CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When her eyes at last fluttered open, she immediately shut them again. By the grace of the leaves above her, she hadn’t drowned in the storm, which had passed. But the returning sun shone as if it thought it would never have the chance again.
“Fuck,” she gasped. Wincing, she pulled herself to her knees, then her feet, using the birch for support.
Something felt off – her equilibrium tilted. Her sense of smell seemed even stronger and strangely, less centralized in her nose. As the breeze lilted through, she felt a peculiar sensation on her forehead, like her hair being lifted from her neck, waving in the wind.
A puddle rested nearby, left by the storm. Haltingly, she approached and peered down into it.
Two orange antennae, long and spiny as the leaves of a fern, poked from her skin. Almost unconsciously, she reached up to touch one. It was soft and light as a feather.
It was then she noticed her eyes. Darker, as if someone had placed gray lenses over them. No white was left, though if you squinted, you might be able to see they had once had pupils, irises, some shade of green.
Turning quickly away, she pulled her hat tight over her head. As she did, she noticed her sense of smell muffled.
Angrily, she pulled the hat tighter.
This also had the happy, unintended effect of shielding her eyes, somewhat, from the blinding sun. Though her eyes burned with the light, if she stuck to the shade of the trees and kept her hat on, it wasn’t so unbearable that she couldn’t keep them open. It would have to do.
The ground was almost entirely muck, and she found the others’ tracks easily. She followed them and soon recognized Sy’s in the mix. So, Aquila was a competent tracker himself.
And deft at evasion. Soon, his tracks veered into a shallow stream made by the storm, then disappeared. He didn’t know who, or what, was tracking them, but he knew they were being followed.
She had more tricks up her sleeve, as well. Or rather, under her hat. She closed her eyes tight and took it off.
Soon, she smelled it – very, very faint, but unmistakable.
Hyacinths.
She found them at sunset in a grove of pine.
When she saw Sy, her heart did a peculiar somersault – relief that he was alive, fear that he was hurt, an impulse to leave him to his own fate.
He was tied to the base of a pine, rope wrapped tight as a snare around his chest. His lip was split and he was paler than ever, but seemed otherwise intact.
Aquila and Claude had set up camp there; days ago, by the look of it. An expensive looking tent was pitched between two pines, and equipment was sprawled everywhere – maps, compasses, spare ammunition, nets, snares.
At the base of the pines circling their camp was an unwelcome sight: liar’s pigeon, a toxic fungus that liked to grow near evergreens.
Encouraged by the storm and summer’s encroaching heat, the fungus was fruiting.
The shimmering, indigo globes danced on their three-foot high stems in the after-storm breeze.
Careful not to touch any of them, she ducked behind a trunk across from where Sy was bound.
Claude was pacing restlessly, his pistol held casually despite his quick step. Aquila’s injured face was now peeling in unsettling purple strips.
He stooped to pull something from one of his bags. A knife. He twirled its bone handle in his hand. The blade, curved slightly at the end, glinted dangerously in the orange evening light. He stepped in front of Sy.
“I’m growing bored of this game,” he said, crouching. Anya watched, frozen, as he took Sy’s left hand in his own.
“Then perhaps we should stop playing,” said Sy, incongruously bright.
“Did you know I skin my own kills?” Aquila placed the curved edge of the knife on Sy’s palm.
Anya edged forward, but caught herself before she did something stupid.
“There’s a fine art to it, but with the proper equipment, why, I could peel someone’s face straight from their skull and wear it as a mask. ”
Sy’s voice went taut, revealing the strain he disguised. “I told you, I–”
The knife slipped into the meat of his palm. Anya felt Sy’s breath in her own lungs as they both inhaled sharply.
She tore off Sy’s gloves and stuffed them into her pocket. Digging her fingers into the slick bark, she hauled herself onto the side of the tree, gripping a low branch as swiftly and stealthily as her size would allow. Her boots scraped against the bark, shredding it as she pulled herself higher.
“I don’t know the spell,” Sy said through clenched teeth. “I told you. I only have guesses. I need to research, to test it.”
The knife dug deeper, and he suppressed a cry.
She nearly lost her grip. The tacky, dewy slime on her palms helped keep her steady, but it wasn’t enough; she was too heavy.
As she tried to right herself, a branch shook, showering needles and dropping a pinecone.
She ducked behind the trunk, making herself as small as she could.
Her fingernails dug into the bark. Small needles of wood sliced beneath her nail beds.
Sy saw her.
She paused, then placed a single finger over her lips.
Then she kept climbing.
He turned back to Aquila. “The forest’s magic is influencing us. All of us. Surely you’ve noticed.”
Aquila turned the scalded half of his face toward Sy. “I’ve noticed.”
“That isn’t – what I mean to say is, the magic here is volatile. Unpredictable. If we don’t test the spell, it may backfire in ways we can’t countenance. Profoundly unnerving ways.”
“We’ll test it on you first, then,” said Claude, slinging his pistol around carelessly, as if wielding a folding fan and not a loaded weapon. Anya gritted her teeth as she climbed.
She reached a sturdy branch, high enough she wouldn’t be immediately seen, low enough she still had dead aim.
But she only had four arrows; only three she could use. She couldn’t waste an arrow and she couldn’t risk shooting Aquila while he stood so close to Sy; not with her vision obscured by the pine’s curtaining needles.
She needed him to move. She needed to stop him before he hurt Sy again, or decided hurting him, and thus keeping him alive, was more trouble than it was worth.
Below her, shimmering indigo globules swayed in the breeze.
Liar’s pigeon was toxic, but not deadly.
It caused a state akin to inebriation, clouding judgment and coordination.
It also had the uncanny effect of making lying impossible.
More than one jealous lover had risked the Lichtenwald to sprinkle a bit of the spore in their beloved’s tea.
