”
    “Yes, you are! You’re a liar! So just stop it, Baltasar! Bal —! Amir . . .”
    Though the girl’s words were fierce, I heard pain twinging in every syllable. It was a pain I knew all too well. This girl, this little demon — she was just as alone as I was.
    “He left me,” the girl said. She let go of my tunic and slumped against the attic wall. Silent tears burned