Chapter 29
‘Wake up, child, you’ve misplaced your sweetheart.’
Elver came around slowly, her whole body heavy with a tiredness that felt deep and unnatural.
Sunay was leaning over her, one hand tugging at her sleeve.
Elver pulled her arm away sharply. She could tell from the quality of light in the room that she had slept through into the late morning, and the door was standing open.
The cub was prowling around the little storeroom, and Artair…
She sat up abruptly, her head spinning unpleasantly.
‘Where is he?’
‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’ Sunay plucked at her sleeves.
‘I hate to say this, but I can smell my lord’s magic all over this room—on the door, on the ropes we used to tie up Artair, and on you, too.
That’s no normal slumber you’re fighting your way out of.
’ The mage looked unsettled, a frown creasing her normally smooth brow.
‘The problem with serving Lord Tisk is that he delights in things like this. Sowing chaos, throwing plans out the window. It can make getting anything done a trial, let me tell you.’
‘He’s gone.’ Elver rubbed her hands over her face, willing herself to wake up.
Artair wouldn’t have just disappeared, not when they were so close to reaching Prideful Leap, which meant that Lucian had waited until she was asleep and gotten out of the room somehow.
‘And Lucian is in control. When did he go? Do you know?’
Sunay shrugged. ‘I’ve been out all night, and Creg wasn’t here—he does most of his work at night, as I’m sure you can imagine.’
‘Then he could be anywhere.’ Her heart felt like it was sinking through the floorboards, which only made her angrier.
He was nothing to her—he was worse than nothing; he was a thief who had come into her forest and harmed her kin.
So why did the idea that she’d never see him again make her feel like her stomach had been flipped upside down?
‘And he won’t be easily caught. Now then, Trilot’s faceless donkeys have all cleared out, so let’s get you out into the fresh air. I think my lord’s magic has knocked you for six and I don’t like the lack of colour in your cheeks.’
‘They’re always like that.’
‘Even so, I don’t like it. Let’s be having you.’
They wrestled the cub into a fresh sack and ventured outside. It was a bright, fresh morning, the sky a great upturned bowl of blue, one of those autumn mornings that welcomes winter with open arms. Elver took a few deep breaths, trying to banish the lingering threads of sleep.
‘So what will you do, Elver of the Jih Forest, child of the Serpent Queen?’ Sunay said grandly.
‘Because what you could do is have a slap-up breakfast, hoick that sack on your back and return home. The monster will be returned to his forest, and that was your promise to your god, wasn’t it?
You’ll even have a boon from Tisk in your back pocket to use in the future, should you ever need it. ’
The magpie was right. There was nothing tying her to the novices, and she wouldn’t be able to find Artair now even if she wanted to—she had no doubt that Lucian would have taken them as far away as possible, on whatever dark errand he had in mind.
Yes, it was true that part of her had cherished the idea of destroying Mother Maura’s plans, a slice of vengeance for her curtailed childhood and her stolen life.
But the Jih Forest waited for her. She saw herself walking the road back from Addersport, stepping off the packed dirt into the trees, never to be seen by human eyes again.
Her old life was waiting there for her. Of their own accord, her fingers found the conker in her pocket, and squeezed it.
And then she thought of Artair tending the cut on her neck, of kneeling before him in the Temple of Threshold, and the pain he carried with him. She remembered how, when Trilot had attempted to burn the monstrousness out of them, he had tried to shield her with his own body.
And she thought of the Queen of Serpents, striking her down because she wouldn’t do as she was told.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to do that.
With Artair out of the picture, there’s no one to save those novices.
And I know what it’s like to be left to the mercy of Mother Maura.
’ Her mouth twisted as she spoke the mage’s name.
‘Sunay, if you will come with me, I will attempt to save them.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I could use your help.’
‘And you shall have it.’ Sunay made to clap her on the back, then seemed to think better of it. ‘I owe you for the Frozen Heart. Now then, I seem to remember that it was Artair who had the map. Do you know where Mother Maura’s sanctum is?’
Elver nodded. She had committed the location to memory the first moment she had seen it scrawled in Mother Maura’s own handwriting.
‘Good. Then let’s get out of here. We’ll grab that slap-up breakfast on the way.’
When Artair initially awoke, he thought he’d been buried alive.
He was in a small, dark space, without even enough room to stretch his legs. The walls of the place pressed in on him and there were things brushing against his face, soft cloying things like fur or feathers.
And his wrists and ankles were bound.
Panic bloomed in his chest like ink dropped into water, contaminating everything.
He tried to stand up, failed, and crashed against the wooden wall, smacking his temple hard enough to produce a handful of bright stars across his vision.
He grasped after the words of his mantra, the ones the monks had taught him to recite whenever things became too much, but they scattered away from him.
He didn’t know where he was, and he was tied up, which meant that Lucian was in control.
And if Lucian was in control, then Artair had failed and everyone was in danger.
‘Elver? Elver!’
She was not with him, and did not answer him. But he did hear a noise; it was the sound of a wooden chair being pushed across floorboards as someone stood up.
‘You’re awake.’ The voice was silken and dangerous, and coming closer.
Belatedly, Artair realized there was a little light in that dark space.
