This is how I learn that Junior Prefect Emeric Conrad has a gift for understatement, becauseit’s not going to be very pleasantdoes notbeginto cover what this feels like. The only mercy is that it’s quick, too quick to fight. If Gisele wasn’t holding me upright, I’d be keeling over into the Yssar.
There’s a sick littlesplat, and suddenly it’s as if I’ve gone from being trapped in a burning theater while the orchestra still plays over the screams, to falling into a snowbank in the middle of an empty forest. Everything feels muffled, dulled now that I’m not tasting the sound of infinity and whatnot.
Scheit, it’s cold.
I peel my eyes open and see a nasty little puddle on the dock, marbled in the blood still dripping from my finger. My heart is thrashing against my ribs, I’m still gasping for breath, and overall every inch of me somehow feels seasick, but they’re familiar and mundane kinds of hurt.
A fat snowflake lands on my hand and melts. I blink in time for another to catch on an eyelash. Ofcoursethe first snow would fall tonight.
“Tell me,” Emeric says unsteadily, “that you didn’t drink Augur’s Tears to try to find a cure for the curse.”
I shake my head, pulling the damp cloak tighter around me, and finally let my gaze wobble up to him and Gisele. “Adalbrecht . . . t-tried to kill me . . . or Gisele . . . I thought—Wh-What’s wrong with you?”
There’s an odd sheen to Emeric’s eyes behind the spectacles—no, it’s a glow. Not in the same way that Adalbrecht’s eyes burned blue, but rather the way a hedgewitch’s do when they eat witch-ash, white of the eye and all, as if it makes a lantern of their skull. Astonishingly, a sweat has broken out over his pallid face even in the snowy night, gluing a few strands of hair out of place, and he hasn’t even tried to fix them.
Emeric waves it off, though, pushing himself to his feet with unusual effort. “Later. We’re taking you to the Gänslinghaus before you freeze to death.”
Ragne heaves herself out of the water and onto the bank, shuddering and shedding until she rises as a great black horse. Then she kneels, tossing her head, and the message is clear:Get on.
I expect a grumble about horses from Emeric. It doesn’t come. He and Gisele each take one of my elbows, but it’s Gisele who does the heavy lifting.
Whatever Emeric’s done to himself, he’s in worse shape than he’s letting on.
Everything grays and blurs as I try to stand, only to topple over. Ihear voices as if through water, like I’m back in the Yssar, but they don’t sound panicked, only tense. Gisele’s voice warbles through: “. . . meet you there. Go.”
Then I see burning red eyes and a dark mane, and I am seated sideways over broad withers, barely upright. It’s snowing harder now, the flakes spinning in drunken whorls like gold leaf in Augur’s Tears.
The world lurches and jolts upward, but there is something warm and steady to lean on, there is an arm before me and another at my back, both fists anchored in Ragne’s mane. The last thought I have before I fade away is that if I were anyone else at all, this might have been nice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KeepYourEnemiesCloser
Through the heavy gray of sleep, I hear a voice, velvet soft and inevitable.
“We were trying to help.”
I think a hand lays against my brow, smooths my hair back. I don’t know. I am drifting in the fog.
“We saw you suffering in Castle Falbirg,” Death continues. “We can’t keep mortals in our realm for long, you know that. But if you were sworn to serve one of us . . . we could protect you. We could have taken you away from there.”
A long pause. The weight of her hand almost aches, not because it’s heavy, but because I’ve wanted it for so long. “We don’t understand mortals. We can’t, really, if we’re to do our
jobs. But we thought we knew what we were asking. We just didn’t
know what we were asking . . . of you.”
Death’s hand lifts.
“Gods can’t be wrong, Low or High. We can’t make mistakes, can’t go back on our bargains. So long as you are our child, there will be a day when you must decide who to serve.” She sighs. “Fortune and I will stop pushing you for now. We can wait.”
I open my eyes.
I don’t know what I expected to wake up to, but the walls of a bathtub are not it.
I also don’t expect to wake upsweating. Especially because I seem to be wearing a large nightshirt and not much else. But I’ve been cocooned in a heap of blankets, and the air beyond them seems unreasonably warm.
Death is nowhere to be seen. I’m alone in a dim, plain room barely bigger than a closet, an iron chimney running from floor to ceiling nearby. My shift, dress, stockings, blouse, and cloak have been pinned to a clothesline next to it.
