by Callie Bates
“I just don’t think it’s right to have her executed,” Annis says softly. “I don’t think it’s right to kill anybody.”
“If only the rulers of kingdoms thought the way you do.”
Sorcha bustles back over to me. “No more laudanum for you just yet, Lady Elanna. I want to examine your extremities a second time, now you’re more awake. Just make a noise if anything hurts.”
She runs her hands along my arms. I groan, and as I’m making noise, she drops her head beside mine and says in a whisper, “It’s not laudanum—I put extract of cedar in the jar instead. Looks and smells the same, but it will have no effect provided you don’t take it longer than a few days. Pretend you’re still sleepy. We’re going to get you out of here. But you need to heal first. You’re going to have to run.”
Then she moves on to my stomach and legs, talking over her shoulder to Annis. My sluggish thoughts linger over her words, unable to quite make sense of them. But I know I am no longer alone.
—
I SLEEP, AND wake sometime in the night to the witch stone’s droning hum. My head is clearer, and my body no longer feels swollen and thick—it only aches all over.
Something woke me. A tapping.
I roll up onto my elbow, wincing, just in time to see Jahan step through the fabric of the wall itself.
“How do you do that?” I ask. “And with the witch stone here, too…”
He breaks into a grin, hurrying over to me, and seizes my hands in his. “You’re awake. They gave you so much laudanum, I thought…”
I look at him. It is so good to see him. So good I seem to be softening, expanding, right through the middle of my body—a dangerous feeling if ever there is one. But just now, I don’t care. I twine my fingers into the front of his shirt and pull him against me. Press my ear to his chest. His heartbeat pulses. I feel his warmth. I smell him.
And I start to cry.
“Oh, El. Shh.” His hands cup the back of my head, smoothing down my hair.
I am crying in front of a man I hardly know. Me, who spent fourteen years trying not to cry before anyone. This is not what I would ever have imagined, just a few weeks ago.
But he just folds me against him. It hurts to cry, pulling on my bruised ribs. I let the tears fade and bury my face in his shirt. His warmth infuses the cloth. He starts to hum—a soft melody, foreign to me, in counterpoint to the persistent humming of the witch stone. The hiss of the stone in my head has become so steady, I forgot it was there.
“That’s a Britemnosi song,” he says after a while. “My mother used to sing it to me.”
“Tell me about your mother,” I whisper.
He settles back, carrying me with him, and I feel a tug in his chest muscles, as if he shook his head and then stopped himself. “My mother. She was sad, mostly.”
Maybe he is used to crying women. “Sad how?” I ask, even though I sense he doesn’t want to talk about it.
There’s a long silence, and I worry I’ve made him angry, that he won’t speak. I try to tip my head back, but this also hurts. Jahan stills me with a brush of his fingers along the back of my neck.
“My father raised us to be sorcerers, my brothers and I,” he says. “Mother didn’t approve—No, more than that. She hated it. It…It shamed her. But she had no power to stop the sorceress who persuaded my father to help with her experiments. She couldn’t even tell her family, because they would have taken us away from her.”
I draw back from him so that I can see the emotion in his face. I touch my hand to his chest, unsure what to say, and he reaches up and holds it there.
“One of the first things I learned how to do was walk through walls,” he says with a faint smile. “It’s a basic manipulation of matter. If you think of anything as being made up of tiny particles you can’t see—of energy—then you realize anything can be changed.”
“Is that why my ancestors could move the land?” I wonder.
“I have no idea why your ancestors could make forests and mountains move.” He laughs softly. “Caeris has a different brand of magic than what I’m used to.” Again, he brushes the skin behind his ear, then offers me a crooked grin. “That’s why I came here to look for you. And when I found you…”
Impulsively, I follow his movement with my own hand. I feel the scar there on the bone, ridged and old.
