I try to sleep, but end up staring at the sky above, watching the stars twinkle through my shadows for far longer than usual.
Suddenly I sit straight up in my bedroll.
I’d swear I just heard the sound of horses braying and horseshoes clattering over rocks. It comes again, unmistakable this time. Something cold wraps around my shoulders and slithers down my back. Even though we’re hidden in the shadow tent, I gather more shadows and cloak myself in them.
One can never be too careful.
The hoofbeats are getting closer, and there is little chance I will sleep now. I must know if it is the hunters. If it is the hunters, we need to be prepared. I swallow the biting fear, and sneak out of the tent, careful not to wake Lucas. It’s better if I do this alone. Less risk of being caught.
With my shadows coiled around me, I make my way toward the top of the quarry, warily listening for any snippets of conversations to reach my ears. When I arrive at the top step, I slip into a nook beside it and peek over the edge.
There are horses aplenty and guards too—each garbed in the telltale green cloak of Lady Aisling’s men. They appear to be setting up camp. It is close, but we should still be safe all the way at the bottom of the quarry. I hope so, because we have no choice but to wait until they’re gone. My heart thumps so loud I fear it will give me away. A word or two reaches my ears, but nothing interesting until I hear “talent taker” between a couple of the guards brushing down their horses for the night.
“Only thing I’ve ever seen that seemed to trouble the Lady,” the first guard says. “But who knows if the rumors are true?”
A talent taker. Someone who can make magic go away, if I remember correctly from what I read in Alsa’s history book. I can see why their existence might terrify Lady Aisling. I confess, I find it a little scary myself.
“I doubt it. I bet we’re here on a fool’s errand, while the Lady is off hunting the girl and boy we’ve been tracking. That man was desperate. He would have said anything to save his skin. I’ve never heard of such a thing.” The second guard ducks as his horse’s tail swishes near his face.
“Still, we can’t leave any stone unturned, or it will be our heads on the line instead of the talent taker’s.”
The second guard grunts as they finish up their task. They’re hunting a talent taker. It sounds like Lady Aisling wants to get rid of them. Or perhaps that’s the ruse she uses to cover her true purpose? The power to remove magic would be a mighty one indeed. But if Lady Aisling is already gobbling up all the power she can get her hands on, what use would that particular talent be to her?
Puzzled, I poke my head up again once they’re gone and search for any other clues. The camp is largely settled now: tents pitched, horses rubbed down, and fires lit. The darkness is held at bay by the firelight, but it would lend more shadows for me to hide between if I felt brave enough to get closer to one of the campfires…
Before I can finish that thought, a flash of white weaving through the camp stops me cold.
Simone.
The strange, unsettling girl I met months ago wanders erratically between the tents, humming to herself. I duck and scramble back down into the quarry.
Under no circumstances can she see me.
She’s a mind reader and can sense me even through my shadows. The only stroke of luck is she has no reason to suspect we’re here. I move silently down the large steps, keeping to nooks when I can. Anything to remain out of her view. I pray she does not glance into the quarry.
But even if she did, would she bring the hunters running? Or would she let us be? She does not hunt by choice, and when I last saw her it was clear she did what she did only when she was under Lady Aisling’s control. My thoughts circle and scatter as I reach the bottom and run to our shadow tent. It is around a corner, keeping it out of her line of sight. I settle into my bedroll once again. I’m terrified to stay here, but even more scared to risk escape. There is only one way out: through the side of the quarry where the hunters made camp.
Lucas sleeps blissfully unaware. I won’t wake him unless danger approaches.
I lay back, heart in my throat, wishing in vain for sleep to take me until the sun rises again.
Chapter Eleven
The sun wakes Lucas before I do. He yawns and stretches, and I kneel next to him with a finger to my lips, causing the smile on his face to falter.
“Emmeline, what—”
“Shh,” I whisper. “There is a camp of hunters on the ridge.”
Lucas’s skin pales.
“They arrived after you fell asleep. They haven’t noticed us, but we’ll need to wait until they’re gone to leave the tent safely.”
“Anything good for breakfast?” He tilts his head hopefully at our bags.
“Some bread and apples, mostly.” I hand one of the bags to him. He retrieves an apple and begins polishing it on his shirt.
“I suppose we shouldn’t use our talents until they’re gone either.” He looks wistfully at the bread.
“That would be safest.” My talent may hide us, but his would give us away.
He leaves the bread in the bag and sticks with the apple. “What do you think they’re doing here?”
I shiver, once again remembering Simone. “They’re hunting for someone with a talent. I snuck up to the edge of the quarry to spy on them while you were sleeping.”
“What kind of talent? Do you know?”
“A couple of the guards said something about a talent taker. It sounded like Lady Aisling is frightened by the possibility of that talent and wants to get rid of them.”
Lucas sits up straighter as he finishes his apple. “A talent taker? I’ve never heard of that one.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s the same thing the guards said. One of them thought they’d been sent on a fool’s errand, but the other seemed to believe there was truth to it. I found a reference to one in Alsa’s history book too. I’m not keen on running into someone with a talent like that.”
