No, he hadn’t looked decent at all. How much of her had he seen in return? Those gray eyes seemed to miss nothing.
After a moment, he sighed. “I’ll set the tray on the floor. You can take it once I’ve left. And don’t try to run—Silas is guarding the stairs. The door will lock with magic when you’re finished.”
A jingle of silverware and crockery followed his instructions. She waited until she heard his footsteps move away, and then cracked the door open again. Through the narrow space, she inspected the tray, which was laden with dark bread and herb-freckled cheese. And there—sausages. They did not seem to be a trap. She crouched down, pushing the door open wider.
Nathaniel had almost reached the end of the hallway. Watching him, she made out the sore-looking bite mark on the skin of his right hand. Proof that he could be hurt like an ordinary man. He might have killed the Director, but he wasn’t invincible. As long as Elisabeth lived, she still stood a chance.
She gathered her courage. “Nathaniel,” she said.
His stride slowed, then stopped. He tilted his head, waiting.
“I’m—” She swallowed as her voice gave out, and tried again. “I’m sorry that I bit you.”
He turned. His gaze flicked over her, casually appraising the way she reached out and clutched the edge of the tray, as if someone might try to snatch it away from her. His eyes lingered on the fading bruises that marked her arms from the battle with the Malefict. As the moment spun on, she had the uncomfortable feeling of being turned inside out and inspected like an empty pocket. “Are you?” he asked at last.
Unconvincingly, she nodded.
“I see you haven’t had much practice lying,” he said, still scrutinizing her. “You’re awful at it. Even if you weren’t, that tactic wouldn’t work on me.”
“What tactic?”
“Pretending to be meek and obedient in the hopes I’ll let my guard down in time for your next escape attempt. You’ve already proven yourself to be an agent of chaos. I’m not about to forget it. Is there anything else before I go?”
Heat flooded Elisabeth’s cheeks. The tray’s edges bit into her fingers. It had been foolish of her to imagine that she could trick him. But if he were willing to answer questions, at least she could take the opportunity to learn more. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Eighteen.”
She sat back in surprise. “Truly?”
“I haven’t sacrificed virgins for my perfect cheekbones, if that’s what you mean. Virgins, in general, have fewer magical properties than people tend to assume.”
Elisabeth tried not to look too relieved by that information. “It’s only that you’re young to be a magister,” she ventured.
His face grew unreadable. Then he smiled in a way that sent a chill down her spine. “The explanation is simple. Everyone standing between myself and the title is dead. Does that satisfy your curiosity, Miss Scrivener?”
She found, suddenly, that it had. She didn’t want to know what could put an expression like that on a boy’s face, as though his eyes were carved from ice, and his heart had turned to stone. She no longer wished to face the person who had murdered the Director in cold blood. Looking down, she nodded.
Nathaniel made to leave, then paused. “Before I go, can I ask you something in return?”
Staring at her supper, she waited to hear what the question was.
“Why did you grab my hair that day in Summershall?” he asked. “I know you didn’t do it by accident, but I can’t for the life of me come up with a rational explanation.”
Her stomach unknotted in relief. She had expected him to ask something terrible. Distantly, she thought, So he does remember me from the reading room, after all.
“I was finding out whether you had pointed ears,” she said.
He paused, considering her answer. “I see,” he said, with a serious expression. “Good night, Miss Scrivener.” He strode around the corner.
Elisabeth wasted no time dragging the tray inside. She was so hungry that she set upon her dinner on the floor, devouring it with her hands. She barely noticed in between bites that someone, somewhere else in the inn, was laughing.
