by Lisa Henry
Min dozed uneasily, each rattle of the shutters and moan of the wind pulling him back into wakefulness. His eyes stung with grit, and he ached through to his bones. He needed sleep but was too unsettled to find more than a few passing moments.
He wanted this over. He wanted to be back in Amberwich, in a bed wider than this one so he could get some space between him and Harry’s sharp elbows. He wanted to be done with this Sabadine business. He wanted to walk away from the machinations of powerful men from powerful Houses, with Harry safely tucked at his side. He wanted to slink back to the boltholes and rats’ nests of the eastern quarter and drink enough gut rot to forget any of this had ever happened. He wanted to sink so deeply into his cups that he no longer had any memory of Kazimir Stone and the misery in his dark eyes that Min had put there.
Min had never pretended to be better than he was, but he was unaccustomed to feeling the stirrings of guilt in his gut and found he didn’t like it much. He liked the fact that he was backed into a corner even less.
Min was no less trapped than Kaz.
He tugged some of the blankets back from Harry and closed his eyes. A gust of wind shook the shutters, and Min reminded himself that he was a grown man and unafraid of storms. Which he felt might have been more convincing if only he could forget the shade of Avice Sabadine wandering in the night and the dark specter of the fae hanging over everything, as omnipresent as the storm itself.
He barely registered the noise of footsteps on the stairs over the storm before the bedroom door was flung open and Min found himself squinting into lamplight.
“Is he here?” Robert demanded.
Sleep might have eluded Min, but his brain was addled with weariness. “What?”
“Kazimir.” Robert drew the lamp back, the shadows shrinking over his drawn face. “Is he here?”
“No.” Min stared blankly at Robert as, beside him, Harry snorted into wakefulness.
“Kaz is gone?” Harry asked, his voice tremulous.
“He’s not in his room.”
Min felt a chill. He flung the blankets back, scrabbling on the floor for his pants and tugging them on under his bed-rumpled shirt. He pulled on his tunic as well, for extra warmth, and his boots. He rose to his feet.
“The servants are checking the house,” Robert said, raising the lamp as though he half expected Kaz to be burrowed into Min’s blankets like a fat little bedbug. Which, in the normal run of things, Min wouldn’t have been opposed to at all. But this was a long way from normal.
“He’s not in the house,” Min said with a sinking sense of certainty.
“My mother?” Kaz had asked earlier, a hundred different hopes balanced on the knife’s edge of his heartbreak, just waiting to fall and to shatter. “That was my mother?”
Robert shot him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”
Min met his gaze and ignored the chill that ran down his spine. “Where is your sister’s grave?”
IN A garden behind the manor house, a weeping willow sagged under the weight of the rain. There was no marker on the grave, no stone set there to counter life’s transience with an attempt at something more lasting. And yet Kaz had known where to find his mother’s grave. Min wondered if he had followed her shade here.
Kaz knelt under the tree, his fingers digging into the sodden earth, his head bowed.
Robert Sabadine strode forward, followed by a cluster of nervous servants brandishing lanterns. They knocked against one another like fireflies in a bottle. Their lamps guttered in the rain despite their care. Min kept his gaze fixed on Kaz. To look away from him was to acknowledge that the night was vast, and that the storm was wild, and that shades walked in the darkness.
Robert wrenched Kaz to his feet. “Get inside!”
“No!” Kaz cried out. He scrabbled at the iron collar Min had fastened around his throat in Anhaga. “Please, please take it off! Please! Please!”
Min’s guts turned to ice.
“Please!”
Min winced as he saw it coming—Robert raised his hand and slapped his palm across Kaz’s cheek. The sound of the blow was swallowed by the rain and the wind, but Kaz stumbled back, his hands flying to his face.
Robert gripped him by the wrist and dragged him toward the house.
Min and the servants followed. The servants scattered like rats once they were inside the shelter of the house again, and the doors were barred against the storm and whatever else lurked out there in the night. Min stayed on Robert’s heels as he manhandled Kaz toward the kitchen.
