Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Home” was still the Witch’s Wood, for now.
Maybe Lyssa would move into the house in Sunnyside one day, but she wasn’t quite ready for that yet.
There were already too many changes to contend with, too much upheaval in the life she had known.
Her lumpy bed in the smithy’s loft was an anchor she found she was surprisingly reluctant to part with.
She and Alderic pushed their way through the crowded night-market toward the painted banner suspended over the exit.
The air was filled with laughter and discordant music and the scent of grilled meat.
When they emerged onto Wright, the street just outside the block designated for the market, it felt eerily abandoned—and ten degrees colder, without the press of bodies surrounding them.
Spring might have arrived in Ibyrnika, but the nights were still frigid, and would be for a few more weeks, at least.
Alderic rummaged around in one of his shopping bags and produced a little brown paper sack full of taffy.
“For me?” Lyssa asked when he held it out to her.
“To share,” he said as she popped one into her mouth. Lemon chiffon. Alderic, for his part, fussed for far too long over which flavor to choose—Lyssa was on her third piece before he’d decided on peppermint.
They walked side by side back to the memorial park. Brandy trotted dejectedly at their heels, sulking because he didn’t get any taffy. When they got to the end of the winding concrete path at the back wall, Lyssa took out her chalk.
“So,” Alderic said as she formed the first line, the word weighted in a way that she knew whatever he was about to say was important.
She paused in her Door-drawing and turned to face him. “So?”
“What next?”
What next, indeed, she thought, the tightness in her stomach returning.
“Dinner at Ragnhild’s, I imagine,” she said lightly, not really wanting to have this conversation now.
She had turned the question over and over in her mind the past few days—what now?
—and succeeded only in giving herself an existential crisis.
“And after that?” Alderic prodded gently. “In the weeks and months to come?”
Lyssa let out a green-apple-flavored sigh. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t plan to continue killing Hounds, do you?”
“No.” She knew that much, at least. How could she, now that she knew the truth? “Why?” she asked warily, as Alderic’s expression went from too-casual curiosity to one of determination.
“Because Nadia and I were talking yesterday, and—”
“Was that before or after you fell in the river?”
Alderic’s face took on that pinched look he got when he was annoyed. “You saw that?”
She grinned. “I saw.” She had been watching them from the hot springs above the river that wound through the Wood, her arms braced against the lip of the hottest pool.
Alderic, his pant legs rolled up to the knees, wading into the water to help Nadia gather plants for some spell or another.
“And what did you two talk about?” she asked, popping another piece of taffy into her mouth. Licorice. One of her favorites.
“Nadia is of the opinion—and I am inclined to agree—that between Ragnhild and Honoria’s faerie mistress, they might be able to figure out a way to unmake the rest of the Hounds without killing the cursed humans.
Neither of them could figure it out on their own, but together…
” He trailed off, eyeing her as warily as she was eyeing him.
“Does the fact that you haven’t threatened me with violence mean that you’re considering it, or is it because your mouth is full of taffy? ”
Lyssa chewed slowly. Swallowed her candy. “I’m considering it.”
“Really?” Alderic looked pleased, and less surprised than she would have expected.
She turned back to the wall and finished drawing the Door. “Really.”
It wasn’t a completely outlandish idea, and if it meant saving more hapless humans from their faerie-made prisons, she would at least be willing to try, even if it meant working with Honoria and Faunalyn.
Of course, this was assuming that Honoria could find her way back home, and that Lyssa could track them down.
Alderic adjusted the shopping bags on his arm. “May I ask why?”
Lyssa sighed. “If someone had told me a week ago that I would throw down my sword rather than kill the Beast of Buxton Fields, or that I would agree to get a pint with my father, I would’ve laughed in their face. Or maybe punched them. And yet … here I am.”
“Here you are,” Alderic agreed, looking at her in such a way that she was half afraid he would say he was proud of her, again. But then he grinned, his eyes glittering with amusement. “Nadia will be furious.”
“Why? You said it was her idea.”
“It was. But she bet a lot of coin she doesn’t have that you would hit me for even suggesting it.”
Lyssa eyed him sidelong as she knocked on the Door. The chalk lines began to glow, bathing his pale face in warm light. “And you bet on me?”
Alderic looped his arm through hers, and she took hold of Brandy’s collar with her other hand.
“I will always bet on you, Carnifex,” he said.
Arm in arm, they stepped over the threshold.