The woman motions toward a pair of stools nearby. I remain standing, but Mary takes a seat. “I’m afraid I am not always so welcome within the village,” she tells us. “There are always those who fear that which they do not understand.”
“What is it they do not understand about you?” I inquire.
She says simply, “My gifts. I am Gertrude, by the way.”
Mary makes quick introductions for the both of us as well as Grymsdyke. Interestingly enough, a talking spider does nothing more than stimulate interest from the woman. Nothing further is said until Victor and the A.D. bring Finn inside, and by the looks of their cloaks, the light splattering from just minutes before has turned steadier.
It’s hard to see him like this. Infuriating, really. Victor and the A.D. are gentle with him, respectful, too, but the fact that he still sleeps, that he cannot walk in here on his own two feet, that he cannot choose whether or not to come along on this mission, leaves frustration nearly crushing my chest.
He deserves better. I will fix this. I must.
The moment Gertrude sees Finn, she says, “Let us put him by the fire.” She shoves a stool out of the way and drags over a pile of hay that sits nearby. “Here, where he can be comfortable.”
The urge to personally ensure my beloved’s comfort is strong, but I know I must stay on guard lest Gertrude turns out to be anything other than what she claims. I urge my assassin closer to ask quietly, “Do you sense anything out of the ordinary?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” He bounds from Mary’s shoulder to my own. “But I cannot sense if it is nefarious or not. It feels . . . more neutral, if that makes sense.”
It does, actually.
Gertrude peers down at Finn once he’s situated. “Is this why you are here? To see what can be done for your friend?”
“In a roundabout way,” I say carefully, “we are.”
She kneels down next to him, pressing her wrist against his forehead. “If I am to try to help, I must first know what ails him.”
“He was stabbed.” My words are blunt, unforgiving. “By a sword enchanted by the thirteenth of the Wise Women.”
The surprise that flashes in her eyes isn’t covered quickly enough. Interesting.
I press my hand. “Might you know anything about this woman, or any of the Wise Women?”
She slowly stands up, taking each of us in: Victor, his hand on the hilt of a sword, hanging on his scabbard, eyes gleaming with a bit of madness that just cannot seem to dissipate; the A.D., leaning against the fireplace, his muscles tense; Mary, head tilted, eyes narrowed; and myself, standing directly in the path toward the door.
“I might,” she drawls. Something in her changes then—invisible walls of protection seem to rise about her. She is on guard, too. “What is it you want with the Wise Women?” Suspicion practically paints each of her words. “Is it your hope that the thirteenth will reverse whatever enchantment she has laid upon this man?”
“Do you know where they are?”
She tucks a stray hair behind an ear. “I do not advise anyone to make that trek.”
“I am not just anyone. Neither are the rest of my companions.”
Gertrude’s sigh is quiet yet resigned in the warmth of the home. “No, you are not, are you? Nor is your spider.” She moves to a nearby table, one filled with herbs and mortars and pestles. Several stalks are selected before her nimble fingers strip the dried flowers off. “That said, you might not like the answers I give.”
“We won’t know,” Victor says from his station by Finn, “until you offer them.”
The flowers are dumped into a mortar. “Do not say I did not warn you.”
GERTRUDE SLIDES A BOTTLE filled with tree bark closer to where she stands. “How much do you know of the Wise Women?”
She’s testing us, I realize, but I am willing to play just a little. “There are thirteen, all presumed to have some sorts of magical abilities. Twelve seem . . . less nefarious than the thirteenth, based on a story we have heard.”
The sound of scraping fills the space between us as she grounds the flowers to a fine dust. “Are you referring to the history of Queen Briar-Rose?”
