Chapter Fifteen Simran #2
The man looked dubious. She gave him a clinical once-over. He was strong, to be sure. His body would be able to handle a feral tale; something built for brutes at war, for the weight of an animal’s rage. And they’d need strength to escape this place.
“You’d protect them?” Simran asked.
He met her eyes and nodded, determined.
“I would,” he said.
Good. It helped, when the magic of the ink matched the nature of its would-be bearer.
“Do you have any farmer’s sons here?” Simran asked. “Young, idealistic, good-natured?”
There was some shuffling. Finally, a gangly, acne-marked boy raised his hand. “Me? Maybe?” he said. “I’m not a farmer’s son, but I am sixteen. And my nature’s all right, I suppose.”
“Have some confidence,” said Simran. “You’re going to need it. Now, we’ll need to mark you somewhere the others won’t see it, and fast. Lift your shirt.”
She couldn’t rely on her witching. Not here, surrounded by a shark bath of other witches, many of them cannier, cleverer, and more powerful than she was. But her scribe work wasn’t witchcraft. It was tale-magic, and it would serve her well now.
The boy lifted his shirt, and Simran wetted her needle.
She worked fast, without loveliness, the limni ink pearling like the pupil of an eye on the tip of her needle.
It met the boy’s skin—and his blood—with a crackle of pure energy, the kind that lay in the very marrow of the Isle.
Simran bit her tongue and focused as she inked a deer.
In her scriptorium, she would have made it a lovely thing—wide-eyed, graceful-limbed.
Here, brutal, economic swiftness was paramount.
The boy was breathing raggedly by the time she was done, crushing the hand of the person next to him—but he was firm-jawed, and his tears hadn’t spilled. Good.
She turned to the man.
“You next,” she said. “He’s got the swiftness. You’re going to need the strength to protect them.”
The man had already rolled up his sleeves. “One of my arms,” he said grimly. “Feels fitting for strength.”
He had a missing ring finger on his left hand, so that was the arm she chose.
It took strength to recover from wounds, after all, to be harmed, and to scar, and to survive.
A bear was the first thing that came to her needles.
She created it with scrolling, looping movements of her needle.
Its head was upraised, its eyes oddly soft.
Sometimes the ink-wearer changed the design by their nature. That had to be what was at play.
She could hear footsteps outside, approaching. Two voices arguing. She clenched her jaw. She was almost done, so close.
“I told you, I got her to help me!” Cora’s voice. “She’s a silly fool, you should be glad I’m putting her to use.”
No time, she thought. Her needle slipped, panic leading her astray. She hissed, biting back a curse as the needle rolled to the ground. In a few seconds, the witches would be upon them. No time, no time.
It would be crude work, but damn professional pride. She pressed her fingertip to the ink on the man’s arm and drew it into the shape of the bear’s furred belly.
She could see the prisoners breathing fast, hands over their mouths, urging her to go faster with their eyes. But she wiped her hand on the ground, scrambling for the needle, and tucked it into her sleeve.
The ink was done. Simran felt the limni ink settle and flare into place, filtering magic violently through the man’s blood. Then she shot to her feet and strode to the edge of the room, where there were still two stinking buckets.
“What are you doing?” one of the prisoners asked, voice thin and alarmed.
“If you survive, you’ll thank me,” she muttered, then tipped over a little of the shit bucket onto the floor. She aimed for the corner, but it still made everyone scramble to the other side of the cell, gagging.
The cell door slammed open. Sarah strode in—then propelled herself out so fast she almost knocked herself to the floor.
“Oh, wonderful,” said Simran. “Have you come to help, Sarah? That is so generous of you! Truly, we are sisters in magic—”
“You can stop,” sighed Cora. Sarah was already speeding for the exit, making retching sounds as she went. “Is it done?”
“Yes,” said Simran. “I’d help you more, but I’ve got someone else to save.”
“Not until you’re finished here, you don’t.” Cora shoved a mop into Simran’s hands. “You’re lucky Sarah was too distracted to see you don’t have anything to clean with. But I’m not cleaning shit, so get on with it.”
“Fine,” said Simran. “You stay and keep watch.”
Cora crossed her arms, eyes narrowed.
“Trust me,” she said. “I will.”
After Simran was done, Cora directed her to a place to bathe—a clearing, equipped with buckets and ewers of water, heated by gentle magic or small, carefully stoked fires.