I must look my question, because, though he drops his hand and leans away, he says in a reluctant voice, “The sorceress experimented with us. To see if she might make us more capable of magic. She made us resistant to witch stones, among other things—I scarcely even hear the noise they’re supposed to make. That helped, at court, when the witch hunters were present. But the experiments…” He swallows so hard I hear the click of his throat. “My mother hated them. And the sorceress didn’t only practice on my brothers and me.”
“Jahan,” I begin, but I realize I don’t know what to say. I know what it is to be torn from your family. But to witness your parents’ struggle, to be experimented upon in the name of science? It sounds unbearable.
Yet he bore it. He’s here, pretending it is nothing.
“Your mother—is she…?”
His fist digs into the coverlet. “She’s dead.”
Oh, gods. I’m ashamed of myself for asking, though I couldn’t have known the answer. I glance at him and see the tendons standing out in his throat. He doesn’t talk of her, I expect, and though I want to ask how she died and if the sorceress killed her, I can’t bring myself to demand the explanation.
“We all have our pasts,” he says at last.
“Alas. But then my present isn’t looking so good, either.”
Jahan gasps a soundless laugh. It is true and it is terrible, so I laugh, too, my head against his.
Then he traces the line of my cheek with a finger, and I catch my breath. I am aware of his touch like a point of hot light moving along my skin. “You are so brave,” he murmurs. “If I had half your courage…”
“It’s easy to be brave when you have nothing to lose,” I say.
“No.” His touch stops on my jaw. “It isn’t.”
I have nothing to lose. Only my aching, stubborn body. Beyond that I have not much left, but pride. And pride isn’t enough to stop me.
I turn my head and let my lips brush his hand. It feels like an act of greater daring than lunging past Denis to the scaffold, and at the same time like the most natural thing in the world.
Jahan draws in a breath. Then he gently tilts my head up. He leans his head toward mine. “So you trust me now?” His breath touches my face; his fingertips linger on my neck.
“Maybe,” I say with a laugh that catches in my throat. I close the distance between us. His lips are warm and moist and it seems like a miracle, though of course that’s just what lips are like. We fumble against each other in the half dark, bumping foreheads, the stubble on his cheek burning my neck. I’ve forgotten my bruises. I just want him closer.
His touch is gentle, until both of us are breathing hard and his grip tightens on my waist and I gasp in pain. We break apart. Somehow—I’ve been so lost in a delirium of sensation I don’t even know how—I clambered onto his lap and wrapped my legs around him. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now my whole body screams in protest. Besides that, I’m only wearing a chemise. The indecency of it both shocks and delights me.
“Did I hurt you?” he’s asking.
“No—” But I can’t stifle a groan when his hand brushes my ribs.
“Shh.” He disentangles my legs from him, and props up the pillows to help me lie back down. I twist my fingers into the coverlet, torn between physical pain and frustrated desire. The humming of the witch stone burns back into my ears. Jahan strokes the hair out of my face, then sits back. He takes one of my arms and unfolds it, running his fingers gently over my skin. He doesn’t say anything, but I hear the click of his throat as he swallows. It must be bad.
He leans over and kisses his way down my arm, so lightly I j
ust feel the brush of his lips. Then he kisses my aching stomach, my purpling thighs and knees. I dig my hands into his thick, soft hair; tears stand out in my eyes. No one has ever shown me this kind of tenderness. He leans back up, hovering over me, and brings his lips to mine. I wrap my arms around his neck, ignoring the pain.
At length, he pulls away, though I try to hold him down. “There’s something I need to do.” He paces across the room to a tapestry, pressing his hands flat against it, as if he’s listening or feeling for something. “Ah. Here.”
I get up and limp toward him, mainly by willpower. “What have you done?”
“There’s a passage in the wall,” he says, “but you can’t reach it from this room. I’ve made a door.”
I push back the tapestry, though its wool fabric is heavy and even this movement costs me strength. The wall behind looks just like a wall to me.
“If you need to use it, say I pass through in your mind, and push your arm in.”
I stare at him. “Into the wall?”
