This was what the bear was trying to escape.
This was the voice—the many voices—of the single leaf that Jay had left him.
“Don’t do that,” Shadow growled. He leaped above the bear and headed directly to Carver, bowling him off his feet, where his back cracked the sheen of ice over snow as he fell. The cloak protected him from the cold; it did not manage to protect itself from the cat’s claws.
Carver rose, cursing the cat in two different languages. He retained his grip on the leaf; the leaf, which seemed so delicate, had not been damaged by Shadow’s fall. “What are you doing?” he demanded. He put the leaf back between chest and shirt, glaring at the cat, who immediately launched into another furious tirade about Night and Jay and stupid that was endless.
“She gave it to you. To you.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You don’t understand, you stupid, stupid boy! She gave it to you.”
Carver did understand this.
“Why? Why? Why are you so important?”
Carver had heard a variant of this ever since the cats had first joined the den—but something was different. He approached Shadow and knelt across the broken ice, sliding in place while the cat snorted.
“Why is this important? Where does this leaf come from? It’s not the same as the leaves in the rest of the forest.”
“Of course not.”
“Why is this leaf special?”
“Why did she leave this one with you?” the cat countered.
“The bear—the bear says that we—we can use this to get home. She couldn’t take me with her when we met the first time.”
Shadow stared at him, unblinking.
“This is what she left me. Maybe she knew—”
Shadow snorted. “She is too stupid to know.”
“She is,” Ellerson said, clearing his throat, “seer-born. Perhaps she understood on some level—”
“She understands nothing. If she understood what it was, she would never have made this leaf. Never. She is Sen. She knows what she needs even if she refuses to accept it. Or to think at all. But she left it with you.”
“Perhaps,” Ellerson said, because Carver suddenly couldn’t, “she made this leaf for Master Carver.”
Shadow’s growl was lower, longer. He turned to the domicis. “She did not. If it were not what it is, he couldn’t even plant it. But he can. Maybe Night is less stupid than I thought. A little less.”
“Night sent you here somehow.”
“She sent me here,” Shadow said. He stared at Carver. “She told me to search.”
“She didn’t tell you to search for me.”
Shadow said nothing.
“How can you be here?”
“The tangle.”
“Can you get back to Jay?”
“Yessssss.” Shadow glanced over his shoulder, shifting a wing out of the way. “But maybe not yet.”
“Shadow?”
The bear said, “The demon has finished injuring himself against the Wild Hunt. He’ll be coming this way.”
“You are stupid,” Shadow said to Carver as his wings unfolded. “You cannot lose what she has given you. Do you understand? And he is stupid, if he thinks you can.”
“Which he?”
“That one,” Shadow replied, as the moon went out.
• • •
The wind began to howl. Branches lost snow, trees lost branches; Carver and Ellerson scrabbled for footing and found it because they wore boots that had been crafted by people long dead. Only the bear seemed untouched; his fur didn’t ruffle at all. He growled.
“Not yet!” Shadow yowled. He pushed himself into the air, where he hovered a moment in front of the bear. “You are not completely useless when you are awake. Take them and go.”
“Go?”
“This is not safe for you—for any of you. But you,” he said, to Carver, “do not plant that leaf. She will survive—but none of the rest of you will. None.” He pushed himself off the ground, becoming a darkness of wings against the night sky.
“We can’t leave,” Carver told the bear, as the bear turned and began to move. “He wouldn’t even close with that demon when we were at home! He can’t fight him alone!”
“And what will you do? Die? Clearly, he doesn’t want that. I don’t know why. You will have to tell me about your Lord when we have time. He must be unusual.”
“She is.”
The Tangle
Jewel understood family. She understood kin.
To her Oma, both required blood. It was blood that defined family, defined kinship. It was blood and responsibility. You owed your mother, your father, and your Oma your obedience and your love. They owed you. It was a chain—a happy chain—that bound people together. If it weren’t for blood ties, her Oma implied, the world would be ugly, selfish chaos.
Jewel had—only once—pointed out that her mother and father didn’t share blood. They’d come together, from two entirely different families. If they could do it, if they could become family, why couldn’t anyone?
Her Oma had not been happy. Jewel was the bond that cemented two strangers. In her, the blood of both ran. It was how family was created and continued.
Jewel had no children of her own. The family into which she’d been born was gone. But she had family. She had kin. Did they fight? Yes. But her mother and father had argued. Her Oma had shouted at everyone. Everyone.
Would it be quieter without the cats? Yes.
Would it be quieter without the den? Yes.
But she could have quiet in the grave.
Family, for Jewel, was something that both gave strength and demanded it. It was like an unspoken vow. It could hurt—how it could hurt—but it could soothe. It was the soil in which she was planted. It was how she knew she could stand.
And Night was, like her den, kin. Family.
“Night!”
The Hidden Wilderness
Carver didn’t see the moment two shadows became one. The bear did, with the back of his head.
“He’s gone.”
