by Jordan Rivet
“I can explain,” she said quickly, scrambling backward.
“You’d better do more than that.”
“I had no choice. If you had touched that painting—”
She squeaked as Archer seized her wrist and pulled her toward him. His knife caught the moonlight.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Did Larke hire you to curse the town with that vile—”
“No! I was trying to stop you from attracting—”
“One of your friends?” Archer asked roughly. “Someone who wouldn’t want their wicked little joke messed up?”
“They’re not my friends. They’re—”
“Then, what?”
“I’m trying to tell you, if you’d let me finish a sentence,” Briar snapped.
Archer opened his mouth then closed it again. He lowered his knife a hair but kept hold of her wrist, watching her through narrowed eyes.
“I recognized the style of that curse,” Briar said. “It belongs to a very dangerous curse painter from High Lure. He doesn’t normally work in the outer counties.”
Her voice sounded too loud, and she was keenly aware of the forest looming at her back. The silent shadow of New Chester wasn’t much better. Anyone could be watching.
“I’m not sure how long that curse has been there,” she went on, “but if the painter is still in the area, we do not want him to find us. I can only think of one place around here important enough to need a curse painter of that caliber.”
“Narrowmar.”
“Exactly.” Sensing Archer wasn’t about to stab her, Briar tugged her wrist out of his grip and rubbed it gingerly. “If that particular curse painter is protecting Narrowmar for Lord Larke, our job is going to be even more difficult than we thought. If he knows we’re coming, it will be completely impossible.”
“I see.”
Briar winced at the flat tone. Archer’s face had closed up like a crocus in the dark and held no hint of the warmth he had shown her since Mud Market.
“I’m sorry I cursed you,” Briar said, “but do you understand why I couldn’t let you touch that painting?”
“I do.” Archer stood, his movements brusque, professional. He didn’t hold out a hand to help her up, as he had so many times before.
She got to her feet unaided, ready to run if he tried to grab her again. He simply looked at her, as if waiting for something.
Briar shifted her feet nervously. “Should we go find the others?”
“Not yet. I’m afraid I can’t let your little secrets and insubordinations slide anymore.”
Briar’s eyes narrowed, her fingers inching toward her paint satchel. “Insubordinations?”
“I hired you for a job. It’s my own fault for not checking your references thoroughly enough, but the team and I can’t afford the liability anymore.”
He was referring to her and the team as separate entities again—and it stung. She’d been right. The trust between them had been obliterated in a single moment.
She flattened her voice to match his, trying to hide the hurt. “What are you saying?”
Archer put his knife back in his belt and folded his arms over his chest. “I think it’s time you told me exactly who are and how you’re connected to this mystery painter.”
Briar’s shoulders slumped. After what she had just seen in the village, the signature style of the painting and its effects, she wouldn’t be able to keep her identity hidden for much longer. Archer deserved to hear the truth from her. And so, with the darkness descending on the world, held back only by starlight and the glow of the enchanted village, Briar told her story.
This is the story of a blessing. It was a little blessing, the kind that kept its parents up at night with squalling cries and tiny fists wrapped around paint-smudged fingers. It was the kind of blessing that inspired a fierce, stomach-churning desire to protect even in the haughtiest of fathers and the most ruthless of mothers.
The blessing’s parents were in the business of adding large chunks of evil to the world, but that one time, at least, they made something good.
Chapter 16
“My parents taught me to paint,” Briar began. “We spent hours in the studio in our house from the moment I could hold a paintbrush in my chubby little fists. I went from simple stick figures to rough landscapes to pictures that actually looked like their subjects in record time. My parents are both wonderful artists, and I was their best project. They taught me their theories about curse magic, too, but most of the time they just liked putting brushes in my hands and seeing what I could do.”
She remembered laughter from the early days, the sea breeze flowing through the open windows, the pride in her parents’ eyes. Once, she’d painted the sun and moon on her cheeks, hoping to make them smile. Both of them had dived toward her, fearful that she’d put enough magic into the images on her skin to hurt herself. They had scrubbed her face until her cheeks turned bright pink, warning her never ever to curse her own body. They loved her, Briar knew. That was part of what had made it so hard to realize what they were.
Archer was watching her, a safe distance between them. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but my curses only ever hurt people.” She looked him in the eye. “I was eleven the first time I killed someone.”
Archer winced, though he didn’t pull any farther away. “Who was it?”
“A nobleman, Lord Darien.” Briar knotted her hands around the strap of her paint satchel as if it were a mooring line. “He insulted Queen Valerie at her birthday feast, so King Cullum hired my parents to see that he met with an accident. I cursed a bridge as Lord Darien was crossing with his wife. My parents planned it so the incident would make another lord—one of their other clients—a hero. Lord Darien couldn’t swim, and my parents’ client jumped in to save the wife from drowning.”
“That sounds complicated,” Archer said.
