Chapter I.9
Chapter Nine
Three Weeks Before the Wedding
Miria opened the chest at the foot of her bed and dug through years of accumulated items that she’d held onto on the off chance they might one day be useful—a feather from a snow-white crow, wool from a lamb born during an eclipse, a blue daffodil found lying on the forest path.
At the bottom, wrapped in perfectly normal wool, was a dirty cloth, browned with a boy’s dried blood.
Miria knew she should not have held onto it for so long, but she never had thought of any favor the boy she’d once healed could provide that would make for an adequate repayment. Every time she’d tried, a voice in the back of her mind told her that now—whenever now happened to be—was not the time.
When Miria held the bloodied cloth today, the voice—whatever the voice happened to be—was silent. They were in agreement at last; this was the time.
Three days later, Miria headed into town.
It had taken her some effort to ensure she was using the boy’s blood, and not someone else’s, but once she was certain, the blood had revealed to her that the boy whose burned leg she’d once healed was now a man who served in Lord Sigmun’s household guard.
Furthermore, she’d ascertained that the man had a name—Otto—and he spent the two evenings a week that his schedule allowed at a tavern in town with several other guardsmen.
Since approaching him in town seemed safer than approaching him while he worked at the Lord of Gawfrid’s manor, Miria had waited for the first opportunity.
To be extra cautious, she’d donned the petal-and-thorn shirt that Yali had begun sewing on the very evening that Miria had met Otto.
It was likely not a coincidence that she’d started it then; magic rarely was.
The shirt fit snugly and invisibly beneath her dress, lighter and tougher than any leather armor.
Hopefully, it was unnecessary. Probably, it was unnecessary. But Miria was done being surprised while she was in town.
For that reason, she ought to be grateful that Otto and his fellow guardsmen spent their free evenings at the Bloody Goats Inn, which happened to be the only tavern in Swiftdok that Miria had ever stepped foot in. That, naturally, had been Adaline’s doing.
“You’ve never been to a tavern?” Adaline had asked incredulously.
“No. Why would I?” Miria laughed. “I try to avoid going into town, remember? Why would you want to go to one?”
“It sounds exciting.” Adaline put down the wreath of grasses she was braiding. “My uncle’s men play dice, and they said there’s music at nights, and they were singing the most bawdy lyrics they learned. I think it would be fun. Just to see what it’s like, of course.”
Miria had to admit the promise of music was tempting, and more to the point, she loved making Adaline happy (even, when convinced as she was now, that Adaline would not find a tavern so charming in person as it was in her imagination).
Nonetheless, Miria magically disguised them both one day, and they bought lunch at a tavern rather suspiciously named the Bloody Goats Inn since that was where the lord’s men liked to frequent.
There was no music during the midday meal, and the fish pies and ales Adaline bought them both couldn’t make up for the lack of entertainment. Adaline, however, had been undaunted.
“What do you think?” she asked, leaning across the table.
The inn was three-quarters full, but no one paid them any attention. Miria had made them look a little older, and—in Adaline’s case—much plainer.
“I think I can make a better fish pie myself,” Miria said. “Is it everything you hoped it would be?”
Adaline danced in her seat, realized that drew some unwanted eyes, and quickly settled down. “It’s perfect. I mean, the food is barely edible, and there’s no music like I hoped, but look at us. We’re having an adventure.”
“Doing something most people would consider completely normal.” Miria laughed, but Adaline wasn’t wrong. Even disguised, eating at the inn was an act of bravery. People like them weren’t supposed to be here, and given a chance, many people would make sure they knew it.
“Exactly. We’re not normal, are we? But it’s nice to pretend for a bit.”
“It is nice, but I don’t have to pretend when I’m with you,” Miria said. “You always make me feel much more normal than I am. I never had a friend before.”
Adaline’s smile froze on her face a moment as though she wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. Then she seemed to come to a decision, and her smile broadened. “Well, you make me feel anything but normal, and in a much better way. Every day with you is an adventure, even if we go nowhere.”
Adaline’s words had done something to Miria’s insides then, although at the time she’d blamed the fish pie.
Miria pressed her thumb against the pink charm on her wrist, trying to ignore the ache in her chest that memory awoke. Although the inn’s physical presence hadn’t changed since that day, there wasn’t much else about the moment that should have reminded her of it.
The evening crowd was far less subdued than the midday crowd had been, and the inn was packed, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder around the tables.
And while there were a couple of musicians this time, no one appeared to be singing any bawdy lyrics she could share with Adaline.
In truth, Miria could barely hear their instruments over the din.
Miria clung to a spot of wall near the door, and she sighed in relief when Otto finally arrived.
He looked much as she remembered, though his blond hair had darkened slightly and his chin was covered in straw-colored scruff.
Miria discreetly took his wrist as he passed by with three others, all of whom had the same look about them—the brash confidence of men who trained all day with weapons but who were too young and na?ve to be fearsome.
Miria doubted Otto or his friends had ever used the swords they carried outside of a dueling circle.
Disguised as Miria was to resemble a gray-haired woman (the best disguise for being invisible without actually casting a spell for such a thing), Otto had walked right by without noticing her.
But Miria let a touch of power flow through her fingers, and it seeped into his skin.
When he turned, startled, she allowed him to see through the spell and hoped he would remember her.
It would make things go more quickly if he did.
Luck was on her side. Otto gasped. “You? I’ve been waiting for this day.”
Some of the color drained from his face, further de-aging him in Miria’s mind. So much for his sword and training and for her armor. He was still that boy, scared of her.
“You do not need to be so alarmed,” Miria said. “But you have a self-imposed debt, and I’m here to claim it.”
Otto swallowed. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Convenient, then, that I’m not asking you to.”