“Me neither. I’d hate to lose my magic. It’s who I am, you know what I mean?”
“Exactly. I don’t know who I’d be without it.” It was the reason I ran away from home in the first place, though that feels so long ago now.
“And I don’t want to find out,” Lucas adds.
I stand up to check on the hunters’ progress packing up camp. Some of them ready their horses, and coils of smoke curl up from fires recently extinguished. But for the time being, the hunters remain seated right atop our only escape route.
“Simone is here too,” I say quietly. I’ve told Lucas and his family the entire story of my flight from my parents’ mansion, everything from Dar to Simone to Lady Aisling. And he knows about my encounter with her in the woods the night I made Dar flesh again. He understands exactly what that means.
“Did she see you?” he asks, nervously picking at the apple core.
“No. I saw her wandering through the camp, and I came right back here. If she had seen me, I think the hunters would have captured us by now.”
“What do you think she’s doing with them?”
I shrug, toying with a thread on the edge of my sleeve. “Probably something similar to what she did with Lord Tate—uncovering talented children. With her power, she’s uniquely qualified to do it. She knows what people are hiding.”
Lucas shivers. “That’s creepy.”
“And exactly why we need to stay far away from her.”
Shouts ring out over the quarry, causing my heart to leap into my throat. But one look confirms that they are beginning to leave. Finally.
“What was that?” Lucas asks.
“They’re about to leave. We should be able to go soon.”
We pack up our things, and I disperse all my shadows except the ones making up the tent to keep us hidden from prying eyes. Then we wait.
&nb
sp; After what feels like forever, the last of the hunters leave. I’ve seen no hint of Simone since this morning but neither have I risked getting closer to take a real look. From where we hide it seems all is well and clear.
I let my shadows go with a soft word of thanks for protecting us. We take our time trekking to the top of the quarry, in no rush to catch up to the hunters if they happen to be headed in the same direction we are. The sun rises higher, and Lucas comes alive too. He has more energy now and takes the lead, though he’s still not as chatty as he was before his parents were captured. I can tell he never stops worrying about them for more than a few minutes. I wonder if my own parents have been worried about me since I left them so many months ago.
We approach the ridge, remaining quiet just in case. I conceal Lucas in a nook with my shadows while I poke my head over the top. I don’t see anyone in the clearing or waiting between the sparse trees. Just the smoking remains of campfires.
Despite that, I can’t help feeling like eyes are fixed on me. A presence hidden just out of sight.
But I’m just being overly cautious. It has been a strange and dangerous few days.
“It’s all right,” I whisper to Lucas, and he leaves the safety of my shadows. Together we step out into the open at the top of the quarry.
That feeling of exposure needles into me again, but I push it down. The hunters appear to have gone north, and according to the little map, our next destination is to the east, which is a relief. We move quickly, eager to put as much distance between us and them as possible.
But we haven’t gone far when that feeling of being watched gets worse. This time it’s accompanied by a rustling. Lucas and I don’t say a word for fear of being heard. Up ahead is one of the few older trees, and we duck behind it. We remain there, hearts pounding in our chests, hands squeezed together behind the tree for a full five minutes. No other sounds present themselves.
Lucas lets out a small laugh.
“Probably just a squirrel,” he says.
“Probably,” I agree.
Finally, when our pulses have returned to normal, we move out from behind the tree.
But we don’t get far.
A burst of giggling shoots fear up and down my spine. With a knot in my stomach I wheel around.
“I know you.”
Simone stands about twenty feet away near a small pony. Her gauzy, yellowed dress is caked with dirt on the bottom from all the travel, and her eyes have a wilder expression than usual: the toll of Lady Aisling controlling one’s mind.
She twirls toward us, singing her constant refrain of “I know you” interspersed with wild laughter. She seems more unhinged than ever.
“Simone,” I say. “We’re going to leave here, and you will not follow us.” Beside me, Lucas hums, readying his lightcraft to defend ourselves. My shadows are already coiling around my fingertips.
“I know you,” she says one last time, then stops a few feet away. “And so does she.”
My shadow bands sweep her up and pin her to a tree like shackles, then tether her pony to the tree too. She struggles for a moment, and then begins to laugh again.
Lucas sends his light next, crafting it into a brilliant wall that circles the tree she’s shadow-shackled to. It’s blinding enough that she won’t be able to see us leave through it. Unfortunately, she now has an idea as to the direction we are heading.
But all she does is laugh in that unnerving manner. We can’t get away from her fast enough.
I motion to Lucas to follow me to the south. We can travel that way for a bit, then circle around to the village we wish to visit. If they follow us, hopefully they will have already passed by the time we arrive.
“You weren’t lying,” Lucas says, once we’re out of earshot. “She is the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I pity her more than anything. She doesn’t hunt voluntarily. It’s all Lady Aisling. The last time we met, she warned me of it just before the Lady took over.”
“But how does Lady Aisling do it?” Lucas frowns.
