Chapter 1
Rough bark scratched Briar’s legs as she climbed the maple tree next to the finest house in Sparrow Village. Her paint satchel swung against her hip, the jars inside jingling faintly. She tried not to look down. The ground was too far away already.
Afternoon shadows advanced from the woods behind the property, swallowing up the stable and creeping toward the whitewashed house. Briar held her breath as she climbed past the expensive glass windows. The house’s inhabitants, servants included, should still be away at the summer fair. Hopefully, the place was empty—and would stay empty until Briar finished the job.
She edged along a stubby branch jutting toward the second floor of the house. The limb creaked, and the leafy canopy rustled threateningly. Trying to ignore the sounds, Briar wrapped her legs around the end of the branch, opened a jar of brown-ochre paint, and selected a long-handled brush from the bundle in her satchel. Then she braced herself against the clay-shingled roof and began the painstaking work of painting a curse.
Stroke by stroke, the image of a fine house with a peaked roof took shape. The oil paint glistened as it spread from the horsehair brush, brown ochre standing out against the whitewashed boards. The familiar smell of linseed oil soothed Briar’s nerves, and she relaxed into her task. She’d practiced the complex design on canvas to prevent mistakes. Each brushstroke required precision and a steady hand, though that got harder the longer she balanced precariously between earth and sky.
She hadn’t planned on climbing any trees for the job. She’d spotted a ladder when she’d scouted the place a few days ago and had designed the curse for a shadowy spot beneath the eaves. If she painted it too close to the ground, the gardeners would notice and wipe away the paint before the jinx took effect. More importantly, they would know who was responsible. Briar had already given the local authorities too many reasons to distrust her. Unfortunately, the ladder had been missing when she’d arrived to carry out the job, and the maple tree leaning aggressively toward the house had been her only alternative.
As Briar painted, knots jabbed her thighs through her green wool skirt, and twigs poked into her thick hair. She clutched the clay shingles, trying to ignore the dizzying drop below. Painting curses took concentration. This one wasn’t nearly as dangerous as some she knew, but she couldn’t afford any errors.
She finished the shape of the house and used blue smalt to add windows, their placement roughly the same as the windows on the real house. Cursing objects was always simpler than cursing people. To affect a human, Briar had to paint an item of clothing they wore often or touch a cursed canvas or stone to their skin long enough for the spell to stick. Getting caught was all too easy, but many curses could be painted right onto inanimate targets—assuming she could reach them without breaking her neck.
This particular curse wouldn’t hurt anyone, and it was the most interesting piece of magic Briar had executed in months, her perilous position making it all the more stimulating. Her blood heated in her veins, and her fingers tingled with magic, with the sizzling rush of creation. It was going to be a good one. She could feel it.
The local blacksmith had doubted her abilities when he’d hired her for the job. Her clients rarely believed she could live up to her reputation at the sight of her paint-smudged hands and humble clothes.
“I’ve heard downright perplexing things about you and your … profession, but you look awful young,” the blacksmith had said at their furtive meeting in his smithy the week before. “Can you really help?”
“Possibly.” Briar pushed her dark, frizzy hair out of her eyes, poised to flee at any hint that it was a setup. It wouldn’t be the first. “I hear you want to curse Master Winton.”
“Aye, the merchant. Five weeks I spent on a bleedin’ suit of armor at his bidding, and he refused to pay fair wage. Claimed it wasn’t ornate enough. I have young’uns to feed.”
“Have you gone to the sheriff?”
“That loiter-sack?” The blacksmith spit in the dirt beside his anvil. “He and Winton are close personal friends.”
Briar took a horsehair paintbrush out of her satchel and twirled it between her fingers, the bristles tickling her damp palm. “Where is the armor now?”
“On display in Lord Barden’s manor.” The blacksmith eyed the paintbrush nervously. “Winton claimed it wasn’t worth the price then gave it to his lordship himself as a bleedin’ present. Now I’m out the coin and the steel.”
“And you want revenge?”
The blacksmith glanced at the summer-bright path outside his smithy and lowered his voice. “It’s not just for me, you see. I have daughters. I want to show them we don’t take abuse from rich bastards what think they can get away with it.”
Briar noted the blacksmith’s frayed trousers, the patches on his boots. A wreath of wildflowers hung on the smithy door, the petals wilting in the heat. She imagined the little girls collecting the blooms and clumsily tying them together to brighten their father’s workplace. The blacksmith’s daughters would have less to eat that winter because of Winton’s greed. Briar liked jobs that brought a little justice for ordinary folks—or at least payback.
She tucked her paintbrush behind her ear and stuck out a hand. “I’m in. Tell me about Master Winton’s house.”
The blacksmith had described the property situated on a spacious lot at the edge of Mere Woods—two stories tall, expensive clay shingles, clear glass windows. And no ladders, apparently.
Perching in the maple tree was becoming less comfortable by the minute. Briar switched from blue smalt to malachite green and began adding vines to the image. She would twine them around the painted house as thick as ivy and add colorful flowers at key points along their lengths. The curse would make the pitch sealing the house against moisture slowly disintegrate. By the coldest months of winter, the roof would leak, and wind would howl through the cracks. She would make Master Winton pay, though he would never know his ill fortune was a result of his cheating ways.
Briar was proud of the curse’s subtlety, but the intricate vines were taking too long. She should have prepared an easier design. Her arms ached from bracing herself against the roof, and the distance between the tree and the wall seemed to grow with each stroke. She began to sweat, the paintbrush slipping in her grasp.
As she paused to open a jar of yellow ochre, she detected movement out of the corner of her eye and froze. Someone was there.
No. Not now. She held her breath, struggling against a powerful urge to run. She couldn’t be caught, but she couldn’t leave the curse as it was either. Without the final stroke, the little image beneath the eaves would be no more than a pretty picture.
She peered through the thick maple leaves, hardly daring to blink. The grassy expanse between the house and the woods was deserted except for the creeping afternoon shadows. Yet she felt someone watching her.
A horse snorted inside the stable, and magpies chattered in the trees, but she detected no movement, no other sound.
Telling herself she was jumping at shadows, Briar resumed her work. The jars rattled in her satchel as she switched between yellow ochre and vermilion, adding flowers to the vines. Curse painting required a strict stroke order, and she couldn’t rush the process, but her brush kept slipping as she juggled two colors and her awkward position. She put the paintbrush in her teeth and clenched her legs tighter around the branch so she could grip the vermilion jar with both hands. The lid was stuck. Knots dug deeper into her thighs as she teetered on the stubby tree branch.