The Flame in the Mist

by Kit Grindstaff

  “Their old wound—all that grief—is a sign the Mist recognizes ’em by—”

  “Marsh, I’m not stupid!” Jemma wheeled round and raised her hand to hit her.

  Marsh grabbed her arm. “It’s the Mist, Jem, not you. Counter it!”

  “Let me go!” Jemma struggled to free her arm.

  “Counter!” Marsh held fast, her expression like steel. Jemma closed her eyes and concentrated. Here was her beloved Marsh, who had risked her life to save her, and was risking her life now to help her rescue children she hadn’t even met.… Her fury subsided. Marsh let go of her arm.

  “I’m so sorry!” Jemma said. “That was awful.… I just felt a little annoyed with you, then suddenly I was really furious.”

  “Don’t mind about me, Jem. But you was thinkin’ thoughts against them, weren’t you, jus’ before? You got to remember, the Mist’ll take the smallest bad feelin’ an’ make it bigger. It can make enemies of us ’fore you can say ‘Mother of Majem.’ ”

  “I know. It won’t happen again.”

  “Let’s hope not. Come on, let’s get back to the others.”

  “I see you’ve surmised our decision,” said Sapphire as they approached. She and Lumo hugged Jemma, then Digby gave them each a leg up onto their horses. They looked dissheveled and exhausted.

  “Would that we could come with you,” Sapphire said with a sigh, “but we’d only hinder you. We can help you better from out of the Mist. We shall send out Lightlines to you, and, with the whole of Oakstead, hold the vision for your success.”

  “Farewell, Jemma,” Lumo said. “Nobody could wish for a finer daughter. Please, hurry back to us as fast as you can.… And Digby, remember my words to you. Ida, your friendship and love can never be repaid. All of you, we await your safe return: yours, and Digby’s brothers and sister. May Light, and our love, be with you.”

  They turned their horses and trotted away. Jemma watched as their silhouettes were swallowed into the Mist.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Mord Defenses

  Jemma’s energy drained. How quickly she had taken her parents’ support for granted! And now, they were gone. She should have anticipated it, should have protected them with a light sphere, should have—

  “Jem!” Marsh snapped her fingers. “Counter it, quick, or you’ll be on your knees in no time.”

  “Every little thing! I don’t know if I can—”

  “You can. You jus’ got to keep up your guard. Look, if your ma hadn’t gone down, you’d still be managin’ all right, hmmm?”

  “I suppose.” Jemma looked at Digby, who was holding Steadfast’s reins as he shuffled from foot to foot. She couldn’t let him, or the triplets, down. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

  On they rode at a steady canter, Digby leading the way. His face looked more tense by the moment, but every time Jemma felt his anxiety creeping into her nerves, Noodle or Pie nosed out of the saddlebags and nipped her buttocks, reminding her to keep countering and blanking. She didn’t even dare express any sympathy for Digby in case it knotted into anger or thoughts of revenge. Marsh, her expression like a mask, was clearly minding her own advice too, and focusing on shutting out the Mist. It was as though the chilly whiteness had drawn a veil between them all, and the thicker it became, the more their separation increased.

  * * *

  At the Elm River Pass, Digby steered Steadfast off the main track and headed down the steep path leading to the river. They had decided to take the long way around Blackwater that he had found the previous week; it was worth the extra hour it would take to avoid any Agromond followers, and Flashwing, Steadfast, and Grayboy were agile enough to make up the time once they were on flatter ground again.

  They pulled up at the water’s edge to eat the packed lunch that Bethany and Moll had prepared. The ground was slushy, and the river rushed by—the result, Digby said, of snow melting farther north. In Hazebury, the waters were even higher than they were here.

  Finding a dry patch of moss under a tree, they spread out their meal. Jemma was surprised how hungry she was, and ate her cheese sandwich with gusto. Marsh too was tucking in, and Noodle and Pie were crunching an apple as if there was no tomorrow. Digby sat looking at the ground, tugging distractedly at a blade of grass.

  “Chin up, lad.” Marsh laid a hand on his arm. The Mist looked thicker around him, Jemma thought, than it did around Marsh.

  “Digby,” she said, “careful what you feel. I think the Mist is reading you.” Her heart went out to what he must be going through. Were the triplets being starved? Tortured? Or both?

  “Mind out, Jem,” said Marsh. “Watch your own thoughts.”