EIGHT
AUSTERMEER’S COUNTRYSIDE FLOWED past the coach’s window. They passed farms, and rolling wildflower meadows, and wooded hills tinged gold with autumn color. Mist pooled in the hollows between the valleys, and sometimes stretched fingers across the road. As the afternoon shadows deepened, the coach clattered into the Blackwald, the great forest that slashed through the kingdom like the stroke of a knife. Everything grew dark and damp. Here and there among the undergrowth stood shocking white stands of birch trees, like specters floating among the black gowns of a funeral party. Gazing out at the gently falling leaves, the thick carpets of ferns, the occasional deer bolting into places unseen, Elisabeth was enveloped by a pall of dread, as though the mist had seeped inside the coach and surrounded her.
Nathaniel would make the attempt here, she was certain. When he reached the city without her, he could claim she’d run and vanished among the trees. In a place like this, no one would find a girl’s body. No one would even bother looking.
Escape felt increasingly hopeless. She had tried again last night, but after breaking her room’s window and climbing down the roof, Silas had been waiting for her in the inn’s garden. Strangely, she didn’t remember the rest. She must have been overcome by exhaustion. Afterward she’d had an unsettling dream of being back in Summershall’s orchard, digging the emergency salt canister out from under the angel statue. But this time the statue had come alive, and looked down at her with vivid yellow eyes.
A nudge against her hand interrupted her thoughts. Frowning, she tore her gaze from the forest to the grimoire on her lap. This was the third time it had bumped her with its cover, like a dog begging for attention.
“What is it?” she asked, and the Lexicon gave another, more insistent nudge, until she loosened her grip and it flipped itself open with an eager flutter.
It had opened to the same section as last night, Demonic Servants and Their Summoning. Elisabeth shuddered. Illustrations from books flashed through her mind: drawings of pentagrams and bleeding maidens, of demons with horns and snouts and tails feasting on entrails like ropes of sausage. But the Lexicon wanted her to read this for a reason. Steeling herself, she bent over the pages.
Relatively little is known about demons even within the sorcerous community, it told her beneath the heading, in part due to the danger of conversing with demons, who are notorious deceivers, and will seize any chance to betray their masters. For once a bargain with a demon is struck, it is in the demon’s best interest to see its master dead; thus it may secure another bargain with a new master, and maximize the amount of human life that it receives in payment.
Demons populate a realm known as the Otherworld, a plane adjacent to our own, which is the source of all magical energy. Without the connection established by a demonic bargain, humans cannot draw energy from the Otherworld. Therefore sorcery’s very existence is contingent upon the summoning and servitude of demons—a regrettable, but necessary, evil. It is both a blessing and a curse that demons crave mortal life above all else, and are therefore eager to treat with humans. . . .
Could this be Nathaniel’s weakness? She grasped in vain at the thought. Her head felt muddy, as though she had been reading for hours instead of only seconds. The grimoire nudged her hand again, and she realized she’d been staring off into space. Determinedly, she rubbed her eyes and continued reading.
The Otherworld teems with hordes of lesser demons: imps, fiends, goblins, and the like, which are not difficult to summon; but they do not make reliable servants, for they are little more intelligent than common beasts. Being the province of criminals and unskilled dabblers, lesser demons are illegal to summon as of the Reforms. True sorcerers seek only the service of highborn demons, which for all their danger may be bound to the conditions of their summoning, and therefore compelled to obey the
orders given to them by their masters.
“Where on earth is Nathaniel’s demon?” Elisabeth murmured. It seemed odd for him to travel without it. She briefly had the sensation of teetering on the edge of a revelation, but the epiphany leaked from her mind like sand, leaving only a tinny ringing in her ears.
Further speculation on the nature of demons and the Otherworld exists, the Lexicon continued on the next page, but by and large the sources are highly inconsistent—if not fabricated outright—and their value dismissed by contemporary scholarship. The most notorious example of these is the Codex Daemonicus, by Aldous Prendergast, written in 1513, once held in high esteem but now believed to be nothing more than the ramblings of a madman. Prendergast was declared insane by his own friend, Cornelius the Wise, for his claims that he entered the Otherworld and discovered a terrible secret, which he concealed within his manuscript in the form of a cipher—
“Miss Scrivener?”
