“Yes,” Quirk put in. “The pressure must have been building, when your sixteenth birthday came and went. That’s when Story moved to find other ways to bring you to the castle.”
“Story had been quiet for many years,” Timothy said, frowning. “My grandmothers and Pen figured the beauty was safe with Shoe, especially after the date of her sixteenth birthday passed. It was stupid of them not to realize that Story was just biding its time.”
Quirk nodded. “Yes.” His mouth flattened into a grim line. “As long as Rose was still out in the world, and cursed, Story remained a danger.”
“Hmm,” Timothy said. “And now her curse has been broken, Story’s trap has been sprung, and she’s not in it.” On the fire, the kettle boiled; she took it off and poured three cups of tea. “How’d you manage to escape it?” she asked, handing me some tea.
The tin cup felt hot under my cold fingers. “I escaped because of Griff.” I realized the extent of what he’d done. “Story has no hold on me anymore.” I should have felt light and happy at such a thought, but I didn’t.
“He used the thimble to hold the curse so she could get away,” Quirk explained further. He lowered his voice. “Griff is the son of the latest Godmother.”
“Is he?” Timothy exclaimed, and then sat contemplating that revelation. After a few moments, she gave a satisfied nod. “My grandmas had wondered why a new Godmother hadn’t arisen.” A wry twist of her lips. “Tricky. They never would have expected the latest Godmother to be a boy.”
“But he’s not the . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head.
After a glance at me, Timothy went on. “Griff is in there now?” She jerked her chin in the direction of the castle. “With the Godmother’s thimble?”
“Yes,” Quirk confirmed.
“So he’s dangerous,” she stated. “It’s just a matter of time before Story sends him after us.”
Quirk frowned and rubbed his mouth, looking troubled.
No. This was all wrong. Restless, I set down my cup of tea, got to my feet, and stepped to the edge of the circle of firelight. I felt the warmth of the fire at my back, and the chill of the night on my face. Behind me, Quirk and Timothy were quiet for a few moments, and then Quirk got up and moved to sit at her side, and they started talking about the Lord Protector, and about the City and what Story might be plotting there.
Castle Clair was too far away to see, but I knew where it was. I took another step into the darkness, so I could think.
Griff.
Quirk and Timothy thought that Griff was a clockwork boy who was acting for Story. A kind of boy-Godmother. A danger to us.
But what about me? Somehow I hadn’t been able to think clearly before, but now I could. How did I feel about Griff? I knew how I’d felt about him before I’d found out who he really was. I reached up to touch my lips. A boy who served Story couldn’t have kissed me the way he did. And it wasn’t just the kiss, either.
I closed my eyes and saw him again, in the ballroom, at the moment when he’d lifted the curse from me. He’d been intent, focused, determined, the same way he was when he was fighting. But as I’d opened my eyes, in the instant after the curse had gone to him, I’d seen something else in his face, too.
He’d been trained all his life to fight Story, but I knew there was more. There was another reason he’d taken on the curse.
My hands clenched into fists. I stared out at the night, toward the castle. He was alone there, trapped inside Story’s vines and thorns. If he were left there, without love, without warmth, Story would take him. I was certain about that.
But Story had not reckoned with me.
I whirled to face the fire again, and another pin escaped from my hair and tumbled to the ground. Quirk and Timothy looked up at me, and their eyes widened.
“You’re wrong.” I pointed at Quirk. “And so are you,” I said to Timothy. “Griff is not Story’s weapon. He’s good, and strong, and . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know the right words for it, but he’s true.”
“But he . . . ,” Quirk started.
“No,” I said flatly. “He does not belong to Story, and he never will. He is ours.”
“I don’t know, lass,” Quirk said, shaking his head. “He—”
“Don’t argue with me,” I interrupted, glaring at him. “You’re so worried about Story—you both are—that you can’t even see Griff for what he really is. You said that all he’s ever known is grimness and silence, and obedience to the Lord Protector’s rules. But that’s not true. He knows you, Quirk. You were his partner, after all. And he knows me.”
