CHAPTER ELEVEN
The day unfolded like a wet wool blanket – mild, stifling, and gray.
They trekked silently from the foothills on the forest’s edge through Rook Hollow, a narrow, mist-drenched valley, stumbling over mossy stones and fallen branches along the trickling stream beds.
The birdsong was muted and the wind had gone shy.
What sunlight penetrated the clouds could barely cut through the canopy of pine needles, leaving the Lichtenwald draped in a somber, misty twilight.
The streams, like veins, drew them deeper.
They were in the heart of the forest, now. Anya felt its pulse as her own.
She tied Johanna’s hat, depleted of berries, by its cord to the strap of her bag, enjoying the clouds while they lasted.
She tried her damnedest to keep an even stride for Sy’s sake, but her legs, as if sensing their own limited time, outpaced her.
Every few minutes, she forced herself to stop and let Sy catch up with her.
She did so now, waving eager gnats away from her eyes as she watched him approach.
Somewhere along the way, he had found a small, short twig, and carried it lightly between his fingers.
Unaware of being watched, he pressed his fingers to his closed mouth, then lowered the twig, pursed his lips, and exhaled slowly.
She considered telling him the hunters at the lodge preferred chewing tobacco to cigarettes for its ease of use in the wild, but thought better of it.
He’d only think she was insulting him and prickle up like a hedgehog.
As the morning mist lifted, the gray daylight made his pallor more pronounced.
Alarmingly, he was somehow even paler than when she first met him; almost like yellowed pages, worn and faded.
She wondered what it felt like, losing so much blood, having none to spare.
Needing to spare it. She had plenty, but she coveted hers.
It wasn’t such an unusual thing to covet, your own blood.
More unusual to part with it freely. Or… otherwise.
She pushed her sleeve aside to examine the small cut she had made earlier on her wrist. On impulse, she pressed her thumbnail into it until the pink flesh, just closed, split back open. A bright bead formed, ruby red. Red. A small sigh of relief escaped her.
Sy reached her. She let her sleeve fall.
When he caught her eye, his eyebrows arched playfully. “Tired already?”
After a morning of brooding silence, his sudden attempt at companionship baffled her almost as much as his words.
At her frown, the playful arch dipped, now inquisitive. “This is the longest you’ve stood still all morning.”
“Thought you could use the rest,” she said quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed her strange behavior.
“Keenly observed,” he muttered, hooking a lank bit of hair behind his earring. Despite the mild weather, his face dewed with sweat. Anya admitted a begrudging admiration that he hadn’t once complained. Granted, his silences did have their own way of making his feelings known.
She handed him the waterskin. “We’ve miles to go yet. At this pace, we may reach the meadow by nightfall.”
While he drank, she studied him. None of the other spellscribes had appeared as drained as he had been even before the bear nearly killed him.
The memory of his gored back ripped through her.
She had seen a great deal of torn flesh, animal and human, and torn much of it herself.
And yet it continued to stun her how easily it tore.
How all that held a body together was hardly any stronger than paper.
Than the silk walls of a cocoon, wet and warm, pulsing.
Sy’s voice called her back. “That’s a charming bird. I’ve never seen one like it in the city. What is it called?”
It rankled her that he assumed getting her to talk about the forest would smooth over the tension between them. It rankled her more that he was correct.
When she spotted the small creature, vibrant red with a head and slim beak the dark color of congealed blood, her nose wrinkled. “A cherry wren.”
“Named for its color?”
“That,” she permitted, “and its diet.”
He handed back the waterskin, amused. “Not cherries, I take it?”
“Any fruit, so long as it’s on the ground, rotting. Apricots. Plums. The organs of dead animals.” His brow creased, and she winked. “Shocking how a rabbit’s heart resembles a cherry in the right light.”
His frown deepened to a grimace. “Ah.”
“Everything has its role,” she said, not unkindly. “Death has to go somewhere, just like life. It’s the lingering that spreads foulness. Our disgusting little friend up there does us a favor.”
He considered the small bird, which had begun to sing prettily. “I suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way before.”
Stepping forward, she tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Why would you? In the city, there’s someone paid pennies to keep anything foul from your sight.”
“In certain quarters,” he conceded after a long, loaded pause. She’d offended him. But…he hadn’t prickled. Ruffled, more like. He seemed to shrug it off. “Less so in others. Cherry wrens would be a marked improvement, but I suppose the rats will have to do.”
