Maybe he should try talking to it . . .
Don’t you have sisters? he asked experimentally, inside his head.
I hate my sisters, said a voice.
Somehow Pip wasn’t surprised that the Heart had answered. It was as if he’d already known that it would.
Well, I don’t hate mine, said Pip. She’s all I got. So you be nice, all right? Or I really will throw you in the river. You caused me enough trouble.
The Heart went so cold that it stung him, but Pip set his teeth and ignored it.
I mean it, he said. About the river.
The Heart didn’t answer this time. It just kept getting colder and colder. And then Pip thought he saw a tiny quiver of green light at the edge of his sight. Something like the thing Oni had described, in their own apartment: the bad magic that had swallowed up the assassin.
So that was the Heart’s game, was it?
All of a sudden Pip was sick of everything. El was right: the Heart had been a terrible misfortune. They were hunted and homeless, and everyone who helped them was suffering too. Oni couldn’t go back to her home, and Amina had been arrested. Who knew what would happen next?
Go on, swallow us all up, said Pip bitterly. See if I care. Then the Specters will get hold of you and that will be the end of all of us. But especially of you . . .
The green flicker disappeared.
All right then, said Pip.
The Heart said nothing. But very slowly, so slowly that at first Pip didn’t feel any difference, it began to warm up.
MISSUS ORPHINT WAS A TALL, BESPECTACLED WOMAN with iron-gray hair and very white skin, as if she never went out in the sun. She looked down at the three young people who stood on her doorstep with an air of mild bewilderment.
“Oni Bemare!” she said. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry to just turn up, Missus Orphint. Can we come inside?”
“Of course, my dear. Of course.” Missus Orphint held open the door and they filed into a tiny corridor barely wide enough for one person. They followed her into a kitchen that was surprisingly cool. A black cat, stretched out on the flagstones, opened one green eye and regarded them suspiciously.
“Sit down, all of you,” said Missus Orphint, waving vaguely toward the table. She studied them over her spectacles. “You look thirsty. Not at all surprising in this weather. I have some nice mint tea, which I’m sure you’ll agree is very refreshing. And then perhaps you can tell me why you’re here.”
They watched in silence as she poured out a pale green drink from a tall glass jug and placed three mugs before them. El, who had been struggling for the past hour, wheezed loudly in the silence.
“I think we should do something about your breathing, child,” said Missus Orphint.
“That’s El,” said Oni, remembering her manners. “And this is Pip. El’s got short breath.”
“Then we had better make it longer, yes?” Missus Orphint looked at El for permission and then felt her pulse and her back. “Yes, it’s definitely asthma. Most unpleasant. I suffer a little myself, in the season of roses.”
“I think . . . Missus Pledge . . . called it that . . .” said El, between gasps.
“You knew Missus Pledge? An excellent woman. Wait here — I shall return.”
She drifted out of the kitchen, and Pip and Oni exchanged glances. “Are you going to tell her about Amina?” he said.
“We have to deal with El first.”
“I’m not . . . something . . . you deal with . . .” said El sulkily. “It’s not like . . . I can help it.”
“Don’t try to talk, El, until you feel better,” said Pip.
They sat in silence. Missus Orphint’s kitchen was nothing like the large, orderly room that belonged to Amina. It wasn’t a little room, but it seemed small because it was cluttered with all sorts of objects. The more Pip looked, the more he saw. There was cookware and crockery, of course, but every available wall space was covered with shelves. There was a row of straw dolls, a curiously carved nutcracker, a number of animals made of blown glass in different colors . . .
Missus Orphint returned with a vial of clear liquid. “Drink this,” she said. “It tastes a little nasty, but it will help. Luckily I had some.” She waited until El had followed her instructions, and then, as Oni had done earlier, she placed her hands on El’s chest. The wheezing stopped almost at once, and some color returned to El’s face. Pip had never seen El respond so quickly, even when Missus Pledge had still been alive, and he looked at Missus Orphint with respect. She must definitely be a witch.
“There,” said Missus Orphint, settling herself at the table. “Now, we’re all comfortable, yes?” She smiled at them myopically. “I am pretty sure I know why you’re here, so we needn’t discuss that just now. But am I right in thinking there are further developments?”
“They took Ma,” said Oni. “They came to her place looking for us, and they took her. And now we got nowhere to go.”
Missus Orphint pushed her spectacles up her nose. “Oh dear,” she said.
“Amina had made plans,” said Pip. “But she didn’t get to tell us what they were.”
“The first thing is not to panic. Missus Bemare is a very capable woman, and I’m sure they will be forced to let her go.”
“But the Office for Witchcraft Extermination never lets people go,” said Oni. She blinked back tears. “People go into their dungeons and you never hear from them again. Everyone knows that.”
“That’s true, my dear, but the Office hasn’t arrested a single real witch for more than a hundred years, except by mistake.” Missus Orphint pushed her spectacles up her nose. “They’ve arrested people they thought were witches, of course. Usually unfortunate
