Chapter Thirty
I carry Sylvie halfway back to Ravensgate with no aid from my magic; my chest still radiates pain from Lachlan’s twisted demonstration.
She seemed not very heavy at first, no more than a few skeins of cloth, but the further I walk the heavier she becomes until at last, I sink to my knees and lay her carefully on the grass.
It is an open spot, with a great view of the land around, the forest outside Blackswire a dark smudge on the horizon.
To our left, the hills are still blackened and scorched by the fire Tarkin started and which Conrad put out, but the first new blades of grass are starting to soften the charred land.
The moor is awakening from its wintry dormancy, adding new shades of green to its quilt of browns and golds and reds.
Fresh growth pushes up through damp soil, curious and bright, providing a soft carpet for Sylvie to lie on.
Out of breath, I sit beside her with my back against a rock and stare up at the blue sky, where fragments of cloud glide smoothly on a high wind.
Their shadows run over the earth, pools of deep blue gray ever shifting, strange to watch.
It is as lovely a day as one could ask for, the temperature pleasantly cool, the wind lazy and low, ruffling the tufted golden grasses in a perfunctory fashion.
None of it does anything to soothe the tempest in my breast.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. My aunt’s voice creeps into my thoughts. You don’t deserve magic. Your soul is too twisted, your sins too great. May your threads be your curse as you have been mine.
I draw one hand up, place it over my pounding, aching heart.
My weary, battered heart, beating away despite all the torment my naivety and foolishness has inflicted upon it.
I wish I could pull it from behind my ribs and cradle it in my hands like a wounded bird; I wish I could set it free, watch it soar across the moors.
I might have been free, if Lachlan had not had Sylvie to leverage me.
Whether he’d known I’d intended to break my vow today or not, I suppose the end result is the same.
While I’d been pondering my escape, waffling in indecision, he’d already been in motion, laying down the final pieces of his plan.
Putting me in an impossible corner, cutting off my last avenue of escape.
I try to imagine why he hadn’t simply kept Sylvie and used her as a hostage to control Conrad. It makes little sense, but that only puts me on my guard. Lachlan cannot touch a thing without tying a dozen strings to it, to turn it to his use.
After a few minutes, I gather enough strength—and courage—to attempt a Weave.
The magic comes when I call it, but only a thin stream of it, a strained trickle where it had once come in a rush.
It takes all my effort to channel it into my smoke knot, which I have strung on my pegboard.
The threads catch and hold the energy, then dissolve to ash, the magic converted into a pillar of magenta smoke that twists high into the air.
I can only hope it will be a large enough signal to catch Conrad’s eye, wherever he is.
Then, exhausted, I lean back and close my eyes, too tired to even think of attempting another spell, or carrying Sylvie any further.
She wakes some ten minutes later, with a soft exhalation of surprise. I sit up and watch her very carefully, as she rubs the haze of Lachlan’s spell from her eyes and looks around.
“Oh,” she says. “I fell asleep!”
“What were you doing out here?” I ask gingerly. “What do you remember?”
She stares at me, her eyes still a bit vacant, but there is no flash of remembrance in her, no sudden gasp as she recalls the faerie lord who gave her tea and strawberries.
“I . . . ran away,” she begins. “I was angry at Connie.”
“And?”
“And . . .” She frowns, as if encountering a foggy patch in her memory. “I must have got tired. I must have laid down.”
“Indeed you did.” Memory-altering magic, much like glamours, is a fickle thing, and does not stand up well to pressure.
Prod the holes in your memory hard enough and the magic will collapse like a castle made of sand.
“Come home, Sylvie. Your brother loves you with all his heart, magic or no magic.”
Tears glisten in her eyes. “I love him too, more than anything. I just wish he would understand me.”
I squeeze her hand. “He does, better than you know.”
Moments later, Conrad thunders up on Bell, his eyes finding Sylvie at once. The blood drains from his face and he flings himself at her, gathering her up and checking her all over for injury, despite her annoyed protests.
“What’s the matter with you, Connie?” she asks, shoving him away. “I’m all right.”
“What have I told you about wandering off? There are—”
“Highwaymen, aye, I know,” she drones. “Perhaps I wished to join their band.”
He groans, then glances at me in silent query. I stare back blandly and tell him how I found her asleep on the moor, safe and sound, and that all his worries had been for naught.
