Magic Under Stone (26 page)

I glanced around nervously, and then forced myself to look ahead, thankful for the hood obscuring my face. It was probably obvious I was a human, and I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.

The path winding through the forest sloped down to a small bridge crossing a creek that was running fast and swollen from melting snow. Once we’d passed, Rowan motioned us off the path.

“Hungry?” Rowan took what looked like meat jerky from a pouch at his waist and handed it back to us.

“Oh, yes,” Annalie said. We’d eaten the last of our dried fish the previous afternoon, and now we were down to dried fruits and corn cakes.

She looked puzzled when she took a bite. “What is this?”

“Dried and smoked mushroom.”

“Ohhh.”

“Do you not care for it?”

“I just didn’t expect it to taste so ... fungal.” She took one more bite and handed it to me. She was right, it tasted very strongly of mushrooms, but I was hungry enough to eat several good mouthfuls.

Rowan grinned and nibbled on the rest as we walked. “We don’t eat much meat here.”

“Yes, so I’m told,” I said, thinking that was one part of living in the fairy lands I would not care for.

“Now, I bet you’d like to know the plan,” he said. “I’m taking you to meet with some of the other Green Hoods. We should be there before nightfall. Is it true that you were actually with Erris Tanharrow, in his clockwork body?”

“That’s right.”

He whistled. “Now that’s a situation I don’t envy. How did it all happen?”

My history with Erris certainly made for a good yarn to fill the time as we walked along through the soft snow and the still air. I had just reached the point when Erris and I left to find Ordorio Valdana when we heard voices ahead in the distance. The land rolled in gentle, forested hills, so you heard people quite a bit before you saw them. Rowan glanced around at the barren winter forest. The snow was full of our tracks.

Rowan paused a moment, with the same expression Erris had when he was listening to the forest, then he motioned us sideways. I could see an open space ahead indicating another creek or ravine, but I wondered about the tracks.

“I can hide our tracks,” he whispered. “At least for a ways. Once they’ve passed, we have to hurry along to the camp, just in case they’re looking for you.”

We ran forward to overlook a brook making tiny rapids over the rocks below. I shivered just looking at it, but it had rocky banks with enough room to hide. I was mostly concerned with getting down—from where we stood the best way to get down to the riverbank, as far as I could see, was to slide down the slope. It would be dirty business, and Annalie was wearing a dress.

“You go first,” Rowan said. “I’ll create a glamour on the tracks. I do apologize, ladies.”

Annalie, with a slight frown, tossed down her pack and gathered up the hem of her skirt, which was already dirty and wet from the snow, baring her wool stockings. “Well, do be a gentleman and turn away.” She made her way down, using her arms and legs to keep from falling in the steeper portion, and I followed the same way, the dirt turning to mud as we reached the bottom and the snow runoff. My gloves and the seat of my trousers were now black with grime.

“What a mess,” Annalie muttered. “This whole voyage is making me feel quite the pampered princess. I should have worn trousers like you, but I just wouldn’t feel right in them.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Look, at least your dress hides the dirt better.”

“Shh!” Rowan dropped down beside us, somehow managing not to dirty himself at all. I hadn’t noticed how lean and lithe he was while he was tromping through the snow, but now I thought he was probably quite skilled with the knife at his belt too.

It actually made me a bit cross, to think that after all I’d been through, this stranger was escorting us to the Green Hoods and I presumed they would lead the rescue. My role felt almost an afterthought. What use did they really have for me?

I had a fleeting wish to break away from Rowan, and even
Annalie, and steal away to Telmirra to find Erris myself, if he was somewhere to be found. My fingers traced the outline of his key beneath my shirt.

With the water rushing over the rocks, and the hill we had just slid down muting sounds from above, we could no longer hear the voices. Rowan had his hand pressed against the dirt, obviously trying to sense when they had passed. Annalie sat down on a rock to rest while I paced.

“All right,” Rowan finally said. “They’ve passed. Let’s hurry on before they find the tracks. We can travel down the riverbed for a time.”

