The Wolf answered, “Madros.”
Risa had been nursing a steady suspicion about why she and Javi couldn’t remember the name of that blasted kingdom, but it took Linda blanching at its mention for her to connect the dots. Or at least, to identify a singular dot.
“Magic,” Risa said, nearly dropping her cup, the realization quite obvious once she said it aloud.
Javi blinked at her with dazed gold eyes. “What?”
“There’s some kind of spell making us forget about”—it took everything in her power to utter the word—“Madros.”
Linda looked like she was searching for an escape route, eyes frantic and wild.
The Wolf refused to look at either of them, torchlight cloaking half her face in darkness. Unease grew in the pit of Risa’s stomach the longer she stared, because for the first time, she could see the tangled vines of the Wolf’s curse twisted around her. Large thornsdug deep in her skin and clung to her hood. Tendrils of weeds obscured most of her face, trailed down her body, and led away from her, snaking an impossible path for miles.
The Wolf’s curse was a small root in a large, tangled mass.
“Your curse—” Risa said, surprised by how she could keep an even tone, “it has to do with Madros. You’re connected to it, or it’s connected to you.”
The Wolf did not respond how Risa had expected her to. When the girl finally met her gaze, terror reflected in her one visible eye.
Risa turned to the witch, desperate for answers the Wolf was not going to provide. “How doyouremember?”
She also had been able to once. Back in Barrow. The Bosque. It wasn’t until they were free from the loom of the woods’ trees that Risa had fully started to forget.
Linda made a sound like a strangled birdcall. Brunie did not help when he leaped onto the precarious surface of the not-table to swat at the witch’s cup, which clattered against its saucer.
The witch crossed her arms. “Witches can see through spells and magic most of the time, though we can’t always tell how they work, and we certainly cannot dismantle them. We can only recognize that they’re…” She waved her hands in the air in a big circle. “In action.”
“So thereisan enchantment,” Risa breathed, the brief joy of being right eclipsed by the gravity of that kind of power. The magnitude of it, being able to affect an entire kingdom and warp the minds of so many without anyone being aware.
That had to be why the rumors about Madros that people heard in Barrow were so vague and distorted. By the time any news about the desert kingdom reached them, the magic was well underway. Itexplained why no one knewanything, why it had taken years for the Kheadish king to finally agree to give up his youngest son for marriage.
She looked toward the Wolf again. Tried to slot the pieces into place as they fell on the table in her mind. The girl’s regal bearing, her accented speech, how the formality of her words was briefly set aside when she wasn’t cloaked. The nasty scar. All the trappings of a well-to-do person with a physical memento begging for revenge.
“How old was the eldest princess of Madros?” Risa asked Javi in a whisper, blood roaring in her ears. “I mean, when she and her family disappeared?”
The Wolf’s eye widened as she leaned away from the table, hands gripping the edge so hard her knuckles whitened.
Risa could practically hear the cogs turning in Javi’s mind.
It took a long time before he answered. “Eleven, I believe. She was two years younger than me.”
A child. Forced to flee her kingdom, cross the desert, and spend five years plotting a way to return to a place where no one could remember her. It all made sense.
“You’re the princess,” Risa said to the Wolf, so sure of it that she couldn’t believe no one else had realized it before she did. She focused on the scar. Noticed another peeking beneath the knot at the Wolf’s neck, a few inches above the high collar of her black tunic. “You’re supposed to be dead, but instead you’re cursed.”
Risa didn’t know what she expected. Certainly not for Linda to accidentally overturn her teacup on Brunie, who leaped and snarled at Javi, or for the Wolf to spring back from the crates as if scalded, hood dropping away to reveal her fathomless face. Javi remained seated, staring at Risa with something akin to admiration.
But Risa hardly noticed the mayhem. She was finally seeing the Wolf for the first time.
One night, nearly a decade ago, Risa had locked herself in her bathroom, where she stared into a gilded mirror in hopes of catching sight of her curse. As if it could be drawn out by the dark. Instead, when her eyes adjusted to the unlit room, she saw her distorted reflection in fragments. Contorted and swapped with other parts. It was like something out of a nightmare. A monster conjured out of desperation.
That was the Wolf. A mangled reflection of what should have been a young girl, the twisted vision of a person trapped beneath the rippling surface of water or a misshapen piece of glass.
“You should have told us,” Risa said, hoping her tone wasn’t accusatory. She didn’t blame the Wolf for guarding secrets.
She was only upset because it made her own distrust of the Wolf unfounded.
“It does notmatterif I tell you,” the outlaw said, lowering her hood and then hiding her face in her gloved hands. She didn’t cry, didn’t take a gasping breath. “You’ll forget. Even now, if you look away, you’ll forget I am here. It’s why I wear this cloak.”
