Page 77

“Old power?” I repeated.

Beside me, Ryder shifted uneasily.

Ankaret continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “You must use it even when you are afraid. You must use it even when you are angry. You must keep it always sharp, always ready. Do you understand? What she did was not to hurt you but to show you.”

I thought I was indeed beginning to understand. I glanced up atRyder, then back at her. “At first I didn’t remember the weapon I carry,” I murmured, repeating her earlier words. “At first I knew only grief and terror.”

“And more of that will come,” she said forlornly, beginning to struggle once more against the arrow’s hold. “And she will show you again and again, if she must. You must understand. You cannot be afraid.”

It was unthinkably strange to speak with a creature whose eyes I could not read: no pupils, no irises. Simple glowing discs, flat yet fathomless.

“Afraid of what?” Ryder said, his voice snapping with impatience. “Of Kilraith? Do you know him?” He knelt beside me and looked closely at Ankaret. “Are you a messenger of his? Are you his enemy? This isn’t the first time we’ve seen you. You’ve been following us, spying on us. Why?”

“She is not following,” Ankaret protested. “She is…”

Then her voice trailed off, and suddenly Icouldread her shifting face of fire. The flames gathered and snapped. Her great blue eyes shrank to bright pinpricks. Fear. She was afraid.

“She must go. Please.” She wriggled in vain, sparks flying from the tips of her trapped wings. “Someone is calling her, and she must go.”

“Who’s calling you?” Ryder demanded.

“Whoever it is, they can’t find you here,” I said, though I didn’t quite believe my own assurance. Philippa seemed to think Wardwell’s protective magic couldn’t be breached, and yet here was Ankaret.

“It isn’t that, it isn’t just finding.” Ankaret shook her head. Her free wing snapped bright with frustration. “Mercy, please. Let her go, and she will grant you a gift. Let her go, and she will answer a single question with what time she has. And she will see you again, she promises.”

I exchanged a glance with Ryder.

“Is that promise meant to be reassuring?” he asked, incredulous.

“What kind of question, Ankaret?” I asked slowly.

“Anything,” she replied. She wrenched her body hard against the arrow and cried out softly in pain. I watched in horrified wonder as bright teardrops of fire streaked down her cheeks, snaking into the white-gold feathers of her breast. “If she knows the answer, she will tell you. If she does not know the answer, she will find it.”

I looked again at Ryder; he was staring hard at Ankaret, his expression suddenly not angry but closed, guarded.

“And that is the gift?” he asked quietly.

“No. No, the gift is this,” said Ankaret, and as she spoke, she plucked from her pinned wing a single feather of fire, long as my forearm and thin as my wrist, with a downy tuft at its base, where the silver barb began. The barb itself was thick and bloody, freshly wrenched from…skin? Muscle? She held it out to me, her blazing arm shaking as if from exhaustion. As the feather rested in the flaming white cup of her palm, its snapping firelight soon faded to a rich hue of scarlet and violet, reminding me of a brilliant sunset horizon.

“It will not hurt you,” she cooed, in her warped dove’s voice, and when I looked into her eyes, though I could not read them, I felt the certainty of that promise. This feather would not hurt me.

I plucked it from her hand before Ryder could stop me. It weighed nothing, of course, and yet the air around it seemed to bend and shift, as if drawn to its slight form. I hesitated, then stroked its length; it was like water in my fingers, a ribbon of finest satin.

“Keep this with you always,” said Ankaret. “Someday you will need her. Use this to call her. She will hear you, wherever she is.”

I cradled the feather against my chest, feeling suddenly, fiercely protective of it.

“And in exchange, we free you?” Ryder asked.

“And in exchange for the freeing, an answer for you as well,” Ankaret reminded him. “Ask now, if you must. She will tell you before you free her, if she must. An act of trust. A promise.”

Ryder looked hard at her for another moment, then stood and walked a few paces away. “Farrin,” he called quietly.

I joined him, still holding the feather. “What do we ask her?”

“I don’t like this. How are we to know this feather is truly just a feather? What if it’s some kind of trick? And if we ask her anything wereallywant to know—”

“She could use it against us, or give that information to anyone she chooses,” I finished, realizing the truth with a sinking feeling. “The enemies we know, the enemies we don’t.” All of our questions—about the Mist, Yvaine, the abductions, Kilraith—the very topics themselves were too sensitive to speak of beyond our small trusted numbers.