Elisabeth flinched and slammed the grimoire shut. She had been concentrating so hard on reading that she hadn’t noticed the coach had come to a halt.
“We’ve reached our stop for the evening,” Nathaniel went on, opening the door wider. “It’s best not to travel in this forest after dark.” His eyes tracked her as she set the Lexicon aside, but he didn’t comment on its presence.
When Silas helped her out of the coach, she tensed. The coach had pulled off the road into a forest clearing. Stars glittered above, and the trees clustered close around them, dark and watchful, breathing mist. They were far from any sign of civilization, even an inn.
This was the place. It had to be. Her hands curled into fists as Nathaniel stepped away into the meadow, casting around on the ground as though searching for something. A place to bury her body? She shot a look over her shoulder, only to find Silas standing close behind her. Though he kept his gaze politely lowered, she felt the weight of his attention.
“There are no buildings in the Blackwald,” he said, as though he had been reading her mind. “The moss folk do not take kindly to intrusions on their territory. While few of them remain, they can still prove dangerous when the mood strikes them.”
Elisabeth’s breath caught. She had read stories about the moss folk, and had always hoped to see one, but Master Hargrove had assured her that the spirits of the forest were all long dead—if they had ever existed to begin with.
“Don’t let Silas frighten you,” Nathaniel put in. “As long as we take care not to disturb the land when we make camp, and stay out of the trees, they won’t bother us.”
He paused, looking down. Then he knelt and placed a hand on the ground. She saw his lips move in the dark, and felt a snap of magic in the air. The spell that followed wasn’t anything like what she expected. Emerald light unfolded around him into the shape of two tents, which swelled with bedrolls and unrolled lengths of fine green silk down their sides. Nathaniel stood to examine his handiwork. Afterward, he gestured toward the farthest tent. “That one’s yours.”
She stiffened in surprise. “You’re giving me my own tent?”
He looked around, eyebrows raised. A lock of silver-streaked hair had fallen over his forehead. “Why, would you prefer to share one? I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Scrivener, but I suppose some species do bite each other as a prelude to courtship.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant.”
After a moment of studying her, his grin faded. “Yes, I’m giving you your own tent. Just remember what I told you about running. Silas will keep watch tonight, and I assure you, he’s a great deal harder to get past than a locked door.”
Why give her a tent if he only meant to kill her? This had to be a trick. She remained awake long after she crawled inside, alert and listening. She didn’t take off her boots. Hours passed, but a fire continued to crackle, and the murmured tones of Nathaniel and Silas’s conversation carried through the canvas walls. Though she couldn’t make out any words, the ebb and flow of their exchange reminded her more of two old friends than a master and servant. Occasionally Nathaniel would say something, and very softly, Silas would laugh.
Finally, the conversation ceased. She waited for an hour or so longer—long enough for the fire’s embers to fade to a dull red glow against the canvas. Then, unable to stand the tension any longer, she crawled out of her bedroll and poked her head through the tent’s flap. The air smelled of pine and wood smoke, and crickets sang a silvery chorus in the night. Silas was nowhere to be seen. Bent at the waist, she took a step outside. And stopped.
“Out for an evening stroll, Scrivener?”
Nathaniel was still awake. He sat on a fallen log near the edge of the forest, his chin resting on his clasped hands, facing the trees. The embers smoldering behind him cast his face into shadow. He didn’t turn, but she knew he would cast a spell the instant she tried to flee.
She had a choice. She could run from her fate, or she could face it head on. After a moment of stillness, she picked her way through the wildflowers, feeling strangely as though she were trapped in a dream.
“Do you not sleep?” she asked as she drew near.
“Very little,” he replied. “But that’s particular to me, not sorcerers in general.” As he spoke, he didn’t look away from the trees. She followed his gaze, and froze.