I looked across the fire. Quirk’s eyes gleamed, reflecting the flames.
“I suppose things have gotten as bad as they can possibly get,” I went on. “The Penwitch is dead, and so is Shoe, and Griff is inside the castle imprisoned behind a wall of thorns. So yes, Story is hugely powerful. But we’ve escaped it, for now. And I feel as if, well, like I never knew what I was capable of before. Now I know that I can fight.” I examined the tip of my finger. It was sore from the prick of the spindle. “I lost the first battle. But I will fight harder in the next one.” I glared across the fire at Quirk. “There is going to be a next battle. We’re not going to scuttle off and hide.” I waved my hand in the direction of the castle. “I’m going to get him out.”
There was a long moment of silence.
Quirk cleared his throat. “I want to believe that you’re right about him.”
“So you’ll help me?” I asked him.
“Yes, lass,” he said simply.
I turned to Timothy. “I know you don’t like me, but—”
“Why would you think that?” she interrupted roughly.
My mouth dropped open. “The scowling?” I said. “The way you curl your lip every time you look at me?” I remembered another thing. “You even wanted to kill me!”
“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I don’t anymore.” Then, to my surprise, she held out her hand. “Friends?”
My heart gave a thump. I put my soot-stained hand into hers. “Friends,” I confirmed.
“Good,” Timothy said with a nod. “Then we’ll storm the castle together. And to help with that, my grandmothers sent presents for both of you.”
ROSE WAS NOT free of Story, Griff remembered. She still carried two curses.
That was the first thought he had as he fought off the curse again, in the cold passageway outside the ballroom. Thorny vines had wrapped themselves around his ankles and one of his wrists, pinning him to the wall. Carefully he extricated himself and started making his way slowly down the corridor again.
“Three curses,” he said aloud. A faint, grinding thunder echoed in his ears. He frowned and rubbed his aching head.
The second and third curses had gone quiescent in Rose, but they were waiting. Even if she’d escaped the castle, she was still in danger. She might not even realize it. She wouldn’t realize it until too late, unless he escaped from the castle and warned her.
Grimly he trudged along the hallway, where a few blue-coated servants stood with blank faces, and finally stepped out into the courtyard.
The air was thick with greenish shadows cast by the wall of tangled, thorny vines that climbed up the outer wall and met overhead like a high ceiling, enclosing the castle. The castle itself was enwrapped in thorns, too, and loomed behind him like a vast storm cloud. Pigeons lay smashed on the courtyard’s paving stones, having fallen under the curse while flying. All was still.
Trudging to the stable, Griff saw the horses in the stalls with their eyes frozen in mid-roll, their ears pricked. Arny leaned against a wall with his arms crossed, a dried trickle of drool at the corner of his mouth; his jug had rolled onto the floor, and drip by slow drip, the alcohol oozed out. At the corner of the stable door was a spider in its web, paused in the midst of sucking the juices from a fly.
There was no sign of Rose.
She must have escaped the castle. He sighed with relief and relaxed for just a moment, b
ut that moment was long enough. The curse seized him, and as he was pulled into its darkness, he knew with wild certainty that he would not see the light again.
CHAPTER
30
“MY GRANDMAS LIKE WEAPONS,” TIMOTHY SAID. THEN she grinned. “A lot.” She brought me something long, wrapped in burlap, and tied with twine. “They picked this one for you.”
I unwrapped the present. It was an ax with a wooden haft about as long as my arm; the head of it was blunt on one side, curved and sharp on the other. On its face was engraved a knot-work rose. I fit my hand over the ax’s worn leather grip. It was just the right size, made for a woman’s hands. Getting to my feet, I hefted it. The ax felt heavy, solid; I felt solid, holding it. I remembered what Griff had taught me about fighting. It was all about will. Well, it was about sharp edges, too.
“It’s perfect,” I said to Timothy. “Thank you.”
