“Then let’s do it faster,” Alun said. “Miss Small, straight to that stand of trees. Quickly now.”
Rose picked up the pace and Alun and Bryn jogged right behind her, holding the unspooling wire. They were just at the line of trees when Bryn grunted as if he’d hit a brick wall.
Rose looked back.
“That’s as far,” Bryn said, already in a sweat, “that the bond will stretch between Cadoc and me. Go on.”
“But—”
“We go on,” Alun said.
Rose could tell by how he was walking that he too was in pain. But if the Madders were willing to spread the distance and the pain between them, then she was inclined to do her part too.
The forest opened into a clearing. Mr. Hunt had said the stones that held the children were just beyond.
She realized Alun was no longer following her and glanced back at him. He stood, copper wire clenched in his hands, feet spread as if bearing a heavy weight or pain.
“Go on. Should be beyond the trees,” he said.
Rose nodded. She continued through the trees.
The farther she walked away from Alun, the more her legs, her back, and arms began to hurt. It was a slow-growing pain, but it was a real pain. And each step she took away from the town where the Madders were bound—where she was bound too now that their blood and oaths had mingled—caused that pain to sharpen.
Just on the other side of the trees was a stone hill. A small opening in the hill was clearly visible, but it was only large enough for someone her size or smaller to slip through. She didn’t know how Wil had crawled in there. Certainly, the burly Madders would not be able to clamber through that crack.
“I see the rocks,” Rose called. “I see the opening.”
“That must be it. Do you see children?”
“Not yet.” Rose walked closer to the cave, every step like needles beneath her feet.
“Can you see them?”
“Wait.” Rose ducked and turned sideways and slipped into the small opening. She didn’t go any farther, catching her breath against the pain that was crawling down arms and legs, and clenching at her chest, and waiting for her eyes and the darkness to make amends.
“Rose?” Alun’s voice was muffled by the layers of stone, but plenty clear enough for her to hear him. “Do you see the children?”
She did. But she could not find her voice to answer him.
The small entryway opened into a wide, high-ceilinged cavern just below. And the floor of that cavern was covered by children, all of them old enough to be walking, but none of them over ten or eleven years of age. They lay one to the next, like carefully placed tiles in a great mosaic. At least a hundred children. All of them unmoving. All of them made of stone.
Chapter Thirty-four
Cedar pushed onto his feet. “Mae!” This time his voice carried. This time she heard him.
But it was too late.
Vosbrough’s matic soldier fired its weapon. Liquid flame roared out of its gun, melting snow and cracking rocks.
Mae threw herself to the side, yelled one final word of her spell, and grabbed up her gun.
Before Cedar could take so much as a step, snow began to fall.
Thick as a blizzard, the world was erased, swallowed whole. It was snowing so hard that even if there were a wind to break it, there would be no end to the white. It was as if the entire sky of clouds had fallen whole cloth to smother everything on the ground.
A gunshot cracked and echoed. Mae’s gun.
Mayor Vosbrough laughed. “Good, Mrs. Lindson. You are as strong as they say. Calling winter and binding it. A difficult spell. Very difficult. I could use a witch like you on my side. Don’t think of it as a service. I will pay you handsomely, beginning with sparing your life.”
Mae didn’t answer. Smart. Her voice would only give Vosbrough a target to fire at.
Another arc of fire blasted through the snow, setting the air glowing deep red and orange, as if Cedar stood in the stirred ashes and flame of a frozen bonfire.
He knew Mae wasn’t far away. Took another step toward her.
A figure appeared out of the snow in front of him.
But it was not Mae.
It was not Wil.
It was the Strange he had seen so many times before. The Strange he had followed. It did not have Florence’s pink ribbon. But it pointed at where Wil was lying on the ice. The snow moved aside for that gesture, like a curtain pulled by cord.
“I can save,” the Strange said with the reedy song of water through grass, “him. I can save”—the Strange pointed the other direction, and Cedar knew it meant Mae—“your own.”
“Then save them,” Cedar said.
“You must.” The Strange was made of windblown snow, though there was no wind. It swirled, losing eyes and mouth and shape, and then re-forming again. “Agree. Free my kind as I free yours.”
“I don’t save Strange.” Even numb, freezing, hurting, Cedar felt the heat of the beast in his blood. Wanting to kill this Strange. Wanting to destroy.
“Your… bro-ther,” it said, as if the word were awkward for it to speak, “is dying.”
Cedar knew it was right. Wil’s side had barely lifted with breath, and the binding between them and Father Kyne was sapping his strength. As it was, Cedar could barely think straight, and shook uncontrollably from the cold.
“I can save your bro-ther,” the Strange whispered. “I can save your own. If you free my kind. From the light.”
It lifted a hand and grasped at the falling snow, impossibly dragging it aside again so that the air was clear of it. Farther downriver stood Mayor Vosbrough, hands raised, chanting.
A spell. He was spell casting. But only witches could cast spells.
That’s when the truth of it hit him. Vosbrough was a witch. He knew it was true. And Vosbrough was using glim, cold copper, and the Strange to power that monstrous matic. The light pouring from the orb in the center of its chest burned bright even through the snow. In that light he could see a Strange. It was in pain. Trapped. Tortured.
The Strange waved its hand, and all the air around Cedar was solid white again. “Free. Free my own.”
“Yes,” Cedar said. “I will free your own. Save my brother.”
The Strange bowed gracefully. “Oath.”
“Oath.”
Snow parted like water around stone. The Strange walked on weightless tiptoe over to where Wil lay. It bent, placed its hand over Wil’s eyes, and then the Strange was gone, dissolved into a chalky mist that Wil inhaled.
“No!” Horror crawled through Cedar’s mind. What had he just done to his brother? What was the price of this bargain?
Cedar staggered to Wil.
Wil opened his eyes, and exhaled.
Then his wolf form stretched, molded, changed. Fur was replaced by skin, muzzle by lips, paws by hands.
And it was Wil, lying naked on the ice. He turned his head, looked up at Cedar, confused. “Did we find the Holder?” he asked.
Cedar shook his head. “Wil, the Strange. You breathed it in. It’s in you.”
Wil’s eyes went wide, then he sat up smoothly, as if the ice and snow and wind had no effect on him. As if he were not in pain. “In me? I don’t feel any different.”
And then everything about Wil changed. His face went blank, and a light burned copper behind his eyes. “This. Oath,” a voice that was not Wil’s said through his mouth.
“No,” Cedar said. “I take back my oath. I break it. Get the hell out of my brother.”
“Oath,” the Strange said with Wil’s lips.
Wil stood in a graceful, liquid motion, then he took two steps and dove into the water.
“Wil!” Cedar grabbed for him. Wil was gone, disappeared beneath the inky black water.
The entire exchange had taken no more than a few seconds. He could dive in after him.
It would be his death.