“I find rats to be quite noble creatures, despite their reputation.”
“Don’t you think they’d prefer feathers, if given the choice?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a rat.”
He gave a droll hum that may have been a laugh. “I envy your comfort with the grotesque. But I suppose you’ve earned it.”
She nearly stumbled. A compliment? Or a cloaked barb? Every inch of him polished, even covered in sweat and spiderwebs, it was impossible to tell. He appeared lost in thought – or focused on where he stepped.
She trod carefully, as well. “You can’t avoid it, living out here.
The forest is a grave and a cradle. In death, it nurtures everything.
Including those things humans find…distasteful.
” She made a face, nodding toward the singing bird behind them.
“Hate chasing the filthy buggers off when I’m field dressing a kill, though. Worse than flies, they are.”
“Incredible, that something so sweet could be so…”
“Distasteful?”
He looked at her.
She shrugged. “Some could stand to learn that the earth wasn’t formed with their personal taste in mind.”
“Agreed.”
Surprised, and impressed, she felt the ghost of a smile.
“But you can’t deny the allure of beauty.”
Yes, that was more like it.
“Never,” she allowed, stepping over a slithering, blue-tailed lizard. “Which is precisely why, in the Lichtenwald, you must never trust anything beautiful. Like as not, there’s something foul beneath.”
“And fair beneath the foul, I presume?”
“We can test that, if you like,” she ribbed. “I can find a frog for you to kiss. Perhaps he’ll turn into a prince.”
The corners of his lips lifted ruefully. “I don’t go in much for princes.”
Inwardly, she winced. She certainly hadn’t meant to remind either of them of their fractured bargain.
“Nor I,” she amended. The stream bed narrowed on their approach, the way blocked by an overgrown juniper. “Too much like dragons, when it comes down to it.” She pulled aside the branch for him to pass. “Only one thing to do with a dragon.”
As he passed her, his owl’s eyes regarded her perceptively. “Few would go so far.”
“No. But then, I tend to think people get what’s fair and what’s foul mixed up.
” Struck with inspiration, she bent and stuck a gloved finger into the earth beneath the tree, lifting the small clump for him to see.
He examined it dutifully. “Take dirt. The soil teems with rotting flesh, refuse, insects, some so minuscule we can’t even see.
But it gives us flowers and fruit. Grows the trees that shelter us and stores the water that feeds the skies.
Or the night. We despise its creatures for how frightful they seem, but while a bat looks frightening, it hurts nothing, and pollinates the night-blooming flowers a honeybee can’t.
” She bit her tongue, remembering the shape it had taken under Sabina’s spell.
The shape it might soon take again. She brushed the dirt on her trousers. “Anyway, dragons aren’t real.”
“And are impervious,” he added grimly.
“Just so.” Thorns pinched her behind her eyes; something hovered over the back of her neck. The skin of her throat tingled unpleasantly. Distracted, she rubbed it. How long had it been since the last attack of pain? What was changing, costly, slow, beyond her notice?
“Frogs, however, shall run in fear of my pen,” Sy said, watching her. “Or hop, as the case may be.”
Her hand fell. “I thought your magic only worked on humans.”
“Ah, but it’s quite sharp, remember?”
A laugh burst from her. “Then I shall leave any suspicious frogs to you.” Her laugh died. Once more, she stepped dangerously close to bringing up the bleak reality of their partnership, to spoiling this delicate web of stolen, gauzy peace. “But sometimes a frog is just a frog.”
He stepped forward. “Any other wisdom to impart?”
She went beside him, matching his pace. “Never drink still water, say, from a pond, even if – especially if it looks clean, until you’ve boiled it. You’ll risk either getting the shits or being possessed by the water’s spirits. Sometimes they resemble frogs, but more often you won’t see them.”
“But don’t kiss them?”
“If you’re close enough to try, may as well risk it.”
“Noted.”
“Only light fires when you must. They do little to keep predators away, and more to attract poachers.”
“Poachers such as yourself?”
She pretended to be affronted. “I only poach from the king. He can spare it. Unless you object.”
A genuine smile cracked his lips. “Never.” They continued forward slowly, casually, as if on a late summer stroll through Sperling Park. “Anything else?”