He knocks at my door that evening.
With a shiver, I put my shawl over my gown and go to the door. I hesitate a moment, my hand against it.
“Rose?”
I flinch away.
His voice is soft and cautious. “I know it’s late, but you didn’t come to dinner, and I wanted to be sure you were feeling well. And I . . . have a gift for you.”
I glance at the tray of uneaten mince pie Mrs. MacDougal had delivered to me.
I’d had no appetite for food, and even less for company.
His company, in particular. I can’t trust myself around him anymore; I’m not at all sure whether I might hex him or kiss him.
And after the violent turn in my fortunes today, my greatest fear was that I’d blurt it all out, tell him everything, and earn his eternal hatred.
“I was just going to bed,” I say. A lie, of course.
I was about to climb out the window and set off for the stone circle, to find my way into Elfhame by whatever means necessary.
The clock on the wall ticks out the remaining hours of my life, every second making Lachlan’s string around my heart tighten.
“Oh.” He sounds disappointed. “Well. Tomorrow, then. My apologies.”
He begins walking away.
I rest my head against the door and let out a breath, my pulse drumming in my ears. Then I pull it open.
“Conrad.”
He turns, his face brightening. He’s combed his hair and put on a clean coat and kilt, even had his shoes shined. He looks a proper laird.
I bite my lip, torn between the ticking of the clock and the warmth in his eyes.
“Come in,” I say at last.
Conrad steps into my room. I face him, wondering if he can hear the hammering of my heart. Just being this close to him is like standing by an open furnace. Heat warms my skin; the hairs on my arms stand on end. He smells of hay and horse beneath the bergamot of his shaving soap.
“I brought you something.” He takes a small box from his pocket. But then his eyes fasten on something folded on the dresser by the window, and he slides the box back into his coat. “Wait a moment. Is that . . . ?”
I suck in a breath, about to stop him, but he’s already moving across the room. I still my hands and wait as he picks up the folded cloth and lets it unfurl between his hands.
The ever-present worry lines in his brow ease for once as a look of realization, then wonder, steals over his face. The knitted fabric bunches in his hands as he lowers them to gaze at me.
“My mother’s shawl,” he says.
“Yes . . .” I reply haltingly. I’d planned for him to find it after I departed, a farewell gift . . . and an apology. Now I can only watch helplessly as he surveys my handiwork, the result of many late hours’ toil by candlelight in my room.
The colors are vibrant again after a gentle washing, the dust rinsed from its fibers.
Threads of yellow, blue, green, and red swirl and dance across the shawl, a dizzying chaos of color.
The longer I stare at it, the more the chaos reveals order, the riot of threads transformed into intricate flowers and vines, like a garden slowly coming into focus.
“I should have asked,” I say. “Before I touched it. I apologize if I overstepped.”
He says nothing for a long moment. He pulls the shawl through his hands, studying the patterns. “You repaired it.”
“Yes. I think a mouse had been at the edges, and half of it had come undone. But I was able to find the pattern and knit it back together.”
I watch, resisting the anxious urge to wring my hands as he sits on the velvet settee under the window. My eyes flit again to the clock, the seconds draining away.
The shawl ripples across Conrad’s thighs and spills over his knees.
His large hand smooths the fabric as if it were delicate gossamer at risk of tearing with his touch.
It won’t. I was meticulous with my work, knitting strength back into the threads, restoring the pattern to its original durability.
“It’s been years since I . . .” He raises the shawl to his lips and breathes it in. “It still carries her scent.”
I nod. I’d been careful to use no soaps on it, hoping to preserve the gentle fragrance of jasmine that had been embedded in the fibers.
“What do they mean?” he asks. “Are they spells?”
I sit delicately beside him, intensely aware of the inches between us, and trace the whirling patterns that curl around the edges of the scarf. They are mesmerizing, reminiscent of Sanskrit, but all formed from a single continuous line.
“Not spells,” I reply quietly. “I puzzled over them for a while until I realized what they were. I had a teacher in the Order who specialized in hidden Weaving languages, used in times and places where magic has been forbidden in the past. It was a way of communicating safely between Weavers. I believe your mother’s people used something similar to the Weaving dialects of the northern Indian subcontinent, and if I am correct, then this appears to be a record of your mother’s travels. ”