The Once and Future Witches

by Alix E. Harrow

If he peeled back her pretty skin he’d find nothing soft or sweet at all, just busted glass and ashes and the desperate, animal will to stay alive.

Beatrice is very familiar with despair. It’s followed her since St. Hale’s, trailing like a loyal black dog behind her, nipping sometimes at her heels. Now she greets it calmly, almost gladly, like a childhood friend.

She doesn’t think any man has ever brought her hot pies, ever thought of her body as a thing to be taken care of rather than merely taken.

“Perhaps she wouldn’t.” It comes out a near-whisper. “But she might still fail.” “And yet you will try anyway.”