“I think it has something to do with what Dar told me about how her magic-eating power sometimes goes wrong, and the subjects become empty shells instead of flowers as she intended. I never really thought about what happened to them after that, but she must use them in other ways. Like Simone.”
“You mean there’s more out there like her?” Lucas shudders. “Well, you’re right about one thing. That girl feels empty. Like there’s no light in her at all. No spark. Just nothing.”
We walk quickly and quietly, doing our best to leave Simone and our unsettling thoughts far behind us.
Chapter Twelve
We reach the next village by midmorning. It’s a sleepy place, surrounded by tall willow trees with long drooping branches that shelter the town. The houses are all made of the same white stone from the quarry where we stayed last night, with red-thatched roofs and round windows. After finding the local grocer to restock on food supplies, we wander the streets, looking for the street name and number noted on the network’s deed.
It’s a quiet morning, dotted by birdsong and the occasional chatter of villagers passing by. The shadows here are soft and simple and reach out to me as we walk. But I cannot stop and play with them today. I am so engrossed in the search it takes a moment before I realize something is not right.
Every one of the people we pass gives us a wary glance and moves to the other side of the street. I nudge Lucas.
“Have you noticed that people are avoiding us?”
He shrugs. “Maybe they don’t like strangers.”
I bite my lip but resist the urge to throw up my shadows to hide. “I suppose you must be right.”
But despite Lucas’s reassurances, I cannot shake the feeling of angry eyes following me everywhere I go. The strange looks soon combine with hushed whispers. My skin itches, and all I want to do is vanish.
Then, without warning, an elderly woman with a flower cart rushes over, yelling and waving her arms.
“How dare you show your face here again!” I shrink back as she points her finger at my nose. “You’re not welcome here, girly.”
I am too shocked to speak. Luckily, Lucas jumps in.
“What do you mean ‘again’? We’ve never been here before.”
The woman narrows her dark eyes. “I don’t know who you are, my boy, but this girl was here just a couple days ago. Running through town like the devil was on her tail, wailing something awful about the comet that passed by a few days ago.” The woman straightens up and crosses her arms over her chest. “She knocked over my cart and ruined a whole day’s worth of deliveries.” She makes a sweeping gesture to the buildings behind her. “Ask anyone here. Everyone saw her raising a ruckus.”
“That’s impossible,” Lucas says. “We’ve been traveling from the coast. Yesterday we were deep in the forest and made camp near the quarry last night. It wasn’t Emmeline.”
My heart sinks. “But I do know who it was. Her name is Dar. She’s a shape shifter. She likes to take my form.”
The old woman considers this. “Well, I suppose that explains how she managed to sprout horns and gave the magistrate a fright when he tried to have her thrown out of town. But how do we know you’re not the shape shifter?”
I swallow hard. We have been careful not to let on about our talents, but with the people gathering around us and the weight of their pulsing rage, I don’t think I have a choice.
“Because I have a talent already, and it’s not shape shifting, it’s shadow weaving.”
Lucas, though surprised by my admission, doesn’t miss a beat. “And no one can have more than one talent.”
The woman harrumphs. “Prove it, and we’ll let you pass unhindered.”
Lucas gives me an encouraging nudge, and I take a deep breath. Then I command the old woman’s shadow to twist and wiggle
. The woman next to her gasps, and the old lady finally notices. She barks a laugh and breaks into a smile.
“Point taken, my dears. You may pass through. But be quick about your business.”
Relief bubbles through me as the villagers disperse, but the woman’s warning to be quick resonates. We should not linger here for long. Especially now that they know my talent. It is only a matter of time until Lady Aisling is on our trail once again. We pick up the pace.
“What do you think Dar is up to, coming here?” Lucas asks, frowning thoughtfully.
“It can’t be a coincidence she’s following the same route we are.”
“But how would she know where to go? It doesn’t make sense.”
I toy with a shadow from the nearby trees, wondering the same thing. Then suddenly I groan. “She was in my bag. She may have glimpsed the list or seen the deeds.” My stomach tightens. “I hope she doesn’t scare anyone else off before we can get to them.”
“Whatever she’s up to, we do know one thing,” Lucas says.
“What?”
“That it isn’t anything good.”
I shiver. He’s right, and that concerns me more than I want to admit.
Soon we find the right street and stand in front of the stone and red-thatched roof house that should hold the family with a talented child near our age.
We knock on the front door, but no one answers.
“Perhaps they’re not home?” Lucas suggests, but something feels wrong. I step back onto the walkway and examine the house. The windows are dirty, and weeds crowd the small garden running alongside the outside. And the roof—there’s a dark spot with singed edges I can’t see fully, but I’m willing to bet it’s a hole.
My stomach drops into my feet. We’re too late. Again.
“Lucas, I don’t think they’re here. Not anymore.”
He frowns. “Let’s find out.” He tries the doorknob, and the door creaks open without resistance. We exchange a wary look and step inside. The dim light reveals a small kitchen with a round table surrounded by three empty chairs. A black bowl rests in the center of the table, and upon closer inspection reveals it’s actually burned and full of charred fruit. Without a doubt, the talented person who lived here was a fire breather.
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