“Sir,” he called, sounding calmer than he felt. “You are right to be angry, but you are hurting him.”
Robert flung Kaz to the floor. He huddled there, his wet hair plastered to his skull, his clothes dripping onto the stones in front of the fireplace. He cradled one arm to his chest.
“Get your clothes off, you fool,” Robert said, “before you are stricken with the ague.”
Kaz fumbled with the laces of his tunic.
Robert reached for the poker beside the fireplace. Kaz flinched back, but Robert only jabbed the poker into the fire and stirred the embers back to life. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Kaz swallowed, his chest heaving. When he spoke, his voice was ragged. “I wanted….” He shivered. “I wanted to see if she would show herself again. I wanted to be close to—”
Robert’s grip tightened on the poker as he whirled on Kaz. “She is nothing to you. Not now, and not ever. You are the thing that killed her.”
Kaz flinched as though Robert had struck him again.
“Sir,” Min said quietly, stepping forward. “Let me tend to the fire.”
He held his hand out for the poker, half-afraid Robert would strike Kaz before he even knew what he was doing. Robert thrust it toward him and paced back and forth on the stones.
Min knelt before the fireplace, feeding in a few pieces of wood from the basket beside the hearth. He was close to Kaz. He was aware of Kaz in his periphery, shifting, but kept his gaze fixed on the fire even as he heard the wet slap of clothing on the floor. He had imagined Kaz naked, hadn’t he? That pale skin, that lean, coltish frame. Kaz was very much Min’s type—to be fair, of course, everyone was very much Min’s type—but he didn’t dare turn his head. Robert already suspected his attraction, and Min didn’t want to test his temper any further tonight. He worked in silence to rebuild the fire.
Silence was safest.
“Sir,” Kaz said, and Min felt his stomach swoop. “Please, if you would just take the collar off so that I might talk to her!”
Min froze for the space of a heartbeat.
Oh, the fool. The stupid, reckless fool.
He rose to his feet, the poker still clutched in his hand. He stepped between Kaz and Robert and thought that well, if this were his last moment, he hoped someone would embellish his heroism when it came time to memorialize it in song.
Robert stared down at the naked boy, shock and horror written large across his face. “You are no hedgewitch.”
No. Kaz was a lot of things. A lot of very stupid things. But he was not a hedgewitch. Min tightened his grip on the poker.
Robert’s face twisted. “You are a necromancer!”
“A necromancer,” Min agreed blithely, “and at no extra cost. Now step back, sir, lest I am forced to protect my investment.”
Robert’s gaze flicked from Kaz to Min. “You threaten me, scoundrel?”
“I may be no gentleman,” Min said, “but I am also no fool. If you beat your nephew to death because of his vile Gift, then my nephew dies too. Kazimir is no threat to any man. He is bound by iron. Step away, sir, and take your rest if we are to leave for Amberwich in the morning.”
“Are you mad? We cannot leave in the morning. The storm is barely easing, and—” Robert shook his head. And his nephew was a necromancer. And the shade of his dead sister was wandering the land. “It’s madness.”
“And who do you think sent the storm?” Min asked him. “Who do you think is tryi
ng to delay us from getting Kazimir to the protection of the Iron Tower? The fae have been snapping at our heels since Anhaga, and if we delay for much longer, they will be on us. We must leave in the morning.”
Robert paled, his jaw tightening. He held Min’s gaze for a long moment, as though he was searching for a falsehood there, and then nodded. “Very well. We will leave in the morning.”
He turned on his heel and left the kitchen.
Min’s heart rediscovered its regular rhythm, and he loosened his grip on the poker.
“Thank you,” Kaz whispered from the floor.
Min couldn’t bring himself to look at him. “You’re a fool, Kazimir. They’ll keep you in iron until you’re dead now.”
“I just wanted to talk to her.” His voice was as small as a child’s.
“You’re a fool,” Min repeated, but waited with him in silence until Robert returned with dry clothes for Kaz to wear and the chain from his bedroom folded into lengths over his shoulder.
