Mind racing, I reached into my pouch and pulled out my packet of dandelion fluff. My eyes burned because I knew this was the last spell I would ever cast. Still not watching my own hands, I mouthed the words, allowing barely a breath to escape my lips, and pressed my hand to my chest. I lingered there for a second, internalizing the soft texture of the fabric.
I met each of their eyes in turn, muscles tensed for what I was about to do. “I don’t have a sister. I never did. Run.”
Before any of them could react, I wrapped my arms around Ezo and dragged us both into the air. Even as I leaped, Talsar threw himself forward. His fingers scraped my boots as I shot for the wall surrounding the village, body parallel to the ground, with Ezo in my arms.
“What are you doing?” Ezo shouted in my ear above the noise of the wind. By some miracle, he didn’t fight me. But I couldn’t stop, couldn’t spare the thought to explain. The chains tightened further, and if I stopped, if I let the pain distract me from the spell, we would hit the ground. We had to get outside the walls. I had to get him away, then I could come back and help the others. The icy cobbles whistled by, the wall grew nearer.
Something in my right wrist gave.
I screamed. The spell sputtered out. We slammed into the ground, rolling over and over each other because I refused to let go of Ezo. Only when the cold stone of one of the crumbling buildings smashed into my back did I lose my breath and release him, and he rolled away from me.
“I warned you about your ambitions, Adeline.”
A clawed hand swooped out of nowhere, nails raking the flesh of my cheek, knocking me off my feet. Silver Maude hovered over me, smiling. She wore the glamour of a beautiful silvery elven maiden. But as I watched, the glamour flickered in and out, revealing milky eyes, snow-white skin stretched like dried leather over sharp bone, and a bald head with stringy bits of gray hair clinging to it like leeches.
“I had wondered what you would choose.” She tilted her beautiful head and smiled benevolently. The scent of flowers drifted around her, but the smells of baking had gone, so the air now tasted of lavender and decay. “Your hands and your magic, or the power arcane? What an interesting and entertaining little minion you have been.”
My face burned where she had clawed me, except where wet blood trickled down my ear and turned cold. My hands were a mass of agony. I finally found air and sucked in a great heaving gulp.
Silver Maude leaned down close, so close. “You will not die today. No, you will live on for years. Years and years to remember your friends. Am I not generous, Adeline?”
“Yes, Granny,” I forced out, my jaw locked with the pain. Beyond her, a figure straightened, nocked, drew. “Thank you so much. And you know what else? Bless your heart.”
Silver Maude let out an unearthly sound and pulled back her arm to strike me again.
Thunk.
An arrow buried itself in the hag’s shoulder. She whirled to face her attacker.
Ivy stood alone in the middle of the street, another arrow already nocked on her longbow. She released, and it flew true, thudding into the hag’s torso just above her hip. A dagger whistled from the dark space between two of the buildings, striking Granny Maude in her emaciated stomach. Then, like some god’s vengeance, Firenza roared down out of the sky, great axe raised, aiming for Granny Maude’s throat.
A normal hag might have fallen under this attack. But, as I’d had no time to tell them, they did not face a normal hag, but one of the most powerful magical beings in the known world.
Silver Maude caught Firenza’s wrist with one hand, stopping the axe and Firenza as if she’d struck a wall. Firenza grunted. The hag bent her arm back, twisting and pressing down until the gargoyle hit her knees in the snow. Her eyes went wide, the perfect circles of her copper irises showing all the way around.
With her free hand, Silver Maude plucked the arrows and dagger from her flesh, throwing them toward Ivy. Ivy dived and rolled, but the dagger caught her with a deep cut across the arm as it sailed by, blood welling scarlet and dripping onto the packed snow.
And then, like ghosts appearing from the ether, two more hags appeared on either side of Granny Maude. One tall and spider thin, one round as a shriveled pumpkin. Auntie Pearl and Auntie Posey.
“She comes,” Auntie Posey sing-songed. “She comes, she comes. Four travelers and a trinket, and we shall have the power arcane.”
With a flick of her spidery wrist, Auntie Pearl released a crackle of energy that sent Ivy’s bow flying. It clattered along the stone street and landed in a pile of bones. Another flick, and she lifted Ivy off the ground and pulled her inexorably forward. “How kind of you to bring your friends, Adeline.”
Auntie Posey cocked her head and grinned, staring right through the wall of the closest building. “I see you, my pointy-eared cockroach,” she sang in her horrible, rasping voice. She threw her hand forward, and the wall exploded.
“Talsar!” Ivy shouted, twisting and kicking. But there was nothing for her to fight.
My heart thudded. This was it. This was the part where we lost. Then a hand closed around my arm, just above my injured wrist. I looked up and found Ezo, big brown eyes more serious than I had ever seen. Serious, and disappointed. “Come on, Adi.” He hauled me to my feet.
“C-come on?”
Movement caught my eye. Firenza’s wide-eyed wonder at Granny Maude’s strength had become a grimace. She bared her teeth, and to my shock, she began to rise. On her feet once more, she glared at me over her shoulder. “It would have been nice for you to tell us the real plan before.”
“Really. Please, just hurry up and do whatever it is you have to do!” Ivy, who had just arrived nose-to-nose with Auntie Pearl, yanked her swords from their sheaths and drove both of them into the hag’s chest. Auntie Pearl screamed. The force holding Ivy released, and she dropped, landing on her feet.
Ezo tugged me forward. I stumbled after him, every movement sending shocks of agony through my hands. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
“Stupid girl couldn’t see what was in front of her nose,” Auntie Posey cackled. She wasn’t three feet away, lifting one of her claws to strike. I fell again and lifted my arms, jerking free of Ezo. My wrists were fire and pain.
A dagger blossomed from her raised hand. Talsar strode from the dust of the fallen wall, coughing, arm cocked back to let another dagger fly. This one took Auntie Posey right below her collarbone. His face radiated rage, and his glare directed it all at me. “Get up and finish this, or I will kill you before they do.”
I scrambled to my feet, refusing to look at my hands, partially afraid the chains had cut through my wrists and they were no longer there. Again, Ezo took my arm and pulled me forward. This time, we ran.
“I hope you had a really good reason for this.” His voice was so flat. No pity, no mercy, no affection. It hurt more than losing my hands. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but that would be a waste of time and air. We skidded down the icy road with our friends fighting the hags behind us, our boots slapping stone, then thudding across dead grass until finally we reached the broad, round base of the orrery. It was solid gold and two feet tall. A thick central column supported the arms that held the planets and moons. At the top of the column was a golden orb as tall as me that represented the sun. Ezo climbed the slippery platform in a few graceful movements. Any of the three bigfolk could have just stepped right onto it.