When I tell her yes, she continues. “For centuries, the Wise Women have watched over the people of this kingdom. In the beginning, their intentions were pure: they were impartial, fair in their gifts and guidance. Kings and peasant alike would journey to visit them, bringing offerings in exchange for whatever it was they desired. Many were turned away, those found worthy were blessed. Those who were not were punished. But time is not always a generous mistress. Time allows slow changes, the warping of beliefs based upon observations both common and uncommon. The Wise Women eventually became less cohesive as a group and more splintered in their beliefs. Petty jealousies arose, arguments over who and what deserved their insight and gifts. It all came to a head when the King held a banquet and bade the Wise Women to attend. It was not often they were summoned from their caves, and this alone prompted much anger and resentment amongst some. But the true difficulty lay in that the King specified only twelve could attend. One would be forced to stay behind.
“As you can imagine, the thirteenth was truly angered. She was already bitter and outraged over the summons, but to discover that one was to be excluded? It was not to be borne. Lots were drawn; the angriest of all was selected to remain. Rather than allow rationality to rule as it once had for centuries before, she journeyed behind her coven and ensured the King, and the kingdom, knew what punishments were in store for insulting the Wise Women. Whilst many of the Wise Women agreed with her, albeit silently, there was one who felt she went too far. It was one thing to punish the King for his insolence, it was another to destroy the future of an innocent babe whose threads of life were yet woven. It was she who altered the curse.” Gertrude selects a bottle and pulls out several dried leaves. “The princess suffered, of course, as did the entire castle. But they were not alone in their punishments. The Wise Woman who dared to go against one of her sisters was also castigated.”
A quick trip to a rack laden with tiny, herb-filled jars has Gertrude bringing several more ingredients to her worktable.
“What happened to her?” Mary asks.
“She was banished.” Gertrude’s mouth is set in a flat line as she pulls a dried plant I do not recognize from the jar. “Sent into exile by a majority of her sisters. As she left, the group then splintered further until the once mighty and just thirteen were no longer whole. Most went into pockets of seclusion, refusing help to the people of the kingdom. A few who let too much anger and greed into their heart turned toward darker intentions.” She wipes stray hairs off her face with the back of her hand before motioning toward Finn. “Thus, an unfortunate situation such as this.”
“Why are the villagers so afraid to speak of the Women?” Mary presses.
Gertrude reclaims her pestle. “Dark deeds are only favored by those with holes and blackness within their souls, are they not? I cannot say for certain, but it seems fair to guess that there is fear of retribution for speaking out against those far more powerful than they.”
“Where do you fit into this?” the A.D. asks. “I mean, you seem to have quite a bit of details about how it all shook down.”
Before she can answer, I say, “Isn’t it obvious? She is the twelfth, now banished to the woods so close to the village.”
Half of her mouth lifts as she regards me. “Aren’t you a clever little queen?”
The corners of my lips lift up just a tiny bit before I ever so gently incline my head. Touché. Across the room, Victor’s hand tightens on the hilt of his sword. The A.D.’s moves to do the same. Grymsdyke’s grip upon my shoulder is a bit more assured.
“Have no fear.” Her faint smile matches my own. “Had I wanted you dead or worse, I would have ensured such fates already.”
“Do not dare to threaten the Queen of Diamonds,” my assassin insists.
The Wise Woman says nothing to this. She merely gazes upon
the spider as if he is the most fascinating thing in the entire room.
“Worse than dead?” the A.D. scoffs to no one in particular. “What can be worse than that?”
She does not respond to his idiocy. Instead, she says to me, “If it is your hope that the thirteenth Wise Woman will revoke her curse, then I’m afraid you have journeyed here for naught. If you were to petition her for such, chances are, you would receive that fate your friend here seems unable to imagine.”
Chances are, she is right. Reasoning with the cruel is tricky, indeed.
Still, my options are rapidly dwindling. I cannot allow Finn to go through the Piper’s transformation. If he was to become anything like S. Todd or Rosemary . . .
No. I cannot allow it.
“What about you?” My tone is cool, my breaths measured. “You have portrayed yourself to us as a healer, and admitted that you altered a previous spell.”
She tugs a small cauldron over and dumps the crushed and powdered herbs into it. “I will know nothing more about the spell until I examine him.”
