Actually, that might be due to the tears.
She discreetly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and held on to Temperance like an anchor.
“Got you a present.” James bounced over, both hands held behind his back. “Pick.”
She indicated his right arm. He brought it forward, and—“James, what am I going to do with this?”
“Poke someone,” he drawled, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “They’re called Pokies, Scratch. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to puzzle out.”
“I have a knife.”
“And now you have a Pokie as well. Keep up.”
“What was in your other hand?”
He showed her his left—another Pokie.
“I’m wanting for variety out here,” he muttered. “Forgive me for presenting you with the illusion of choice. Gods, Scratch, you are no fun at all this morning.”
“Scratch, if I could have a moment.” Lollie stuffed her hands into her pockets as she approached. “I, uh, a moment.”
Scratch gently extricated herself from Temperance with a soft word and followed Lollie to the edge of the woods.
“I’m not sorry,” Lollie declared. To her credit, she didn’t look away, her cold, pale green gaze unyielding. “I did what I thought was necessary.”
“I understand,” Scratch said, because she did, for the most part. She might have done more than hold someone at knifepoint for answers.
“I expect you do.” Lollie scratched the back of her neck. “I have a favor to ask. About Brella. She can be careless. She is a thoughtful person, but when she gets angry . . .” She trailed off, shrugging. “Just make sure she doesn’t end up launching herself into danger. That’s all.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” Scratch replied tartly. “Throw her to the wolves?”
“She’s charming,” Lollie said in a matter-of-fact sort of way. “She acts like she doesn’t need someone watching her back. She does.”
“Everyone does.”
Lollie threw up her hands. “Fine. I can see this was a hugely worthwhile conversation. Thank you so much, Scratch. Go on your merry way and do whatever-the-fuck it is you and the Shaes are doing. Never mind that I’ve known Brella for three years—”
“Three years?”
“And she never told me a thimble’s worth of information about her life. And you two saunter in here like the God of the Sun and the God of the Moon, with all of your little secrets, and I can’t learn shit about what either of you are up to.”
“You ambushed me,” Scratch hissed, eyes flicking to the curious Snatchers spying them from yards away. “What, are we supposed to be friends now? You decide that I need advice, and that I’m going to take it from you? I’m a Sergeant Major in the King’s Guard.”
“And she’s not a soldier.” Lollie dropped her voice to a hot, frantic whisper. “I don’t know what you’re doing or what you want, but if you put Brella into harm’s way, I will kill you. That may strike you as sentimental, Scratch, but I look after children all day. I’m not as calculating as you. I’m not smart enough to hide what matters to me. I know that means I’ve made myself vulnerable to you.” She glanced off into the trees. “Brella makes me stupid.”
The back of Scratch’s neck itched. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“She’ll be fine with me,” Scratch said, and it was an easier promise than it should have been—almost as though she cared about Brella’s well-being.
“Thanks.” Lollie looked a touch surprised, as if she’d expected an argument. “I feel like I should give you something in return. Oh, we robbed a wine merchant the other day. You want a cask?”
Yes, desperately. “Uh, no thanks.”
“Your loss.” Lollie shaded her eyes from the rising sun. “I already hate today,” she declared by way of farewell. “You’d do well to keep your word, Sergeant Major. I have a very long memory.”
“Great,” Scratch mumbled once Lollie was too far away to hear. She tamped down a spike of fellow feeling for the cranky bandit. “Lovely.”
Chapter Twelve
Children followed the traveling party as they left camp, strolling along like they were there to join the rescue mission. Brella smiled and waved while the pack was in view, but she visibly drooped as soon as the band disappeared behind the trees.
Vel floated up beside her. “Brella—”
“Shush, Vel,” she muttered. Her posture drooped and there were bags beneath her eyes. “I’ve had enough talking. Can we just be quiet today? All of us?”
James pouted, but Vel nodded. “Fair enough.”