Chapter 11
THE MORNING brought a respite from the storm. The lashing rain had eased to drizzle, and the dark clouds that had covered the night sky were breaking up in places now, like the glaze on old dinnerware, with faint light shining through the cracks. The morning was sharp with cold, and Min shivered as he and Harry tramped over the muddy courtyard toward the stables. Min had five hot bread rolls shoved between his shirt and his tunic, and the smell of them made his stomach growl out its hunger. He was saving them to eat in the saddle.
Harry’s tunic was as suspiciously lumpy as Min’s own.
“At least it’s stopped pissing down,” Harry muttered.
“Hmm.” A more optimistic man might have taken some delight in that. Min couldn’t help but wonder if the storm had ended because it had already served its purpose: it had allowed the fae to catch them. He cast his narrow gaze over the courtyard and over the men waiting with the horses but saw nothing out of place. A buzzing insect zipped past him, and Min’s heart skipped a beat as he thought of the chattering wisps that had tormented them the night they’d left Anhaga, but it was only a horsefly.
One of the stableboys led Min’s horse to him, and Min tried to suppress a shudder at the thought of getting back into the saddle. The horse, he thought, was probably just as reluctant.
The horse’s trappings jangled, metal clinking against metal, and Min saw a pair of horseshoes hanging from the pommel. Iron. Enough to repel the fae, though? Min had no idea.
Amberwich was a day’s ride away.
In a day this could all be over.
Min stood in the stableboy’s cupped hands and hauled himself into the saddle. He tugged the hood of his tunic forward and cast an eye over the rest of the party. Robert Sabadine held his gaze for a moment and nodded. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept; the shadows under his eyes were deep this morning.
Talys yawned in the early morning gloom and then craned her head to seek out Harry. The scant light caught her profile, and for a moment she glowed as though she had been painted by a scribe in some volume illuminated in gold.
Harry stared at her achingly, adoringly.
Kaz’s hands were unbound today. Clearly Robert didn’t want a repeat of yesterday’s close call. Kaz sat in the saddle with his head bowed, hemmed in by Robert’s men.
A day, Min reminded himself. In a day this could be over.
A day.
He tore his gaze from Kaz and tugged on the reins of his horse.
HOURS LATER Min’s body was aching when Robert finally called for the party to stop. He had twinges in places he didn’t have names for, his ass was sore, and his bladder was throbbing with the need to take a piss. His boots hit the ground, jarring his bones, and he hastily tangled the reins of the horse around a scrubby bush before stepping behind it to relieve himself.
There was woodland on this side of the road and fields, divided into patchwork by hedgerows, on the other. Min tucked himself back into his pants as Harry darted around the bush to join him, then turned his back on the boy and stared out into the trees. The road here followed a rise in the land; on either side it dipped away again. The trees were sparse at the edge of the road but grew thicker some distance back. The shifting light made it appear as though there was movement in the woods, and Min’s skin prickled with unease. He wanted to be back in Amberwich, where the city was close and crowded and stank, but Min understood it in a way he would never understand the countryside.
He waited until Harry nudged against his side like a tick trying to burrow in, and slung his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
“Fucking trees,” Harry muttered, squinting into the woods.
Min smiled despite himself. Harry was an annoying little shit, but he had always been a boy after Min’s own heart.
He drew Harry back onto the road, releasing him with a slap on the back. Robert’s men were walking around, stretching their limbs and taking the opportunity to eat. Min dug a bread roll out of his tunic and tore a chunk out of it with his teeth, his gaze seeking out Kaz as surely as Harry’s sought out Talys.
Idiots, the both of them.
Kaz was standing at the side of the road, motionless while men and horses moved around him. He was not eating. His hands were tucked into his damp sleeves. He was looking out across the fields, and Min wondered if it was a hedgewitch’s eye he used to survey them. Kaz had never been a hedgewitch, but he’d wanted to be one. He’d wanted an affinity with crops and seasons and growth and life, and instead his Gift was death.