“You can’t magically just . . . tell? Or know?”
Her eyes flit over to the A.D. He genuinely appears baffled. “I know a great many things,” she tells him. “But magic is not always so easy to unravel, especially if it comes from another.” A bit of liquid is carefully poured from a black jar, her attention shifting to me. “Nor is it always able to be freely given, even if well deserved.”
I offer another slight incline of my head. If she wants payment, I will give it.
The door suddenly blows open, bringing with it not only a gust of wind and rain, but also a brown and white falcon. Its strong wings beat furiously, raising all our hairs, before it settles on a perch nearby.
“Just in time.” As she grabs a wooden spoon to stir her mixture, Gertrude glances fondly at it. “Is all as it should be?”
A rather loud series of chirps erupt from the bird.
She chuckles and then, with a flick of her wrist and the spoon, the door shuts, surprising even me.
“The surviving dwarves are put out with you all.” She tsks. “You’ll need to be careful when you depart and steer clear of them. They can be quite vindictive if they have a mind to it.”
“Noted,” Victor says quietly, his eyes blankly staring at the darkness beyond the window.
The twelfth Wise Woman turns to face him. “You are a healer yourself, are you not?”
He blinks and refocuses on her. “I am.”
Her head cocks to the side. “How very interesting you are. How deeply you struggle with the monster within.”
He does not flinch at such a blatant description. Does not even allow one emotion to flicker across his face at these words.
“Offer me your assessment, healer.”
Victor clears his throat. “Infection from the wound has been stabilized and the fever controlled. No organs were damaged; the blade went clean through one side to the other. After cleaning the area out, I stitched it up. He was coherent and functional for several hours after the stabbing before collapsing. Further examination has shown a drastic change to his eyes, alongside the area surrounding the wound.”
“Your guilt does him no good,” she says briskly.
Mary stands up, her face darkening. “Hey now—”
Gertrude points her spoon toward her. “Nor does your misplaced anger.”
The spoon is enough to shut Mary up.
The Wise Woman hangs the pot over the fire on a blackened metal hook. “Let us see what my sister has done.” She kneels down next to Finn and places her hand against his cheek. For many long seconds, she simply stares down at him, unmoving. And then, just when I think she’ll speak, she closes her eyes for what must be nearly another full minute.
My patience is already thin. The wait is unbearable.
Finally, her eyes open—but it’s not that they’ve turned a milky, clouded white that has me concerned. It’s that her brow is deeply furrowed as she once more angles her attention toward his torso. She releases his face, trailing her hand down his chest. His tunic is tugged upward; nothing is mentioned of the IV bag taped to his unmarked side. When a knife slips out of her apron, I yearn to rush her and knock it out of her grip.
Forces I cannot see cease my ability to do so.
“Have no fear, queen.” No longer the lilting voice from before, her words are now hollow, as if they are nothing more than dried leaves whispering through barren trees. The knife slices quietly through the bandaging circling Finn’s torso, and once more, as I take in the oddly beautiful swirls and patterns decorating his chest, I cannot control the quick inhale of breath that overtakes me. How can something so beautiful, so delicate and mesmerizing, come from something so insidious?
She traces a finger across one of the more elaborate swirls, pale blue and shaped almost like a bird in flight. “This magic,” she murmurs quizzically, “does not hail from the earth and blood and bone that I know.”
“What does that mean?” Mary whispers.
Such a description is a punch in my belly to hear, leaving a buzzing in my ears. The Piper must have . . . layered the magic? Found someone else to add another enchantment?
The twelfth Wise Woman swivels those eerie white eyes toward me. “My sister’s magic is here. I feel it in his veins. It is fighting to find purchase. But this magic . . .” She traces the lines perfectly, although her attention remains on me. “It is his saving grace.”
I must swallow the egg that suddenly appears in my throat. Those lines, those beautiful lines . . . have been protecting him? “Enough to heal him?”
