“I wasn’t planning to volunteer, thank you very much,” I snapped. “I’m not so much under your spell that I’m prepared to throw away the last piece of my heart I have left.”
At the mention of the spell, his eyes dropped to the ground. I felt a pang and spoke more gently. “You’re the one with the magic. You must be able to think of a way.”
He sighed. “If we get back to the border, and I’m able to study the mist and the weak spots ... Maybe I will find one.”
We found another escort waiting for us a little way out of the forest—I suppose the Weftwitch had arranged it for us somehow. They eyed us warily still, but less so than the day before.
She must have given us her seal of approval, or at least assured them that we posed no threat, because there was no traveling cage for the sorcerer this time. They didn’t even bind his hands. They allowed all three of us to sit in the carriage and merely trotted alongside, not even looking in the windows.
Sylvester and I kept a decorous distance on opposite seats, arranging our knees so that they wouldn’t brush each other. Cornelius jumped onto my lap and looked from one to the other of us. I suppose his cat senses told him something of what had been going on, but he made no comment.
Sylvester and I avoided one another’s gazes until we got back to the encampment, and then exchanged one quick look before we stepped down from the carriage—a sort of bracing, a summoning of our resources, ready for the next challenge.
The headwoman took us back to the border. If you squinted a little, it could have looked like a forest of silver-barked winter trees, stripped of leaves, stark and tall.
But they were not trees. The endless, relentless mist shimmered and seemed to bend a little with the brisk wind, but it remained just as sinister and unbroken as ever. On the other side of that line was our kingdom, with all its beauties and terrors. With its pulsing heart magic.
The headwoman fell back a little so she could whisper in my ear.
“I hear that you might rid us of the king and his spawn for good,” she said to me quietly. “All our magic-workers have been working on this spell for a century. If you can get it through ...”
“I don’t know yet if we are able to,” I said. “We will try.”
“Butyouare able to.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. I pressed my lips together. The Weftwitch had been altogether too free with her information, I felt.
“I’m not sure yet if I’m going to use it,” I said. “We might be able to defeat them without a measure so ... drastic.”
She snorted. “Drasticis all that will work,” she said. “You think your sorcererwould be able to defeat all the magic-
workers in the kingdom?”
“Maybe,” I said defensively.
“The king would never create a child capable of defeating him,” she said with finality, “however many hearts that child might wield.”
“I’m not ready to give up on him yet,” I said.
She shrugged. “Whether you are ready or not,” she said, “you will have to use it.”
I was not ready for that conversation. “Can you show us the weak points in the border?”
We had caught up to Sylvester, who was almost at the mist. It swirled greasily. This close, I could see the faintest outlines of bare trees just inside it. Where it met the living grass on which we stood, the blades had turned yellow and limp.
“All souls taken by your king,” said the headwoman. “Whether consumed by the mist itself, or stolen for him by the magic-workers. Always hungry. Never at rest.”
“Taken by the magic-workers?”
“Oh yes. When their hearts are used up, and they can live no longer, some die, and their souls make their way here. Others are drawn to the mist by the king’s magic and walk into it willingly while they still live. Either way, this is where they all end up. You have to admire the king for it, in a way—finding a way to use them even after their deaths.”
I stared at the mist. So Dav was in there somewhere, and Colin. I did not know what happened to us after we died, but I was pretty sure we weren’t meant to be trapped in a ravenous spell for all eternity. I had thought the Snagged would at least be free after their deaths, however tragic, but it seemed there was no chance of escaping the king—as long as he and the magic-workers lived.
I supposed I would end up in there too, if we failed.
The headwoman led us a little away along the edge of the mist and then scuffed at the earth with her foot, revealing a line of white chalk under the loose gravel and dead leaves.
“Here’s one spot,” she said. “It’s a big one, relatively speaking. I don’t know how much luck you’ll have, but you’re welcome to try.”
Sylvester stared at the mist, pacing up and down, reaching out a hand to almost touch it at intervals. It reminded me of the way a man would look at a horse for sale, examining its teeth, running his hands down each leg, feeling for the strength of its back. I suppose he was analyzing the spell again, looking for any chink that he might be able to use to prize it open.