  Digby got up and walked toward the bushes where the horses were tethered.

  “Well, thanks for the gratitude!” Jemma stood and followed him through the wet grass. “I come out to this sun-forsaken place to help you, and you walk away from me?”

  “Jem!” Marsh yelled after her. “Counter!”

  “Digby, look at me when I’m talking to you!” Jemma caught up with him and grasped his shoulder. He stopped, his back to her, hands in pockets. He was shaking.

  “Jemma!” Marsh’s footsteps rustled through the leaves behind her. “I said, counter!”

  “Digby! Can’t you even face me?” Jemma yelled, trying to pull him around. “Hazebury dross!”

  The force of her disdain shocked her and she dropped her hand. Those awful words—they were Nocturna’s, Shade’s, not hers! Digby turned, his face a picture of misery.

  “Oh, Dig, I’m so sorry.…”

  Marsh caught up to them. “It’s you the Mist reads, Jem, not him! What he feels is normal with what’s goin’ on. But you …” Marsh shook her head. “I don’t know what we’re goin’ to do if you keep lettin’ the Mist get to you like this. You got to get a faster hold of yourself!”

  Jemma bowed her head.

  “T’ain’t your fault, Jem.” Digby wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “I shouldn’t have walked away from you. Your pa warned me to be careful.”

  “But I’m such a fool! Just an idiotic—” Jemma checked herself and took a deep breath, remembering her father’s words about self-deprecation. “Still. I’m sorry.”

  “We got to stick together, eh, Jem?” said Digby, pulling her into a hug.

  She nodded, and hugged him back.

  Marsh heaved a sigh of relief. “Come on, you two. We best— Why, Mother of Majem, look at that!”

  A sphere of Mist-free air had expanded around them. Digby backed up, testing. The air around him remained clear. “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Why d’you s’pose that is?”

  Marsh raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I wouldn’t know, I’m sure.” She untied Flashwing and sprang into the saddle. “But you feel any trouble comin’, you jus’ remember the way you felt holdin’ her like that. I wager it’s as good as any counterin’. Now, best let the Mist back in, or it’ll get suspicious. Then let’s pack up the rest of lunch, and be off.”

  In the early afternoon, they came to a wooden bridge, and crossed to the woodlands on the other side of the river. The ponies cantered easily over the fir-needled ground, and soon Jemma heard the faint whomp, whomp of the waterwheel through the rush of water, and could just make out the ghostly form of Blackwater’s greenhouses beyond the trees on the opposite bank. As they rode on, her nerves unwound slightly. The most dangerous place was now behind them, and there hadn’t been a single person in sight.

  Digby cantered ahead of Jemma and Marsh, the distance between them growing.

  “Not so fast, Digby,” Marsh muttered, kicking Flashwing on. Suddenly, she pulled to a halt, and held out her stumped arm, stopping Jemma. “I got a bad feelin’,” she whispered.

  “Then … Digby—we should warn him!”

  The snort of a strange horse, ahead of them. The gruff voice, grating through the Mist.

  “Oy, who goes there?”

  “Jus’ a poor traveler.” Digby spoke in a dull tone.
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  “Wot, on a fine pony like that? Don’t give me that guff, you lyin’— ’Ere, don’t I know yer?”

  Jemma went cold. Zeb. Lok’s right-hand man.

  “Yeh … I do know yer—you’re the one wot escaped! Well, I’ve got yer now!”

  “No—let go!”

  The sound of a whip. Steadfast, whinnying. Digby, yelling.

  “Jem,” said Marsh, “use your animal talents—quick!”

  Swift as lightning, Jemma’s thoughts sped to the upper branches of the tall pines. Wings, fly down, surround him, the one in the black coat—go, now! With no harm to anyone, man or beast …

  More yelling, whipping, screams of pain. Then, from the canopy above, a whirring sound began. It grew rapidly louder, then exploded into a chorus of caws and a fury of flapping as a mass of wings and feathers swooped down through the branches.

  “Oy! What the— Help!” Zeb yelped.

  “Come on, Marsh!” Jemma kicked Grayboy, and he lurched forward. Digby was just visible through the Mist, Steadfast backing away from the thick curtain of birds that had dropped around Zeb and his steed. Jemma galloped by, reaching out to smack Steadfast’s rump as she passed. Steadfast took off after her with Marsh thundering behind, leaving the panicked screams of Zeb and his horse to be absorbed into the Mist and the trees and the cacophany of wings.

