30. ALL OF IT HAS BEEN FOR NOTHING #2
‘Does it?’ Olivia pressed. ‘Or does it swim down deep?’
Gwen’s face was pale, the lines of her face sharp in the firelight. ‘You mean, I haven’t even killed it once? All of it has been for nothing?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Olivia quietly. ‘If you’d killed it, it would be dead. It wouldn’t come back. The only thing resurrected tonight was you, Gwen.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Isobelle managed.
‘I work for an Order that protects the world from magic, Isobelle,’ Olivia said, with that hint of crispness that always told Isobelle it was time to accept her wisdom. ‘Not even witches can bring something back from the dead.’
‘Then what on earth is happening here?’ Isobelle whispered.
She gripped Gwen’s cold hand, closed her eyes, and tried to think. Isobelle could read a room on the smallest of cues. She could put together disparate pieces of information and watch castle politics unfold before her like a map.
This place, everything that was happening here, was just another chessboard to play, and she’d seen plenty of moves over the last few weeks. So what did they add up to?
There was the fear creeping through the town – the way it had turned the people against them, even beginning to affect her loyal friends. The hex bag in Gwen’s pocket. The sea monster that returned again and again, just as the dragon of Gwen’s nightmares did.
These were things she knew were true. And perhaps … perhaps it was no more complex than that. Everything they knew for sure had only one thing in common.
Isobelle opened her eyes. ‘He’s using fear,’ she said, her voice clear. ‘Lord Bingleton. Using fear to control the town, to control the monster – driving it to the harbour, then driving it away to make it look like Gwen killed it. He’s masquerading as a necromancer.’
‘Tabitha said he can resurrect things from your mind,’ Gwen murmured, clutching her blankets around her and shivering; her face was still whiter than usual, lips tinted blue. ‘But perhaps what she was seeing were … visions? Nightmares he conjured?’
‘We do know the town has become afraid,’ Isobelle said. ‘That we’ve become afraid. We know he’s wielding fear like a weapon.’
‘Some witches have affinities,’ Olivia offered. ‘The same way an artist has a talent for colour, there are green witches, hedge witches … maybe this one has a particular skill for manipulating fear.’
‘But why do any of it?’ Isobelle groaned.
‘Perhaps he really is linked to one of the witches who died,’ Olivia suggested. ‘He’s older than your friend, maybe old enough to really remember what happened. Perhaps it’s still revenge.’
Gwen coughed again, but her voice was a little less raw when she spoke this time. ‘Why would he put all this effort into making the town somewhere that people want to visit, and then terrify them?’
‘Fair question,’ Isobelle allowed. ‘He must be playing some larger game.’
‘Whatever that game is, Tabitha’s still his prisoner,’ Gwen said softly.
Isobelle’s heart clenched, thinking of their friend up in the tower, watching midwinter draw ever nearer. She had no way of knowing if Gwen and Isobelle were even still here, whether they were still trying to rescue her.
Isobelle sat up straighter. ‘I don’t know what his game is,’ she admitted. ‘But this has always been about fear, and I refuse to be afraid of him.’
‘You don’t have to be afraid of him, but I am.’ Olivia’s voice was quiet. ‘We’re leaving. All three of us, as soon as we can catch a good tide.’
Isobelle found herself on her feet, outrage coursing through her. ‘Are you mad? We can’t leave these people under the spell of some—’
‘As soon as I have you safe, I’ll contact the Order and have them send a team,’ Olivia replied in tones as crisp and cutting as any military leader addressing their troops. ‘But I am not letting you, either of you, face someone with that kind of power.’
‘I am not running away.’ Gwen’s voice was low and calm, and though she was still in bed, her hands were balled around the blankets.
‘And what do you intend to do?’ retorted Olivia, dropping the laundry bag and whirling on them.
‘Enlighten me as to your glorious plan. How will you defeat this sorcerer? Even if you can get close to him without him taking you down, what then? Chop off his head? Tell me, Sir Gwen, how many men have you killed?’
Gwen’s face had lost the hint of colour the heat had brought back to her cheeks. Now, she stared back at Olivia, white and silent.
Isobelle squared her jaw. ‘Stop it, Olivia. We’ll find a way. We always do. Now you’re here, you can help us—’
‘I’m no witch,’ Olivia retorted. ‘I’m a spy – I know how to spot magic, how to report it to the paladins and how to keep my people safe.
You think I arrived here with some convenient artefact in my pocket that would handily negate a man’s magic long enough for you to politely take him under arrest? ’
Isobelle’s heart was sinking all over again.
It was one thing not to wholly trust Olivia, but she wished she could at least trust she’d have the answer to the hopeless situation in which they’d found themselves.
It was quite another to have the woman who had once been her most dependable ally in the world tell her there was no hope.
‘I intend to help you, I do.’ Olivia straightened up, looked between them, and said in tones as final and heavy as a stone slab settling into place, ‘I intend to help you get the hell out of here before you’re both killed.’