They walked on through the morning, the Shaes leading the soldiers along the same inexplicable route. It had been easier when the prospect of bandits, beasts, and fair folk was only theoretical. After Lollie, it was easier to picture enemies in the trees, darting behind rocks, hiding their footprints in the shallow streams that wended their way through the uneven landscape.
Discounting the anxiety, the forest today was much the same, with no discernible path, nor any clear markers that even hinted at where they might be headed. Were they getting closer to the princess? Closer to the Between? Lollie had made it seem like Brella’s ability to pop from one country to the next was not some sort of elaborate hoax. That was as reassuring as it was discomfiting. If Brella was telling the truth, that meant that Scratch would really pursue the princess. And if she could get Frances back, she would really claim her rightful spot as Lady Commander. She allowed the thought to warm her, just for a moment. Not hope, but motivation. Incentive.
She set her mind to poke at the mysterious snarl of Frances’s disappearance. If King Ingomar had really planned to stage his own daughter’s abduction, the girl probably wasn’t in Koravia. The whispered word that Frances and Iris had picked up—Koravia, Koravia—was the planted seed, not the culprit. If—a big if—the Shaes were telling the truth, then King Ingomar’s plan was to start a war with Koravia by accusing their king of kidnapping Princess Frances.
Strength against Koravia was one of many reasons King Ingomar had led all of his mighty conquests, his “west, west, west to the ocean” pursuit. What if he wasn’t satisfied with a strong defense? What if he had decided the safer path would be to take the offensive and attack Koravia before they got a chance to do the same? All he needed was a good enough reason to make the first move.
Scratch was so wrapped up in her thoughts she barely heard the crinkle of dead leaves. “Stop,” she whispered, but by the time the word slipped through her lips, it was already too late. A rustle in the trees ahead, one beside, and one in a bush—they were surrounded. She dropped her hand to her knife.
“Do what I say when I say it,” she breathed. Brella met her eyes, nodding mutely. Something lashed around Scratch’s insides at the sight of her, squeezing tight. She blinked it away, finding James. His brows were drawn, his tongue darting across his nearly healed lip. He reached for his bow, nocked an arrow, and—
“I wouldn’t, if I were you.” A man stepped out from behind the trees ahead, tall and broad and instantly familiar.
“Branch,” Scratch breathed.
The last time she had seen him, he was tossing her into a dungeon. The intervening days hadn’t been kind to the man. His clothes were torn, his face and hands grayed with dirt. He had a wild look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before, hungry and narrow. Normally, he was hulking. Now his bulk tipped into a forward lean, low like a wolf. He was armed, but Scratch was more worried about what he’d try with his bare hands.
He grinned, his teeth stained berry purple. “Found you, Keyes. And Bowstring? I’d lower that if I were you. Hester’s right behind you.”
James slowly lowered his shot, peering over his shoulder as Hester edged out of the brush, his sword drawn. Opposite James, Gultin strolled out from his hiding place, hands in his pockets. He leered.
“We’re traveling with two civilians,” Scratch said, fingers floating by the hilt of her kitchen knife. �
��Let them go. Your quarrel is with us.”
“Actually, Trout, it’s with all of you.”
It had been so long since someone had used a Lakefolk insult against her that she was more surprised than offended. “How’s that?” she asked, stalling. “The Lord High Commander must have sent you out after me and James. Nobody else needs to be involved.”
The minute she said it she knew she was wrong. No one had sent these soldiers out to get her. They weren’t equipped for travel, their packs thin and clothes tattered.
“You were fired,” she murmured, recognition dawning. “Banished.” Branch said nothing, but the hot flare of red over his face revealed the truth. “You were banished because of us. Because we got out. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” His laugh was reedy and wet. “Sorry won’t help you now. Lucky it’s us that found you. We’ll be good enough to take you in alive.”
James inhaled sharply. “Is the whole city after us then?”
Branch gave him a pitying look. “With that price? Not only the city, ponce. Nowhere’s safe for you. Besides, everyone thinks you killed her. Who wouldn’t want to be the one who brought you to justice?”
