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“I can’t believe you don’t see it! Are you really telling me you don’t think he’s gorgeous?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not blind, Sanna. I can see he’s handsome. I just don’t see what that’s got to do with me.”
“Because he’s into you!” Sanna always takes it as a personal insult that I’m not jumping at the chance to date the village golden boy. “Why be lonely if you don’t have to be?”
“He’s into the idea of snagging Leah Thorn’s daughter. He’s not actually interested in me. I don’t think he’s ever asked me a single question about myself.”
Sanna pouts and kicks a stone as we near her cottage on the outskirts of the village.
“I still think he’s too good-looking to just turn down right away. If you don’t like talking to him, just drag him to bed—put his mouth to other uses. It might be fun—and it would be a change from working on those metals of yours all the time. You don’t know for sure that he’s only interested in you because of your mom. It’s not like you aren’t lovely yourself. You know I’d kill for that perfect blonde hair of yours. Plus, everyone knows how smart you are. Not to mention capable, generous…” She ticks the traits off on her fingers, like she’s making a list before selling me like a prize cow. “…practical, thrifty, and you’ve got amazing taste in friends,” she concludes with a grin. “Anyone would be lucky to be with you, Eleanor, no matter who your mom was.”
I appreciate her encouragement, but I’d be kidding myself if I pretended Leah Thorn wasn’t the main reason anyone ever paid attention to me in the first place. My mother was the most beautiful, most gifted, most loved woman this village has ever known. She was a healer, the heart of the community, and she died far too soon, when I was ten. I miss her every day—miss her all the more because she never got to see me grow up, and I never got a chance to truly know her. But missing her doesn’t mean I can be her, no matter how much everyone else wants me to be. All I can hope is that one day, if I can make my experiment work, I can find my own way to make a difference.
Then maybe people will see me when they look at me—not just a shadow of her.
“So, you’re really not going to tell me anything about the market? Not even a crumb?” Sanna tactfully changes the subject as a couple of her siblings come tumbling through the garden gate, playing boisterously.
I still don’t want to talk about it…but maybe she needs to know, to be warned.
“It was…horrible, Sanna,” I say. “A woman slipped up in her dealings with a fae and she died.”
Sanna’s mouth drops open. “They killed her?” she gasped.
“More or less.” I don’t want to go into the gruesome details.
Sanna ducks her head forward, lowering her voice, “Was it…Blackcoat?”
“Blackcoat!” shouts Hadley, one of Sanna’s little brothers. He’s still young enough to think grisly stories are just spooky fun. Young enough not to realize how desperately dangerous the world can truly be. “Why are you talking about Ruskin Blackcoat?”
“Never you mind,” snaps Sanna.
A delicate, lilting voice starts up behind us “Blackcoat of raven, of rose, and of spring.”
Sanna and I both freeze, recognizing the rhyme that we’re all taught in childhood, the one we’re forbidden to say.
“I have a deal that will make the dawn sing.” Sanna’s little sister, Lottie, is happily reciting away, oblivious to Sanna’s horror.
“Lottie! What in the hell are you doing?” Sanna lurches towards her, clamping a hand over her mouth. “Shut up, stupid child!” she hisses, sounding genuinely afraid.
Lottie is visibly shocked by her sister’s harshness, her big eyes quickly filling with tears.
“I wasn’t going to say it three times!” she wails, breaking free from Sanna’s grip.
“You shouldn’t even be saying it once! Or do you want Ruskin Blackcoat to come and steal everything you love?”
“N-no,” Lottie sniffed. I feel a little bad for her. She was right that you have to say the rhyme three times in a row, unbroken, to summon the legendarily ruthless, powerful fae dealmaker…but Sanna wasn’t wrong to stop her either. Even playing around with the idea of summoning Blackcoat is madness—a decision no one in their right mind would make. If the stories are true, a meeting with him is a dance with death. It’s no surprise he’s earned himself a place in children’s nightmares.
“Just don’t do it again, Lottie,” I say gently, trying to console her. I rummage in my bag and bend down to slip a shiny little bauble into her hand, winking. “Promise?”
I hope the bribery is enough to make her mean the nod she gives me. Just hearing the opening phrases of the rhyme makes my blood run cold, and I head straight to the fires of my tiny workshop out back when I get home, trying to chase the chill away.
I’m so excited to work with the augium that it’s a struggle to keep my hands from trembling as I shave off pieces of the ore, grinding it down to a powder with my other ingredients. I need to make sure I don’t waste an ounce. This stuff might be a lot cheaper than what I’m trying to make, but it still isn’t exactly easy to get hold of for the likes of me. It’s only available at the fae market, and yet it’s essential to create the catalyst I need. I’ve been trying for months now, but I’ve never been able to find the right blend, using up my augium on combinations that have come to nothing. Once I work out the correct balance, my theory is I’ll only need a sliver to achieve the desired effect—but that theory, like so many others, is still unproven.
I stoke the fire in the makeshift hearth with a chemical concoction to bring up the heat. It makes the smoke kind of pungent, but I’m used to it by now.
“What the hell are you burning in here?” A voice rings through the fumes and I jerk up from my workbench.
“Thatch!? You shouldn’t be in here!”
