Ivy pulled away from him and looked around in confusion. She took in the corpses, touched her torso where her wounds had been. “Talsar, was that—?”
“Shh.” He ran a trembling hand over her cheek, smoothing away blood-stuck strands of auburn hair.
Her lips parted, her expression one of profound sadness. “No. It was yours! Your mother—”
“Ivy, for the love of all the gods, stop.” Then, with a look in his eyes that filled me with dawning horror, he kissed her full on the lips.
Goddess of knowledge. I had been wrong. About so many things.
Very, very wrong.
Realizing you’re the villain and actually having the guts to change your path are two very different things. I was good at realizations, but bad at letting go of my fears. I could stop my quest for power, but if I did, I might become that helpless little girl again. That future was a boogeyman in my head, one I caught glimpses of out of the corner of my mind’s eye while I stared straight ahead and pretended everything was okay.
Talsar cradled Ivy in front of him on his horse while I sat alone on hers, which had been tied behind Firenza’s huge black warhorse. Even with Ivy weak and recovering, we made quick time to Cottleden.
The small town sat at the edge of Torwich Wood on top of a broad, shallow swamp. In the summer, everything in this region was alive with wildflowers, giving the stooped buildings with their grass roofs a quaint, whimsical feel. In winter, however, the houses looked dank, the swamp’s small mud islands were a uniform gray, and a dark crust of ice covered the water.
The inn—only slightly larger than the homes—wasn’t nearly as nice as the place in Aster, but it did have dry beds. I didn’t want to sleep. I knew what my dreams would hold. But I could not stop it, and again, I pushed through the finger-bone curtain.
“I won’t bring them to you,” I told the hags. “They don’t have your artifact. You’ve sent me after the wrong people. Leave them be.”
Silver Maude didn’t even look up from her clacking bones. “The deal is made.”
“We did not forge the chains,” Auntie Pearl added. “You did.”
“Well I’ll unforge them, then! You don’t get your four lives and a trinket, and I don’t get the power arcane. No one wins; we walk away.”
I reached for my wrists to rip off the golden bracelets, but when I touched them, the chains thickened, twisting tighter and tighter until my hands turned blue. “Stop!” I cried. Without my hands, there were almost no spells I could work. Magic would be stripped from me utterly. I would lose everything.
The chains tightened further, until my skin bled and the bones of my wrists ground together. “No!”
“The deal is made,” Maude repeated.
I tried to draw a spell in the air, but the chains held me tight. They started to glow a hot, wicked red, and the stench of burning flesh filled the air. I cried out and fell to my knees.
“The deal is made,” Maude said a third time. “Bring us the adventurers and the artifact, or your magic is forfeit. Then you will truly see what it means to be helpless.”
“Adi?”
I shot awake, fingers already moving, and loosed a bolt of fire. Ezo and Talsar dodged, but the spell winged Firenza’s shoulder.
“OW!” she bellowed, taking one step back into the hall.
“Shh!” Talsar hissed. “Ivy just fell asleep.”
“Ow,” Firenza whispered.
I stared at her, heart still racing a mile a minute. That spell could knock down most grown men, and she took one step back and acted like it was a mosquito bite.
“What are y’all doing in my room?” I crumpled the blanket in my hands. My wrists were sore, and beneath my sleeves, I knew I would find bruises that matched the links in the golden chains.
“It’s just us.” Ezo entered and leaped lightly onto my cot, where he put a hand on my knee. It had been a while since he looked at me like a puppy dog, and I found I liked the straightforward warmth of his brown eyes better. “We were still up next door. You screamed.”
Every time I blinked, I saw Granny Maude’s face. I pressed a hand to my forehead, then slapped it back into my lap before the loose sleeve of my nightdress could fall. “Oh.” I laughed lightly, trying to regain my composure. “I’m sorry. It was just . . . just a nightmare.”
Talsar stalked in and started examining the perimeter like there might be hobgoblins hiding in the corners. “Hags can get into dreams. Do they suspect we’re coming?”
“No!” The word was too loud, its edges too sharp. I softened it. “No.”
Firenza stayed at the door, arms folded across her chest. She frowned down the hall at some unseen person. “Go away! Our friend is fine!”
Whoever it was, they must have scurried, because her face relaxed and she resumed her stance.
Our friend is fine. Friend.
I swallowed.
Ezo patted my hand, forcing me to look at him again. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He was so sweet, so sincere. I did want to talk about it. I wanted to tell them everything.
The chains, I realized, were just barely too tight. I flexed my fingers to keep the blood moving and gave Ezo my best smile. “That is so kind of you, honey, but I’m all right.”
“Was it about your sister?”
Everyone turned to the door, where Firenza had made space for Ivy to lean against the frame.
“You should be in bed,” Talsar snapped.
“I probably should,” said Ivy.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t do that.”
Ivy was all wide-eyed innocence. “What? Agree with you?”
His look was heated. “Agree with me and then do whatever you want.”
They stared at each other in stubborn silence.
“For the love of the entire pantheon, we’re at an inn. Get a room!” Ezo barked.
The tips of Ivy’s pointed ears turned pink, and Talsar leveled Ezo with a glare so malevolent I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had keeled over dead.
But when Talsar marched over to Ivy and took her by the shoulders, even I could see how gentle he was. “You have to sleep,” he said gruffly.
She protested, but her words were quiet and didn’t sound at all convincing as he marched her away.
I twisted the blanket between my fingers. “You know, when I first met y’all, I thought those two couldn’t stand each other. Well. I thought he couldn’t stand her.”
Firenza burst into laughter and actually slapped her knee. “He can’t! But he also loves her.” She knuckled tears of laughter from her eyes. “It’s been great to watch. She’s the reason he’s stuck around so long.”
“Oh, I think we’re growing on him,” Ezo muttered.
Firenza looked thoughtful. “That might be true! You haven’t tried to sell any of his body parts in at least a year.”
I closed my eyes, unable to bear the feeling of comfort the now familiar banter raised inside me. “Thanks for your concern, but would you mind? I’d really like to go back to sleep.”
“Sure.” Ezo paused, then patted my hand again. “Tomorrow we need to talk about a plan of attack. But for tonight, you just let us know if you need us. Sugar pie.” He winked.
I laughed, an unexpected burst that ripped itself from my chest. But the amusement was immediately followed, even more strongly, by the desire to cry. I turned away from him, pressing my face into my pillow. “Night, y’all.”
They said good night and closed the door, leaving me alone with a heart that had been pierced by something sharp. Or several somethings sharp. These people, they were good. I wanted to save them—I really did.