Just above his eyeline there was a keyhole, and the light it was letting in sketched out the circumstances of his incarceration: he was leaning against the wooden panels of a wardrobe, and the soft things that were draped across his head and shoulders were hanging clothes.
Awkwardly, he shuffled over to the keyhole and pressed his eye against it. ‘I imagine you’ve had quite the shock.’
The room beyond the wardrobe was lavish.
He saw a four-poster bed piled with embroidered blankets, thick rugs on the polished floor and elaborate tapestries hung on the walls.
There were leaded windows too, letting in sunshine bright enough it caught the motes of dust in the air and transformed them into points of shifting gold.
From the voice, he expected to see a man standing in the room, but he could see no one.
And then, a moment later, an orange shape moved across the floor in a flash and jumped up onto the table.
It was a fox, its eyes full of yellow fire.
‘Who are you?’
‘Come on, you can do better than that, Artair. You know who I am. Unless you’d like me to lie to you? Would that make it more obvious?’
‘You’re Tisk.’ Artair swallowed. He was talking to a god. ‘What are you doing here?’ and then, ‘Can you let me out?’
‘To answer your first question, I am here to protect my investment, and to answer your second, no, because that would jeopardize my investment.’
‘You don’t understand. The other me… He can’t be allowed to roam the world freely. He’s dangerous. People will get hurt.’
The fox shook himself, puffing up the heart-shaped patch of white fur on his chest.
‘Do you really believe such things, Artair?’
He ignored that. ‘I have to be at Prideful Leap in three days. If I’m not there, she’ll kill the other novices.
’ A wave of frustration and horror moved through him and he thumped his shoulder against the wardrobe.
Why was he wasting time talking to a god who clearly had no intention of helping him?
He could break this door down himself. It was a start, at least. He slammed himself into the door again, but although he felt the whole structure rattle, the door itself didn’t budge.
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ the fox said dryly. ‘I’ve been doing a little reinforcing.’
‘ Why? Why are you on his side? He’s an evil spirit, a thing meant to cause misery and chaos. How can you help him?’
‘I refer you to the answer I gave to your first question.’ The fox dropped back down to the floor, his sooty black paws making no noise at all. ‘But I do have something for you. Your counterpart left you a missive. And I am to read it to you.’
To Artair’s astonishment, where there was once a fox, there was suddenly a man.
He was wiry and lean, with a shock of red hair and sharp green eyes.
He wore a deep burgundy velvet suit lined with peach-coloured silk, and he had a walking cane topped with a silver fox head.
The man grinned in his direction, as if he could see Artair’s surprised expression.
For all Artair knew, he could. Tisk crossed back to the table and picked up a piece of paper that had been left there, neatly folded.
‘My sweet idiot monk,’ he read aloud, his voice taking on a slightly pompous tone.
‘How does it feel to wake up with your wrists and ankles tied together, unable to move or even sit up without discomfort? How does it feel to know that you will spend hours in that tiny space, with no break from the monotony, and, even better, that every day for the rest of your life will look exactly the same? I wish I were able to see the look on your face when you realize that this is your fate, but I suppose if I could, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
’ Tisk paused to stroke his moustache, nodding faintly.
‘You think of me as the evil creature that has stolen a place inside your head, monk, but the reality is, I will be much kinder to you than you ever were to me. I am a mage of the Bloody Claw. I know this now, thanks to Elver—her unexpected sweetness has been one of the few highlights of this miserable existence.’ Artair lowered his head, trying to ignore how those particular words made him feel.
Tisk continued reading. ‘I should have liked to taste more of it, but there was no time. Now, I must travel to the nearest temple to my god, and once I am there, I will reforge the connection that was once mine, reclaiming my talents as one of the greatest of the Bloody Claw’s mages…
’ Tisk sighed. ‘He does go on a bit, I’ll give you that.
’ He resumed the pompous voice. ‘For I am destined for greatness and power that you could not possibly imagine, blah blah, a little more here on how important and powerful he’s going to be, yadda yadda…
Oh, here we go. The juicy bit.’ Tisk cleared his throat.
‘Once I have reforged that connection, I will make whatever sacrifice the Bloody Claw requires to: firstly, give me back all my memories, and secondly, to cast you , pious, grubbing little monk, out of this head and into eternal nothingness. I might not be able to return to my own body, but if there’s a chance to fully inhabit yours, I will take it.
Do you understand the kindness of this act, Artair?
I will not keep you prisoner forever, a creature trapped in a cage, slowly losing its mind—I will simply cast you into oblivion. ’
Tisk stopped reading and folded the paper away into his pocket. He twirled the cane briefly.
‘There you have it.’
Artair pressed his face to the door so that his mouth was close to the keyhole.
‘You have to let me out,’ he said. ‘Lucian is dangerous. Can’t you tell?’
‘Oh my goodness, I don’t have to do anything. Not unless you’re willing to pay for my services. And you, boy, don’t have anything I want.’ Tisk grinned, a sharp, foxy expression that raised the hairs on the back of Artair’s neck, and then he vanished, leaving behind the scent of burning leaves.
Artair picked one of Elver’s many colourful curse words, said it as loud as he could, and then slid down the wardrobe door to sit with his head between his knees.