A serving woman pushed by them, her tray laden with drinks and bowls of a not-especially-terrible-smelling soup.
Miria tugged on Otto’s wrist. “Sit with me a moment so we aren’t in anyone’s way. If your friends ask, tell them I’m an old family friend,” she added when she caught him glancing toward the table with the other men.
Otto put up no fight as Miria took two seats near the door and asked a server to bring them each a cup of ale, figuring a drink might soften Otto’s concerns.
For a moment, she considered casting a spell so they wouldn’t be overheard, but she decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
The tavern was loud with conversations and laughter, and the closest customers were deep in their cups already.
“I do owe you a debt,” Otto said. He rubbed his hands together nervously. “My leg … I thought I would lose it for sure, but there’s not even a scar from whatever you put on it.”
It had been a simple enough healing spell, placed on a clean, fresh poultice.
Cheap as far as magic went. But Miria did not point this out.
“I’m glad. Anyone who tries to save a cat from fire deserves no less.
But now I need your help, because there is someone I’m trying to save.
I know you work for Lord Sigmun. I’m sure you’re aware he is hosting his niece’s wedding this summer. ”
Otto nodded, but his expression said he was wary. “’Course. It’s a lot of extra preparations and nonsense we have to deal with, but it should be a good time. I’m told there’ll be extra ale and wine for all of us to celebrate.”
A good time for whom, Miria wondered. Not Adaline. “I need you to explain the layout inside the manor walls and grounds, and where the noble guests will be staying.”
“I told you—I’m not doing anything that will hurt anyone.”
The server returned with their drinks, and Miria quickly slipped her a couple of coins before Otto could do it. The last thing she needed was him thinking he could repay her by buying some questionable ale.
“No one will get hurt,” Miria said a second time, after the server had wandered away. No one directly. And not if things went to plan. “You have my word.”
Otto wrapped his hands around his cup, but he didn’t drink. “I’m supposed to trust a witch?”
“Trust a girl who saved your leg and maybe your life had you gotten blood poisoning. Your skin was blackened as coal.”
Her words hit their mark. Otto winced. “I can still smell it, feel it sometimes in my dreams. But look, I know you helped me and others that day, but what about all the children who are going missing and dying? What do you have to say for them?”
Miria sipped her ale (tolerable) as she decided how to respond.
Of course she knew the witch was blamed when children disappeared, and it wasn’t a rumor she wanted to entirely dissuade.
For one, she had helped two runaways disappear in the last year.
And two, it served her purposes for the townsfolk to be wary; it always had.
Miria, like Yali before her, hardly wanted everyone scouring the woods for the witch on a daily basis.
“All the children?” Miria repeated, focusing on the implication. “How many do you mean have gone missing?”
Otto shrugged and drank some ale. “I don’t know exactly.
I hear things here and there, and I haven’t kept count.
But I heard at least three cases that I can think of recently—little ones who vanished from their beds, and then turned up dead months later.
Near your woods. People are saying the witch or her evil spirits dumped them there. ”
This was news to Miria, both what happened to the children and the rumors. It helped explain the attitude she’d seen at the funeral a few days ago.
Miria didn’t like it. These rumors could cross the line from instilling wariness in people to inciting violence. She didn’t have time to deal with other people’s anger when she had her own to manage, and she didn’t like the possibility that someone might be harming children.
Otto was looking at her curiously. He didn’t entirely believe she was innocent in this, but he wanted to. Naturally. No one wanted to be indebted to a child-killing monster. “Are you saying you haven’t been sending evil spirits to take their blood and souls?”
“Of course not.” Stealing souls? That sounded like a tale the church would tell.
Miria recalled the priests being obsessed with the idea of souls.
Vaguely, she wondered whether that was considered more horrific than the stories of the witch cooking and eating the children—the rumors her brother had started. “What’s this about evil spirits?”
Otto shrugged. “Some kids have gotten sick with some blood wasting disease. I’ve heard the kids say evil spirits come to them at night. I don’t know if it’s true, but something is draining their life away. There was another funeral just a few days ago.”
He had to be referring to the child’s funeral that Miria had inadvertently stumbled upon. She refused to believe there might have been more than one so recently.
There were no such things as evil spirits, at least nothing like them that Yali had taught her about or that Yali’s books described. Miria wanted to shake Otto and convince him to stop listening to such nonsense.
But there was something … A memory pushing its way through the woods of her mind, clawing for her attention like a sapling for sunlight. Where had she heard children talking about evil spirits before, and was it meaningful?
Miria tried to wash down the itch in her brain with more ale. She had her revenge and Adaline’s rescue to plan. She didn’t have time to investigate a rash of mysterious illnesses and deaths.
And yet the itch refused to be appeased.
Surely, it insisted, she did not need to spend every minute of every day until Adaline arrived making plans and preparations.
The witch helped children, always. More—the current witch had young half-sisters.
With her family’s wealth and her father’s position, they were less vulnerable than most to any nefarious business that might be occurring, but still.
If she could recall the memory, Miria acquiesced, she could spare some time to devote to this mystery. Assuming the memory was of any use.
For the moment, however, she had to wrap up this conversation. The tavern was growing more packed, and Otto more fidgety. The drink hadn’t done much to calm him down.
Miria pressed her hands flat against the table’s scarred surface.
Otto wasn’t the only one who wished this conversation to be over.
The sheer number of bodies crowding the room was making it hard for her to concentrate.
Miria doubted even Adaline would have enjoyed their outing so much had there been this many people then.
“If there is anything I can do about these children’s illnesses and deaths,” Miria said, “I will try. But in the meantime, I am still owed something by you. Will you provide me what I asked for?”
With a sigh, Otto nodded. “I’ll tell you, and I hope I won’t regret it.”