12. UNDER A SPELL
Under a spell
Something was wrong. Three months ago, when Gwen slew the dragon, she’d thrown herself into Isobelle’s arms, clinging to her with a raw, unselfconscious strength, asking Isobelle if it was dead, if it was over.
Today, after the sea monster’s body had sunk down out of sight beneath the waves, Gwen had simply brushed past Isobelle and down the gangplank, unbuckling her now-empty scabbard.
Her beautiful sword, made with her own hands, which she had spent every night on the road engraving, honing and polishing, was lost to the depths of the harbour. And Gwen barely seemed to notice.
She seemed almost herself now as they swung around the town square together, the musicians carrying them along with a merry tune, the brightly coloured best clothes of the townsfolk flaring to life amid the darkness whenever they whirled near the burning torches.
Someone (probably the local lads, encouraged by Jane and Hilde) had put a hat that looked very like Lord Bingleton’s on the grand paladin statue’s head, and it looked far jauntier than Isobelle felt, though she had managed to find one of her favourite dresses among her luggage.
Without Olivia it had taken her an absurd amount of time to get into the thing, but she’d always felt better when she knew she looked her best. Somehow, that boost of morale had failed tonight.
Twice, when she would have stopped dancing, Gwen kept her out for another, and it was several dances later when they finally stumbled to the edge of the square, both out of breath.
‘Dessert, my lady?’ One of the women from the town was (wo)manning a griddle of honey cakes, the most delicious smell wafting up from them.
The child beside her was so sticky that his small face glistened in the torchlight, and Isobelle took this as a testament to the quality of his mother’s cooking.
‘Yes, please. You know, at Darkhaven’s market they do dragon-shaped cheesecake on a stick, which is delightful. I wonder if you could make these long and curvy, call them sea monster tentacles? Lord Bingleton does love a theme.’
‘That he does, m’lady,’ the woman agreed, tone carefully neutral as she deftly flipped the honey cakes onto little plates, drizzling them with sticky sauce.
Isobelle decided to take the direct route to her destination. ‘Do you have a history of sea monsters in these parts? I’m rather surprised I don’t see any embroidered on aprons, or that the hot springs aren’t fashioned after them.’
‘No, no history, m’lady,’ the woman said, eyes firmly and determinedly on her task as she produced a rag of questionable cleanliness, wiping a little stray sauce from the edge of one of the plates.
‘It was the sorceress.’ That was the glistening child, who paused in the licking of his own plate to contribute this information.
Gwen gave the boy a sharp, intent look. ‘The old sorceress who was defeated?’
‘They say she’s coming back.’ He gazed at her, evidently delighted to have drawn such interest. ‘She could bring monsters with her mind.’
Isobelle’s eyes flicked enquiringly over to the child’s mother, who made the mistake of looking up and letting Isobelle expertly capture and hold her gaze. ‘The sorceress was a monster summoner?’ Isobelle asked. ‘And she’s coming back?’
The woman’s cheeks flushed and she swallowed hard, her lips pressing together. Then they parted briefly and it seemed almost as though she were about to speak, before she cut herself off with a soft, agonised sound and thrust the plates at Gwen and Isobelle with a silent plea in her eyes.
With a sigh, Isobelle released her and took a bite of her honey cake. ‘Oh, this is delicious. Gwen, try yours!’
Gwen, who was gazing out at the still waters of the harbour, started as if surprised to find herself standing beside Isobelle with a plate of fried dough in her hand.
She obediently took a bite, though, and made a sound of appreciation that quite frankly did things to Isobelle’s insides.
‘Delicious,’ she echoed, around a mouthful.
With a smile of thanks at the woman, Isobelle linked an arm through Gwen’s to take a stroll around the square. ‘Isn’t the moonlight lovely?’ she said, perhaps a little too loudly, as they walked away. And then, lower, ‘Did you see, Gwen? It just happened again! It’s magic, isn’t it?’
‘Something’s not right here,’ Gwen agreed softly, her gaze troubled. ‘But magic? I don’t know.’
They walked in silence for a little – or rather, surrounded by music and noise and chatter, but not speaking themselves. It wasn’t an awful, strained sort of silence, but it wasn’t quite companionable, either.
Something’s not right here. Gwen had that much straight. There were a great many things that weren’t right in Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea. And though a part of Isobelle told her to let at least one of them lie for the night, she found herself speaking anyway.
‘You said you didn’t throw the sword. You said that you let it go.’ Those words had stayed with her. Letting her weapon go was different from dropping it by accident. A fine distinction, but still.
For several steps Gwen said nothing, and Isobelle thought perhaps she wouldn’t answer. But she waited, her insides twisting up with a hopeful fear.
