Attis considers this, glancing at me and then at Zilla, her eyes distant as she reaches out between us and brushes her gloved fingers over Zilla's neck, patting her horse absentmindedly. “And where is the closest phoenix nest?”
Most of the villagers turn and point toward a mountain rising out of the forest, a mountain so tall that its top is lost in the low cloud cover overhead.
“The only way to get a phoenix feather is if you could journey to the nest in time and get it. And you can't; it's half a day's journey. You could never get there and back in time. And the only other way to obtain it as quickly as we'd need it,” says Ilya impatiently, her voice snappish again, “is if you called the phoenix down from the mountain to battle it. As you can see, there's no way to do this without destroying something,” she snaps. “If you battle the phoenix, you might be killed, or the phoenix might be killed. If you don't battle the phoenix, you'll never reach her nest in time to get the feather, and the girl will remain dead.”
Attis turns to Ilya, her gaze piercing. “If the feather was obtained, would your spell actually work, Ilya? If you have another phoenix feather, is it capable of resurrecting the girl?”
Ilya shifts back on her heels uncomfortably and averts her gaze. “It will work,” she says, her voice softening. “I've done the spell before—and successfully, Attis. I mean, I've actually been successful a few times, since it didn't work...with you...” She looks up at Attis then, and a shadow passes over her face.
...Regret?
What is she talking about?
“Zilla is quite fast,” says Attis, patting Zilla's shoulder again, her eyes unfocused, as if she's weighing the options in her head. She seems to reach a decision, and she glances up at me, one brow rising.
“Are you fine to stay here, just for a little while, while I obtain the feather, Josie?” she asks me, voice low.
“Of course,” I tell her, because her jaw is set, and I can see in her eyes that she means to do this. Attis reaches up to me then and grips my waist in her hands, pulling me down before I realize that she's even about to do so. Wonder's so mad about the interruption in her sleep pattern that she actually yowls under my coat, causing several of the closest people in the assembled crowd to jump in surprise.
“Sorry,” I mutter with a small grimace, trying to calm my cat down. I scratch her head through the cannibal werewolf coat, and she almost immediately goes back to sleep, purring her heart out like an internal combustion engine as she snuggles uncomfortably against my chest.
“Please stay here, Josie,” Attis says a little louder, probably to benefit the crowd, “and wait for my return. It shouldn't be too long before I come back, and I'm certain that, in the meantime, Ilya would be more than happy to make you a cup of tea.” Her brow is up as she glances at Ilya with an expectant frown. Ilya nods uncomfortably. “I'll return in one hour with the feather,” says Attis, her voice booming over the assembled people as she leaps up onto Zilla's back. Without a backward glance, she gathers Zilla's reins in her hands immediately, and the horse bolts toward the forest and the rising mountain, a streak of black across the meadow that disappears into the trees so quickly, I almost couldn't follow her progress with my eyes.
“She'll do it. The knight will make it in time!” says Haggis, his voice so hopeful that it's heartbreaking.
“Well, if anyone can, it's certainly Attis,” says Ilya, with a small sigh, as she crosses her arms in front of her. “And you are?” she asks me, her head to the side and her words barbwire sharp as she glares at me.
“I'm Josie,” I tell her, holding out a hand to shake. “Josie Beckett.”
“Utterly charmed,” says Ilya, in the tone that indicates that, no, actually, she's not charmed. “All right, then, follow me. If Attis knows that I was anything less than hospitable to you, I will never hear the end of it.” She rounds on Haggis, who's standing there, happy tears brimming in his eyes. “And you had best be prepared for when Attis returns, Haggis. Make certain your daughter's body is prepared to properly receive the potion this time.”
Ilya's angry tone is lost on Haggis, though, who still holds his floppy hat in his hands, tears streaming down his face as he smiles at the crowd, raising his arms to them as if he's going to embrace all of them at once.
“My daughter,” he shouts, his voice breaking on the word. “My daughter's going to come back! She's going to come back to life!”
