A squawk, or a hoot, had my head snapping to the window, the shadow of a bird dark against the sun at its back. It pecked the pane, and I jumped, holding the parchment close to my chest. It pecked again, ruffling its feathers, the outline of them inflating with the broadening of its chest. I rose, puzzling at its outline. Too large for a magpie, too small for a raven. It took flight once more, flooding the chamber with sunlight that fell on the now-empty carafe, its smooth surface shining. Behind it, the abandoned pile of grapes caught the light, their skins burning red through the glass. The colour of them shone like a plague, or bloodstone, or Osric’s throat, his bloodied fingers before the Butcher had…
I strode to the dresser and grabbed the carafe, sending it crashing to the flagstone where it shattered into what seemed an infinite number of shards.
I scrambled for one, the sharpest, a sliver of glass as long as my hand and wickedly pointed, its edges jagged and keen. The idea not yet fully formed, I pursued it regardless, sliding mythumb across its sharpened peak. I cast a glance at the walls, half-expecting them to shudder as they had in the Room of Rites. They did not, the chamber remaining deathly still. As expected. As the Butcher would soon discover. As the Dendralis would come to understand. And then they would offer me once more.
I cut a little deeper, letting the blood flow more freely, and pressed my thumb to the paper. In a hurried, desperate hand, I smeared the first letters I thought of, my thumb guided by some desperate plea bubbling from the depths of me. The shapes were lumpy and irregular, like my hand as a child before my mother had made me practice, again and again, until each letter was perfect. They almost filled the whole square, audaciously large, enough to make me wince.
Find me,they spelled.We fly together.
Fly…even I was not certain what it meant. To flee, perhaps, or to fight, or to jump from the templum’s highest spire if they dared drag us back below. Whatever our fate, we would face it together. As the Blood God demanded all those cycles ago, when we had first entered the world…together. So it must end as it began.
I swirled this way and that, hunting for a crevice or some hidden place to stash it before I found a way to get it to Demetri, wherever he was, however thick the expanse of Ovidian stone lay between us. Each spot seemed more obvious than the last: beneath the armoire, inside the sole of my shoe, perhaps stuffed into a pillow?
A knock shocked me still.
More knocking. Loud, short raps that pounded through my skull like anvils. I froze, eyes locked on the door. Knocking again.
“Laurel,up,” a muted voice commanded through the iron-banded wood. I knotted my fists to my abdomen, bracing myself against the wave of nausea, crinkling the parchment as I did.TheButcher. That voice—deep, booming,arrogant—had somehow become oddly familiar over the last few turns.
“Laurel!” Oh, he was quite vexed. “Up!” The door rattled with the violence of his knock, or was it a boot? It protested the force, groaning, as if it might splinter or break. I shoved the parchment into the dresser, face down, inching it shut so as not to draw attention to the noise. It would have to make do. Sucking the blood from my thumb, I lurched for the templum gown I’d flung to the floor, conscious I was in nought but a slip.
“I’m awake! One moment.” Gods, my voice was dry, words warbling like a boy on the cusp of manhood. I threw on the garment, each stocking rolled up my leg with preternatural speed. Decent, I reached for shoes, slung carelessly by the foot of my cot.
“You have but a handful of breaths before I unlock the door. You knew I was to call for you at dawn.”
Plonking myself on the cot, I rocked my head, lips moving in a mockery of his bossiness, trumpeting orders at me like I was a paxiam late for duty.
The door slammed open, rattling the brackets lining the wall, the lone candle I’d forgotten to snuff out last night flickering wildly in the sudden gust. Startled, I flung both slippers, one flying left, the other right, landing on opposite sides of the chamber.
The Butcher stood in the doorway, arms folded, legs apart, helm angled towards me.
Shoeless, my bare feet hovered over the floor, conscious of the serrated glass scattered across it. The Other only knows what I looked like, dress askew, hair unbrushed and wild, face puffed and sheened with the markers of sleep.
“What in the pits is going on in here?” he asked, stepping through the threshold. I kept my eyes on him; anywhere but the dresser. He bowed his head, careful that his points did notscrape the arched frame. Kicking the door shut, he returned a long, dark key to the ring of others jostling at his waist.
“I…” I surveyed the chaos around me: twisted sheets, the shattered carafe, one shoe on my pillow, the other lost to a basin I assumed was for washing. “I was just getting dressed.”
“Getting dressed?” His helm twisted like an owl, this way and that. “I need to alert the other druids.”
The blush I was sporting drained from my cheeks, heart pounding to an irregular splutter. “Why?”
“Because it seems you have attempted another renovation on our templum. The Room of Rites is nothing compared to the devastation you’ve unleashed upon your chambers. Were a horde of acolytes not enough to satiate your thirst for blood? What had this shoe done to offend you so that you attempted todrownit?” He dipped into the basin, dangling the offending slipper from his finger, water splashing to the floor from where it had flooded its base.
Making to stand so I could snatch it from his giant, doltish hand, a jolt of pain nipped at the pad of my foot, the ball of my ankle having met a splinter of the carafe. Balancing on one foot, I let it hover above the ground, a thin stream of blood dripping onto the stone.
The crunch of boots on glass was the only warning I was afforded before hands wrapped round my waist, and I was thrown—rather unceremoniously—back onto the bed. I bounced a few times before landing on my bottom, hair masking my eyes. Just as I managed to brush the strands from my face, something large and firm gripped my foot. I squirmed to see the Butcher kneeling in front of me.
“Save some for later, Seamstress,” he tutted, producing a swathe of linen from seemingly nowhere and wrapping it around the cut. “There’s no glass in it—put these on.” With that, twoslippers, one of them sodden, thumped me squarely in the chest. He turned back to the dresser.
Blinking, I stared between the mass of him and my now-bound foot. Druid or infirmary nurse, I was no longer sure. Shoes firmly on, though one squelched, I rose to see what he was looking at, skirting around his imposing figure whilst attempting to dodge the worst of the glass. I attempted to school my face into bland neutrality when I noticed he was intent on the dresser.
“You haven’t touched the food.”
I sighed, the bloom of relief uncoiling my stomach. As if in response to hisastute observation,said stomach gurgled.
“We haven’t time to wait for something else to be prepared. Grab some grapes and eat them on the way. Now, come.” Knocking my shoulder as he turned, he strode towards the doorway, turning the metal knob until it opened.
“Grapes, Seamstress. Now.” Two fingers beckoned me forward whilst his other hand held the door. Huffing, I selected a heavy vine from the top and followed him out, popping one into my mouth as I went.
