Page 48 of A Time of Witches

Lilith: It’s unfair how right you always are.

Essie: I’d say it’s a blessing and a curse, but it’s really just a blessing.

Lilith: Lucky for me you share that blessing with me.

Essie: Can I remind you of that in the future?

Lilith: You’re going to anyway.

Essie replied back with a grinning emoji face and a red heart emoji. Good luck!

Lilith needed all the luck she could get.

Heat pulsed beneath her birthmark, causing her to flinch in surprise. This time, the certainty of the sensation echoed in the twist in her gut.

Whatever waited in Moyes’s Hall, she knew it was something she needed to see.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lilith

Bury St. Edmunds blurred past as Lilith rushed up Abbeygate Street toward Moyse’s Hall. Even in her haste, she couldn’t help but notice the abundance of Tudor era homes leaning on their centuries-old frames with the telltale second floor jutting above the first. All far older than what she was used to in Savannah.

And yet, the medieval grid street tugged at her with the same eerie familiarity as the land around Brackenmere Manor.

She passed quaint shops and restaurants as people wove around with shopping bags and strollers.

Suddenly, a surge of dread slammed into her. Her breath came short and fast, her head spinning with the same sensation she’d experienced at Brackenmere Manor.

She did not want to faint again. Not here.

Desperate to stay upright, she pressed her palms to the gritty bricks, grounding herself.

Her heart rate slowed. Breathing came easier.

Please let this be jet lag. Or dehydration. Or something normal.

Still recovering, she pushed forward on shaky legs. But even as she continued the upward climb of Abbeygate’s sloping street, ice threaded through her veins.

Fear.

Horror.

Death.

A little girl skipped by with a bear dangling from her fingertips and two women passed, laughing.

Clearly, Lilith was alone in her terror while the rest of the world moved on, oblivious. She turned right onto Skinner Street and the awful sensations abated.

Pausing to recover fully, she tilted her face toward the sun, letting its warmth and strength wash over her. Tension bled from her body and whatever gripped her finally let go completely.

What had she been walking toward that affected her so deeply?

No sooner had she asked herself the question than a vision flashed in her mind’s eye. A prison, crumbling with age, murky with darkness, the air wet and dank, the fetid odor of people crammed into cages meant for a fraction of the number of prisoners.

The thought was visceral, more like a memory than something imagined.

If she had continued up Abbeygate Street, she would have come to that prison.