Chapter Thirty-Two
And I did…much to the horror of Barlen.
“We mustn’t do this,” he hissed.
“Why not?”
“What the shadows do is none of our business.”
I scowled and shook my head. “The Priestess wanted me to explore Shadowick, and as far as I can tell, these things seem to be a big part of it.”
I glanced across the street at a little shop that might have been considered a bakery. It was different than the one I’d peered into earlier.
There was one awning that looked as if it had been covered in soot and said “Patisserie”.
“Why don’t you get us two rolls?” I asked him.
“Only because the Priestess told me to be a good host,” he grumbled before glancing nervously around the sidewalk, “will I entertain this.”
“Thank you. I’ll be sure to tell her you were the best.”
He looked back at me and nodded before trundling off.
I watched him knock on the door. It barely opened, and he squeezed in.
That was when I saw the shadow again. The one that curled and left a wisp of something behind, and I followed it.
For something made of darkness, it had an odd sense of purpose.
It didn’t drift the way fog did or slither the way the shadows at the compound liked to do when they wanted to make a point.
This one moved in quick, uncertain bursts, as if it knew where it wanted to go but worried about being seen getting there.
That made two of us.
I kept to the edge of the street, close enough to the buildings that the damp stone brushed my cloak.
The black velvet the Priestess had given me swayed around my legs, and while I hated that I was wearing anything selected by the woman who believed dungeons were parenting tools, I couldn’t deny the cloak helped me blend into Shadowick more than I wanted to.
But there was no denying it. People still noticed me and the shadow I was following.
A woman selling bundles of dried herbs from a narrow cart stopped tying twine around a bunch when I passed. Her eyes met mine briefly before falling to the cart.
Neither of us spoke, which seemed customary in a place where silence was key to survival.
The shadow slipped around the corner of a narrow alley, and I followed before my better judgment could make a reasonable argument.
The alley was hardly wide enough for one person, and the walls leaned toward each other overhead as if the buildings were sharing secrets they didn’t want me to hear.
It reminded me briefly of the alleyway to the Butterfly Ward, but that one…
took more than me finding it to open up.
Once I stepped into the alley, the fog thickened instantly.
It pooled around my ankles and rose to my knees. It was cold enough to sting through the fabric of the slacks. I glanced back toward the street, but the patisserie and Barlen had already vanished behind the mist.
Wonderful. Even if I wanted help, I’d managed to make it so I wouldn’t get any.
That seemed to be how every cautionary tale began, and I was surprised I was still falling for it. But a year into magic really wasn’t a lot of time to learn all the intricacies.
I slipped a hand into my pocket and curled my fingers around one of Twobble’s pebbles. The rough little edge of it dug into my palm, grounding me in the words I could imagine him saying. It would probably be a complaint of some sort.
The shadow paused halfway down the alley, flattening itself against a doorway with a cracked iron knocker. For one breath, I thought it would slip under the door, but then it pulled away and darted forward again.
In Shadowick, some doors were avoided even by shadows. Good to know.
As I moved past it, the knocker lifted on its own and tapped once against the door.
I froze, but nothing else happened until the shadow mark along my shoulder prickled with awareness, moving slowly down to my hip. It had been doing that more and more since the pendant left me, and I didn’t love any part of it.
As I kept moving, I saw barely a hint of the shadow before the alley opened onto a smaller street, not visible from the main part of the village.
This one curved downward between buildings with shuttered windows and soot-stained brick. Clotheslines hung overhead with dark garments clipped neatly in rows, and I was certain they’d never dry.
I heard a little bell chime somewhere down the street, and silence followed.
I glimpsed a piece of the shadow ahead as it moved faster. I followed, determined not to let it slip away. After all, I’d sent Barlen away just for the opportunity to sneak off.
A narrow shop sat on the corner with jars stacked in the window. Pale powders filled jars in one column while dried roots and herbs filled another.
The sign above the door had been painted over so many times I couldn’t read the original name, but the newest lettering said Remedies in flaking silver script, and I noticed the curtain moved.
Just a little bit.
I pretended not to notice and carried on as the shadow twisted around a lamppost and shot across the street.