“I’ll show you.” Jahan draws me to him for a last kiss, then turns to the wall. “I pass through,” he says. He grins at me and puts his arm into the wooden paneling. Another step, and it swallows his knees and head. And then he’s gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
They come to question me in the morning. No, not question. Threaten.
Demand.
“You’re awake,” Denis says. I notice he keeps his distance from me, as if afraid to touch my witch’s skin. Good. That’s one thing I can be thankful for. “About time.”
The Butcher has followed him into the room and marches over to the foot of my bed, looking at me with a deep frown. In an undertone, he says to Denis, “Your Grace, I still don’t believe this is the answer. We are not prepared for a war that will split our country in half. Lady Elanna is the figurehead of this rebellion, and to remove her without a trial will only bring us closer to the brink of violence—”
Denis flicks his fingers. “I’ve made up my mind.”
The Butcher’s jaw clenches, but he puts his hands behind his back and says nothing more.
I lie very still, pretending I didn’t hear or understand. My head is clear, but I remember Sorcha’s instructions to pretend the laudanum continues to affect me. It’s not hard; the witch stone still hums in my ears, dulling my mind. I let my jaw sag toward my chest. I hope I look stupid.
“You have two choices.” Denis holds up two fingers. “One, you will cooperate with us, answering our questions, and you will be moved to a comfortable cell in the Tower in Laon. Two, you do not cooperate, and we extract the information by any means possible.” Somewhere, he finds a smile and shines it at me. “You will not get a trial.”
I look at the Butcher. His frown has deepened further, but he does not try to argue the terms.
“No…trial?” I let my voice slur.
“We’re already aware that you’re guilty.”
I stare up into the canopy. The witch stone’s buzzing makes it difficult to think clearly. Even if they did give me a trial, it would almost certainly reach the inevitable conclusion. Denis’s bargain is simply a question of how much pain I want to endure.
But then there is Sorcha. There is Jahan, and the door hidden behind the tapestry. I am no longer alone.
Finn and Sophy are still free, out in the hills. Caeris still stands a chance.
“The first, you remain here before your removal,” Denis says. “The second, you will be returned to the garrison, to your prison cell. No more doctors. No more laudanum.”
The Butcher clears his throat. “It is really about whether or not one prefers a comfortable death.” He raises an eyebrow, as if to underscore the irony of the choice, and Denis glares at him.
Tears flood my eyes, spill out over my cheeks. Maybe it is the lingering effect of the laudanum, or the ever-present sound of the witch stone, which makes me unable to control myself. Maybe it is simply a stroke of luck, because Denis lurches backward, his lip curling. The sight of my tears unsettles him.
I hiccup the words. “I can’t make that kind of decision.”
“Come, Lady Elanna.” The Butcher pats my feet. “It is a clear and simple choice. And you always knew the punishment for sorcery.” An ironic smile. “You may have your wish to go to Ida granted after all.”
I stare at him. Tears slide down my nose. The knot in my stomach is cold and tight. “The witch hunters?”
He nods. “They will take you to Paladis for examination. Yours is an unusual kind of magic.”
“But the justice is ours to dispense,” Denis says. “Don’t think Paladis is going to give you a reprieve on that.”
—
THEY LEAVE, AND I lie with my tears in silence, or as much silence as I have with the witch stone’s rumbling. The maid Annis tries to talk—“Do you think you could get on your feet this evening, my lady? The doctor wanted me to walk you around”—but I cannot muster an answer. We have to move fast. I could lie in answer to the questions, and buy more time at the castle in hope Sorcha attempts a rescue. Or I could get onto my own two feet and find a way out, with Jahan’s help.
I will ask him tonight. I sense he’ll be back.
There’s a flurry at my door. I hear Annis saying, “Did they give you permission—?”
“They did, and if you will not let me in to see my own daughter, I will tell the duke of your insubordination.”
The breath stops in my throat. My mother?
She sweeps in, trailing indignation. “Who closed those shutters? Open them straightaway. Yes. Push them all the way back.” Annis, being meek, obeys without protest. Cold light floods the room.
