Chapter Five Selka’s Warning
Osa Grey lived in a house that looked as if it had grown tired of the road and moved three steps back out of spite.
It sat beyond the eastern bend of the Bluebank track, tucked between two leaning birches and a low stone wall furred with thawing moss.
The roof sagged over one eye. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the porch beams despite the damp, each tied with thread in colors Willa suspected meant something and Riksa definitely knew but refused to explain.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
The front door was shut.
The side door was open.
“She knows we are here,” Riksa said.
Willa glanced at her. “Because she heard us?”
“Because she has opinions about doors.”
Selka, standing on Willa’s other side in a borrowed cloak of dark gray wool, looked at the open side door as if it had personally insulted Marr custom.
“Should we knock?”
“At the front?” Riksa said. “Only if you want to be ignored.”
“At the side?”
“Only if you want to be corrected.”
Willa looked between them. “Then what do we do?”
Riksa walked to the stone step beside the open side door, stopped just outside the threshold, and said, “Osa Grey, if you make me stand in mud while you pretend not to hear, I will tell everyone your gout tea tastes like boiled socks because you over-dry the nettle.”
From inside, an old woman’s voice snapped, “You would not.”
“I would compose a song.”
Silence.
Then, “Come in, you awful woman. Not the men.”
Torren, Noll, and Brann stood twenty paces back near the birches.
Not in the doorway.
Not even near enough to pretend.
Torren’s attention moved over Willa through the mark, dark and controlled.
She glanced over her shoulder.
He stood with arms folded, expression carved from winter, doing a spectacular job of not standing in a doorway and a worse job of liking it.
Willa touched the mark briefly.
Not fear.
His shoulders lowered by the smallest amount.
Selka watched the exchange and looked away too quickly.
Willa noticed.
So did Riksa, probably.
Riksa noticed illness, lies, poorly tied bandages, and emotions she claimed not to have time for.
“Inside,” Riksa said.
They entered.
Osa Grey’s kitchen smelled like bitter greens, woodsmoke, old wool, pepper, and something floral that had been dried too long to remain sweet. Shelves lined every wall, crowded with jars, folded cloth, bundles, bone-handled knives, chipped cups, and little packets labeled in a cramped hand.
A narrow table sat near the hearth.
Osa Grey sat at it.
She was small in the way old women sometimes became small without becoming less. Her hair was a thick braid of iron gray. Her hands were knotted at the joints. Her eyes were cloudy at the edges but sharp in the center.
Those eyes went first to Riksa.
“You got old.”
Riksa removed her cloak.
“You got rude.”
“I was always rude.”
“So was I.”
“You got better at it.”
“Practice.”
Osa snorted.
Then her gaze moved to Willa.
Not to the mark first.
To her face.
That was rare enough now that Willa almost did not know what to do with it.
“Willa Renn.”
“Yes.”
“Marked now.”
“Yes.”
Osa’s gaze dipped to the mark.
Briefly.
Not hungrily.
Not weighing.
Checking, perhaps, the way one checked whether a wound had closed or opened.
“Looks alive.”
The mark warmed.
Willa kept her hand at her side.
“It is.”
Osa nodded once, satisfied or merely done with that subject.
Then she looked at Selka.
Her face changed.
“Marr girl.”
Selka’s chin lifted. “Selka Marr.”
“I know whose daughter you are. Sit down before your pride falls on my clean floor and stains it.”
Selka blinked.
Riksa laughed once.
“I missed you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“No.”
Willa sat where Osa pointed. Selka sat beside her, spine straight. Riksa remained standing by the hearth because some women apparently communicated affection through refusal to relax.
Osa poured tea into three mismatched cups.
“Drink if you want. Don’t if you think I poison strangers. I don’t. Too much work.”
Willa took the cup.
It smelled like mint, smoke, and something root-bitter.
Riksa took hers and drank without hesitation.
Selka looked into hers.
“If she wanted us poisoned, she would use something with less odor,” Riksa said.
Selka picked up the cup.
“Comforting.”
“Was not trying.”
Osa leaned back in her chair, one hand wrapped around her own cup.
“You came about Arlen.”
Willa nodded.
“And about the man you saw.”
“False Pike.”
Riksa’s eyes sharpened.
“You knew?”
Osa’s mouth folded inward.
“Not at first.”
Willa set her tea down.
“Tell us from the beginning.”
Osa studied her.
“You ask like Hessa Pike.”
“That is either praise or diagnosis.”
“Both.”
Riksa looked pleased.
Osa turned her cup once between her hands.
“I was at the reed crossing two mornings before Arlen went missing. Bad knees, worse road, so I stopped near the alder bank. Saw Arlen there. He was talking to a young wolf in an ocher coat. Brown hair. Chin scar. Pike-like enough if you wanted him to be.”
“But you did not think Pike Hollow at first,” Willa said.
Osa’s eyes flicked to her.
“No.”
“Why?”
“He stood wrong.”
“Left leg?”
“That too.”
“What else?”
Osa’s mouth curved. “You listen better than most marked women.”
Selka made a soft sound.
Not quite laugh.
Osa glanced at her. “Do not start. You listen like a trap deciding whether to close.”