And so we resumed our march, nibbling corn cakes and dried mushrooms along the way. A mile or two down, the riverbed narrowed and became too treacherous to continue down, so we had to scramble back up the embankment, getting even dirtier in the process. What a sight we would be to the Green Hoods.

“Rowan, when we get to the camp, what will happen?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to discuss it. We learned of you from the jinn, but he has to do whatever the king says, so we’ll proceed cautiously. We just need to hurry along now and worry about all that later. We want to reach the camp before nightfall.”

Despite Annalie’s obvious exhaustion—she had, after all, spent most of the past few years cooped up in a handful of bedrooms—we managed to reach the camp before dusk. A tall, athletic woman with a stern expression was mending arrows, while a man was tossing more of the strong-tasting mushrooms—goodness, I was already getting sick of them—in a pot half submerged in the ashes of a cookfire. When we appeared, they both looked up. The woman remained stern and went right back to her work, but the man stood and grinned.

I had somehow expected more people, and more of an excited air about the Green Hoods’ camp. This place had the feeling of a party nearing its end.

“You found them.” The man approached us, and suddenly Rowan grabbed my hands from behind, while the other man took Annalie.

Or a trap!

Action came to me before thought; I jerked from his grip hard and fast, but it wasn’t enough. He still had me, but I kicked backward, trying for the most painful place, although I couldn’t quite see. He deflected my kick with his leg, and pulled me closer.

“Sorry, Nimira. Nothing personal, just my job,” he said, but I was furious at him for daring to apologize and call me by name even as he betrayed me. How ironic that the humans at the gate had thought us spies and instead, we walked right into a spy’s trap!

All the while, the fairy woman was replacing the heads of broken arrows, without seeming to care what happened to the rest of us. Clearly, she was so confident the men had it under control that she wouldn’t even bother. That angered me too, when in a rush I thought of Ifra attacking Celestina to break our attention. I reached with my magic into the cookfire—my body was already blazing with anger, and the connection came with surprising ease—and flung it at her, a ball of red flames that caught her hair and clothes.

She screamed, and now—now I kicked again, managing to plant my heel between Rowan’s legs. He let go with a howl, but I heard a knife slip from its sheath.

Oh God. I didn’t want to get cut with a knife.

I ran around the other side of the cookfire, which was still blazing as if I’d taken nothing from it. The woman had rolled in
the snow to staunch the fire. She’d acted quickly enough that she was barely scorched and was already back on her feet—at least she didn’t appear to have any arrows at the ready—and the other man still had Annalie.

The fire was my only asset, but I couldn’t fling fireballs at all of them at once—it took too much time, and the fire didn’t last.

Could I touch the heat, now that I had a connection with the fire? I’d never tried it before, but it felt like something that could work, and, backed into a corner as I was, I was desparate. I grabbed a smoldering stick from the fire, and sure enough, it seemed the same temperature as my own warm hand. I threw the stick at Rowan, and before it even reached him, I lobbed another at the girl. Both managed to dodge. These fairies were clearly experienced at their business, and one winter hadn’t turned me into a great sorceress.

Of course, if I didn’t know that already, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

I shouted, “Who are you? What do you want with us, then?”

“I’ve been undercover with the Green Hoods,” Rowan said. “But really, I work for Prince Tamin. When I heard you might be coming with word of Erris, I knew he’d reward us handsomely for you and your companion. That’s it, really, and I do feel badly because you spun such a tragic tale, but I have a family to feed like anyone else ....” He trailed off, glancing at Annalie. The firefly lights of spirits had appeared around her. They still lacked their full impact in the blue light of dusk, but suddenly she seemed to melt out of her attacker’s hands, black sleeves flowing behind her. She rushed to my side.

“Do you know what to do?” she whispered in my ear.

“I can throw fire at one if you can handle the other two.”

“No. There are three of them. They have weapons, and they’re fast.”

“So what do we do?” I hissed.

“Surrender. For now.” Her eyes darted to the woods. “I don’t think we’re alone.”

I didn’t dare follow her gaze to see if there really was someone watching us, for fear of alerting Rowan and his friends.

“I hope you’re right. What if the king wants us dead?”

“There are worse things than death.” She shook her head, even now with an infuriating air of serenity. “But I don’t think any of that will happen.”

