Page 53 of Witchshadow

Lev blanched. “You don’t mean… Youcan’tmean…”

“What choice does she have?” Caden glanced at Safi. “While she and Zander are sneaking off to the Loom, you and I will pull an Isnie.”

“What’s an Isnie?” Safi asked—or rather, moaned—at the same moment Lev said, “Oh, that’s risky, Captain.” But she had a smile on her face as she spoke. Then she turned her attention to Safi and said, “Let me tell you about the time that me, Zander, and Caden here got stuck on an island called Isnie in the middle of the North Sea.”

As Lev settled into the story, Safi knew she was being handled.Distractedfrom whatever horrible future had made all the blood drain from Lev’s face and made Caden ask,What choice does she have?But her leg hurt too much to interrupt the tale, and her whole body hurt too much to demand answers. Caden’s roughshod bindings were already soaked through, and there was a very real chance she would pass out at any moment.

Not a chance,she realized as shadows swept in,but the reality.

Fourteen Days After the Earth Well Healed

“Have I ever told you the story of how the hedgehog came back to life?” Iseult gazes down at Owl, who shakes her head with such energy, her heretic’s collar clanks.

Five days she has been wearing it, and today is the first day she seems accustomed. They have made it to midmorning without a tantrum, without tears—not that Iseult would blame Owl if she started sobbing. The collar was the only way the child could enter Praga without her life consigned to the Hell-Bards. A magic like hers is “too dangerous to be kept free.”

Of course, Iseult wasn’t surprised when Owl refused and fought and tried to flee. Yet somehow Leopold coaxed her into compliance in the end, though he spoke no Nomatsi.

“Well,” Iseult says, slipping down to the woolen rug beside the child, “it happened long ago, when the gods still walked among us.” As she settles into the tale—a silly tale that ends in a song—Owl listens with rapt eyes and rapt Threads.

Her Hell-Bard protector, Zander, stands with his spine erect beside the bedroom door. He cannot speak Nomatsi; Owl cannot speak Cartorran; yet the two of them have a connection that transcends words. It is fascinating to watch, how their Threads have entangled. How thickly the sunset bond of family has already grown.

He is the one who put the collar on Owl five days ago. He cried afterward, when he thought no one was watching.

Iseult keeps her tale short this morning. Not merely because she is crushing her gown by sitting cross-legged, but also because she has somewhere to be. Somewhere that makes her stomach freeze and heart ice over.

She has said stasis a thousand times today, but to no avail.

“Save the bones,”she sings, reciting the words Trickster had once sung,“save the bones!”

“Lost without them,”Owl joins,“have no home! Wrapped in twine to keep them grounded. Trapped in time and moonlight crown’d them.”

“And with those words,” Iseult finishes, “the soil twitched and the hedgehog’s little nose poked up from the dirt.”

“Alive!” Owl claps, her Threads flush with pleasure. She has regressed again—as she is prone to do. Her size suggests she must be six years old, but frequently she behaves like a child half that… or like a woman five times grown.

The collar, it seems, has trapped her in the younger state.

“Alive,” Iseult agrees. “Trickster’s spell was successful, and after that, the witch and her hedgehog friend went on many grand adventures for all the rest of their days.” Those words are not how Nomatsi tales end, but Iseult likes the Cartorran turn of phrase. She likes the idea of grand adventures with Safi at her side.

Owl is still clapping when a single knock sounds at the door and Leopold fon Cartorra strides in. As usual, he looks effortlessly perfect. His black brocade enhances the width of his shoulders, sharpens the tapering of his waist. He has even added a small cap that sits jauntily on one side of his head. On anyone else, it would look ridiculous.

On Leopold the Fourth, it looks dashing.

Owl rises and runs excitedly toward Leopold. “She says you are dressed very nicely,” Iseult translates as Leopold meets her. The child strokes his black cape with green curiosity. Like most things in the palace, such finery is new to her. Even her room, which is threadbare compared to Safi’s and Iseult’s, draws comments from her daily.

“It is not a color I would choose,” Leopold admits, and he offers Iseult his hands to help her rise. Even his gloves are black. “But itisimposing, and on a wedding day, it is good to look serious…” His eyes rake up and down Iseult’s new gown. Approval shimmers in his Threads.

Approval and something else. Something lilac that Iseult wishes she could not see.

“I will be back in a few hours,” she tells Owl in Nomatsi. Then to Zander in Cartorran: “Keep her safe.”

The gentle Hell-Bard smiles, his Threads suffused with warmth. “I always do.”

“Yes,” Iseult agrees, and she attempts a smile of her own. But it is tight upon her lips. Forced, false, frightening. Ever since she has reached Praga, she has tried to be like other people, wearing emotions on her face. Making expressions that reflect what people think she ought to feel.

But more often than not, she gets it wrong. And judging by Leopold’s wince, she is currently failing. Again. So she abandons the smile and hopes the heat rising up her neck is invisible.

She wishes she could simply spend her days alone with Safi. Or better yet,with Safi and the weasel on a road to Poznin. She hasn’t studied the diary pages in so long, and Poznin calls to her like a beacon in the night.