Brightly Woven

by Alexandra Bracken

  “You’re later than I expected,” she said. “Do you have anything to say to your patroness?” This woman was russet and deep wrinkles. Her skin was dark, well worn like soft leather.

  My father once told me that you could tell the rank of a woman by the tone of her skin. Fine ladies never had to work outside and were therefore milky pale. However, despite being as translucent as a ghost, I was not included in this category; I was pink skin and freckles all over.

  “Why, yes, I do.” North gave an exaggerated bow. “You are looking absolutely lovely this evening, Lady Aphra.”

  “You have a patroness?” I whispered through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, did I not mention that?” North let out a low, nervous laugh.

  “No,” I said, my hands tightening into fists. “Actually, you didn’t.”

  Lady Aphra took a step closer to him. “I’m glad my letter found you.”

  His face darkened. “I came as fast as I could.”

  “I believe you,” she said. “The wolf’s been quiet for the past few nights. We’re hoping he’s moved on.”

  “Doubtful,” North said. “It’s a wizard casting a specter, I’m sure of it. It’s a trick he’s used before, but only when he needed to create some revenue—he terrorizes families with it and then sweeps in to act the part of the hero and earn a few coins in the process.”

  “Why would he come here, then?” Lady Aphra asked. “We don’t have much wealth.”

  “He’s here for us—for me.” North’s face darkened. “He lost us when we twisted out of Dellark, and the only way to call me out again was to threaten you. It’s my fault; I’m sorry.”

  “Well,” Lady Aphra said, finally casting her eye on me. “You’ll be the ones to fix it.”

  Lady Aphra provided us with North’s usual room in her cottage, and we slept on rolled blankets stuffed with hay. It wasn’t so much the sleeping arrangement or my bedding that had me waking nearly every hour—it was the cold air that seeped in through the floor beneath me and the small windows on the wall. Pressing my frozen fingertips under my arms and curling myself into a tight ball, I faded in and out of the darkness.

  There was no hint of Dorwan that night. Instead, I dreamed again of the threads of light. They were still wrapped over my skin but had loosened enough for me to lift my arms and free my hands. My fingers groped for the edges, taking some of the warm strands and pulling them up from the ground. The ends fluttered around in the air above me; there was a spark of light as they touched, and they weaved among one another as though invisible hands were guiding them.

  I sat up straight, cold dread settling in my stomach like a stone. My skin tingled with the memory of warmth, but my vision was splotched with black, and it took several minutes before my eyes readjusted to the dim light of early dawn. I pressed my hands against my face and breathed in the cool air. North was snoring in the far corner of the room.

  The pieces of my loom leaned against the wall. I still hadn’t begun North’s single cloak—with all our traveling, the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Now, in the quiet, hours before the others would rise, I picked up the pieces of the frame and fit them back together.

  The hardest part was deciding where to begin; I knew I wanted the edges to alternate between colors, framing the scene inside. But would he find it odd if I began with shades of yellow, of dust?

  It was strange how easily I fell back into it. The colors came together fluidly and my fingers worked quickly. The usual daze of color and imagination came over me, and by the time I began work on the yellow-and-brown mountains of Cliffton, my thoughts were somewhere else, caught in the snare of the picture I would weave.

  The window shutters clattered against a sudden light breeze. The air whistled through the cracks in the wall and caressed the branches of nearby trees. Everything seemed to fall into perfect rhythm: my breathing with the wind, my fingers with the branches. Mr. Monticelli’s words floated up in my mind. Steady hands, eyes always on the art, mind always on the art…

  I knotted, took up a different shade of yellow, began a new row and didn’t stop until I felt a hand clasp my shoulder, breaking the spell the loom had cast over me.

  North leaned forward to take a closer look at my work but didn’t lift his hand.

  “What are you doing up?” he whispered.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “Was your bed too uncomfortable? I told you to take that extra blanket.”

  “It was a little cold,” I admitted.

  “Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked loudly, then dropped his voice. “You should have woken me up! We’re up in the mountains now—I forget you’re not used to colder weather.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh yes, I’m going to freeze to death while sleeping in front of a fire and under a hundred pounds of blankets. I said I was a little cold!”

  “Do you want me to relight the fire for you?”

  “No, I want to know where you’re going,” I said.

  He looked pleased.

  “I was going to put protective wards around the village,” he said.

  I finished my row and stood.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Coming with you, of course,” I said.

  “It’s freezing out there,” he protested.

  “I’ll bring a blanket.”

  “Why the sudden interest in my work?”

  “It’s not that sudden. Why the reluctance to let me come?”

  North and I stared at each other, waiting for the other to back down. Finally, North chuckled. “I’ll wait outside for you. Wear something warm, all right?”

  The problem was that I didn’t have anything particularly warm to wear, just a thin shawl. I did the best I could, layering my stockings and underskirts. I was sorely tempted to crawl back into the little warmth my bed provided.

  Outside, North was sitting on the cabin’s small stoop, his head tilted up at the remaining stars. The air had a strange scent, crisp and fresh, but…cold. It bit at my nostrils and the tip of my nose. The scent was unlike that of desert rain; it was unique and telling.