“We didn’t!” James reached for something in his pocket, but Hester was faster, lunging forward to poke the tip of his blade into James’s shirt. James stilled. Scratch’s heart leapt into her throat.
“James.” They locked gazes. She breathed deeply, dropped her shoulders, and let the air out through her mouth. Then she turned to Brella and Vel. There was fear in Brella’s eyes, tightness around the long lashes and a bright wetness in the warm brown of her irises. Scratch’s heart stuttered sluggishly.
“Run,” she hissed. She felt the hilt of her knife between her fingers for a moment, then flung it. The weapon sprouted from Branch’s chest, blood spurting under the blade. He looked down, dumbstruck, then up: and he fell to the ground with a limp crunch. She reached down, found nothing, and swore; the knife was her only weapon. She darted over and yanked it from the dying man’s chest, blood gushing from the dark red wound. A sound made her pivot. Gultin approached, huge and hulking, his sword drawn. He had the reach, but Scratch had her own advantages. She darted under his thrust, slashing at the tendons behind his ankles. He shouted as he fell, hobbled in the dirt. His sword slipped from his fingers.
“Thanks for this,” she garbled through a mouth numbed by adrenaline, “been meaning to pick up one of—”
“Ahh-hells!”
She had felt fear before. There was the dull, final fear of waiting to be executed in the dungeons. There was the thrill-tinged anxiety as she watched her octagon bloom on the battlefield. But there was no fear that compared to the ragged terror that tore her chest at the sound of James’s broken, horrified scream.
He was on the ground, his leg splayed out at a nauseating angle. Blood soaked the side of his pant leg, and his face had gone ashen white.
Her mouth hung open. She closed it with a click. “James . . .”
“Hello, Sergeant Major.”
She had been so focused on James that she hadn’t realized Hester was still fighting. He lunged at her, short sword out and glistening with blood. James’s blood, she thought, swallowing the fear, sour in her tight throat. There wasn’t time for fear. Instead, she forced herself beyond the fear into the anger. It came to an instant boil, every moment that had scalded her since her last meal in the castle rising up, shrieking. Frances’s truths. King Ingomar’s dismissal. Her last hours in the dungeons. Vel’s and James’s laughter. Brella’s fiery eyes and vague insults and stiff jaw and evasiveness and the cold knowledge that everything Scratch had worked for was now meaningless. It was all meaningless.
She screamed and slashed with the borrowed sword, but it had been Gultin’s and he was a big man. She misjudged the balance, spinning out with the momentum, and Hester seized his opportunity. She blinked, and she was disarmed, the sword slamming against the earth, just out of reach. She bore down instead, fists up, looking for an opening, not letting herself believe this was the end. It couldn’t be. Not after she had come so far. It didn’t make sense that she would die here in the forest at the hands of a mediocre sergeant because she had had to leave her own sword behind.
She chanced a look at James. He was alone, which chilled and warmed her in equal measure, because it meant that the Shaes had escaped at least. They would be protected by their magical forest. Would they go on, or would they go back to the Royal City to regroup, maybe recruit more fighters? Mercenaries this time, fighters that Brella respected more than soldiers. They would go on, and she and James would die and there would be no one left alive to grieve her.
She squared her shoulders, and—
There came a loud squelch and a wet, choking noise as something red erupted from Hester’s throat. He glanced down, hands gripping haplessly at nothing, blood dripping from his open mouth. Then he fell, a heap of blood and limbs and nothing, on the forest floor. His arms twitched once, twice, and he lay still.
Brella stood in the clearing. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, and her warm brown skin had taken on an unpleasantly sallow shade of yellowy gray. When she met Scratch’s eyes, she sank to her knees.
“I killed him.”
Scratch moved without thinking, rushing to Brella’s side and scooping the larger woman into her arms. Brella fell into her, pressing her face into the shoulder of Scratch’s shirt. Hot tears worked their way into the weave, dampening her skin. Brella grasped wildly at her, and questing fingers demanded more, closer, tighter. Her hands roved like spiders as she squeezed at Scratch, her tears turning to sobs, her sobs to wails.
