“Really?” he marveled. “And you didn’t know that?”
Rowan shook her head, and suddenly she thought she might cry. “It was the first I’ve heard of it. She told me that Mama Tetri came to Nag’s End to say sooth when my mother was pregnant with me. I know that my father would never allow such a thing, and yet … when she spoke the words, I believed her. I feel like I no longer understand the world. What’s happening, Jude? Do you understand what’s happening?”
Jude sighed. “I can’t say that I understand it, but I can tell you what I know.” He paused to scratch his head. “Rowan, do you know what a Greywitch is?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I know what they were. They’re all dead now, aren’t they?”
He nodded, seemingly collecting his thoughts. “Well, they’re supposed to be. Everyone thinks they are, but Mama Lune told me that she saw something that convinced her otherwise.”
“What did she see?” Rowan asked, shocked.
“She said she saw Grey magic,” he said.
“She saw magic? What does that even mean?”
“That’s what I wanted to know,” Jude said, smiling. “Mama Lune said that everyone can see magic, but that normal people like us aren’t used to looking for it. She said that if you look closely, you can see its aftereffects. She explained it’s like seeing smoke from a dying fire.”
“And you believe her?” Rowan asked, leaning toward him.
“I do,” he said.
“Then I do too,” she said, and reaching out to him, she rested her hand on his arm. Her touch seemed to startle him, unsettle him even, and so she withdrew it as quickly as she’d placed it. “But what does it mean? If there is a Greywitch in Nag’s End, what does it mean?”
Jude pulled his leg up to rest a shin on his knee. “If there is a Greywitch among us, it would explain a lot, but she said that just because she’d seen Grey magic here, doesn’t mean that the witch is here. It could have been a spell performed a great distance away that is nonetheless affecting us.”
Rowan’s mind began working furiously. Standing, she began to pace. “If there was a Greywitch among us, would we be able to tell?”
Jude frowned. “I don’t know. They are wicked souls, Rowan. Mama Lune says that if it is a Greywitch, that she wouldn’t risk coming into the village openly and being discovered, but really so little is known about their ways. They haven’t been active in any number for hundreds of years.”
Rowan walked with careful steps, trying to make sense of it all. “So this creature, then—this beast I saw last night—do you think it is the work of a Greywitch? I was of the mind that there were two separate forces at work, but after seeing what I saw last night, I just don’t know. I mean, that monster must be the thing responsible for the deaths, right?”
“I would think so,” Jude said, concentrating hard. “But if it wasn’t born of the Goddess—and let’s face it, Ro, the thing you saw last night was not—then it couldn’t very well cross the village boundary. It would be confined to the forest.”
“But …” Rowan said, stopping in front of Jude. “But a Greywitch is born of the Goddess. A Greywitch could cross the boundary.”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes growing wide. “Yes, it could.”
“Jude,” she said. “I’m frightened.”
“So am I,” he said.
Out in the woods, Tom awoke to a harsh winter light. He was cold and alone. Shivering, he pulled himself up to stand, his head spinning. The sickness was starting to bore into him. Wrapping his coat around himself, he staggered through the trees. He needed to go home. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last bathed. Days were slipping away from him. There was only Fiona, and when she wasn’t beside him, taking a breath felt like inhaling razors, and walking sent pain tearing down his spine.
He was nearly to the village barrier now. As he crossed it, the low rock wall remained the only thing between him and his parents’ inn. His head spinning, he brought his hands to his eyes, and that’s when he saw it. Blood. His hands were covered in it—stained red with it. Sticky, metallic blood.
Horrified, he stumbled back, as if to escape himself, and tripping over a rock, he landed sprawled out in the snow. Quickly, he pulled himself up, and eyes darting this way and that, he slowly backed away from the inn—from his parents, from his people.
He would return to the woods; he would find Fiona. She would help him. He didn’t know how the blood had gotten there. He didn’t know what he’d done, but he feared the worst, and there was no going home. Not anymore.
That afternoon in the village square Rowan heard what was to be done with the glassblower. The elders had put forth their case, and the duke had decided. Seamus Flint was to be executed at dawn. The hangman’s hood had yet to be worn during Rowan’s short life, and she feared the spectacle the morrow would bring.
Although she wanted justice for Fiona and Lareina, she knew that there could be no such thing. What was done could not be undone, and punishing the guilty could never fill the void the dead left behind.
She took the long path home, and as the snow fell in shimmering waves, her thoughts lingered on Goi Flint. She wondered what it was that made one man go mad but left his brethren unscathed. The elders called madness the hunger moon disease, after the third moon of winter, when food was scarce and desperation often took hold. They maintained that right living could keep any man from it, but Rowan knew that a mind once rent at the seams could unspool in the most spectacular way—and once it was fully unwound, what remained could be as disparate as diamonds and snow.
She paused at her gate and stared deep into the Black Forest. Somewhere out there was a monster, she knew. She’d seen it with her own eyes. And yet the beauty of the place continued to leave her breathless. It was such a shame the things beauty could conceal. Shaking her head, she passed through her gate and into her yard.
That was when she remembered she’d need to fix supper. It seemed to her a cruel thing that she should be tasked with feeding everyone when she was the one grieving most. Every time she set foot in the kitchen, she thought of Emily, and her heart broke anew each time.
But when she walked in that night, she found the duke chopping winter herbs, and a pot of something boiling on the stove. She tried to hide her surprise. He smiled at her, that glittering beam of white teeth, and she did her best to forget the strangeness that had occurred between them the other day.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Hello,” she said. “You’re making supper.”
“I am. I don’t see why I oughtn’t pitch in.”
“It’s very kind of you.”
“I wanted to apologize,” he said, scooping the herbs into the pot of boiling liquid. “I offended you the other night. I did not mean to. I hope we can remain friends.”
“Of course,” she said, relieved to have the tension cut between them. “I imagine I might have been snappish with you as well. I’m sorry if I overreacted.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “You were right to rebuff me. Your place is here with your people. Let’s not speak of it again.”
Smiling, she nodded, and then started into the dining room to set the table.