Page 47

“We do. Barrowlands are good—they’re places between the living and the dead, between us and eternity. The maths concurs, insofar as it can.”

This last part was said as though Fairhrim pitied the maths—as though she had put it through something unbefitting of maths and felt sorry for it.

“And, of course,” she continued, “we’re also on a temporal cusp at this time of year—moving from winter into spring. We’ll be attempting the healing at midnight.”

“How far up are we going?” asked Osric.

“Only an hour or so of walking, I should think,” said Fairhrim. “This area is Hedgewitch territory, by the way. Let’s mind our step—and our manners.”

“I’m not worried about a few outlaw witches,” said Osric.

Fairhrim froze him with a look.

“What?” asked Osric. “They just putter about in ditches, growing mushrooms and things.”

“Not that I needed further confirmation that you’re an idiot, but that was another data point.”

“Ibegyour pardon,” said Osric, with rather less of thebegand more of the intent to decapitate.

“Have you ever met a Hedgewitch?” asked Fairhrim, unfazed by his intents, murderous or otherwise.

“No,” said Osric.

“Keep a civil tongue in your head if we run into one,” said Fairhrim, which was rich of her. “They’ve got even less regard for the law than you—and they consider men a nuisance.”

Fairhrim eyed Osric as though he were as prime a specimen of a nuisance man as had ever walked the earth.

“How can anyone have less regard for the law than me?” asked Osric, offended.

“To you, it’s a thing to break. To them, it simply doesn’t exist.”

Osric pondered this philosophical difference in silence. The moon-dappled woods fell behind. Black downlands opened up before them in rolling hills.

Both Fairhrim and Osric held up their tacn in the dark. Fairhrim was lighting her way with hers; it cast a white shimmer upon the path straight and narrow. Meanwhile, Osric used shadows to navigate; his seith mapped contours and profiles, cracks in the earth, the shape of ivy clambering over stone. There was a lovely irony to their respective wayfinding: her light created a blind spot for him, and his shadows were inscrutable darkness to her; opposite topographies guided them up the same path.

They came to a crossroads marked by two signposts. One pointed left and saidOver Here, and the other pointed right and saidOver There.

“Practical,” said Osric.

Fairhrim followed the sign for Over There.

They came to another sign, which saidIgnore This One. The next saidNotice: Sign Not in Use.

Fairhrim seemed unperturbed. In Osric’s opinion, however, the Hedgewitches ought to leave off making signs and focus on their mushrooms.

Now they came to a sign that pointed up and saidDown.

“Really?” said Osric.

They climbed up the Down.

Which upset him.

Osric smelled crushed thyme and fescue in Fairhrim’s wake. Underfoot, the soil grew thin. Chalk gleamed through it like bone.

They went through a kissing gate. No kisses were forthcoming.

Thorny, wind-tortured shrubs grew along the path and threatened to draw blood from the careless traveller. “Sea buckthorn,” explained Fairhrim as they passed, adding that its berries were a good source of vitamin C. Osric had not asked for this information and did not care.