  The sun dipped toward the horizon. Once they were well south of Blackwater, they had crossed to the west of the Elm again, just before it branched off into the smaller Stoat River. For several hours, they had kept up an even pace, stopping occasionally to let the ponies drink and snatch a snack of grass before pressing on.

  The air was brisk, a stiff breeze whipping up. Jemma pulled Talon’s hat over her ears and huddled into her cloak. The terrain became more hilly, the gray tree silhouettes more frequent. They were entering Agromond territory. Once or twice the Mist investigated her, jumbling words in her head, but she finally had the measure of it, and by focusing on Flora’s smile, and envisioning the triplets safely back in Hazebury, she kept it at bay.

  Soon, Jemma heard the faint rush of water in the distance: they were back near the Stoat River. Hazebury wasn’t far now. Digby and Marsh were practically out of sight, apparently unaware that she’d fallen behind. She kicked Grayboy into a faster canter.

  “Dig, Marsh—wait for me.”

  The wind buffeted Jemma’s words into the hillside. Unease bristled her back, and she urged Grayboy on. But Digby and Marsh were also gathering speed. The unease twined around her heart. Something felt very wrong. Grayboy, evidently, felt it too. He laid his ears flat, stretched out his neck, and surged forward, then veered sharply to the left, heading toward the river. Jemma was thrown to the right. The reins snapped from her hands, and her left foot wrenched from the stirrup, leaving her knee hooked over the saddle. She grabbed the pommel and held on for dear life, the rush of the Stoat becoming louder with each stride Grayboy took. Noodle and Pie peeked from the saddlebags, squealing as she’d never heard before. She followed their gaze. A black cloud was approaching, thick and deadly, swifter than Grayboy could bolt.

  Mordsprites. Hundreds of them.

  Jemma remembered her father’s warning: Once they catch you unawares, they’ve got you in their clutches.… Thank goodness she had seen them in time! Mustering every ounce of concentration she could, she envisioned a ball of gold Light expanding around her. The first ranks of Mordsprites slammed into it. She managed to grab one of the reins and heave herself back into the saddle. But the saddlebags were slipping sideways. Before she could stop them, they slid from Grayboy’s haunches and out of the protective light sphere, with Noodle and Pie inside.

  A Mordsprite caught them in midair.

  “No—Rattusses!”

  The Mordsprite flew upward, lifting saddlebags and rats into the swarming throng.

  “Noodle, Pie, jump!” Jemma shot a grounding cord to them as they tried to scramble free, but the Mordsprite swerved, and the cord missed. “Jump—jump! I can’t keep up—”

  She leaned into Grayboy’s neck and urged him on. Faster, boy, faster! He shot forward. The saddlebags were just ahead now, Noodle and Pie dangling perilously from them.

  “Now, Rattusses—jump! I’ll catch you!”

  Suddenly, Grayboy pulled up at the river’s edge. Jemma flew over his ears, grasping for the rats, but she landed empty-handed in freezing water. Sputtering to the surface, she slammed into a rock. She clung onto it, looking frantically around. The black trail of Mordsprites turned to the right and disappeared into the Mist, dropping the saddlebags into the torrent below with the rats still dangling from them, and the crystals and book inside.

  “Noodle! Pie!” Jemma screamed. She tried to wade farther into the river, but was swept off her feet and slammed into another rock, her cloak ripped from her shoulders by the rush of water. She pulled herself up the muddy bank, then ran in the direction of the flow, but the Mist was so thick that she could only just make out a piece of driftwood being tossed in the swell. Noodle and Pie were nowhere to be seen. Please, please, let them be safe.… For a split second, she thought she saw a streak of light speeding across the river, but it was swallowed, like the driftwood, into white noise.

  “No-o-o-o!” Jemma leaned against a tree and wailed into her hands. “No-oooo—my Rattusses!” The Mist curled around her as if gloating in triumph. The treacherous river rushed by. The thought of never seeing Noodle and Pie again speared through her. How would she manage without them? It was unbearable. As unbearable as if she lost Digby or Marsh.