I hurried after it, nearly tripping over a broken cobblestone that had lifted from the road. When my hand brushed the wall of another building to steady myself, the shadow mark flared.
A flash of memory struck fast enough to steal my breath as I saw children running down this street with ribbons in their hands and lanterns strung overhead while music played.
And laughter.
But darkness snapped over the image, and the street returned to its current state with locked doors, thick fog, and curtains shifting as people watched.
I stared at the cobblestones beneath my boots and gave myself a second to think.
Shadowick had not always been like this, thick with dread and doom curled into fog and cobblestones. Something wanted me to see the way Shadowick had been.
I looked up to see the shadow waiting near the mouth of another alley, pulsing faintly against the ground.
It was the shadow…
But the shadow slipped away, taunting me to follow it, so I went down another street and another, while I lost track of the number of lefts and rights.
It felt like the village was folding around me with each step as streets narrowed and widened before turning into themselves, and the fog climbed higher.
I spotted a candlemaker with no candles in the window, just a sign creaking in the wind next to a tailor with empty mannequins turned toward the walls.
Everything existed, but nothing functioned.
It was as if the village had learned to breathe shallowly so that nothing would notice it was alive.
The shadow veered right, moving beneath an archway where old vines hung limp, and I ducked through after it and found myself in a courtyard as the fog thinned.
At the center stood a dry fountain shaped like a woman holding a bowl to the sky.
Her face had been worn smooth by time or deliberate hands.
I noticed the bowl in her arms was cracked straight through the middle.
I walked over and studied the black roots that had pushed up between the stones around the fountain.
It reminded me of the roots back at the compound.
A breeze scattered across my cheek as the shadow circled the fountain once before moving toward the far side of the courtyard.
I started after it when a voice spoke behind me.
“You shouldn’t follow loose shadows.” The voice was gruff and ancient.
I spun around so fast my cloak tangled around my knees, but I spotted an old man sitting in the recessed doorway of a shuttered shop, wrapped in several layers of gray wool like a mummy. His hands rested on a cane carved with tiny moons, and his eyes were so pale they almost matched the fog.
“I could say the same about strangers hanging out in doorways,” I said.
“You could.” His mouth twitched, and a little laughter fell from his lips. “You don’t belong.”
I shrugged, realizing the shadow had paused. “I’ve been accused of worse things.”
“Academy witch.” His lips pressed together as if to an exclamation point.
I studied him carefully. “Is that what everyone is calling me?”
“That is the polite version.”
“Do I want to know the impolite version?”
“No.”
At least he was honest.
The shadow hovered near the edge of the courtyard, pressed flat against the base of an old stone wall. It waited.
I looked back at the man. “Do you know where it’s going?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell me?”
“No. But caution is recommended.”
“Because it’s dangerous?”
“Everything here is dangerous. That’s not unique.” His eyes twinkled mischievously in an unsettling way. “But it should be entertaining.”
I sighed and glanced toward the foggy passage ahead. “Then why warn me?”
His gaze drifted to the fountain. “Because once, we warned one another in this village. Before whispers became punishable and hope became contraband.”
The word hope settled between us, and I thought back to Legner. Sentenced to the dungeons because he dared to believe in hope, because he’d heard of a village not too far from Shadowick, where knowledge was power, and hope filled the streets.
The old man seemed to read something on my face and leaned forward a little.
“You’ve seen the lower cells.”
I didn’t answer, but that was answer enough.
His fingers tightened on the cane. “Then do not waste what you learned by ignoring what invites you.”
The shadow moved again, slipping through a crack in the far wall, and my pulse quickened.
“What does that mean?” I studied him as I waited for an answer he didn’t give.
The old man looked past me, and his face closed immediately.
“Your keeper approaches.”
I turned sharply.
Far behind me, through the archway where I’d entered the courtyard, I saw a small, dark shape pushing through the fog.
Barlen.
He moved quickly, one roll tucked under each arm and pure panic in his eyes.
“There you are,” he wheezed as he stumbled into the courtyard. “Do you understand what happens when a guest of the Priestess vanishes while I am buying rolls?”
“I assumed it would take you more time to get the rolls.”