She washed out in the open, scrubbing her hair with lavender-flecked soap, trying not to feel ridiculous for keeping her boots on.
She wasn’t going to risk the damn charm leaving her side.
That was just inviting trouble. Then, when she was done, she went to find her clothing—and found another witch waiting for her.
The witch was young, soft-faced—clutching a bundle in her arms.
“Simran? Cora told me you need some clothes. We have some spares to share between us. I thought these might fit you.”
“Oh, thank you,” Simran said, relieved. She scrounged through the pile, wrapped in a towel—also borrowed, thank you, dear coven kin—and found a skirt of deep blue, the color of midnight.
Next she found a white shirt, more gray than white-white, and slightly too big, but nice enough.
She knotted it at her waist to give it shape, and combed her hair with her fingers.
Easy enough—her hair had always been pin straight, stubbornly uninterested in both knots and curls.
She returned to the others, walking with the girl.
The younger witch needed no encouragement to start talking.
She told Simran her name was Diana. She’d come from a small town on the edge of the forest that was, in her words, uncomfortable with magic.
“It’s not a bad place, but it’s no place for cunning folk, never mind a witch.
But I chose my path, and I’ve never looked back.
” She puffed up with pride. “When Sarah found me she told me I could have a better future if I came here. Growing my magic—that’s going to mean I can be more.
There won’t be a fire or dunking for me. I’ll be a legendary witch.”
Unlikely. No one seemed to have considered that legends were few and far between. Most folk—even witches—were fodder for tales. But Simran bit her tongue, and tried to pretend she was a sympathetic ear instead of a bundle of furious nerves.
“The lady’s been so good to us,” Diana was saying happily. “I hope she will let us stay with her when the hunt is done.”
“And where is the lady now?” Simran asked. “I haven’t seen her anywhere.”
“She doesn’t visit us in daylight,” Diana said. “I don’t know where she goes when she’s not with us.”
Excellent. Simran ground her teeth. She had no choice, then, but to wait until dusk.
Dusk fell.
There were bows being prepared. Courtly weapons. Fae were not much for axes or rifles, though she’d seen them carry a sword or two, wrought out of wood.
Someone offered her a glass of wine in a silver cup. She tipped it back and drank none of it. Lowered the glass carelessly, letting it spill. She needed a clear head.
Finally the scent of violets hit her nose, and the chill in the air became oppressive. Her skin rose in goose bumps. The spirits were swarming, haloes of white in the trees, their mouths and eyes stretched in anticipation.
The white horse approached through the trees, its footsteps rainfall and chimes in the wind—light, airy, and nothing like the clopping of hooves should have been.
Nymphs moved around her, dancing, fish-eyed, and singing with bloodlust. But Simran’s eyes were drawn immediately to the figure walking at the fae maiden’s side.
On foot, shoulders squared, face serene, was Vina.
Vina’s gaze passed over Simran dismissively, unseeing.
Then she raised her head and looked at the fae maiden, and finally her gaze blazed, hot with want.
Simran’s stomach twisted. Her skin felt cold.
Even if the tale in her hadn’t been screaming, she would have known something was wrong.
It was only in that moment, watching Vina, that she realized Vina always looked at her.
Always, with soft and clever eyes, that guarded smile. To not be looked at like that—
She cut the thought as sharply as if she’d taken a blade to it.
If something was wrong with Vina, getting her back was going to be harder than Simran had expected. Something had happened to their tale. No wonder Isadora had come to her in a nightmare. Some part of Simran was wounded.
I should have noticed, Simran thought. Maybe this was the price of the charm in her boot—a muffling of not just her incarnate scent but her incarnate magic.
“Our hunt begins, sisters,” the fae said, in a low and beautiful voice. She raised a hand. “Bring out the foxes, and we will glut on magic.”
The ghosts began to sing—high and wailing and celebratory. The witches raised their hands, crying out with the ghosts. But their joy was cut short when a witch emerged from the grotto, panicked.
“The bars are—broken,” the witch heaved. “They’re gone, the foxes are gone!”
“They can’t be gone,” snapped Cora, and Sarah said, hotly, “We’ve been watching them all this time! How could they creep by us? Don’t be absurd.”
“Is this true?” the fae asked. Her voice had turned cold, her expression so remote it had to be hiding intense fury.
“One of them is still here.” Her face was blanched with terror. “He—he’s—”