She beckons me closer. “It has guarded him, but my sister’s spell is strong. There is so much darkness, so much anger. So much vengeance. He does not have much time, I’m afraid.”
I drop to my knees next to her. “I will pay whatever it takes for you to aid him.”
Without notice, she grabs my hand. With a flick of her blade, blood is drawn across my thumb. And then, before I can retaliate, she licks the red beading off.
The spider upon my shoulder hisses in outrage, but I stay his retaliation with my free hand.
The Wise Woman releases me. “There is a salve on the shelf, in the small wooden box. It will help.”
Mary is the one to fetch it. I, instead, watch in perverse yet wary horror as she does the same to Finn’s thumb.
The white oculi return to me. “You do not hail from these lands.”
“I do not.”
“Nor does he.” She licks her lips. “Why is your blood in his?”
The question takes me by surprise. When I do not answer immediately, she turns to Victor. “Why is the queen’s blood in his?”
Finn’s brother is thoughtful. “Perhaps . . .”
It’s so clear. I cannot believe I forgot.
Blood magic.
Finn saved me from the Queen of Heart’s boojum through Wonderlandian blood magic. His blood is in me, and mine in him. One of the steps for the ritual is to spread a poultice in the wound. His finger was sliced open during that time, after he had offered lifeblood to enact the ritual. My blood would have mixed with his—not a lot, but it still would have happened.
“The boojum.” I turn to Victor. “It happened when he healed me from the boojum, during the blood magic ritual.”
Victor snaps his fingers. “Not only that, but the White King gave him some of his blood, as well. He claimed they thought it might protect you or Finn if you ever had to go back to Wonderland again.”
There is Wonderlandian blood within Finn—mine and Jace’s.
The twelfth Wise Woman licks Finn’s finger once more. “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes.” Her eyes glow. “Blood magic is what protects him. Yours and the other’s, given freely out of love. Love is the most powerful magic of all.”
My vision blurs at all the implications this holds.
“Wonderlandian blood magic is truly powerful,” Grymsdyke says. “Especially that which stems from its monarchs.”
In a swift, graceful motion, the Wise Woman rises to her feet. As she glides over to a rack of bottles, I must clear my throat to speak. “Can you heal him? Or alter the enchantment?”
“Oh, my dear,” she says in that hollow, unnerving voice, “you already did that yourself. Any enchantment I can do will never be as strong as yours.” A new bottle is selected, one with what appears to be dried violet petals in it. “We must hurry. We will need the light of the full moon before the final stroke of midnight.”
I am both numb and filled with hope.
“Are you saying that the pattern around the wound is not part of the sword’s enchantment?” Victor asks. “That . . . Alice’s blood has done that to him?”
When Gertrude confirms this, Grethel Bunting’s confusion when we inquired after the pattern makes all the more sense.
My love has protected him. Our love protects one another.
I take the salve from Mary and apply it first to Finn’s finger and then my own. Gertrude is sprinkling the violet petals into the mixture bubbling over the fire, stirring slowly, Mary peering over her shoulder with great interest. “What is it you’re making?”
“A healing broth.” A faint aura surrounds her hair. “One that also offers deeper protection. But it will not work alone.” Her glowing eyes find mine once more. “Have you ever heard of true love’s kiss?”
My fingers curl around Finn’s. “Yes, of course. But I must admit to you, I’ve kissed him a number of times in the past two days.”
“But did you kiss him with intent?”
I blink. There’s that word—intent. How many times has the Librarian mentioned such a thing to me? Intent is always the key. Intent makes all the difference.
Finn’s intent when he offered me his blood was true love. Jace’s intent when he offered both of us his blood was for protection, also given out of love and respect.
“Alice,” Mary says excitedly, “there are stories in this Timeline solved by true love’s kiss. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty . . .” She squats down next to me. “Was it not the same in Wonderland?”
The Forgotten Mountain (The Collectors' Society Book 3) Page 17