Chapter 35 A Way Out #2
“It’s just a map, Em,” Rowan replied. “He probably drew it while he was wasting time in the library or drinking his tea in the garden. What kind of information do you expect these people to have?”
“I don’t know.” Ember shrugged, stuffing the book back in her bag. “Maybe there’s a secret underground network of magical mapmakers. Or assassins.”
“They’re just common folk.” Rowan shook her head as she kicked a pebble at her foot. “There’s nothing inherently special about anyone in this city, other than the fact that they haven’t left.”
Ember stiffened. “I was pretty common once upon a time too.”
The girls stepped into the shop and were immediately greeted with the sight of jewels and silk, fabrics Ember had never even seen before, let alone touched.
Several mirrors lined the walls with raised platforms for the wearer to view themselves at all angles.
Ember rubbed the fabric of her jacket between her thumb and pointer fingers, suddenly very self-conscious in her own skin.
Ball gowns and diamond encrusted tiaras, fancy lunches and hedges shaped like unicorns. This wasn’t who she was, not any of it. What if she couldn’t get the children out? What if she failed and was forced to stay here? Her palms began to sweat as she shed her coat and draped it over her arm.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” A woman peeked out from the back room, tall with white hair and skin so bronze that she almost shined in the sunlight coming through the window.
There was something eerily familiar about her—the tilt of her head, the cadence of her voice, the way she seemed to stare right through them.
The fact that she only had one eye.
Ember tried not to gape, tried to avert her eyes and look anywhere else. The woman chuckled as she walked toward them, almost like she was floating.
“It is far more offensive to try not to stare, than to actually look, Princess.” She smiled.
Ember cringed. “My name is Ember.” She tried to sound more confident than she felt.
“I know what your name is.” The woman’s smile grew.
“Elowyn! We’re looking for dresses for the Ostara ball.” Rowan smiled, twirling through the shop as she ran her hand down the plethora of fabrics. “Something that will turn heads.”
“Or just something normal,” Ember eyed her friend, “ordinary.”
“There is nothing ordinary about you, Princess.” Elowyn replied, eyeing her curiously.
“Ember—please call me Ember,” she whispered. Not a command—a plea.
“As you wish.” Elowyn nodded and made her way to the back of the shop, carrying back handfuls of gorgeous dresses for the girls.
They tried them all on, oohing and ahhing and putting on quite the show for anyone passing by the large windows at the front of the shop.
Ember was completely out of her element, but she decided it was best to grin and bear it.
To fake it.
“Were you born with only one eye?” Ember asked, plucking up the courage to learn more about the woman. There was a reason she was in the journal, and she was going to figure out what it was.
“My mother always said seers need one eye on each side of the veil.” Elowyn smiled. “The gods saw fit to take care of that for me.”
“You’re a seer?” Ember asked, as Elowyn took some measurements.
The woman nodded. “Among other things. It runs in my family, both a blessing and a curse.”
“Do you have children?” Ember asked. Something gnawed at the inside of her brain, right behind her eyes, like she was trying to focus on something that wasn’t actually there. Something about the way the woman—
White hair. Bronze skin. Otherworldly features that just didn’t quite fit.
“What is your daughter’s name?” Ember asked.
Rowan gave her a confused glance—the woman had never mentioned she had a daughter.
But Ember knew.
“Odette,” Elowyn whispered, like it was a prayer she said every night, “her name is Odette.”
Tears pricked the corner of Ember’s eyes. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you home with her?”
“Because some things are bigger than us,” Elowyn replied. “Change requires sacrifice, and I will carry mine with me to the end of my days.”
Elowyn stepped back, and Ember got a look at herself in the mirror, and the sight took her breath away.
A ball gown worthy of a princess—no, a queen.
Navy blue fabric trimmed with onyx around the wide sleeves and plunging neckline.
Gold was woven into the blue, like stars burning brightly in the heavens.
She could almost picture herself walking into the grand ballroom, a pale haired boy on her arm next to her.
“My father…” Ember swallowed, as tears pricked her eyes.
“He had a journal he kept. I found a list in it with a picture of a crow drawn next to it. Your name was on that list, and that crow is on your shop.” She took a steadying breath as she gently brushed the fabric of the gown.
“There is a map next to them, and I was wondering if you could tell me about it, what all of it means.”
Rowan had been standing back, giving Ember space. She stepped up beside her and put on her prettiest smile.
“It would really help us out, Elowyn.” She smiled.
The woman smiled and nodded toward the back of the shop. Rowan and Ember followed her into an office in the back, and she swiftly locked the door and flipped on the lights.
“Torin was a dear friend,” she said. “We worked together during his time here. He’s the reason I came to Torsvik.