Ilya practically snarls as she strides past the man, quickly prowling across the dusty village center, toward the house closest to the edge of the forest in front of the mountain. I trot after her.
This house that we're aiming for is the only one that stands out from the other villagers' shacks. The most glaring and obvious difference is the fact that, while all of the other house colors resemble varying shades of mud, this house...
This house is purple.
“Come on, come on,” Ilya tells me huffily, as she sweeps up the two narrow steps to her sagging front porch. It's a very small front porch, and a few of the purple, peeling floorboards are missing—but, heck, her house actually has a front porch.
I'm fairly certain that the reason the rest of the houses are mud-colored is because they're, you know, made of mud.
I follow after the witch, mystified, and when Ilya holds her front door open for me, I pause to stare into her house.
But I don't pause long, because there's an actual boot on my behind, and then Ilya is shoving me into the room with her hands on my back. “Don't stand there gaping, Josie Beckett. You're letting out the warm air,” she says almost conversationally. So I step into the house, and Ilya is closing the door behind us before I can blink, effectively plunging us into darkness.
But it's not absolutely dark inside; it's just much darker than outdoors, and it takes my eyes a few moments to adjust to the candlelight and firelight in this main room. I brush the dust off of my butt from her boot, and I glance up.
My very first impression is that her house looks like the architectural offspring of an antiques mall and a psychic's parlor. There are thick, colorful rugs piled on top of each other underfoot, and a big black cauldron is bubbling merrily away in the broad stone fireplace at the end of the room. There are Victorian-looking red chairs with plush seats and a worn black table in front of the fire, and on that table, on top of a lace tablecloth, is an honest-to-goodness crystal ball the size of my head.
“Do you want some tea?” asks Ilya, moving past me and in the middle of a mood swing, it seems, as she goes from pretty damn pissy to calm and good-natured in the time it took for me to realize her house smells of incense. Which was immediately.
“Sure. Tea sounds great. Thank you,” I tell her, and then I unbutton my coat, glancing around. “Can I let my cat down?” I ask Ilya.
She glances at me, her eyebrows soaring upward when she sees Wonder's fluffy gray head peeking out of the neck of my coat. “Well...I suppose you can,” she tells me, her nose wrinkling. “But, so you know, I'm really not much of a cat person. As long as she doesn't harm anything, she can stretch her legs.”
It's not as if I can guarantee my normally violent cat won't harm anything, but I choose not to tell Ilya that. I set Wonder on the ground and sink down onto one of the chairs at the table, and Wonder instantly prowls past me, her tail in the air and her nose pointed to the ground, like she's on some secret mission. Which, in her head, she probably is.
“So, you're really traveling with a cat in your coat? Do you enjoy torturing yourself?” asks Ilya, one brow up. She pours water from a bucket into a battered old tea kettle and suspends the bucket over the fireplace on a hook.
“Not really enjoying it so much,” I quip, “but she's my cat, so...”
Ilya flicks her glittering gaze at me, narrowing her eyes. “So,” she says, lifting her chin and cutting directly to the chase, “how do you know Attis?”
“Oh, you know...” I spin my finger lazily in a circle as I lean forward, setting my elbows on the table. “I just happened to f
all on top of her when I came through a portal from my world.” I watch Ilya carefully, and if she's surprised by my declaration, she doesn't show it at all as she begins to scoop dried tea into two bright blue mugs with a tarnished silver spoon. “So, how do you know Attis?” I ask her, genuinely curious as I lean back in my chair.
“I tried to bring her lover back from the dead,” says Ilya quietly, sitting down across from me.
We lock gazes and stare at one another.
“Really?” I whisper, and she smiles a little, setting one of the mugs of dried tea in front of me.
“Yes,” she says, but the smile turns wistful, and she glances at the pot of water over the fire. It's just beginning to whistle faintly. “I was friends with Attis, once, long ago. But I failed when I tried to bring back Hera, and we were friends no longer after that. I don't think that Attis has ever been able to bring herself to forgive me.”
“What...happened?” I ask.