  “It smells like it’s going to snow,” North said, as if reading my thoughts.

  “Snow?” I gasped. “Do you think—? I mean, do you believe it’s really going to snow? Is this what snow smells like?”

  North looked at me in pure amazement.

  “Right…,” he said. “Right, desert. No snow.”

  I felt childish, as if my excitement had somehow betrayed me.

  “Well, I do hope it snows for your sake!” North said. We both rose to our feet, but North’s hand caught me and held me back. He unknotted his cloaks, pulling the crimson red material from the pile. I thought for a moment he intended to create one of his balls of light, but instead the cloak fluttered down onto my shoulders. He stuck the tip of his tongue out of the side of his mouth as he tied it securely around my neck.

  “There!” he said. “We’re ready to go. Is that a little warmer?”

  It felt like heaven, actually. I was warmed down to my very core.

  “Don’t you need this?” I asked, feeling a little bit guilty. He secured the rest of the cloaks back in place before taking my hand.

  “No. Besides, it suits you.”

  “Red and red?” I sighed.

  He winked. “My favorite color.”

  We followed the short path from Lady Aphra’s cottage to the main village below. The thatched roofs were uneven from our vantage point, each small cabin seemingly built on its own hill in the valley. A small river ran along the far edge of the village, catching the early-morning light. Mist rolled off the mountain’s tree-lined slopes like a swirling light stream.

  “It’s so quiet and peaceful,” I said.

  “Just wait until everyone knows we’re here,” North said, laughing. “You’ll be singing a different song then.”

  Rather ungracefully, North scaled the fence surrounding one of the small homes. He pul
led a slip of paper from his pocket and buried it at the foot of their stoop.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. He handed me a slip of paper over the fence before bending down to bury another one. Written across the thick paper were symbols I didn’t recognize.

  “These should ward off anyone with ill intent,” he said. “Including our friend Dorwan.”

  When I leaned over to get a better look, my hand slid against a sharp edge of the fence. I sucked in a quick breath, pulling it away. North snatched up my hand, a strange expression transforming his face as he watched the blood well up along the cut. He didn’t move, but held my hand firmly in his own.

  “North?”

  He started slightly. “Careful, careful,” he mumbled. He pulled a purple handkerchief from his bag. It was embroidered with his initials and the crest of Palmarta. He held it there until the bleeding was staunched, and only then did he pull away.

  “I’ll wash it,” I promised, but he tucked it into the pocket of his trousers before I had the chance to take it back.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, looking at the ground. “Hard to believe, I know, but there was a time in my life when I had to do my own washing.”

  We moved down the main row of cottages. At each stoop, he would stop, dig a small hole, and bury the paper. After the fourth cottage, I realized he was mumbling to himself under his breath—something that sounded vaguely like a prayer. I added my own, rubbing the frozen metal of my necklace between my palms.

  With all ten cottages taken care of, North and I settled on the side of the hill, halfway up the path to Lady Aphra’s cottage.

  “I didn’t even know this village existed,” I said. North reclined back on his elbows, his eyes closed.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said. “Lady Aphra actually owns the entire valley. She bought the land grant from the king himself.”

  “How did you meet Lady Aphra?” I asked. “She’s an interesting choice for a patroness.”

  “Why, because she’s not wealthy?” North asked with a teasing smile. I winced at the memory.

  “No…I would have thought she’d be…much younger, and more attractive,” I said.

  North laughed. “So I only help attractive people? You realize you’re flattering yourself.”

  “You’re not helping me,” I said. “I’m helping you, remember?”

  “Yes, of course,” North said.

  “Good,” I said, happy to be in agreement. “Now answer my question!”

  “So nosy,” he said, toying with one of my ringlets. “Magister Pascal and Lady Aphra have been…friends for quite some time. He used to bring Oliver and me up here all the time to help with building the cottages. After I left Magister, I stayed with Lady Aphra and offered my services.”

  “I thought wizards relied on their patrons to earn money,” I said. “Do you have another one?”

  “No,” he said. “Some of us do odd jobs here and there to get by. You take a patron because you like them or because you’re in for some gold. I chose the former.”

  Just then, a small figure came out of the school and rang a large bell four times. The sound echoed off the mountains and carried throughout the valley. North and I watched silently as one by one the door to each cottage opened and scores of children poured out, each followed closely by an adult. I counted thirty-four small heads lined up outside the school.

  “Good morning,” came a new voice behind us. We turned to find Lady Aphra descending the path, resplendent in a worn navy dress. A decorative clip pulled back her gray hair, but wild strands were already escaping. Everything about the way she carried herself provided evidence for North’s story. When she reached the school, the children broke ranks and swarmed the old woman.

  “She’s a good teacher,” North said. He was on his back, nearly buried in the long grass. His eyes were shut, and his gloved hands were loosely folded across his chest. The smile on his face must have been as wide as my own. I had never seen him like this before, and it was such a pleasant sight I almost didn’t feel the cold.

