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Chapter 37

Nora

The troll’s fist hammered at the warehouse wall, splinters flying, making the gap larger and larger as it roared and fought to break through.

Well, this was incredibly inconvenient.

The crowd was screaming and pushing, trying to scramble backward, even though there was nowhere to go. From the stage, someone was shouting into the zungvox, but it was lost in the din.

Nora fought the flow of people, shoving forward heedless of whether August was following her. This was her challenge to face. She had to get to the troll before it broke through the wall and started wreaking havoc. But the press of the crowd was too strong. The troll slammed its shoulder against the warehouse wall, finally shattering it and stumbling through into the fray of people.

All right. Nora was done with shoving. She needed magic—now.

The troll staggered forward, stone nostrils flaring hungrily as it scanned the crowd through its scraggly hair. Nora found the charm on her wrist. She poured more power into it than was reasonable. Air emerged from her in a violent spiraling blast, forcing the crowd out of her way on either side, giving her a clear path to the troll and sending it staggering back toward the wall. Its head cracked against the wood, dazing it for a moment.

Nora started to move, her focus single-minded, wind rushing in her ears, reaching for more charms as she went.

“Honora Holtzfall!” The cry came through the chaos. “It’s Honora Holtzfall!” A middle-aged woman was pointing at her, finger shaking. She looked more afraid of her than of the troll.

Nora had inadvertently let down her glamour when she had poured her magic into the new charm. Keeping up appearances hadn’t exactly been high on her list of priorities when a troll was smashing its way into the room.

“She’s come to spy!” someone shouted from the stage. The Grim girl in the fox mask. Perfect. Because of course this trial had just been too easy.

Eyes turned on her. Even with a troll in their midst, Nora somehow was the most fascinating thing in the room. Were they really going to try to stop her? The only person in this room with enough magic to prevent the troll from killing them all?

Nora knew better than to argue with a mob.

And this one was already beginning to circle. She was the enemy that Isengrim preached against. And here was a chance to tear her limb from limb. Nora was all too aware they outnumbered her, no matter how much magic she had.

The fox girl leaped off the stage. The Grim in the boar’s mask called after her, but she didn’t stop. For a moment, Nora’s attention flicked to the stage. There was something faintly familiar about the tinny voice inside the boar’s mask, but she didn’t have time to worry about that now. The fox girl pulled a knife from her waist as she plowed through the crowd. Nora shifted her magic into the ring on her right hand as the girl reached her and slashed the blade mercilessly toward Nora’s face.

Nora dodged out of the way, grazing the ring against the girl’s arm as she moved. A bolt of cracking energy surged out from the ring and through the fox girl’s body, sending her twitching to the ground.

The Grims were very much wrong about Nora if they thought she was prey. They were the ones dressed as the wild animals that howled at the edge of the woods, beyond civilization.

But she—she was the woodcutter’s heiress. She was the one who hunted wolves.

“Stay down,” Nora warned the fox girl. “And I won’t have to hurt you.”

With a roar, the troll dragged itself to its feet with its scabby knuckles scraping the ground. She had bigger problems to turn her attention to.

Running from the troll would make her seem a coward. It could cost her a trial.

But if she stood her ground, it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt. Nora could defend herself. But she couldn’t defend five hundred people at once.

Her mind raced for another solution. For some way that she could win this trial and keep everyone alive.

The only thing she could do to protect them was run.

At least she was wearing charmed shoes.

Nora jumped over the fox girl’s body and ran straight for the troll.

It had looked inhumanly large from across the room, but as she got closer, she realized it was actually only grotesquely huge. The thing lumbered toward her, clearly oblivious to the fact that it needn’t waste its energy. She was coming to it.

Nora would have to time this right. She kept her eyes on the troll’s wide loping gait. Its arms were swinging wildly, and people in the crowd scrambled to get clear. She checked her index finger, unspooling magic from her charm in anticipation.

The troll lunged at the same instant that Nora flung herself onto the ground. Its fist cracked the wooden slats of the dock just in time for Nora to drop through, plunging toward the water below.

Her hand with the charmed ring hit first, magic sparking as the diamond touched the surface and the water below her turned to ice.

Nora’s knees and wrists bashed into the ice, scraping away skin. The small sheet of ice teetered dangerously on the rest of the river.

Still, it wasn’t bad for a charm meant to cool a drink.

Nora didn’t stop there. Pushing more of her magic into the ring and turning more of the river to ice, she crawled her way under the dock, heading toward dry land.

The troll’s fist slammed suddenly in front of her, right through the dock, ugly gray fingers scraping the top of the ice, barely missing Nora as she staggered back. The sheet of ice behind her was already unsteady as it melted into the river.

Nora’s mind worked fast. He could smell her, she realized. That was what the old tales said about trolls. They sniffed out misbehaving children in their beds and gobbled them whole. He could find her even through the slats of the dock. She had to keep moving.

She pushed more magic into the ring on her hand, driving the ice farther forward as she forged an unsteady path across the water, half her attention on the glassy walkway, half on the sound of the troll’s lumbering footsteps above. She heard the occasional scream as he barreled by a person, the crash of crates clattering around him, hitting the dock. She really hoped that August had enough sense to get out of the way. To get himself home before this all inevitably summoned the cops. But no matter what happened, the troll was still following her, with whatever ancient magic fueled the Veritaz setting its tiny, simple dirt-and-rock mind on her intently.

Finally, Nora broke free from the underbelly of the quays and docks onto open river.

Here, the water was choppier, and she found herself pushing out the magic from her ring farther to steady the ice float she was on. She could feel it heating uncomfortably on her hand. The charmier had designed it to be tapped against glasses of champagne at garden parties, not used on whole bodies of water.

The troll was on the embankment walkway now. The road behind it was already becoming chaos, automobiles veering to avoid the troll. If she didn’t do something soon, someone was going to get hurt.

She rested the diamond ring on the ice below her, and she pushed the charm to its limit. She forced the ice outward, farther and farther, the gold band scalding her finger, but she pushed, until finally the ice reached land.

Forming a clear path between herself and the troll.

It took the bait.

With one slow, lumbering step, the troll moved onto the ice. Instantly, fissures appeared under its foot. Another heavy step, more cracks. Nora stood her ground, watching as the troll got closer and as the fissures got bigger and bigger. Her heart beat faster and faster as it got closer.

And with a greedy roar, it reached for her, its fingers almost brushing her.

It happened in a moment. Like a highball hitting the ground, wasting a perfectly good drink.

The troll hit the river with a roar.

The ice shattered, plunging both of them into the water.

It sank like the stone it was born out of.