Chapter Sixteen. In Which a Witch Offers Some Useless Parting Gifts #2
“We were lined up against a wall. The guards had pistols. But I had this beneath my dress.” The Wolf made a vague gesture toward the belt at her hips, where several gleaming gems were inlaid in the buckle in the shape of some kind of insignia.
“It was supposed to be a surprise for Baba. The bullets must have bounced off. But in the ensuing madness, one slashed at my face and neck.”
Linda and Brunie both made pitiful sounds of despair.
“When I came to, my family was dead. But the guards were gone and the general’s daughter found me.
” The Wolf took a stuttering breath, her fingers tracing the line of her scar.
“We were friends. Best friends. She didn’t know what had happened—the general lied and told her we had left for the summer palace.
But she didn’t believe him, and when she overheard some guards talking about the massacre, she came down to the dungeons.
Told me to run away. To never let anyone find me. To stay safe.”
“Your curse.” Risa blinked in a sorry attempt to make sense of the Wolf’s face, disconcerting as it was to stare at it in the open. “Who—?”
The Wolf gave a half shrug. “I told you, I don’t know. Once I was on the road, I noticed no one could look at me. When I tried to find shelter or get food, people would forget they’d dealt with me.”
She tugged her hood back on, and her face shifted into something more solid. Risa’s mind settled with relief.
“It was easier when my face was covered. Like it gave me … definition. Then, when no one talked about my family, their murders, the kingdom, the general, I realized no one knew what had happened. And when I crossed the desert and came here, I realized no one knew of Madros. We were forgotten, relegated to being some unknown kingdom across the desert.”
It occurred to Risa that even if the Wolf found a way to cross the desert again and somehow managed to get the general to admit to all he’d done, she wouldn’t be able to take back her throne or rule. She was an enigma, and the spell surrounding her kingdom might continue.
The Wolf needed to be whole again.
“Could you break her curse?” Risa asked the witch.
Linda shook her head. At least she looked devastated.
“No. Very rarely can magic be purposely undone. Think of magic as knots. Witches use their own knots to form spells and enchantments; the tighter the knot, the better the spell. The more knots there are, the more powerful the spell will be. Most knots unravel on their own without a witch there to keep feeding the magic. But a curse?” She shivered delicately, shimmering silver sparks shedding off her skin.
“That is beyond powerful. Imagine a jumble of knots, each more complicated than the one before and impossible to pull apart.”
“Or tangled roots,” Risa whispered. “Continuing to grow, choking and snarling.”
She felt Linda watching her, silver eyes twinkling like caught starlight. “Yes, I suppose that’s another way to describe it.”
Javi turned to her. “Why don’t you do it? You’ve done it before.”
Risa shook her head, avoiding Linda’s inquisitive stare.
She couldn’t, because she didn’t even know where to begin. Back in Cairn, it had been desperation, an unknowing effort. Javi’s blond hair was more spell than curse, easy to pluck apart. But Risa had felt the power in the Wolf’s curse, had seen how deep and far it extended.
Yet Risa also knew what it was like to hope that someone had the answer to her problem, the missing piece of the puzzle. She had spent her life hoping someone could break her curse. Had hoped for a whole year that Brunhilda might be that someone.
Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on the Wolf’s curse again, searching for those curling vines.
When she couldn’t, she imagined the knots Linda mentioned, all around the Wolf, and tried to unravel each one.
And because that didn’t feel like it was working, either, she tried with a simple command.
“I break your curse.”
Opening her eyes, she saw nothing had changed. The Wolf was still consumed by her curse.
“I can’t,” she whispered, eyes cast down to the floor. It didn’t matter that she was sorry, that she wished she could do more than give bad news. But Risa wasn’t made to do good.
She heard the rustle of the Wolf’s cloak as the girl moved.
“It is okay,” the Wolf said, voice small.
“I’m sorry.”
The Wolf was silent, staring at the ground. Then she looked up, determination flashing across that one eye, and shoved her hood back.
“My name is Amina Durra Moro Almunia. Princess of Madros. Last survivor of the Almunia dynasty. And I need your help to take down the general and reclaim my throne.”
The words rang in the cavern. Though they were not magic, it almost seemed like she was casting a spell by speaking her name aloud, after having hidden it for five long years.
“Perfect,” Javi said, standing with a hand outstretched toward the Wolf—Amina. “Consider our agreement amended. I’m happy to find a reason to postpone my upcoming nuptials now that I’m aware I am marrying the daughter of a despot.”
“We didn’t have an agreement,” Amina reminded him, but grasped his hand anyway.
Risa gasped, pointing at Javi. “You remember!” The details of Amina’s story hadn’t turned into a wisp of smoke and disappeared, snatched by the curse’s overwhelming magic.
Javi clasped both hands around Amina’s handshake. “This is great news!” He turned pensive, brows drawing together. “Though the name of the kingdom continues to elude me.”
Risa tried to think. It came to her, but before she could speak, it was gone.
“You must be able to remember some things, because you realized there was magic at work,” Linda reasoned. She seemed lost in thought, stroking an absentminded hand along Brunie’s back. “Though it seems the magic didn’t loosen all control.”
“You will have to pretend to get married a little while longer,” Amina told Javi seriously. “It might be the only way to get close enough to General Sur for me to finish the job.”
Linda squealed and leaped to her feet. Her pale, translucent skin shimmered again, like some kind of mood predictor. “Even if it’s pretend, you need gifts for a wedding!”
The witch bustled around her cavern of trash, searching her belongings. Brunie followed Linda’s every move with an unblinking yellow gaze, frazzled whiskers twitching with each crash and rumble reverberating against the walls.
When the witch returned, she strode up first to Amina, pinning to her cape a brooch of pearlescent wings carved with such painstaking detail that Risa almost believed they’d take flight.
“A reminder of where you come from and where you will go,” the trash witch said cryptically.
“It was carved by the famous sculptor Omar the Great. I believe he was the royal carpenter of the first king of Madros.”
Amina’s eyes widened as she drank in the gift. She took a slow breath and trailed her fingertips over the pin. Something spun within its center that Risa could not discern from where she stood.
The witch went to Javi next. She handed him a gold pocket watch on a delicate matching chain as thin as thread. He took it with an excited gasp and pushed the crown to flip open the lid.
Disappointment flickered across his face. “It’s broken.”
The witch shrugged. “Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.”
“Yes, I suppose that is true,” he said with a grumble, slipping the chain over his head and beneath his shirt.
Finally, the witch turned to Risa.
Risa waited with a breath hitched in her throat. The witch had said she couldn’t break curses, but perhaps she could give her something that would help. Point her down the right path. Give her some kind of clue, or direction, or—anything. A breadcrumb would do.
Linda handed her a mirror. A pretty thing, though the reflecting glass was grainy, various defects evident in the warped surface. On its back, a silver cat was etched into lacquered black wood.
“You have something on your face,” Linda explained, pointing a finger to her own nose.
Risa raised the mirror.
She stared at herself, unchanged. The same pretty, angular face, with all the features she’d seen thousands of times throughout her life: the same dark eyes, the same mole above her eyebrow. The same Bad Thing, bringing misfortune to everyone and everything around her.
She rubbed at the smudge on the tip of her nose and handed the mirror back.
Linda shook her head. “Keep it. Just remember: Breaking a mirror gives you seven years of bad luck!”
The witch laughed like it was the silliest notion in the world.