Page 80 of The Wolf and the Woodsman

“I’m sorry,” I say, staring down at the floor. “For that and a thousand other petty cruelties.”

Gáspár doesn’t reply, but I hear the shift in his breathing. I feel like a blacksmith, everything I know laid out in pieces in front of me, and somehow I must forge a weapon from them. But any blade that I make will be double-edged. I cannot help Katalin without hurting my father. I cannot save the pagans without damning the Yehuli. And the only thing I know that might be strong enough to stop Nándor is a hundred miles away in Kaleva, just an orange flyspeck on the gray horizon.

I don’t know when I have become something so burdened by other people’s hopes and loyalties and lives. It almost makes me weep to think of it, how many people will die or be thrown out if I choose wrong. My head bows over my bent knees, pain still crawling up my arm like a glut of blackflies.

“The worst thing Nándor will do to the Yehuli is banish them.” My words taste so bitter I think I might die before I finish speaking them. “But he wants to burn Keszi to the ground.”

Gáspár gives a slow nod. His hand inches toward mine, but it only brushes the absence of my pinky. The space between us feels smaller than it ever has. If he knelt before his father to beg for my life, it seems only fair that I should humble myself to him now.

“Please,” I say. But when I raise my head, I see from the look on his face that he has already agreed.

Long shadows chase us down the hall, wraithlike fingers snatching at my wolf cloak. I don’t know if Nándor has already realized that I am gone, but I can’t waste the time turning around to check. I don’t stop until we’ve reached the top of the stairs that lead down into the dungeon, and even then, it’s only for a moment, to catch my breath. The wound on my shoulder is burning like a brand. I half walk, half stumble down the steps, reaching out for Gáspár to steady myself. My eyes keep fuzzing over the pinpricks of torchlight on the wall.

Katalin is in the same cell that I was, huddled against the mold-slick wall. Her pale hair is damp and tangled, and there’s another bruise pulsing on her perfect cheekbone. When she sees me, she rises, eyes sapphire bright and full of embattled loathing.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, voice low. “Come to deliver me to the king? How long were you in the capital before you decided to kneel to him?”

Her cruelty makes me regret my decision, but only for an eyeblink. I cannot watch another wolf-girl die, not even Katalin. I step forward and wrap my hand around the iron bar of her cell, Ördög’s threads going taut around my wrist. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, the bar is gone. I’m holding on to nothing, but my palm is orange with rust.

“How?” Katalin stutters out. “Could you always—”

“Do you think I would have endured half your wickedness if I could?” I interrupt, gritting my teeth as another wave of pain rocks through me. “Follow me.”

“Follow you where?” Her gaze darts between Gáspár and me. “I’m not going anywhere with you, or a Woodsman.”

Anger curdles in my belly. Despite my wooziness, I reach through the bars and grab her with my good arm, yanking her out of the cell.

“I’m saving your life,” I snap. “One more word and I’ll change my mind.”

Katalin fixes me with a cool stare. She slowly extricates herself from my grasp and then wipes her borrowed wolf cloak clean.

“Your hand is covered in blood,” she says.

This time, I scarcely resist the urge to strangle her and save King János the trouble. I look up at Gáspár, as if to steel myself, and the resolve on his face invigorates me. When we turn to walk back up the dungeon stairs, I hear the soft padding of Katalin’s footsteps behind us. She doesn’t speak again until we reach the top of the steps.

“You are bleeding,” she says, eyes wide.

I only nod, not particularly keen on explaining that I lost a battle of blades with a tiny serving girl.

“Here,” Katalin says. She pushes back my wolf cloak—her wolf cloak—and unties Gáspár’s makeshift wrappings underneath. I take a deep breath before looking at the wound, an ugly gash like an old woman’s blackened mouth. But Katalin only waves a hand over it, and the cut stitches itself shut.

I am deciding whether to thank her when Gáspár jerks me back into the threshold. A Woodsman’s shadow passes across the torchlit wall.

“How do you plan on getting us out of here?” Katalin demands, once the shadow has vanished.

“There’s another way out of the city,” says Gáspár. “Through the Woodsman barracks.”

I laugh at him openly. “You must be joking.”

“He’s joking?” Katalin scoffs. “What was your plan?”

There is enough blood left in my body for me to flush.

“They’ve all gone now,” Gáspár says, before Katalin can ridicule me further. “There are only the Woodsmen in my father’s retinue, who are stationed around the palace at night, and the ones loyal to Nándor, who are still at his side. The barracks are empty.”

Katalin makes a derisive sound, but she doesn’t argue. And then Gáspár leads us through the palace halls and down into another cellar, this one furnished with wood and crammed full of cots. Filmy bubbles of torchlight yellow the walls, illuminating the racks of weapons. Ax blades glint in blind crescents. Every mounded shadow looks like it could be a Woodsman in his black suba, but there are no footsteps on the ground except our own. Distantly, I hear a trickling of water, and as we go on, I see the wooden floors give way to slick gray stone. Like the church, the barracks have been built into the cliffside.

We gather what we can: a bow and quiver for me, a sword for Gáspár. Katalin’s mouth pinches shut as she watches; I can tell that she is repulsed by the prospect of wielding a Woodsman blade. Mercifully, she has not mentioned the wolf cloak that was once hers strung over my back. I was sure to retrieve it before we went down to the dungeon, its white fur matted with my blood. Maybe Katalin thinks me more worthy of it now.