” She shuffled through drawers and stacks of paper and pulled out a small, folded parchment, holding it to her chest. “He was a great leader. We thought we could stop them,” she continued, “or at least slow them down. He gave me this before he left, asked me to keep it safe until he could come back. It seems he made sure he came back, one way or another.” Elowyn handed her the folded piece of paper, and Ember furrowed her brow as she opened it.
“What is it?” she asked. It looked like a roughly drawn maze, just a bunch of lines with no rhyme or reason to the direction they went.
“He never said,” Elowyn shook her head, “but I imagine you’ll figure it out.”
Ember sighed as she nodded, clutching the parchment in her hands.
The girls paid for the dresses, and Elowyn assured them that they would be delivered before the night of the ball.
Rowan and Ember walked out of the shop with more questions now than answers, and worry was clouding every corner of Ember’s mind.
“What are we supposed to do with this,” Rowan asked, as she scrunched her nose, snatching the paper from Ember and turning it in the air as she studied it. “What was your father doing?”
Ember shrugged. “Maybe he was going to come back and finish it, whatever it is,” she replied, anger beginning to heat her cheeks. If he was here, he could fix this. If he was here, she wouldn’t feel quite so lost.
Ember sprawled on her bed, books scattered around her as she and Rowan passed the parchment between each other, studying it and looking at references, ultimately becoming so frustrated that they tossed it across the room.
Theo was on the floor reading quietly to himself, a history book about Torsvik open in front of him.
He giggled as Rowan threw herself back on the mattress, hand on her forehead as she sighed.
Loudly.
“This is pointless,” she moaned. “We should be focusing on figuring out how to get the children out of the dungeons, not trying to decipher this chicken scratch.” She pointed to the parchment she had haphazardly tossed to the floor.
Ember shot her a glare, and she promptly snapped her mouth shut. Theo gently picked up the paper from the carpet, smoothing the edges as he laid it in front of him, studying it. He ran his fingers over the lines like he was memorizing it.
“We need a plan B.” Ember turned to Rowan and popped a grape in her mouth.
Gaelen had brought them a platter of snacks when they had returned home from town, and she was forever thankful for the Merrow and the kindness she continued to show her. She briefly thought about the cape stuffed in her bag—Gaelen was trapped here just as much as she was.
“If we can’t get the children out of the castle, we need a plan B.”
“We could steal a boat,” Rowan shrugged, as she stared at the ceiling, “then find a way to shatter the wards around the beach.”
“I don’t think these are standard wards.” Ember shook her head as she sighed. “I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”
Theo stood up from the floor, carrying the parchment and the book he was reading with him, and dropped them both onto the bed between the girls.
Ember furrowed her brow. “What did you find?”
Theo pointed at the parchment, then at a picture of Torsvik, an old map that labeled every restaurant and butcher, every florist and fishmonger, every street and—
Ember gasped.
She laid the parchment over the page of the book, touching the paper, and began to mumble.
“Syndu mér leyndarmál tín.”
She didn’t know what she said—what it even meant—but the words rattled in her bones, echoing through her veins as the fire beneath her skin burned.
The page became translucent, all except for the markings her father had drawn.
She rotated the page a few times, lining up the marking with the map below it, and gasped.
“What was that?” Rowan asked, eyes wide.
“It’s a map,” she whispered.
Rowan furrowed her brow. “Not what I meant.” But Ember ignored her, eyes glued to the page. Rowan sighed. “Of course it’s a map,” she replied, talking about the book.
“No, no, no.” Ember shook her head as she turned the page and book toward Rowan.
“These lines he drew, they all line up with the roads going through Torsvik. And these right here,” she pointed to the squares spread across the piece of paper, “these line up with buildings. Look.” She pointed to the map again, and each square lined up perfectly over a business or home.
“I’m willing to bet that all of those buildings have crows carved into the frame too. ”
“Okay,” Rowan nodded, “so your dad drew a map of the roads in Torsvik And the houses with the crow. How does that help us?”
Ember shook her head, chewing on the edge of her lip. Memories from her first day out in Torsvik flitted through her mind. Empty mineshafts dotting the hills, cellar doors with locks and hinges nearly rusted off. Ember’s eyes widened as she looked to her friend.
“What if it’s not the roads?” she whispered. “What if there's something under it?”
Rowan’s face lit up as she stared down at the map, almost like she could read Ember’s thoughts. “It’s a tunnel system.”
Ember nodded, a grin spreading across her face.
“I’m willing to bet each of these buildings has an entrance to the tunnel.
” She ran her finger across the map, down the streets, up to the castle and the square drawn over it.
“There’s an entrance in the castle.” She continued tracing the lines, past the dungeon, under the mountain past where the wards reached and… “It’s our way out.”