Carver knew. He knew—he had heard, contained in Shadow’s terrifying, guttural roar, a familiar refrain: Stupid Night!
“Did he take the demon with him?”
“What do you think?”
“Thinking’s not my strong suit.”
The bear didn’t stop, didn’t pause; he seemed to be able to run forever. Ellerson surprised Carver; he kept pace with the bear. Carver, however, struggled, which would have been humiliating if he’d had the energy for it. He didn’t.
“Master Carver.”
“I’m fine—I’m fine.”
“Let me take your pack.”
Carver shook his head. “Pack weighs nothing,” he said. It was true.
He knew what the weight was.
Jay had left the leaf for him. It was a deliberate choice on her part. But it was a deliberation born of pain, of guilt, of desperation. The den didn’t question Jay. Not often. She was home, she was whatever rough safety life could offer. She could see. They’d trusted her sight for so long, it took effort to doubt it. It took no effort to examine it—they’d all done that, gathered around the kitchen table, first too small and then too large. But to doubt it?
Shadow did.
Shadow had.
The Tangle
The storm stilled. Sand fell away from air, pooling as if it were liquid in the bright, harsh clarity of sun.
In the heart of what had been storm was a great black cat—wings high, of course. He leaped as Shadow almost landed on him, and the two passed each other in the air, claws—and fangs—extended.
“That is not what I meant, Shadow!” Jewel shouted.
Shadow—like his brothers—had perfected the art of selective deafness.
“I mean it! Night, cut that out. We have to find your brother!”
Night roared. His voice was deeper, louder, fuller, than Jewel had ever heard it. She should have found it disturbing. Maybe later, she
would. But the cat was appreciably cat now; the storm had passed.
“He started it!”
“She told me to!”
“You are certain you want to keep them?” Calliastra asked, but she was staring at Night, her eyes rounder, her mouth half-open in what, on a less jaded face, might be wonder.
“I was,” Jewel replied.
“Then you must hurry, Terafin. I admit that I did not think you could call him back. Do you know where Snow is?”
Jewel turned to Kallandras.
The bard shook his head. “I have not heard his voice for some time.”
And that silence was far worse than the roaring of a desert storm.
• • •
Hectore sat on the rock; Jarven stood on it.
“What do you see?” the Terafin merchant asked.
“Rock. Trees. The passage of a trickle of water too meager to be called a river. You?”
“I see the rock.”
“And the rest?”
“I see only rock. It extends in all directions for as far as the eye—my eye—can see. I wish to explore it.”
“I will not stop you,” Hectore replied. “But I do not think it wise. Given Andrei’s reaction to the tangle—as he has called it—I think you might well be lost.”
“He believes it,” Jarven replied.
“And you?”
“I believe that he believes it.” His smile was sharp, slender, but it lit his face like sunlight. Or flame. “Where did you find him?”
“Jarven.”
“I do not seek to poach. I am curious.”
“I found him when I was a much younger man. I was working the caravan route to the south. He was injured.”
“Was he as you see him now?”
“As I see him? Yes.”
“Ah. And as I see him?”
“I will not play these games with you,” Hectore replied. “I do not wish to answer these questions.”
Jarven’s shrug was entirely his own: fluid, dismissive. “Do you fear to lose him, now?”
“Of course I do. I would appreciate if you also declined to play games.”
“Is this his home?”
“You must ask him yourself if you wish an answer.”
“He will not answer me.”
“Then that is answer enough. He is kin, Jarven. He is family to me. I will not surrender him to anything without a fight.”
The rock upon which Hectore was sitting began to tremble.
“Interesting,” Jarven said.
That was not the word that came to Hectore. He rose.
Jarven’s hand fell to his shoulder. “I am willing to explore,” he said. “But I understand the possible consequences, and they do not trouble me. You, however, are not in the same situation.”
The rumbling grew stronger.
“How so?”
“You have something to lose.”
This distracted Hectore from his growing concern. “And you don’t?”
Jarven smiled. “I have always considered sentiment to be something of a weakness. I have seen young men—and young women—betrayed by their desire for love and family. That desire is a tool in the hands of men like me. It could have been a tool in your hands—but you were too enmeshed in the same game to see it.
“I have never considered myself foolish enough to desire what you desire. I have taken some pride in my own impregnability.”
“If you have not built family, you have built position and power. You are an authority, Jarven.”
“A faded authority whose glory days are behind him.” This amused Jarven. “There will be rejoicing when I retire. That is what I will leave behind.”
“Lucille would not agree.”
Jarven shrugged.
“And I think young Finch would be saddened.”
“She is not a fool. But yes, Hectore. Had I never met you, I would have considered it my duty to beat the sentiment out of that girl. You, however, have proven, in some fashion, that not all sentiment must become weakness. So has your Terafin. That life, however, is not for me. I am not capable of it. You are. And I consider it unsporting of you.”
“Unsporting? I am beginning to understand why Andrei finds you so frustrating.”