Once, someone at the lodge had brought a bottle of captured spore.
They’d divvied it up in half the lodgers’ beer, not revealing whose beer was spiked and whose wasn’t, and played a fraught game of liar’s dice.
The night had ended in more than one fist fight.
Now, the breeze tickled her face. Letting it guide her, she pinpointed a fruiting liar’s pigeon just upwind of the camp.
The way the wind blew, the spores would hit all of them, including her and Sy.
A price she must pay. Edging forward, she perched precariously on the branch.
One strong gust, and she’d be meat on the forest floor.
Moving slowly, she reached over her shoulder and felt the ends of her arrows, withdrawing one, nocking it.
But something nagged her, tugged at her gut.
The wind, she realized. The wind was blowing from the east.
Just my luck, she thought with a satisfied smile.
She loosed her arrow.
The fungus exploded into thousands of indigo spores.
“What was that?” Aquila said, turning toward her target. The wind picked up, and the gust lifted the sparkling spores. They swept over the camp in a swathe, straight into all their faces, up their noses, into their lungs.
Clutching the branch for dear life, Anya braced for the spore’s effect.
It didn’t come.
“And why would it?” she muttered, pulling her hat lower and aiming her next arrow. “You’re not fucking human, are you?”
Aquila turned on Claude, who was rubbing his nose as if to suppress a sneeze. “What have you done now?”
“I’ve done nothing,” Claude protested petulantly.
Anya couldn’t stop her triumphant grin. It was working. She glanced at Sy – he was frowning, as if trying to work out a difficult math problem.
“Every single thing that has gone wrong on this expedition has been due to your ineptitude,” Aquila said, waving his knife at Claude. “I’m astounded Sangfeder let you leave its doors with your bones still intact.”
“I may have cheated the final exam a bit,” Claude relented. “But I am good. The king calls me to fix up his girls how he likes them. There’s proof.”
“You,” she heard Sy say, his voice bleak as winter. “Claude.”
“I didn’t say I like doing it, did I?” Claude protested, gesturing at Sy with the barrel of his gun. Anya flinched; Sy didn’t.
She pointed her next arrow at Claude’s chest, but if she shot him now, Aquila would see her, and she could not rely on his judgment being so impaired he could not shoot her from the tree. She needed to take him out first, but he was still too close to Sy.
“I hate doing it,” Claude continued. “But you wouldn’t, so someone had to. And what’s my reward? Barely enough to cover a night of drinks at Martin’s. That is why I told the king of Preule about the phoenix. He promised me a county.”
“You’re the spy,” said Sy, genuinely astonished. Anya suspected he hadn’t thought Claude capable.
“You can’t give it to the king of Preule,” said Aquila, unperturbed, “because I am going to take it. It’s time Edgard was replaced, and Gescany needs someone with a maverick’s spirit, someone with a firm hand.”
“Oh, and I suppose that’s you?” Claude sneered.
“Who else, you dolt?”
“Well,” Claude sputtered, obviously vexed, “I’ve been helping you. I am helping you. I’d say I’ve earned a county.”
“Certainly not. You’ll receive what we agreed, fifteen thousand sovereigns, knowing you’re worth far less.”
“That’s not what your wife says.”
The other half of Aquila’s face was now almost as red as the injured side. “What did you say?”
“Someone must keep her bed warm while you’re off mavericking with your hounds. She always begs me not to leave.”
With a guttural growl, Aquila rushed forward, swinging his knife at Claude.
Anya’s arrow entered one ear and came out the other.
As Aquila fell twitching to the ground, Claude let out a cry and disappeared into the trees.
Anya let him go. She would deal with him if he came back.
Deal with him.
Kill him. She would kill him if he came back.
She counted her breaths. She had never killed a man before. Yet she felt less than when she’d killed her first rabbit.
After a dizzying moment, she climbed down from the pine.
“He’s dead,” Sy said unnecessarily. She’d almost forgotten; though he was more even-keeled than the other two had been, he was under the influence of the spore.
And he knew it. “What did you do?”
“Liar’s pigeon,” she said, nodding at one nearby. “Fungus. Makes you tell the truth. It’ll wear off in an hour or so.”
“I can’t believe Claude was the spy,” he said. Then, quieter, “I can’t believe you killed Aquila.”
“He was going to skin you,” she said harshly, turning on him.
Immediately, she regretted it. Even with the brim of her hat tugged low, it was obvious she had changed greatly since they last parted. He cataloged each, his expression painted with undisguised concern.
“Not likely they were going to let you waltz back into ?bender, either,” she said faintly, preferring the back of the tree to cut his bonds.
“I’m grateful,” he said. He spoke slowly, deliberately. Trying not to reveal too much. “Anya. I’m grateful to you. You keep saving my life.”
She didn’t respond, sawing at the rope with her knife. She could ask him anything she wanted right now, and, if he answered, it would be the truth.
He was clearly thinking the same thing. “The spore got you too?”
She hesitated, weighing her options. “Yes,” she lied. The rope broke. He stayed where he was. She heard him rubbing his arms, sore where the rope had held him. She pressed her cheek against the trunk, laid a hand on the bark.
“I want to ask you many things,” he said, “and it is taking more restraint than I would like to stop myself.”
“I should go,” she said, chest tightening as she rose to leave.
“Anya, I – when we–”
“Don’t,” she said, sharp and short. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to hear. She couldn’t stand to hear. “Don’t say anything.”
“What I mean to say – what I mean, is–”
“I’m going.” Her fingers dug into the bark, seeking splinters. She could say whatever she wanted, and he would believe it was the truth.
She could rip her heart out, and hand it to him, and he would know.
She said only, “Don’t follow me.”
Then, with a pain like a sharp hook tapping into her spine, she collapsed.