Born to the wrong family, to the wrong blood, and to the wrong Gift.
Min watched as Kaz shifted his weight from foot to foot and then stooped down and picked a stringy dandelion from the muddy road. He held it as carefully as if it were precious as balsam.
“More rain coming,” Harry muttered.
Min looked at him.
Harry nodded toward the fields. “More rain.”
The farthest edge of the fields had already vanished under a shroud of gray. More of the fields vanished into the mist even as Min watched.
“That’s not rain,” Min said. “That’s mist.”
Except since when did mist roll in like the waves of the ocean, so quickly? Since when did it transform so rapidly into fog as thick as smoke? And—Min felt ice slide down his spine—since when did it carry on it the faint sound of bells?
Min and Harry weren’t the only ones who had noticed the fog swallowing the fields.
Kaz, wide-eyed, his mouth open in horror, also stared. The dandelion fell from his twitching fingers into the mud.
“Ride!” Min called. “Ride!”
Dragging Harry by the elbow, he dashed back toward his horse.
And remembered, too late as it happened, to avoid crossing too near the end of the beast. The horse didn’t kick but, in the sudden flurry of panicked motion around it, skittered backward and knocked Min solidly enough to send him tumbling to the ground. Harry reached for him, but the horse was still dancing, and somehow it got between them.
Min clambered to his feet. “I’m fine! Get on your horse!”
Harry scrambled into the saddle.
Min gripped the reins of his horse, wincing as pain cut through his shoulder. He tried to hold the horse in place and step into the saddle, and the contrary beast skipped away from him. Around them, the others were already on horseback, already fleeing down the road toward Amberwich.
And the fog was rolling in, closing the distance between the field and the road as surely as a flood.
Min tried to mount his horse again, and the objectionable animal reared back. The reins tore through Min’s grasp and left his stinging hand holding nothing but air.
“Min!” And suddenly Kaz was there, reaching a hand down for him.
Min would like to say he swung himself up behind Kaz with actual finesse, but he felt more like a fat seal beaching itself on the rear end of the animal. It was clumsy and unbalanced. He lay on his stomach, in imminent danger of pitching all the way forward a
nd breaking his skull open on the road. There was nothing to hold on to as Kaz nudged the horse into an ungainly trot.
Sons of Rus.
A canter would fucking kill him if he even stayed on that long!
“Min!” he heard Harry yelling above the rattling of his teeth in his skull.
And then the fog was on them, and they were blind.
Above the sound of panicked horses and men, Min heard again the jangling of bells. He was suddenly acutely aware of the sound of the bundle of horseshoes tied to Kaz’s saddle clinking together in answer. The iron might have offered protection, but it was loud.
So too was Robert Sabadine. “Talys!” he bellowed from somewhere in the fog. “Talys! Kazimir!”
Min gripped Kaz by the back of his tunic as he felt himself starting to slide off the horse. He went backward, fortunately, not forward, and landed more or less on his feet. And Kaz slid down beside him. His face, his form were ghostly in the fog, made somehow as shifting and insubstantial as his mother’s shade.
If the fae were on them, then they needed to be invisible, or at least more invisible than their companions. Let the fae tear Robert’s men apart first. Perhaps that would buy Min and Kaz some time. And Min hoped that Harry, lost somewhere in the chaos, was smart enough to realize the same thing.
Min slapped Kaz’s horse on the rump, sending it trotting away, its trappings and its iron shoes jangling. Then, gripping Kaz by the wrist, he pulled him onto the verge of the road and down into the trees.
“Kazimir!” Robert called again, already sounding fainter as the fog smothered his voice. “Kazimir!”
Min pulled Kaz close, his back to Min’s chest, and put a hand over his mouth.
He pressed his other hand to the iron collar around Kaz’s throat and hoped it would be enough to protect them both from the fae. It was quieter than horseshoes, at least.
“Shhh, sweeting,” he murmured against the shell of Kaz’s pointed ear.
Kaz’s breath was hot and damp against his palm, and he nodded to show that he understood.