Ilya flicks her gaze to me, and her eyes suddenly narrow as she smiles slyly. “What are you, exactly, to Attis, Josie? Why should I tell you?” she asks, voice arch.
“I'm just a friend,” I say smoothly, quickly, but Ilya's eyes narrow further, and her smile deepens.
“'Just a friend,'” she repeats, nodding knowingly and tapping her fingers on top of the lace tablecloth. “Every woman is 'just friends' with Attis—until they're not,” she mutters, but then she glances at the fire again. I'm about to ask her what exactly she means by that, but I keep my mouth shut, digging into the deepest reserves of my patience as I wait for Ilya to finish the story.
The tea kettle is practically singing now over the fireplace, and Ilya gets up from the table to remove it from the flames with a folded towel. She pours scalding water out of the kettle over the tea leaves in her mug and then over the leaves in mine, the steam rising between us like curving smoke, shrouding her frowning face.
Ilya puts the tea kettle on a stone in front of the fireplace and sits down quickly across from me, her gaze suddenly intense, her voice dropping to a whisper, even though there's no one (that I know of) but Ilya, me and Wonder (who's currently prowling around in another room, and I really hope that I can find her again...) in the house.
“We used to be really good friends, Attis and I,” says Ilya quietly. “We both lived in Arktos City, me for my training in witchcraft under Madame Samel, she in her training for knighthood to the queen. Attis and I were...together, too,” she says slowly. Her gaze falls. “It was for only a short time, but I cared deeply about her. Gods, she was a heartbreaker back then...” Ilya licks her bright red lips and then turns to stare at the fire.
I swallow, pausing to take this in: Ilya and Attis were together. Together-together. I mean, I guess it makes sense to me. Ilya is fiery tempered and attractive, and—for some reason—fire and passion strikes me as Attis' type. But, still...butterflies flutter in my stomach. I tap my foot, clear my throat, my heart filling with trepidation.
I want to hear the rest of the story.
No. I know I need to hear it. Now.
“Well, that was a long time ago. Over fifteen cycles of the sun have come and gone since we last trysted,” says Ilya, turning her finger and pointing up in the air, I'm assuming to indicate the planet moving around the sun. I'm also assuming a cycle is similar to our year. “When Attis went out in her knighting, going on missions, we grew further apart, though we were still good friends. I took up the job as witch here, in this village,” she says, leaning back in her chair and hooking an arm over the back of it. “And that's when Attis fell in love.
“I could never have predicted that she would settle down. I don't think any of her friends could have predicted that. She wasn't a love 'em and leave 'em type,” says Ilya quickly. “She cared for each and every woman she was with, but love never crossed her mind. Settling down wasn't possible for her. Or so we thought,” says Ilya, sighing. “But then a visiting dignitary from a far isle arrived in Arktos City, a diplomat on behalf of her island to the royal court, and she met Attis there. Her name was Hera,” says Ilya, licking her lips again. She looks distant, drawn and pinched. She was jealous of Hera, I realize. It's obvious that Ilya loved Attis deeply, but Attis didn't return that feeling, and then Hera came along and swept Attis off her feet, something Ilya was incapable of doing.
Of course that would hurt.
I didn't like Ilya from the very first moment I met her—she strikes me as pretty bitchy, actually. But while she's still not my favorite person in the universe, at least I understand her a little better now.
“It was love at first sight between Hera and Attis,” says Ilya, with a slight layer of disgust over her voice. She grimaces. “They were obviously meant for each other, though, as much as it pained me to admit it. They complemented each other perfectly, and I've never seen Attis happier than that one summer the two of them came together. But that's all it was—a single summer. Attis was deployed with her regiment to help save a village. There was a werewolf clan that was terrorizing that village, and there was danger that they might branch out to further towns. The werewolves were taking children, and they were, well,” she shrugs and frowns, “they were eating them.”
I finger the lapel of my coat, but I don't say anything, my heart pounding in me.