“Huh,” she said, as if I’d surprised her. She turned to Quirk. “If we’re going into the castle, we’ll need more than swords and axes.” Reaching into the pocket of her coat, she pulled something out and set it on the sooty hearthstone in front of Quirk.
Still holding the ax, I leaned closer to see. Then I gasped. “The thimble?”
“No, not that thimble,” Timothy corrected. “Another one. Pen had it on her when she was killed.”
Silently Quirk studied it. Then he gave me a quick glance. “This is what I hoped to find when I left the castle, Rosie.”
It looked just like Griff’s thimble, except that among the etched thorns that twined around its base were tiny, perfect roses. Its untarnished silver shone softly in the firelight.
“There are two thimbles,” Quirk explained to me. “One for the Godmother, who serves Story. One for the Witch, who fights against Story.” He sighed. “Griff has his mother’s thimble, obviously. It’s associated with cold, and with forgetting, and silence, and with warping people and animals out of their usual shapes, and away from themselves. A Godmother can use it to act for Story in the world.” He tapped the rose thimble. “This one belongs to the Witch. Its purpose is to thwart Story. It is associated with warmth and fire, and with strength and memory and truth. It was my mother’s, and now it has come to me.”
“Are you the Witch, then, Quirk?” I asked him.
All was silent, except for the crackle of our fire. I stood beside Timothy with my ax and held my breath, waiting for Quirk’s answer.
Finally Quirk reached out to take the thimble. “I am my mother’s son, lass,” he said quietly. “So I suppose I am.”
THE THIRD TIME Griff dragged himself from the curse’s grip, the thorns had spread.
He was standing in the courtyard between the outer wall and the castle. The thorns that had before only circled his ankles now twined up his legs and across his chest. Only one of his arms was free. With every breath he took, the thorns, as long as daggers and just as sharp, stabbed—shallow, stinging cuts that, as he fought free of the curse, started to bleed.
He held himself still against a rising tide of panic. His mouth was as dry as dust; the air was icy cold and still, almost crystalline. The curse receded, as if it wanted him ready. The grinding thunder grew louder in his ears.
Gritting his teeth, he reached for his knife with his free arm, and found his hand going instead to his coat pocket, where the thimble was somehow once again waiting for him, and the spindle, too. Leaving them both, he went for the knife, feeling the thorns bite deeper, his own blood flowing hot over his icy-cold skin.
In one desperate motion, he unsheathed the knife, its handle slick with his blood, and slashed at the vines that gripped him. The thunder grew into a pulsing roar in his head that sounded almost like laughter. With a wrench, he tore himself out of the thorns’ grasp and stumbled away from them, dripping with blood, his coat in tatters.
A sharp pain lashed across his back; whirling, he used his knife to deflect a second strike from the whip of a thorn-studded vine. Another vine came at him like a thrown spear. He raised an arm to block it, and it shredded his coat sleeve, leaving a line of pain behind; at the same time, another vine snaked across the paving stones and around his leg. As he bent to untangle himself, a vine wrapped itself around his neck; another vine around his chest jerked him off the ground. He struggled, still clinging to his knife, and the vines gripped tighter, until a thorn laid itself like a drawn blade across his neck. He stilled, feeling its razor-sharp edge, a line of icy cold on his skin. It moved up, forcing his chin back, leaving him completely unprotected.
The vines continued to twine around his arms and legs, their thorns biting through his clothes, holding him still.
All fell silent except for the sound of his own harsh breaths.
The air grew darker. Outside the castle and its cage of thorns, night was falling. The sound of thunder started again, faint at first, then building to the grinding roar of mountains shifting. It was beyond sound; he heard it not just with his ears, but in his bones, and then it formed into a word.
Mine.
Story, he knew with a flash of terror. He clenched his eyes shut, hoping for the oblivion of the curse, but now that he wanted it, its darkness evaded him.
The thunder pounded at him. Mine, it repeated. Mine, mine, mine, mine.
His lips moved. A denial.
The roar of Story intensified. Mine, it insisted. Alone. Alone, forsaken, unloved, alone. Mine.
It kept repeating those words until he knew it was true.