“Unsporting, old friend. If I am not you, if I am to leave no tears in my wake, I nonetheless understand why there will be tears in yours. I believe if you walk from this place, you will never find your way back to it. And I am not certain that Andrei will be able to find you.”
“He can find The Terafin.”
“Yes, but she is Sen. You are not; you are mortal. You will be lost here—and if you are lost, he, too, will be lost.”
“And you would care?”
“Only inasmuch as I am willing to remain here—to see that you do—until he returns. And I resent it.”
Chapter Seventeen
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU been glaring?” Hectore asked Jarven.
Jarven was silent. He was not, to be fair, glaring at Hectore. He was glaring at the endless sea of stone with obvious displeasure. Hectore considered—as was his habit—what Jarven might gain from a display of annoyance; he considered, as well, what Jarven might gain from a smile, a laugh, a display of fear or fragility.
“Have you spent much time with The Terafin’s winged companions?”
“Very little,” Hectore replied. “I consider the gray to be dangerous.”
Jarven’s laugh was brief, harsh. “Only the gray? You are not that dim, Hectore.”
“I consider the gray to be tactically dangerous,” Hectore conceded. “The white and the black seem overly focused on the moment. Any of the three could kill me with ease.”
Jarven’s left brow rose.
“Any of the three could, absent tertiary precautions, kill me with ease.”
“That is better. One of those precautions, I assume, is Andrei.”
“But not the only one, as you are well aware. And you have not answered my question.”
“I have no idea how long we’ve been waiting, and I resent the implication that I have wasted it glaring at you.”
Hectore’s smile was genuine. “What do you see, ATerafin?”
“Sand,” Jarven replied. “To the horizon, there is nothing but sand.”
“You do not see Andrei.”
“No. Of the two of us where Andrei is concerned, your vision will undoubtedly be clearer. Why, exactly, did Andrei wish to meet The Terafin in this place?”
“I believe he hoped that she would not be lost in it if he could find her first.”
“Hubris,” Jarven said.
“Andrei has never notably been a humble, modest man, no. For my part, that hubris has saved my life many times; I am inclined to trust it. I am uncertain, however, why you are.”
“Do I?”
“You are here, Jarven. You are here, and you believe that here is as dangerous as Andrei believes it to be. Your own hubris is considerable, yet you have chosen to obey what was almost a command.”
“I am comfortable obeying commands,” Jarven countered. “I have taken orders from The Terafin since I joined the House.”
“I am grateful Andrei is absent,” Hectore replied.
“Oh?”
“You have subverted orders when bored or ill-tempered; your idea of obedience is entirely idiosyncratic, and I believe it would annoy my servant.”
“Almost everything annoys your servant.”
“True.”
• • •
“There is a storm on the horizon,” Jarven said.
Hectore found the silence of this place grating. His legs were stiff; he felt as if he had been sitting, inactive, for hours. Were it not for the presence of the Terafin merchant, he might have disobeyed Andrei’s request. He was concerned.
Andrei often left Hectore’s side; he was not chained to it. He disappeared and reappeared, taking care to be present for any significant meetings or appointments. It was Andrei who had gone to the aid of Hectore’s more difficult g
randchildren; it was Andrei who had interacted with Ararath when that godson had chosen to forsake Handernesse.
It was Andrei who could stand between Hectore and the magi; it was Andrei who could face—and survive—the demon-kin. Hectore had the tricks the rich might avail themselves of, but they were entirely defensive. He did not have the ability to fight as Andrei fought. Nor would he.
Thinking this, he turned to study the Terafin merchant. Jarven was—had been—in Hectore’s shoes. He could see the coming war as clearly as Hectore could, but where Hectore accepted his limitations, Jarven chaffed at them. It was not in Jarven to sit on the sidelines, a mere observer to events that would affect his life in multiple ways. If Jarven was to be affected, he would have a say. If he had a stake, he would find ways to play the game.
No, it wasn’t just that. He would find ways to win it.
Hectore, as Jarven pointed out, had much to lose. But even knowing it, his desire to do what Jarven had done was vanishingly small. It was not that he distrusted The Terafin; she made suspicion nearly impossible to sustain. But she was not her forest, and she was not her forest’s inhabitants.
And, also, her forest did not trust his servant. No, worse, they appeared to hold him in some contempt. Hectore could not bind himself to anyone who held that opinion. Only long years as a merchant made it possible to appear pleased to have their company in any fashion.
“Do you think,” Jarven said, his voice suspiciously conversational, “you will retain his services?”
“While I live, yes.”
“Ah. Why?”
“Because that was his wish. I do not pretend to understand it myself. I have not been particularly solicitous or careful with his time. I have treated him as a servant because that is what he is. He has almost no sense of humor, but he has a particularly pinched expression I have come to enjoy. He is vastly more suspicious than I can bother to be; nothing is too small to escape his notice, and he can hold on to offenses, real or imagined, for far, far longer than I.”
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