Mother comes over to me, sinking down beside the bed with a soft huff of air from her gown. She collects my hands in hers, which are hot, faintly sweaty, the way mine get when I’m nervous. I look up at her profile, hawk-nosed and commanding. She does not appear uneasy.
If anything, I think she’s furious. Though whether at Denis or me, I have no idea.
Annis clatters over by the table.
Mother rounds on her. “My daughter has precious days left in her life! Give us some peace.”
“But my lady—”
“Do not but me! I have given Denis Falconier all his due respect. I am owed this as a mother!”
Cowed, Annis slinks out. I hear her answering the guards’ questions in the hallway.
Mother watches her go, then looks down at me, her hands squeezing mine. “Can you walk yet?”
“I haven’t tried.” Getting out of bed to follow Jahan to the wall last night exhausted me.
“Well, try. Right now.”
Before I even know what she’s doing, she levers my legs over the side of the bed and pulls me into a sitting position. With a heave, she lifts me up, supporting me against her side. The floor presses cold through my thin bed stockings, but I move without trouble. Still, my ribs compress. If I tried to run, I’d have a hard time. But we pace to the window without too much difficulty. Even the wretched witch stone can’t stop me from moving, only befuddle my thoughts.
Mother holds me there, in the window embrasure. I suppose I am meant to speak to her, but what is there to say? She betrayed us because she cared too much to lose me again. I understand that now.
She points. “Look at that. The hills beyond the hills. That’s north. Wild country. The Ereni still haven’t dared go into it—they can’t read the maps.”
“Can you?” I ask.
Her mouth quirks to the side. She doesn’t deny it. “Your father didn’t marry me only for my skill at the pianoforte.”
“What do you—”
She points again. “There. Do you see it?”
A light flares over the hills. Cold runs up my spine. She’s a spy. She knows the Caerisian signals, and she’s going to tell.
“That,” she whispers in my ear, “is Fionnlach Dromahair, coming to rescue you.”
“I suppose you’ll tell Denis. Or the Butcher.”
; Her arm goes slack around me, then tightens. She angles me around to look into my face. “Tonight. Jahan will come for you. Be dressed, as much as you can, by midnight. Finn and the Hounds will meet you above the castle.” A faint, sad smile. “You should bind your ribs to keep pressure on them. It’ll hurt less if you have to run.”
“But—” I struggle to understand what she’s saying, though it’s perfectly clear. “But you betrayed us to the Butcher.”
She gives me a long look, then glances at the door. We’re still alone. She leans close to me, fierce. “I did not betray you. Not intentionally. Gilbert and I have known each other since I first came to Eren, though I hadn’t seen him since he gave us up to Antoine Eyrlai when you were a child. Oh,” she says, seeing my look, “I don’t blame you, darling. I blame him.”
“You knew him?” I’m still stunned by this revelation.
She ignores the question. “I know his servitude to Antoine Eyrlai ate at him. It’s destroyed his humanity. Antoine demanded he do the most heinous things, to punish him for our old friendship. There was a time Gilbert believed in King Euan and our cause, you know. He was the one who first told me that many Caerisians and Ereni longed for another way. I admired his passion for the new nation he envisioned. But I was blind to his feelings for me; I should have known that strong feelings can quickly turn the other way. Because when I married your father, hatred ruined the friendship we’d all once had.” She draws in a breath.
“The Butcher believed in our cause? But he betrayed us.”
“He was young. And jealous. And stupid. And now…” She shakes her head. “He’s in so deep he can’t breathe the real air. But I thought there was a chance, so I wrote to him, prevailed upon him to gather Ereni supporters and come to Cerid Aven, to our side.”
And instead, he let his men occupy Cerid Aven. He sent Hugh off to hang.
“Mother,” I begin, my voice shaking. “Come with us.”
She cups my face in her hands, silencing me, and kisses my brow. “There’s still humanity left in Gilbert, I know it. And I’m staying here, my dearest daughter, until I find it.”