I continued. “After a few years, the people in charge of the orphanage noticed I had talents. When I was thirteen, I became a student at the Regia Arcanum.”
Ezo let out a low whistle. “That’s pretty young.”
I shot him a look, because nothing in my observations had given me cause to believe he’d know a thing about magic and higher learning.
“If you graduated from some fancy mage school, why do you need us at all?” Talsar asked. “You must be”—he waved his hand up and down in my direction—“capable.”
I shook my head, wringing my hands for good measure. “Even a graduate of the Regia can’t take on a coven of hags alone. My sister is the one in danger, and I’ll use my magic however I can to save her, but I’m no warrior. I need y’all.”
At least, the hags did, and I aimed to deliver.
When no one interrupted after a few seconds, I continued again. “Three years ago, in my fifth and final year at the Regia, I was apprenticed to one of the more . . . eccentric professors, Doctor Arifiz. He was one stone short of a watchtower, but I liked him, and his area of expertise was fascinating.
“See, we mortals can only learn so much in our lifetimes, but there are creatures out there with lives so long they come to know magic in ways we never can. Doctor Arifiz figured if we could just convince the right creatures, they would teach us the secrets of their power.”
A loud scraping filled the room as Ezo dragged a chair across the floor to sit in front of me. He pulled himself up into the bigfolk-sized seat and perched on the edge, leaning toward me. Ivy also looked engaged, propped on the edge of the table with her hands braced on her knees, leaning forward. Firenza was still glaring and drinking. Talsar looked bored. Goddess of knowledge, was this going to work?
“What sort of creatures?” Ezo asked.
I startled a bit. “Dragons. Unicorns. Sphinxes. Unnamed creatures of the depths and heights.”
“Hags?” Talsar drawled.
I dropped my eyes to my lap and counted two heartbeats. “Yes.”
Then I gave them my eyes again, widening them and lifting my palms. “Try to understand, my whole life I’ve had to take care of my sister. All I’ve ever done, I’ve done with an eye toward easing our struggles.”
Ha. My whole life I’d barely been able to take care of myself. If my fictional sister had been real, she would’ve starved. Once I had been accepted to the school, the orphanage kicked me out—too many bodies, too few beds. The Regia Arcanum provided no housing, and my studies had left no time for work. For five years, I’d lived by my wits and the skin of my teeth, sometimes on the street, sometimes not. The two years since graduating hadn’t been much easier. More than anything, my time at the Regia taught me how much there still was to know, and how much power was out there in the hands of kings and tyrant mages. After graduating, I was ready to take some of it for myself. I thought Professor Arafiz would help, but it turned out he wasn’t willing to take the risks necessary to get the kind of power I needed. In the end, I’d gone looking for knowledge on my own, and I’d found the hags.
I shook myself from the memories. “The long and short of it is a couple of months ago I learned that there are hags in Torwich Wood and started making preparations to go speak with them. They don’t have the worst reputation—they even help folks sometimes. I wanted to see if they would teach me some of that arcane knowledge my professor was always going on about. I tried to convince my sister to stay here, but she insisted on going with—”
I let my lip tremble and drew an unsteady breath. “They . . . were not in a charitable mood, and they took her.” Pressing my face into my hands, I let tears flow once more. The clockwork tower outside chimed the hour into the silence that followed. It was growing late.
A gentle hand touched my back, and I looked up into Ivy’s oversized eyes, her irises so dark green they were nearly black. “It’s going to be all right.”
I shook my head, hoping I wasn’t laying it on too thick. “Hags are notorious for keeping people alive. Torturing them. Experimenting on them. I knew I couldn’t get her out by myself. Rumors about y’all have been going around the city since you killed Oakenlock. When I escaped Torwich Wood without my sister—about a month ago now, maybe five weeks—I knew I had to find you. I heard you might come back to Aster to resupply and that you’d stayed at this inn before. So I took a chance and waited, and here you are.”
“How did you hear we resupply here, and who told you we stay at this inn?” Talsar asked, not one whit less suspicious than he had been before. Darn him. He was a tough nut. Fortunately, I had one more ace up my sleeve.
I shrugged. “Y’all are famous. And I swear, I don’t expect help for free. I can’t pay you much now, but Silver Maude, the hag in charge of the coven, she’s got heaps of treasure. I’ve seen it.”
Finally, finally, Talsar’s expression shifted from suspicion to interest.
“How much treasure?”
“Rooms full. Their lair is in the ruin of an ancient walled village, and at least two of the old houses are filled with gold.”
Talsar rose and looked at Ivy. “We need to talk.”
I had them. I had them, and none of them had even bothered to ask how powerful the hags were. In all likelihood, they’d faced hags before. They weren’t terribly hard to defeat for a person with as much experience as these people had.
But none of those hags, not even whole covens of normal hags, came close to the power of Silver Maude and her daughters.
Ivy followed Talsar to the corner while Firenza continued to watch me through narrowed eyes, apparently lost in thought. Ezo jumped down from the chair and came to my side. He smiled sheepishly and held out a white flower with five pointed petals. It was a little sad and wilted, and when I took it, the stem was damp. I noticed the flower arrangement on the table looked a little picked through.
“Thank you.” I gave Ezo a faux watery smile and patted his cheek. “Aren’t you just sweet as a peach?”
He stilled under my touch, staring at me with eyes as round and brown as walnuts. “I—I—uh . . . You’re welcome. Um. Have this too!” He shoved a handkerchief in my face.
The threadbare cloth was a dingy gray and covered in grease. I made myself take it anyway and dabbed at the corners of my eyes, sniffling delicately.
Ivy startled us both by clapping and throwing her arms around Talsar’s neck. He stood there for a long moment with his hands up, like he’d been trying to ward her off. Finally, he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, disengaged, and turned to me.
“We’ll go with you—” he began.
“WAIT!” Firenza stood so fast her chair toppled over backward. She clambered over the upended legs. Arms folded across her chest, she loomed like doom with wings. “If we’re going with you, I need to know one thing.”
I waited. She stood there, eyeing me for so long my heartbeat quickened, and I was sure she was about to unveil me as a fraud. When I met Ezo’s stare, he mouthed something that looked weirdly like “griffons.”
“How do you feel about . . . griffons?” Firenza intoned.
I blinked at Ezo. He widened his eyes and nodded vigorously.
“Um. They’re . . . very majestic?” I said.
“YES THEY ARE!” Firenza boomed. Grinning, she thrust her fist into the air. “LET’S GO KILL SOME HAGS!”
Talsar pinched the bridge of his nose as if he had the most terrible headache.
I pressed a hand to my chest as if the gesture could slow my racing heart. I had them. This was going to work.
“She comes,” several disembodied voices whispered in my dreams that night. “She comes. She comes.”