“The more intricate the task, the more interested my parents were in the job. It worked too. Everyone talked more about the dramatic rescue than the deceased husband, and no one suggested foul play.” Briar grimaced, remembering the cracking timber, the flailing nobleman, the greedy pull of the current. “My parents were proud of how quickly I brought down the bridge and eliminated my subject. They saw everything as a challenge—and they’d taught me well.”
Briar was ashamed at how much she’d needed her parents’ approval, how much she’d valued every word of praise. Even after she’d realized she didn’t like hurting people, she’d continued trying to impress them with her skill.
“Isn’t that kind of curse painting illegal?” Archer asked.
“Not if your clients are rich enough,” Briar said bitterly. “That’s who hired us—nobles, royals, wealthy men who wanted to get wealthier. The king himself allowed us to remain unlicensed so we wouldn’t be accountable to the Hall of Cloaks.”
Archer’s brow furrowed. “Did your parents work for the king often?”
“Often enough. This is all strictly secret. No one wants to think their rulers use such dirty tactics. Most of the catastrophic disasters of the past twenty-five years were created by one couple, a respectable pair of artists who lived near the sea in High Lure—where they trained their daughter to follow in their footsteps.”
A breeze picked up, carrying the strange dead scent of New Chester.
Briar nodded toward the cursed town. “My father did that. He specializes in paintings that affect people’s minds. Illusions. Nightmares. My mother would have helped him plan it. She has a great mind for invention, for pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible, but she excels at destruction.”
Briar remembered the feeling of her mother wrapping the emerald-green scarf around her hair, which was as lush and frizzy as her mother’s. They shared their passion for destruction too. She felt an itch between her shoulder blades, as if her mother was about to reach out from the village and touch the back of her neck.
“May
be we should walk,” she said. “The others will be waiting.”
Archer gestured to the tree line with something short of his usual flourish. “After you.”
The moon glared down at them like a malevolent eye as they walked back into the woods. Pine needles crunched under their feet, the darkness wrapping closer around them.
“Why did they make you kill people?” Archer asked when the pitch-dark forest sheltered them once more. “Couldn’t they have handled that part?”
Briar’s mouth twisted. “I am a very good painter. My potential excited my parents, and it pushed them to plan worse curses, trying to stretch what my magic could do even as I objected more frequently. They became so bold that King Cullum grew uncomfortable associating with them. They had no shortage of clients, though, and the king couldn’t stop them.”
Archer shook his head. “I should have heard about this.”
“Why?”
“Because I—never mind.” He rolled his shoulders. “That’s a story for another time.”
Briar frowned. Archer wasn’t sharing his full story either. She wondered if he, like Esteban, had history at King Cullum’s court.
They reached a break in the trees where moonlight filtered down on a patch of bare earth, and they stopped in unspoken agreement. It was a conversation they needed to finish before rejoining the others. The pine trees rustled eerily, the area still devoid of birdsong and animal noises.
“Eventually, King Cullum ordered my parents to get licensing tattoos. They refused outright. He tried to send the Hall of Cloaks after them, to finally keep them in check, but they protected themselves.”
“With curses?”
“Curses, subterfuge, blackmail—they used it all to safeguard their home and business. Even when they were still working for king and kingdom, their magic was steeped in destruction. They crossed too many lines and became something evil, something separate from the people who used to celebrate my stick figures and take me to paint by the sea.”
Briar wrapped her arms around herself, and Archer raised a hand, as if reaching out to comfort her. He trusted too easily.
“I add evil to the world, just like they do,” she said sharply, stopping him in his tracks. “I try to use my power to balance out worse evils. That’s the closest I can get to goodness, but the scales are already tipped too far after everything I’ve done.”
“You left them, didn’t you?” Archer asked. “You made a choice to take another path. That ought to count for something.”
Briar sighed. “Maybe if I had simply walked away, but that’s not how it happened. My parents were the most powerful people in High Lure behind closed doors, all but myths. Even the voice mages at the Hall of Cloaks feared them. I knew they would find me if I ran away. I had to do something to convince them to leave me alone.”
She brushed her frizzy hair back from her face, remembering the hours she’d spent sitting cross-legged on the rooftop, planning out her departure. She’d thought she was so clever. She’d been seventeen, proud of her abilities, certain she understood right and wrong better than her parents.
“I decided to send a message warning my parents to let me go, or I would reveal every curse they had ever created, even those that went well beyond the restrictions the king set for them. They took advantage of the freedom he gave them when it suited them—and I knew all the details.”
“I’m starting to understand why you were hiding in Sparrow Village,” Archer said. “I take it you didn’t write this warning on parchment?”
Briar shook her head. “A show of strength is the only thing they would understand.”
“You didn’t try to kill them, did you?”
“No,” Briar said. “I broke their defenses. I destroyed every painting protecting our house just to show them I could. They were supposed to come home to that and understand what I was capable of, but …” Briar trailed off, remembering that horrible day when her youthful arrogance and self-righteousness had shattered.
“Did you accidentally knock the house down?” Archer asked gently.