  I lay down next to him in the wet grass, feeling the dew and the new sun. A light breeze whispered through my hair and across my cheeks. And despite the threat of Dorwan and the ache of travel in the soles of my feet, there was little else but happiness in my heart.

  Later that day, just as I finished the first quarter of the cloak, a young boy brought two letters up the hill to Aphra’s cabin. North was at the schoolhouse asking a few of the older children about the wolf, so the boy handed the letters to me. They had been forwarded from Fairwell.

  The shock that went through my system stole any coherent thought from my mind. Henry had finally written me back.

  Turning the envelope over, my fingers brushed the seal almost reverently. There were small bumps in the wax. I brought it to my face for closer inspection. There, in the deep crimson sealing wax, were dozens of small granules of desert sand—of home.

  Delle,

  I hope you’re safe and this letter finds you somehow. I’m sending a copy to various inns in the major cities, hoping you’ll stop in at least one of them. I want you to know that I’m safe and that the Bailey brothers and I slipped out of Cliffton several days ago on your father’s orders. He wants us to go to Provincia and have me help in the war effort in his stead, but I’m more concerned about spreading the news about Cliffton. When we left, most of the crops had been picked over by the soldiers, but no one had been seriously hurt. The few who tried to get out and were caught were beaten, but not to the point of death. Your family is fine—mine, too—though our mothers are a little worse for wear.

  You’ll get to Provincia before us, so I’ll come find you. Stay safe until I can see you again. I miss you.

  Henry

  “Anything good in the post?” North asked. I pressed the letter to my chest and turned around slowly. He had a smile on his face, and it was such a rare sight that I almost didn’t want to tell him.

  “A letter from Henry,” I said quickly. “You have a letter from Pascal.”

  “What did Henry have to say?” he asked. He leaned over my shoulder to get a better look, but I kept the paper close.

  “That my family is safe and that he and a few others escaped,” I said. “They’ll be in Provincia a few days after us.”

  “How very convenient,” North said. “It’s really too bad we won’t have time to drop in for a cup of tea.”

  “I’ll have the time,” I said.

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said, and reached for one of my loose curls. “Maybe I’ll keep you all to myself.”

  I pulled away, my stomach flipping. It was such a familiar touch, something that North had done a dozen times over the past few weeks, but it seemed so wrong for me to like it, to want him to do it again, when I had Henry’s letter in my hands.

  “Read your letter and leave me alone,” I said, still unable to meet his eyes.

  “Yes, my beautiful, beautiful darling!” he said. “As my beautiful, beautiful darling wishes.”

  When I finally had the courage to look up again, North’s brows were drawn together.

  “Bad news from Pascal?”

  “He’s the same as always, the old grump,” he replied distractedly. “Still treats me like the seven-year-old he took in.”

  “You only trained with him for seven years?” I knew only so much about wizarding education.

  “Yes. I lived with him until I finished training at fourteen and was supposed to be ranked.” North glanced up from the letter. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You aren’t ranked?” I asked.

  “I thought you knew,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

  “But all of the other wizards are.”

  “I’m nothing like the other wizards,” he said. “Nor do I intend to be. It…just wasn’t the right way for me.”

  “I’m surprised you had a magister then,” I said, a page of the wizard book floating up in my memory. “Isn’t that the whole poi
nt of being trained—to be ranked and join the Wizard Guard? The unranked wizards are usually…like Dorwan, right?”

  North narrowed his eyes, obviously offended. “Are you comparing me to the hedges?”

  “No! Well, a little—but not really,” I finished lamely, watching the expression on his face darken.

  “You aren’t ranked,” I tried again. “And you left, wandered, and…er, I’m sorry?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched up. “I suppose you’re forgiven—as long as you write a letter for me.”

  “I’m sure you can write your own letter,” I said. “Or is it one of my duties as your assistant?”

  “Actually, I only asked because your penmanship is much nicer than mine. Magister is fond of telling me that my handwriting looks like the scratches of a blind chicken.”

  I sighed, pulling a small writing quill and a fresh sheet of paper from my bag.

  “Dear Magister,” North dictated. “Thank you for your help. I do think you’re correct in supposing that the ingredient should work, but I’ve tried once to little effect. I don’t believe I will try again, not for lack of curiosity but for lack of propriety. Also, I’m quite glad that your wheat fields have finally picked up again. As if there was any doubt that you could fix them yourself—keeping up, Syd?”

  I cursed under my breath and crossed out where I had written, Keeping up, Syd?

  “Yes,” I said, sighing. “Keep going.”

  “I have the information I need, though I’m not sure my very dear friend will hear me out,” North continued. “Yes, I am aware of what has been going on with Oliver, though I haven’t received a letter from him in quite some time.”

  “What’s going on with Oliver?” I asked, looking up.

  “Nosy today, aren’t we?” He smiled.

  “Fine, fine,” I said. “Keep going.”

  “I’ve sent him numerous messages, but he seems too enthralled with his newfound power to listen. I’ll try to write to him again, but I can’t trust the post with these things. Magister, I know you wanted to see us, but I won’t be coming to see you with my beautiful, beautiful darling—!”