A shape moved within the ferns and pale thin birches, picked out by moonlight. A spirit of the wood. It was stooped over, collecting objects from the ground. A curtain of mossy hair hung from its head, and a pair of antlers crowned its brow. Its skin was chalk-white and cracked, like birch bark, and its long, crooked arms hung to its knees, ending in knotted, twiglike claws. A chill shivered up and down Elisabeth’s arms. Slowly, she stepped forward and sank down on the opposite end of the log.
Nathaniel spared her a glance. “You aren’t afraid of it,” he observed, almost a question.
She shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from the forest. “I’ve always wanted to see the moss folk. I knew they were real, even though everyone told me differently.”
The fire at Nathaniel’s back etched the lines of his jaw and cheekbones, but didn’t reach the hollows of his eyes. “Most people grow out of fairy stories,” he said. “Why did you carry on believing, when the rest of the world did not?”
She wasn’t sure how to answer. To her, his question made little sense—or if it did, it wasn’t a kind of sense she wished to understand. “What is the point of life if you don’t believe in anything?” she asked instead.
He gave her a long look, his half-hidden expression indecipherable. She wondered why he had been sitting here watching the moss spirit, alone, for so long.
Movement caught her eye. As they’d spoken, the spirit had raised something small—an acorn—to inspect it in the moonlight. That was what it had been collecting, and surely it had found many, but there seemed to be something special about this acorn in particular. Using its gnarled claws, it raked aside the covering of leaves on the ground and scooped out a hole from the loam. It buried the acorn and mounded the leaves back on top. A sigh stirred through the forest at that exact moment, a breeze that rushed forth from the heart of the wood and swept over Elisabeth, combing through her hair.
The stories claimed that the moss folk were stewards of the forest. They tended to its trees and creatures, watched over them from birth to death. They had a magic of their own.
“Why are there so few of them left?” she asked, pierced by a sorrow she couldn’t explain.
For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “Do you know of my ancestor, Baltasar Thorn?”
She nodded, hoping her goose bumps weren’t visible in the firelight. The embers popped and snapped.
“At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Blackwald covered half of Austermeer. This was a wild country. It was ruled as much by the forest as it was by men.”
But not any longer, she finished. “What did he do?”
“It was the necromantic ritual he performed d
uring the War of Bones. To grant life, even a semblance of it, one must take life, trade it like currency. Unsurprisingly, raising thousands of soldiers from the grave took a great deal. The life came from the land itself. His magic left two-thirds of the Blackwald dead and dying in a single night. The moss folk are tied to the earth—those that survived were stricken like blighted trees.” Nathaniel paused. He added in a dry tone, “Baltasar, of course, received a title.”
Elisabeth’s fingernails dug into the wood of the log beneath her, soft and spongy with decay. Now that she looked more closely at the moss spirit she saw that one of its knees was swollen and disfigured, like a canker on the trunk of an oak.
“I suppose you must be proud,” she said. “It’s the reason why you’re a magister.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” He sounded amused. “Meditating fondly on my ancestor’s deeds?”
“I don’t know. I hope not. No one should take pleasure from such a thing.” Not even someone like you.
Perhaps his supply of mockery wasn’t as infinite as she assumed. He only gazed into the forest a moment longer, then stood. “It’s late.” He nodded at the spirit. “You’re lucky to have seen one. A hundred years from now, they’ll all be gone.”
He brought his fingers to his lips. Before she could stop him, a whistle broke the stillness.
The spirit jerked toward the sound like a startled deer. In the gloom she saw two blue-green eyes, glowing incandescently, like fox fire. Withered lips pulled back from sharp, gnarled, brown teeth, and then the spirit had vanished, leaving only a patch of trembling ferns where it had once stood.
“You don’t know that for certain,” Elisabeth said. But her voice sounded tentative in the dark. Looking at the empty hill, where magic had once walked and now was gone, she could almost imagine that he was right.
“I never did answer your question.” He set off toward his tent. “If you don’t believe in anything,” he said over his shoulder, “then you have a great deal less to lose.”
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