Selka’s expression became very still.
“I was trained well.”
“So was every bad dog. It is not an answer.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Willa felt the old bruise under Selka’s silence.
Osa sipped her tea.
“The false Pike stood with his back too straight for a young fool trying to look casual.”
Riksa nodded.
“Trained.”
“Yes. And he kept his hands visible.”
Willa frowned. “Why is that wrong?”
“Boys pretending not to be nervous hide their hands. Boys trained not to be seen as threatening show them.”
Selka’s fingers tightened around her cup.
“Frostmere attendants,” she said.
Osa looked at her.
“Would know better than I.”
Selka stared into her tea.
“Marr men too, in court rooms. But at a reed crossing, Frostmere.”
Willa thought of Garven’s knee. Frostmere autumn livery. Stored mud. Davra’s cabinets.
“Did Arlen seem afraid?”
“No.”
“Angry?”
“No.”
“Familiar with him?”
Osa’s cloudy eyes sharpened.
“He thought he had chosen the meeting.”
Riksa grunted.
“That is different.”
“Yes.”
Willa leaned forward.
The mark warmed as Torren’s attention brushed her from outside.
She ignored it for now.
Mostly.
“How could you tell?”
“Because Arlen had his shoulders up like a man carrying something important and expecting to be praised for not dropping it. The false Pike stood like a man waiting for prey to step exactly where bait had been laid.”
Selka whispered, “Davra.”
The word moved through the kitchen like cold smoke.
Osa’s eyes went to her.
“You know that posture?”
Selka’s mouth twisted.
“I know women who arrange rooms before calling them accidents.”
Osa’s expression changed.
Not soft.
Softer than stone, perhaps.
“Drink your tea.”
Selka drank.
Willa looked at Osa. “Did you hear anything?”
“Enough.”
She reached to the shelf behind her, took down a little packet wrapped in blue cloth, and set it on the table.
Riksa’s brows lifted.
“Osa.”
“I have bad knees, not bad instincts.”
Osa untied the cloth.
Inside lay a small disk.
Not a coin exactly.
Bone, perhaps, darkened with age and oil, carved with three short cuts crossing a crescent shape.
Redjaw.
Willa knew it before anyone said it because the mark went dark.
Torren had felt it.
Outside, one of the men shifted.
Brann, maybe.
Not Torren.
Torren had gone dangerously still.
Willa breathed.
Rule two.
Not fear.
Anger.
Grief, maybe, but not hers.
Or not only.
“Arlen dropped that?” Riksa asked.
“No,” Osa said. “The false Pike did.”
Selka inhaled.
“On purpose?”
“That was my thought.”
Willa stared at the bone disk.
“Why?”
Osa nudged it with one bent finger.
“Because Arlen was supposed to pick it up, carry it away, and be found with it. Or because anyone watching from the reeds was supposed to see it pass from Pike Hollow to Bluebank.”
Riksa swore softly.
“Did he take it?”
“No. I did.”
Willa looked at her.
Osa smiled without warmth.
“Bad knees make people underestimate your speed if the thing is close.”
Riksa gave an approving grunt.
“Useful.”
“Obviously.”
Willa looked at the token again. “Did Arlen notice?”
“No.”
“Did the false Pike?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
Osa’s eyes narrowed.
“Smiled.”
The mark pulsed once, hard.
Torren, outside.
Hearing enough? No. Feeling enough.
Willa touched the edge of the table.
“Did he see you?”
“Eventually.”
Riksa straightened.
“Osa.”
“Do not use that tone. I have outlived worse than tone.”
“What happened?”
Osa shrugged one thin shoulder.
“He came to my house that night.”
Selka’s cup struck the saucer.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“And you did not send word?”
“To whom? Bluebank men who argue in doorways? Northroad traders who sell breath by the ounce? Pike Hollow, which I was not yet certain was being framed or framing?” Osa’s mouth hardened. “I sent word when I had word worth sending.”
Willa’s hands curled on the table.
“What did he want?”
“The token.”
“What did you say?”
Osa smiled.
Riksa closed her eyes.
“Oh, no.”
“I told him I burned it in the stove.”
Willa looked at the token.
“You did not.”
“No.”
“Did he believe you?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“Stood in my doorway.”
Riksa muttered, “Fool.”
“I threw boiling wash water at his leg.”
Willa stared.
Selka stared.
Riksa looked proud.
Osa lifted her cup.
“He moved badly after that.”
Willa thought of Osa’s description: left leg hurt but hiding it.
“You burned him.”
“Probably.”
“Then if we find a man with a fresh scald on his left leg…”
“You have found my doorway enthusiast.”
Selka leaned closer to the token.
“May I?”
Osa’s eyes narrowed.
“Touch it?”
“No. Smell.”
Osa looked at Riksa.
Riksa nodded once.
Osa pushed the cloth closer.
Selka bent.
Carefully.
Her face changed almost immediately.
“Old oil,” she said.
“Bone oil?” Riksa asked.
“No. Weapon oil. Frostmere uses cedar and lavender in records. Marr uses clove oil in blade stores.” Selka swallowed. “Stonewatch uses wintergreen in leather oil.”
Willa stared at her.
“Stonewatch?”