‘My Uncle Alf used to say we were two sides of the same coin. She’s dark, like a glimmering night sky, a foggy forest, a mist-shrouded mountain. I’m light, made from river water and sun-drenched fields. But without the darkness, I could never shine, and without my shine, Alice could never find her way.

‘The village we lived in was full of the superstitious old grumps that Alice despised, and they despised her in return. They called her a witch and spread all sorts of rumours about her. Rumours that developed into tales, and tales that became a part of our folklore. Years from now, they’ll still be whispering about the witch in the woods, blaming their misfortunes, their illnesses, their bad luck on her.

‘She stopped coming down to see me in the village when we were still small, so we could only see each other when I wasn’t working and could walk up to her cabin. Still, we saw each other three or four times a week. I couldn’t imagine, I never could imagine, that I’d be able to survive any longer than that without her. Being apart from her now, not knowing if she is all right, if she is healthy, if she is even alive … it kills me. It has been killing me, slowly eating away at my heart.’

‘You’d know.’

‘What?’ Lily had been speaking every word that entered her head and hadn’t really been paying much attention to her own words.

‘You’d know. If she were dead, I mean. Bonds as close as yours, as close as mine and Grace’s, we’d know. We’d sense it. We’d feel a part of our heart as it was ripped away. I promise you, she’s alive.’

‘You’re right, I hope. It’s just a strange thought that … two or three days from now, we will see them again. I’ll get to meet Grace…’ She couldn’t decide if she was excited or terrified to meet the famous, incomparable Grace.

‘I really hope they’re spending time together, drawing strength from companionship, as we are.’

They both sealed their bags closed, every document, map, and book they could possibly need piled up inside, along with the bottles of potions that Lily had made the night before and other essentials.

They were ready. All that was left now was safeguarding the lighthouse and making sure the children knew exactly what was expected of them.

Tomorrow, their rescue mission would begin.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Alice Blackwell was growing stronger. Hours and hours of physical training followed relentless mental training and she had no choice but to keep up or suffer the consequences. She’d start the day with three solid hours of combat, which would roll into another brutal ‘training’ session with the other witches, a process that was closer to emotional torture than actual training.

Time crawled by. Hours felt like days, and days felt like weeks. Soon, Alice had no idea what day it was, nor could she guess what kind of moon shone outside in the night sky. How she missed the languorous days in her cabin; the predictable flow of each day, the fire in the grate, the books on the shelf, the birdcalls outside the window. She missed Lily, too. She missed how her friend couldn’t visit without bringing a freshly picked posy of wildflowers. She missed running about with her through the forests until they were so warm they would dive into the cool brook that sidled by her home. She smiled as she recalled all the time they’d spent splashing around in the crystalline water. She missed planning to bake all sorts of wild fruit pies, and then eating all of the wild fruit between them before the pie crust was even made.