“I wish I’d done something that simple.” Briar picked dried pine needles off her skirt, letting them drop to the black earth. “The night I broke the defensive curses, mages from the Hall of Cloaks attacked our house. They must have put a spell on it that would notify them if the defenses ever failed. I had no idea, and before I could do anything about it, an all-out assault had begun. My parents got home almost at the same time as the mages attacked.”
“I might have heard about that,” Archer said. “About a year ago, was it? The team and I were robbing a goldsmith’s shop in High Lure when a huge commotion was blamed on unlicensed hedge wizards. The tumult made it easier to get away with our pockets full of gold.”
“Glad it helped someone,” Briar said dryly.
“So you brought the mages down on your family. Then what?”
Briar clutched the strap of her paint satchel, unable to meet his eyes. “I just … ran. The last time I saw my parents, they were huddled beneath the windows, daubing curses all over the floor while the cries of voice mages filled the air. My message was lost in the chaos.”
Archer gave a low whistle. “So they think you summoned the mages on purpose?”
She looked up. “I only wanted to be free—and to teach them a lesson. They must think I betrayed them.”
Archer studied her, and she detected sympathy in his expression. “What did you do next?”
“I ran as far and as fast as I could.” Briar gave a brittle laugh. “I wandered the far counties for a while, got turned in to various authorities when I tried to solicit clients, but managed to keep out of my parents’ reach. Eventually I ended up in Sparrow Village.” She glanced back in the direction of New Chester, the shadowy pine trees hiding it from view. “My parents will catch up to me one day. I can try to explain what happened, but I don’t think it’ll matter. My departure alone was a betrayal—and they are not forgiving.”
Archer was quiet for a moment, as if absorbing the implications of her story. “So the most dangerous mages in the kingdom have a personal grudge against you?” he asked at last. “And you had that hanging over your head when I found you in that rundown little cottage?”
“I loved that cottage,” Briar said softly. “I really did want a chance at a peaceful life. I tried to use my little bits of evil to help people who’ve been wronged, but I mostly ended up carrying out petty revenge or making things worse.” She rubbed her toe through the pine needles at her feet. “Being good is more complicated than I expected.”
Archer made a strange sound in his throat, and she looked up, taking in the moonlight shining on his blond hair and his grave expression. She wished for a curse that would help her read his mind. Now he knew the full danger he’d put his team in by hiring her. She wouldn’t blame him for sending her away. Still, it was a relief to speak openly about it. It had been lonely trying to figure out how to live differently from the way she’d been raised.
“I guess it’s naïve to worry so much about good and evil,” Briar said when he didn’t speak. “My parents would say that stuff is for stories.”
“I think it’s noble.” Archer shoved his hands in his pockets. “And brave to make a new life for yourself, even if you botched it a bit.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Every word.” He cleared his throat gruffly. “Your soul matters, Briar.”
Briar’s chest suddenly felt too tight. She examined the pine needles strewn across the ground between them, unable to articulate how much those simple words of understanding meant to her, that acknowledgement that she was struggling for something worthwhile, even in a gray and complicated world. She’d never dared hope someone could know what she had done and still think well of her. Her parents had always kept her apart from other people, believing friends and fellow painters were a distraction at best, considering others beneath them. Briar had watched children playing on the beach wistfully, jealous of their joined
hands and easy laughter.
She snuck a glance at Archer and caught him staring at her lips. She blinked. It was probably just her imagination, an effect of the pool of moonlight and the intimacy of shared secrets. Still, she wondered what his lips would feel like against hers.
This is not the time for that, she told herself firmly. “Now you know my story.” Briar offered a tentative smile. “Is it similar to what happened when you left your father’s business?”
“My past has fewer magical explosions,” Archer said. “I left the luxurious life of a rich man’s son for the freedom of the forest and the open road. It was all rather daring and romantic, but I turned to a life of crime, not good deeds.”
“What do you call this rescue mission?”
“We’re collecting a ransom.”
Briar raised an eyebrow. “Archer, I may not be as sharp as my mother, but I know there’s more to it than that. I told you my story. Isn’t it your turn?”
Archer sighed, his shoulders slumping. Before he could say anything, shouts rose from deeper in the woods.
“Archer, Briar, where are you? Come quickly! We’re under attack!”
Chapter 17
Briar and Archer tore through the woods at full speed. Briar fumbled for her paints, though she had no idea what she would do if her parents had found them. Probably stare stupidly while they cursed the whole team into oblivion. Feeling unsteady at the thought, she followed Archer over the fallen logs and bramble patches lurking in the darkness.
Shouts reverberated through the trees, mixed with the sounds of flesh and steel colliding. Campfire light flickered ahead, guiding them onward. Briar’s heart pounded like thunder. She wasn’t even close to being ready to face her parents.
Then she and Archer burst into the clearing to find the team engaged not in defending themselves against curses or voice magic but in a good old-fashioned brawl. A patrol of soldiers wearing Lord Larke’s burgundy had surprised the party of thieves at their supper. They fought amidst the sparks and ashes of the blazing campfire, both groups struggling to rally together, the whole clearing a riot of stamping boots and flashing blades.