Born Wicked: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One by Jessica Spotswood Page A

she had time to write more?
I try again and again. I try different spells; I try until I’m exhausted and my power feels faint and far off. Tears begin to blur her words. I swipe irritably at my eyes and toss the diary onto the bed, striding to the window, the quilt falling to the floor behind me.
The gibbous moon peeks in through the daylily-dotted curtains. I look down at the statue of Athena in the garden, stark in the moonlight. Goddess of wisdom and war.
Mother didn’t trust Father to fight for us. Truth be told, she didn’t do a very good job of it herself. She left me with a diary full of cryptic warnings and a responsibility that should have been hers.
I will keep my sisters safe. Whatever happened to Mother’s friend Zara, whatever happened to Brenna Elliott, I will not let it happen to Maura and Tess. Not while I have breath left in my body.

CHAPTER 6
    I’M STANDING ON THE RAISED DAIS in the back room of Mrs. Kosmoski’s dress shop, wearing only my chemise and corset, with all of them examining me like livestock on the block.
“Too thin,” Mrs. Kosmoski says, clucking disapprovingly.
“That can be fixed,” Elena insists. “We’ll give the illusion of curves. Padding in the bust and a bustle in back?”
Mrs. Kosmoski nods. “It’ll mean more work. I’ll need to have both my seamstresses up all night.”
“Whatever you need,” Elena promises. “As long as they’re ready by next Wednesday. We can have the girls come in the morning for last-minute alterations. This tea is their equivalent of a coming-out party. They can’t go looking like this.”
Mrs. Kosmoski eyes Maura’s high-necked green sprigged muslin. “Indeed,” she agrees, her voice dry. She’s been arguing with my orders for years now, suggesting brighter colors, busier patterns, more current fashions. I’ve resolutely ignored her advice—until now, when I have no choice.
Elena’s gotten Father to loosen his purse strings; the three of us are to have new wardrobes. She declared all our old things frightfully outdated and frumpy. Tess is pleased at the thought of graduating to longer, grown-up dresses; I’m the only one who isn’t elated.
I’m too preoccupied with wondering if I might be the most powerful witch in centuries.
Elena circles around me. “What a waist, though. Twenty inches, Cate?”
I nod and she lets out a low, unladylike whistle. “Most girls would murder for that.”
Across the room, Maura glowers. Much to her chagrin, she’s never been able to cinch her corset tighter than twenty-four.
“At least I don’t need a padded arse!” she mutters, glaring at me.
Tess hides her giggles behind her hand.
Mrs. Kosmoski’s lips tighten. For someone who works with ladies’ fashions and forms all day, she’s something of a prude.
“Maura!” Elena touches one of the perfect black ringlets that frame her perfect, heart-shaped face. “Please. We do not use such unladylike words.”
Mrs. Kosmoski takes my measurements. She’s a tall woman with a head of thick, dark hair perched on a swanlike neck. Her pearl earbobs swing back and forth as she and Elena talk.
I let her poke and prod me as I watch my sisters whispering on the pink love seat. Tess is paging through a book of patterns, the dimple in her left cheek coming out as she mocks the outlandish fashions from Mexico City.
The dress shop is meant to be a feminine oasis, and perhaps that should make me feel safe here, but everything from the rosebud paper on the walls to the pink velvet love seats sets my teeth on edge. Bouquets of roses litter every available surface, perfuming the air with their sweet scent. It feels gaudy and oppressive to me, but Maura adores it. She’s like a child at the chocolatier’s, giddy with all the choices before her.
Elena encourages it. And Mrs. Kosmoski is taking Elena’s every suggestion as gospel truth, hungry to hear what the ladies are wearing on the streets of New London. Aren’t Sisters meant to forgo sins like vanity and