‘I—’ Gwen seemed to choke on the word, and for a moment Isobelle thought it was just that – that she’d inhaled a piece of her honey cake.
She quickly disentangled her arm from Gwen’s, preparing to thump her on the back, but then Gwen inhaled sharply, the sound closer to a sob, and pressed her lips together hard.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t breathe. It was that she couldn’t continue.
‘Gwen—’
‘Sir Gwen!’ Before Isobelle could get any further, a keen young man clutching a sheaf of parchment popped up before them like a jack-in-the-box. ‘I’m Lord Bingleton’s official sketch artist. Archibald! Archie, if you like. I was wondering if I could trouble you for a quick pose.’
Gwen blinked at him, nonplussed – it was a perfect reflection of Isobelle’s own response, to be fair, with Isobelle’s only advantage that she’d spent a lifetime perfecting her poker face.
As she watched Gwen’s expression clear, though, her features released from that awful, frozen stillness, a cold finger curled down Isobelle’s spine.
She’d seen that freeze before, or one very close to it.
‘A pose?’ Gwen asked Archie, blinking again.
‘I’m capturing the moment,’ he said brightly, fanning out the sheets of parchment to show them a series of quick sketches.
There were Hilde and Jane, toasting each other with tankards.
There was Lord Bingleton, hands on hips, gaze nobly directed towards the horizon.
There was their captain, Henry, still looking a bit traumatised if Isobelle was completely honest.
Archie set down a placard, which read: Hand-held Portraites of Selfe with Towne Landmarks and Sytes!
Isobelle raised an eyebrow. ‘You know, Archie, you really need a pithier name for your product,’ she advised him. ‘Can’t you boil all that down to a word or two?’
The artist’s gaze became thoughtful, and he began muttering possibilities to himself as he set up and got to work. Isobelle was barely listening, though, her mind still on Gwen’s stumbling speech earlier, and its terrifying resemblance to the way the townsfolk acted when asked about the sorceress.
She stepped in close to Gwen as the artist arranged their pose, and felt a lump in Gwen’s pocket pressing against her hip. Gwen noticed it too, and when Isobelle went rummaging, she pulled out a small pouch.
Ignoring Archie’s pleas for her to hold still, Isobelle asked, ‘What is this?’
Gwen shrugged. ‘One of Olivia’s scent sachets, I suppose. I haven’t worn this dress in a while.’
Isobelle swallowed, the little bag feeling like a leaden weight in her hand. She managed to pose for a little while longer before asking the artist if she could go fetch herself a drink. He muttered about the creative process but otherwise didn’t look up, so Isobelle let her feet carry her away.
She glanced at Gwen, still posing, and then slipped into the relative darkness between two houses.
The sachet was no more than a square of burlap, its corners gathered up and tied with twine and sealed with black wax.
When they were packing for this trip, Isobelle hadn’t been able to find any of the scent sachets.
It was possible one could have been left in this dress before, in Gwen’s clothes chest …
but Olivia would never have used burlap.
Or, for that matter, wax that could’ve stained the fabric.
For some reason, Isobelle’s fingers shook as she dug her nails through the wax and snapped the twine.
The contents spilled out onto her palm, a confusing jumble of textures and shapes. The sharp smell of black pepper. Some unidentifiable thorny herb. A few dried berries that Isobelle recognised as deadly nightshade. A rusty nail. A dead spider.
Isobelle dropped the handful as if it had burned her, and stood panting, staring down at the shadows where the objects had fallen. Then, for good measure, she stamped on them, and kicked dirt over the whole mess.
She glanced back out between the houses, where Gwen was beginning to shift her weight from foot to foot, glancing about, no doubt wondering why Isobelle had abandoned her to the not-so-tender mercies of the portrait artist.
A strange calm had seized Isobelle, a determination that she’d felt before, though admittedly mostly before she barrelled headlong into a sticky situation.
They hadn’t been sure whether magic was causing the odd behaviour in this town, but now Isobelle was certain. Someone was influencing this place using magic, for reasons that were, as yet, unknown.
But whoever it was had made one fatal mistake: they were trying to hurt Gwen.
Anyone at the party could’ve slipped that bag into Gwen’s pocket, or into Gwen’s luggage when they entered town. The strangeness had begun then, long before tonight.
Gwen pushing Isobelle away after a nightmare, her confession to Tabitha that the dragon was haunting her, dropping her sword at a crucial moment in the fight against the sea monster … and, just now, choking on her own words in the exact manner of the innkeeper and the other townsfolk.
Gwen was under a spell.
And she, Isobelle of Avington, was going to rescue her.