“What about Odette? Could she have run away?”
Dacia shook her head. “No, and you cannot convince me otherwise. Maybe Josef sold her too?” She said it as if she did not believe it, but hoped.
“Maybe.”
“Since you left, fear has taken hold in the village. They thought it was Kaufman, for he was last seen with one of the girls. They hung him right in the street—it was terrible, and then of course another girl was missing the next day. One of the washerwomen—you remember Jehenne?—she swears she saw the man who did it, that it was Lord Death in the dead of night, with his dark robes on a great black stallion. But they’ve tried to make you their villain too. They say you stalk behind him, looking for little girls to feed on. It feels like every day grows more dangerous.”
I did not know what to say, or even how to think about her words. I was not a villain—or at least, I didn’t think I was. I was so bewildered by the pain I couldn’t feel sure. As she spoke, I felt the slow pulse of blood dripping down my legs. The rain lightly pattered on the leaves, a quiet song.
That’s when I felt the magic.
It was just a thread, like a spider’s web spun through just the right catch of sunlight and morning dew. But I could see it. I could feel it and separate it from my own magic, even while it was part of it somehow. I touched it with my finger, and even though there was nothing there, I felt the ripple all along its thread.
“What is it?” Dacia asked.
“I found it,” I said.
Dacia called for the other women. The others called for Louis. But none of us waited. Holding tight to Dacia, I led them into the woods, following the golden thread.
The shrine was not far off the road. It was made of white stone, standing about as tall as the withers on a horse and carved with the Latin letters and older, stranger runic symbols.
I recognized the shape of them from Renaud’s manuscripts, thoughI could not read them. Someone had placed a stone sculpture of Jesus carrying the cross, his brow beaded with sweat and blood, on top of the stone, but even with its weathered and faded paint, it was a recent addition, and the foundation was much older. The Latin said this was the altar to stop at and consider the death and sacrifice of Christ. Below the sculpture the stones had been built with a lip that acted like a shelf. Dead flowers, old coins, and weathered odds and ends littered it, and it was there that each of the girls silently knelt and offered something. A coin. A lock of hair. A sweet.
“I ask the new gods and the old, protect me from dangers missed and told,” they each whispered, crossing themselves. The air around the shrine felt tight and heavy.
I was the last. I had nothing to offer. But I knelt and pressed a kiss from my lips to my fingers to the stone. The memory of Hecate, facing the woods and the grove and Perchta all at the same time, leapt to my mind. I silently sent a prayer for her guidance.
A crash through the quiet woods startled us all. I leapt away, not with surprise, but with hope—with a wild vision of a black stallion and cloaked rider coming to take me back.
“Louis,” Christine reminded us.
The girls sighed with relief. One of them even chuckled.
But I kept watching, that hope thrumming in my chest. How much easier this would be if he simply found me and dragged me home.
It was because of that wild hope that I saw the brown flash of a rider in the brush. That wasnotLouis’s red livery. It took only a moment for me to realize. “Bandits! Run!” I screamed and wrenched the two closest girls by their cloaks, shoving them away from the oncoming riders. Christine saw the way of it immediately and sprinted off. The young ones followed, wide-eyed and looking back. Dacia hesitated, but I pushed her. “Go!” I ordered.
I ran the opposite direction. If I could just slow the bandits, I’d give the girls time enough to disappear. I planted myself straight in the path of the first horse. Without hesitating, I reached for the thread of magicthat led through the wood to the shrine, lifting it in my mind like a string to block the way. The horse reared in front of me. Another one thundered past, crashing through the brush after the girls. Hands grabbed me and hauled me up, giving me a good view of the chaos.
One of the bandit’s horses had tripped, rolled, and come back up riderless and shaking off leaves. I couldn’t spot Dacia or the others. Someone shoved me into the front of the saddle, ripping at the wounds on my thighs and exposing my naked body under the cloak. “Let me go,” I screamed, squirming and bucking to get off.
They fought to keep me seated, firmly lashing an arm across my hips as they spun the horse deeper into the woods. I tried to turn and scratch at my captor’s eyes, but he held me too tight and brought the horse up to a gallop through the thickening trees.
I hoped with all my heart that Dacia was able to find safety.
It felt excruciating to leave her again, but it was impossible to ignore that I’d been back with them for mere moments, and I’d already brought such woe. I felt responsible for the bandits coming, in the way that I seemed to draw trouble no matter where I went. I did not belong to her, to love, to anywhere other than the strange, liminal world of Death and magic. I wanted to cry, but there was no crying being dragged off by bandits.
We rode through the woods, into the darker, older part of the forest. Soon after, the bandit stopped and tied a mask around my eyes.
I laughed as he knotted it. “What is the point of this? I’d have to care about your camp to tell someone about it.”
He did not answer, only urged the horse on. I gritted my teeth as I tried to manage the pain in my thighs and hold Dacia’s cloak closed around my nakedness. Despite knowing where we would end up, I hated not being able to see where we were going. And through it all, my ears strained, still listening for a rider and the familiar stride of a massive black stallion.
When we finally stopped, the bandit dismounted and hauled me after him.
“I can walk,” I snarled. But he threw me over his shoulder, carried me some way, and pitched me off. I landed with a hard thump on the ground, my body crying out.
For a moment, I didn’t move, not even to cover myself with the cloak. I wished with all my heart to be home with him, wished to be at my little desk in his chambers or in my blue room. If only I had listened and tried to understand instead of reacting so impulsively to a nightmare. Renaud had never hurt me just to hurt me. He had made so many allowances for me, and yet I had made none for him. I squeezed my eyes tight from the burn of tears. I could escape and make it back from here—I knew I could.
