I watched Jenny jotting down what I’d said in her notebook. But suddenly she stopped writing and looked up at me.

“Do you trust Grimalkin?” she asked.

I nodded. “It’s wise always to keep in mind that she’s a witch assassin and has her own agenda. But she’s been a good ally in the past, and we have a common cause in dealing with the threat of the Kobalos. So yes, I do.”

“We may have a common cause, but where the Kobalos are concerned she seems fanatical. Have you seen the expression in her eyes when she talks of them?”

I nodded, feeding the fire with fresh wood to keep the cold at bay. “Grimalkin has crossed blades with them already. She even spent time in their city, Valkarky. She’s seen firsthand how they keep women as slaves. A witch like her, a woman of power, feels a sense of duty toward those who suffer like that. They may not be witches, but she looks upon them as oppressed sisters. She’s sworn to free them and overthrow the Kobalos.”

“I can understand that,” Jenny replied, “and I can’t fault her for it. If I had her power, I would try to do the same. But I don’t like that fanatical gleam. People like that are capable of anything to achieve their goals. They use people. If necessary, they sacrifice them.”

I didn’t reply. I’d already had some experience of that. Although she’d loved me, my own mam had been prepared to use me in any way that she deemed necessary to destroy the Fiend. I found some of what had happened hard to contemplate now. At the time, when she’d demanded certain things of me, such as the sacrifice of Alice, I’d been upset. Looking back now, I was appalled by what I’d been asked to do—and hated myself more for having even considered it. So I understood exactly what Jenny was warning me about.

My apprentice glanced at me warily. She must have read the expression on my face and realized that her words had troubled me. So she changed the subject.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you taught me about witches rather than boggarts?” she asked. “I mean, we’re traveling with a witch. It might be useful to know about County witch clans.”

Jenny had questioned me about this already, and for a moment I was irritated. “My master always gave lessons on boggarts in the first year and witches in the second,” I explained. “I suppose I’ve just gone along with his routine. I remember thinking the same way as you.”

I remembered it only too well: in the first weeks of my apprenticeship I’d faced great danger from two powerful Pendle witches—Bony Lizzie and Mother Malkin—and wished I’d been studying witches, not boggarts.

Suddenly I decided to break with the past. I had to find my own ways of doing things.

“All right, we’ll do things differently. Boggarts can wait until next year. Tomorrow I’ll start teaching you about witches.”