  Digby. Marsh …

  Suddenly, she realized where the Mordsprites had headed off to. “Oh, no, no …”

  Grayboy nibbled her hair—Talon’s hat, she now realized, had also been claimed by the river. She shivered, her muscles like jelly. It was all she could do to climb back into the saddle. The pony set off of his own accord at a rapid trot, weaving between bushes and trees until Jemma could see Flashwing and Steadfast’s gray forms through the Mist.

  “Marsh!” she cried. “Digby!” Nothing but chilly white. “Where are you? Digby!”

  “Jem!” Digby leapt up behind a bramble bush. “Over here!”

  “Dig, thank goodness!” Jemma slid off Grayboy and stumbled through the heather toward him. Marsh was lying in the mud, rubbing her right calf, groaning. Jemma dropped to her knees beside her. “What happened?”

  “Caught me unawares,” Marsh growled between gritted teeth. “An’ now look at me!”

  “A great black cloud it was,” Digby croaked, squatting down. “Came right up behind us. Brought Marsh down, an’— Jem, are you all right? You’re soaked! An’ you look right shook up.”

  “Thrown into the r-river. Noodle and Pie …” Jemma choked on the words. “Swept away.”

  “No!” Digby gasped.

  “Oh, Jem!” Marsh reached up and put her hand to Jemma’s face.

  Jemma bit back tears. First her parents, then the rats, and now Marsh, who surely couldn’t go on in such pain—but at least Jemma could do something about that. Her hand was drawn to Marsh’s calf, sensing the jagged fracture beneath the skin. She pinpointed her intention, and drew energy through her Stone, saw the bone mending in her mind’s eye—

  “Aaaagh—stop!” Marsh yelped and pushed Jemma’s hand away. “I can feel it knittin’ all wrong. It’s no good out here in the Mist, Jem, with you feelin’ so upset; an’ I’m no help neither, the state I’m in. I’ll ride back to Oakstead. Your folks’ll fix me up.”

  “No, no! Let’s make a shelter—I’ll work all night, and, and … tomorrow, you’ll see—”

  “Jem, there’s no time. Here, you two, help me up.”

  Jemma and Digby lifted Marsh to sit. Her face was tight with pain.

  “Listen to me. Jem, I knows you feel the loss of your friends deep in your soul, an’ believe me, I knows how guttin’ it is. After my Julius was killed … Well, you jus’ can’t let it stop you. Think of the loss of them triplets to Digby and his folks. T
hink of the Prophecy. You mustn’t hold back now, not for a second, least of all to wait for me to heal. You got to go on without me.”

  Jemma closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The Prophecy. Despite everything, it still burned inside her, driving her. She’d been drawn inexorably to this destiny from the moment she first started having doubts about the Agromonds, and had set it in motion with her first step toward escape. She tilted her face skyward and opened her eyes. How she would ever bring back the sun, she had no idea, but rescuing the triplets was vital. They couldn’t wait.

  “Right,” she said. “We’d better get moving.”

  With the help of a nearby rock and a great deal of effort, Digby and Jemma lifted Marsh into Flashwing’s saddle. Digby padded her wounded leg with Steadfast’s saddle rug.

  “Well, pet,” said Marsh, squeezing Jemma’s hand, “it’s up to you an’ Digby now. Don’t forget the Light Game, will you? An’ blankin’, an’ …”

  “I’ll remember, Marsh.” Jemma squeezed her hand back, gratitude for her dear ally’s years of devotion pouring through her. “Thank you. Be safe, won’t you? I— Oh!”

  A golden wisp of light whisked out of nowhere and began spiraling around Marsh.

  Marsh gasped. “A Luminal—Jem!”

  “What? I didn’t do that!”

  “Yes, you did! It wooshed up from behind you, I seen with my own eyes. Quick as a flash, they come. Whatever you was thinkin’ just then is what brought it. Best protection I could wish for!” Marsh’s face glowed in the Luminal’s golden light.

  “Protection?” Jemma thought of the streak she’d seen speeding across the river toward Noodle and Pie not ten minutes earlier. “Oh, I hope so.…”

  “I know so, Jem. Ain’t no more Mordsprites can get me with this for company, even if they do catch me unawares!” She squeezed Jemma’s hand again, her expression turning serious. “You can do this, pet. I knows you can. See you soon, eh?”

  Jemma nodded, and Marsh rode into the Mist, the Luminal rotating slowly around her.

  “A Luminal,” said Digby. “After all these years! Not bad, Jem. Reckon I’ll be all right with you.”