Cover

The Witch Hunt

Sasha Peyton Smith

New York Times Bestselling author of The Witch Haven

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Title Page

Dedication

For Charles. I’m so lucky to love you.

Epigraph

If you have ever gone to the woods with me,

I must love you very much.

—Mary Oliver

PARIS, 1913

The Seine was full of life. The teenagers who danced along her banks basked in the twilight of their own wild youths, the purple of the sun dancing along their unbruised skin.

White-teeth smiles and a bottle passed between them felt like promises to never grow up. High up on the hill, the Sacre Cœur loomed over the city, benevolent as a proud mother.

But beneath the cobblestones that had long ago been washed of blood sat a man.

He was sitting, as he had most of the nights of his life, in front of a doorway. This guarding was a formality. He and his brothers knew the stories well; the door had not budged in nearly one hundred years.

Somewhere, across a great dark ocean, a girl slept, dreamless and unaware of all she had awakened.

Deep underground in a passage made of bones, something that was once dead began to stir, and a lock on a door, once sealed shut, clicked open.

CHAPTER ONE

New York, June 1913

Nineteen sets of eyes are looking at me.

I should be used to it by now, the strange reverence in their gazes, but I don’t think it’s something that will ever feel normal.

I turn to face the blackboard instead. The piece of chalk in my hand snaps as I go to write the spell. I’ve pressed too hard again.

In and out, Frances, just breathe.

It’s funny to think now, just how deeply I hated the Emotional Control classes I was forced to take my first year at Haxahaven Academy, how I resented Mrs. Li. She’s become a trusted colleague, the deep breathing exercises have become a habit, and I have grown steadier right along with them. There’s a joke in there, probably. Something about growing up.

I do feel it sometimes, growing up as the days pass, like a flower tilting almost imperceptibly toward the warmth of the sun. At least I do in the moments where it doesn’t feel like I’m pretending.