“So Attis and her troop set out, and they started a great battle with the werewolves. But Hera didn't know that's what Attis was doing. She thought Attis was journeying with her troop, not battling dangerous creatures, so the night before Hera was supposed to leave to go back to her island nation, she set out on a horse to 'surprise' Attis with a good-bye visit. She came to Attis' encampment and found no one there: the knights and the werewolves were in the middle of a skirmish. No one knows exactly what happened, but Attis swears that, when she came upon Hera's body in the middle of the melee, she saw a great silver bear. But there were only wolves around, you see—”
“Wait, wait—a silver what?” I ask, jaw dropping.
“A silver bear,” Ilya shrugs. “I got all of this secondhand, mind you, and the knight who told me the story has a flare for the dramatics, but she says that, when they found Hera and Attis together, Attis cradling Hera's body, she was saying over and over again 'a silver bear did this,' even though no one else saw this animal,” says Ilya, with a small sigh. “But Attis does not lie, and she can handle trauma... I don't think she'd imagine something like that. It was, admittedly, in the middle of a massive, bloody battle, but whether Hera was killed by the wolves or by the silver bear, the fact of the matter remains: Hera was killed.”
I stare at her.
The silver bear.
I doubt, highly, that Attis would ever imagine anything. So could this bear possibly be the same silver bear that I saw? I mean, how many silver bears are there? Maybe they're a pretty common species on this world. What if there are tons of silver bears all over the place?
The silver bear that I saw...it couldn't possibly be the same silver bear, could it?
Ilya doesn't notice my discomfort and keeps talking, her words coming out faster now. “Our village is close to where the battle took place,” says Ilya, her mouth set in a severe frown. “So, when Attis came across Hera's body, she immediately brought her to me. I'll never forget that night,” she says, running her fingers through her long black hair and staring holes into the center of the table's surface. “I'd never seen Attis weep. Ever. Save for that night.”
My stomach turns inside of me. I can only imagine what Ilya isn't saying. I can only imagine the moment Ilya went to the door: Attis carrying Hera's body into this very house, Attis carrying Hera exactly like she carried me when she caught me from the leap outside of the tavern. I can imagine Attis weeping, tears tracing silent paths down her face as she sets Hera gently on this table, Attis turning to Ilya, Attis asking, pleading...
“She asked me to save Hera, to bring her back,” says Ilya quietly. “And I don't know if you'll believe me,” she says, the words soft, “but I did everything in my power
to resurrect her. I'd never done the resurrection spell before, and it's one of the most difficult magical endeavors you can undertake. But I did the spell, anyway. And it was incorrect. I was exhausted, and I was nervous, and Attis was unreachable with grief, and...” She bites her lip, slides her thumb over the grain in the wood beneath the black paint on the table. Ilya shakes her head. “So Hera was dead, and Attis... Well. Attis never quite recovered.” She flicks her gaze back up to me. “So,” she says with a halfhearted sneer, “now you know how I failed her. Now you know the story.”
I stare at Ilya for a long moment, emotions warring within me. “I'm sorry, Ilya,” I tell her then, quietly, heart hammering in my chest. “The whole situation was impossible. I hope you know that. Attis asked what she shouldn't have asked of you, and something terrible happened to Attis that shouldn't have happened...but it's not your fault that Hera's dead. People die,” I tell her, a lump growing in my throat. “And there's nothing that can stop it, or change it.”
When I close my eyes, I see my sister's smiling face; I see the dimples in her cheeks and the mischievous expression she always gave me right before she came up with one of her crazy ideas. I see her laughing, because Ellie laughed a lot. She was the happiest, best person I've ever known, and she's gone now.
Because people die. And there's nothing you can do to bring them back.
I get up suddenly, tears swimming in front of my eyes. I need a moment to myself, I need some fresh air, I need...
“Sit down, Josie,” says Ilya quietly. She glances up at me, and the hard lines of her face soften. “There is great pain within you,” she says, her head tilted to the side as I do as she says, sitting down and folding my arms as I grit my teeth, jaw hard. “What happened to you?” she asks me.
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