And then she must be more than half-asleep, because the sea has vanished, and Julia Flammarion is walking through the Wood on a sunny autumn day, late afternoon, only an hour or so left until dusk, and the fallen leaves crunch beneath her shoes as she follows Wampee Creek towards the small waterfall and the crystal-clear pool that fills a wide sinkhole. When she was younger, she swam there on very hot days, swimming naked beneath the pines and wax myrtles, the air all around filled with the joyous, raucous calls of birds and frogs and insects. She stops beside a familiar tree, wondering if it's all been nothing more than a daydream, her stealing the money and running off to Pensacola, the men and the movies and the drunk old woman whose husband left her because he was gay, nothing but something she wished that she had the courage to do. Julia laughs and leans against the tree, laughing that her imagination could ever get away from her like that, laughing because she's relieved and feels silly and because it's good to laugh here in the fading October sun and the long, familiar shadows. She sits down and wipes her eyes, and that's when Julia notices the albino girl walking towards her up the creek, the legs of her baggy overalls rolled past the knees.
Somewhere nearby, a crow calls out hoarsely, and the girl looks up. Julia can see that her eyes are pink, and her hair as fine and pale as cornsilk. The girl, who can't be more than five or six years old, is holding a fat bullfrog in one hand. She sees Julia, too, and she smiles and begins splashing through the creek towards her.
"Look, Momma," the girl says, holding up the bullfrog. "Have you ever in all your life seen one this big?"
Look, Momma…
And Julia knows perfectly damn well that the albino girl's only mistaken her for someone else, and in a few seconds more, when she comes closer, the child will realize her mistake. But then the girl stops, the creek flowing about her bare legs, and the bullfrog slips from her fingers and swims quickly away.
"Momma?" the girl asks, looking down at her empty hand and then back up at Julia.
I'm sorry child, Julia starts to tell her, but I ain't your momma. I ain't nobody's momma, but then the girl turns and begins splashing away down the creek towards the sinkhole. Julia stands up, ashamed that she's frightened the kid, even if she's not sure why. She starts to call out to the albino girl, wants to tell her to be careful because the rocks are slick and it's not far to the falls and-
– there's only the caressing sea again, pressing in on every inch of her, the half-lit sea filling her, drowning her because she's asked it to, the agreeable, indifferent sea washing her away-a handful of mud, a pinch of salt, blood and a bit of sand, but there's nothing of her that won't dissolve or disperse. Only a passing moment's sadness that the autumn day by Wampee Creek was merely some smidgen of delirium coughed out by her dying mind, her life's last cruel trick, when it's only her and the sea and-
No. Her and the sea and just one other thing, whatever it was came slithering up out of the wheel of light before her dream of Shrove Wood and the albino girl. The thing that isn't a shark or a barracuda, that it isn't anything that belongs here. Nothing she can see, but Julia feels it, like tendrils of scalding water twining themselves tightly about her legs, forcing her back up towards the surface. And then its inside her, burning, prying her body and soul apart to find some slender crevice in between.
A pillar of fire dragging her to life again.
A child with white rabbit eyes.
And still and always, the world buzzes on like angry bees. Let it come and go, appear and vanish, for what have we to lose?
Blood and thunder, fire and a mad woman with a knife.
Have you ever in all your life seen one this big?
The briefest flicker of blue-white light, a searchlight beacon hiding itself in her womb, where no one will ever think to look.
The body of woman is like a flash of lightning…
There are arms around Julia, then, the strong arms of a man hauling her up and out of the angry, cheated sea, the man's voice shouting for help, the voices of other men and the slosh of salt-water breaking against their bodies and the hull of a boat painted yellow as sunflowers and canary birds. And before Julia Flammarion blacks out, she sees the boat's name printed boldly across its bow-Gulf Angel.
XIII. The Weaver's Retreat
The Glaistig, Queen of Immolations, stands with Kypre Alundshaw on the barbican overlooking the gates of Kearvan Weal. She led the alchemist here from the outer courtyards, despite the protests of her architects and engineers, who argued that the earthquakes might have weakened the tower. But it looked sound enough to her, and from the barbican she can see between and beyond the steep walls of Wailer's Gash and out onto the plains beyond. She has borrowed one of the astronomer's telescopes, and with it the Glaistig can clearly make out a cloud of ash-grey dust heading into the rising sun. Both the Nesmians' horses, though only one of the red witches would be returning to their far-away protectorate on the river Yärin.
"Have you found her, your Grace?" Alundshaw asks, and the Glaistig nods and passes the long brass telescope to him.
And then Kypre Alundshaw can see her, too, the dust-haze trail marking Pikabo Kenzia's progress across the barren hublands. He wishes that he knew one of the heathen prayers, so that he might offer it up for her safe return home. She left the Weal without the body of her companion, which has now been bound in a gravling's winding-sheet and will be buried in the catacombs below the keep.
"She kept her word, Alundshaw," the Glaistig says, the hot wind through the Gash rearranging her reddish-blonde hair and the folds of her long gown. "With luck, she'll reach the Dog's Bridge before nightfall."
The alchemist lowers the telescope and rubs at his eye. "With luck," he says, "the Weaver's army will have all gone before her and the path will be clear."
"Would that she might have at least accepted an escort," the Glaistig sighs, almost whispering now. "They've bought us precious time, Alundshaw."
The alchemist places the looking-glass to his eye again, and it only takes him a moment to find her this time. He watches and contemplates sacrifice and the time that has or hasn't been bought by the death of the woman named Ezcha.