As I lifted my hands in concession, I wished I had Annalie’s fearlessness toward death. It seemed like it would make life a great deal easier.

TELMIRRA

Without speech, Ifra quickly became a shadow. Word swept through the castle that he was Belin’s silent guardian. Theories varied as to whether it was so he couldn’t betray Belin’s secrets, or so he couldn’t betray Belin himself, but of course no one spoke to him directly anymore.

During the day, Ifra managed to distract himself with the routine of the court. The waking days were hardly dull. The sumptuous suppers were full of unfamiliar foods, even fresh citrus and raw salads that seemed an unimaginable luxury near the end of winter. Balls happened almost every night, with bouquets of fresh flowers and dozens of musicians providing a backdrop to the fairy women with their long hair and gossamer gowns shining by glowing magic lights. Belin liked Ifra to stay close, but not too close. Belin didn’t seem to really want anyone too close. Whenever he could slip away from the palace to his old home and lock himself away, he did so.

At night, Ifra wandered the lonely halls, unable to sleep. How long would it be before Belin asked him to perform some task? What about when Belin married Violet? How could Ifra endure even that event? He couldn’t console Violet. He barely even saw her. The ladies of court pulled her to and fro, presumably teaching her what a queen needed to know. Whenever he saw her, she reminded him of a small animal being slowly pecked to death by crows.

One morning, after a sleepless night, he staggered outside, dreaming of escaping into the woods and never returning. He was such a failure of a jinn. For all the kindness of Arkat and Hami, who had treated him like a son, and the excitement of kissing Violet, maybe his tutor was right all along. He was better off without ever tasting love.

Even now, it tore him up to think so. It took a long time to get his heart to slow to a normal rhythm. And even then, he couldn’t seem to empty his mind of anger.

Anger had never come easily to Ifra, but it made him want to seek comfort. It finally led him to the stables. The old wooden door swung loudly on its hinges as he entered, announcing him to a pair of curious stablehands. Ifra recognized the boy who had brought him his horse before, but it was a woman who approached him. She was broad-shouldered and freckled, dressed like the boy, with pants tucked into mud-crusted boots, her hair pulled back in a messy knot. “Hello, sir.”

“It’s the jinn,” the boy said.

“Ah.” She smiled. “Well, you know, I’m so removed from court gossip.”

Ifra waved his hands a little. The woman looked confused, and the boy said softly, “They said the king made it so he can’t talk to anyone.”

“Oh.” She looked as if she’d been struck. “No. I didn’t know. Why?”

“Well,
I
certainly don’t know,” the boy said.

The woman frowned enough that the barest beginning of wrinkles appeared around her mouth. Ifra made the motion of brushing a horse.

“You don’t have anything better to do than brush a horse?” the woman asked him, now lifting an eyebrow.

Ifra shook his head.

She started to walk, and he followed. “Do you want to take him riding, or are you just looking for something to lose yourself in?”

He nodded.

“Lose yourself?” she confirmed. Her voice, in contrast to her rugged appearance, was really rather sweet and soft.

He nodded again. He thought she was being remarkably patient with all this stupid nodding, but she kept looking at him, and she seemed upset. “I don’t understand how the king could forbid you from speaking. What a horrible way to treat another person, I don’t care how much trouble he went to find you.” Rows of stabled horses looked at her rather placidly as she ranted.

Do you know the king?
Ifra wanted to ask. She seemed unusually indignant about it for a woman who worked in the stables. Had Belin—

No sooner had he thought this than he noticed a little carved bear hanging from a leather thong around her neck. He recognized the same bear form Belin had been carving in his work room. He pointed at it, mouthing Belin’s name.

Her fingers flew to cover it. “Oh—yes. He made it for me.”

Tell me more
. He motioned outward from his mouth.

“It’s nothing,” she said, trying to sound curt, but he heard
heartbreak there. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you. Everyone knows the gossip, but it’s long stale now. When I was young, the king, that is to say, Belin and I—well, he loved horses and spent a lot of time here in the stables and we ... Of course his father didn’t approve of the match. And even then—well, Belin’s ambitions came between us.”