“I killed a man. I killed a man with a fucking Pokie.”
Chapter Thirteen
Relief hit Scratch in a rush, momentarily freeing, then suddenly exhausting. Her hands shook.
“It’s all right, Brella,” she mumbled. Her tongue felt thick and heavy. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not all right.” Brella shivered. Her trembling lips had gone pale. “He was going to kill you. So I killed him. I killed him. Oh gods, I killed him.”
She wasn’t the only one wailing. A few feet away, Vel huddled over James’s wounded leg. Every time he touched the bloody mess, James shouted, his scream piercing the air like the call of a dying prey animal.
Scratch desperately met Vel’s eyes. What do we do?
He wiped away a tear. “Brella, we have to.”
“No!” she shrieked. “We can’t. There isn’t time.”
“His leg is b-broken.” He was shaking, his fingers coated in blood. “He’ll die without m-medical care. And then there’s . . .” He indicated Gultin, breathing shallowly on his stomach. He bled freely from the back of his legs, not even attempting to get up. “We need to figure out what to do about him.”
“Don’t kill him,” Brella cried, high-pitched and warbling.
Scratch tightened her hold, pressing Brella close to her chest. “We won’t kill him,” she said gently, “but we need to do something. If we just leave him, he’ll die.”
Brella gripped Scratch’s arms with bruising force. “Scratch. You need to know. The fair follk. They don’t give anything out for free. She’ll take something; she always does.” She made a sound somewhere between gulping and choking. “Usually, it’s time.”
“Time?”
“She’ll help. But please, please, if she offers you anything, if she takes you aside and says she has something special for you, don’t take it.” Tears clung to her long eyelashes. Her hair was slipping from its moorings, little bits of bronze forming a frizzy halo around her head. “Tell me you won’t.”
“I won’t.” She felt dizzy. Nauseated. “Who is—”
“Nana!” Vel shouted into the trees. “Nana, we need you!”
Nothing happened for a few moments. With numb hands, Scratch stroked Brella’s hair. Over the top of Brella’s head, she watched Vel whisper gentle words of comfort to James, who panted and sweated on the ground before going limp. V
el gasped.
“James? James!”
“It’s good, Vel,” she told him, though her throat twisted and tears stung her eyes. “It’s good. He passed out. He’s not feeling the pain that way.”
He looked distraught, but he nodded, and it hit her afresh that the Shaes weren’t soldiers. They hadn’t seen violence like this before. Brella had never killed. Of course she was wrecked. After Scratch’s first kill, she had vomited against a tree.
The Shaes were liars, yes, but not about needing Scratch and James to fight for them. That had turned out to be horribly, sickeningly true.
“Oh, thank the gods.” Vel pointed into the woods. In the distance, a cottage came into view. As Scratch watched, it got both clearer and closer. The house didn’t move, but every time she blinked it was somehow nearer. It was a squat, sky-blue little thing, coated like confectionary in pale trim. A low white fence bordered flowerbeds teeming with bright, healthy, entirely unrecognizable blooms. A few stones formed a makeshift walkway up to the gleaming yellow door, on which a brass knocker bearing the face of a goat grinned at them.
“Well,” bleated the knocker, “this is rather unexpected.”
The door burst open and a woman bustled out. She was clearly old, though she moved quickly. Her crinkling, worn cheeks had all the rosy plumpness and warmth of a full teapot. Long white lashes framed sparkling eyes, with irises a blue so pale it verged on white, and dark, rectangular pupils that stretched nearly the entire length of her eye. Her hair was a fluffy cloud, brushed back and away from the large, thick-glassed spectacles that sat atop a genial little nose, as smooth and as well-formed as an acorn. She wore a pale yellow blouse topped with a dusty rose pinafore, the lace-trimmed skirt skimming the tops of her—
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