He felt a tendril of vine probing; after a moment it encircled his wrist, dragging his arm up until he could see his blood-smeared hand; at the end of the tendril, within reach of his fingers, was the thimble.
It gleamed like the edge of a knife.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Become what you were always meant to be.
He had no words left; he could not speak. But he had his will. And he had his memory of Rose. To give in to Story was to lose her forever. Slowly he clenched his hand into a fist—no. He would not take the thimble.
The thunder roared in fury; the thorns bit deeper.
With them came the cold.
All of his warmth was bleeding out of him, the thorns infusing him with a chill that turned his bones to ice and struck with a frozen dagger toward his heart.
The curse rose again, and this time he welcomed its cold emptiness.
But Story was there, waiting. It would offer the thimble again. It would offer blood, and silence, and ice. And next time, he might not be able to resist.
I WAS DESPERATE to get back into the castle to save Griff. Even before the sky turned pink with dawn, I woke Quirk and Timothy.
She had brought me clothes from her grandmas. I dressed in trousers and a warm red sweater knitted by Zel, and had my hair braided in a crown, secured with diamond hairpins. Shoe’s boots were on my feet. We had tea and a little breakfast, and then we packed our knapsacks and took up our weapons: Timothy’s sword, Quirk’s thimble, my ax.
“There’s something you need to see first,” Timothy said.
“We don’t have time—” I started to protest.
“We have time for this,” Timothy said, without a trace of a snarl in her voice. “It’s not far.”
In the gray morning light, the Penwitch’s burned cottage seemed small and forlorn as we left it behind. Timothy led us out of the dell. A few steps down the path was a low hill; at its top was a lone oak tree, a kind of outpost of the Forest, which was a dark cloud on the horizon. The tree’s leaves had turned red, and its branches were spread wide, like embracing arms; below it was a long mound of turned earth.
“My grandmas buried Pen’s body here,” Timothy said, her voice gritty. She and Quirk, who had both known and loved the Penwitch, stood beside the grave. I saw Quirk reach up and take Timothy’s hand; to my surprise, she didn’t pull away.
I turned and let them grieve in peace, going to the edge of the hill and looking out. The oak tree’s leave
s rustled over my head; the breeze swept out from the hill and over the long grasses, making them bow down in waves. In the distance, from this height, I could see the castle on the other side of the river, a blunt shape overtaken by the thorny vines, almost as if they’d grown out of the ground and were pulling the castle back down with it.
Knowing that Griff was in that horrible place made my heart ache. He was a fighter, but he had no weapons he could use to fight Story. For all he knew, we’d abandoned him to the thorns and the cold and the silence.
He had lifted the curse from me. He’d done it knowing that it meant he’d be trapped in the castle. He wasn’t some kind of evil minion of Story. No, he’d done it to free me.
“Why, Griff?” I whispered. “Why did you do it?”
I knew what I’d seen on his face as he lifted the curse. All his life, he had known nothing of love. Yet somehow . . .
He loved me.
I was absolutely certain of it. And oh, I loved him so much, I almost couldn’t bear it.
Which meant I had a weapon even better than a sword or an ax, or even a thimble. I would fight Story with that weapon, and with every scrap of my will. “You can’t have him,” I said fiercely to Story. “He’s not yours. He’s mine.”
And then I spoke to Griff. “Hold on,” I whispered, gazing across the waving grasses to the castle in its shroud of thorns. “Hold on, love. I’m coming for you.”
THIS TIME, WHEN Story dragged Griff away from the curse again, there was nothing but the unrelenting cold, and pain, and Story speaking in the stern, disapproving voice of his father.
It went on and on and on.
By the time Story let him alone again, he had his own, unmelting core of ice. He knew that the thimble and the spindle were in his coat pocket. He could barely remember Rose’s face. And he was certain that she, like his father, despised him.
Story was everywhere. It was everything. He was nothing.
CHAPTER
31
WE STOOD BEFORE THE GATE OF THE VINE-COVERED castle.
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