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“The Ilithiya,” Rosetta said, holding up the strip of wolf pelt, now sheared close enough for the gray skin to show through. “Call her by her name, if you please.” She examined the piece of skin for a second before saying, “There! I found it.” Crowing triumphantly, she slapped the pelt down on the kitchen table. We all eyed it uncomfortably.
Onal cleared her throat. “What, exactly, did you find?”
“The answer to where these creatures are coming from,” she said. “There have been more than just wolves. I’ve seen broken-necked crows, and red-eyed weasels . . . It seems that someone has been experimenting with whatever creatures they could get their hands on. Usually, by the time I get to them, their bodies are too rotted to find the seal. But this specimen was more recently dead, and . . .?well, just look.”
She passed her hand over the piece of hide, and a faint, blue-white light began to take shape in the form of an intricate, five-pointed knot. “This is how they’re doing it—fastening human souls in the bodies of animals.”
My stomach turned. “Human souls?”
“It wouldn’t be impossible to do, if one had enough knowledge of the spectral plane and a complete lack of empathy.”
“The first time I saw a creature like this, it was when the Tribunal was looking for us,” I said, remembering Zan and my encounter. “But while the Tribunal is certainly lacking in empathy, it would be less likely that they’d be using witchcraft against witches.” I sighed.
“Would you put it past them?” Rosetta asked. “Because I wouldn’t. Collecting spirits and binding them into mismatched bodies sounds exactly like the type of thing the Tribunal would look into.”
“What purpose could there be,” Kellan asked in disgust, “in putting departed souls into animals?”
“Plenty,” Rosetta said, leveling her yellow eyes at him. “If your goal is to someday do it with human bodies.”
We fell absolutely silent, shocked.
“You could live forever that way,” she continued, “jumping from body to body until the end of time. But souls are meant to inhabit only the vessels into which they are born. Someone has devised a way around that. See? This symbol is an amalgamation of two magics: blood magic embedded into a feral knot. But the spell isn’t right yet. The magics clash. And the mismatched spirit cankers while the body rots.”
Rosetta tossed the pelt into the fireplace, where it began to curl and blacken. “Stars save us if they ever make it work.”
14
When the pelt had burned to ash, I broke the silence by clearing my throat. “As troubling as the creature is, it’s not why we’ve come.”
“No,” Rosetta said, prodding the fire with a long, thin branch stripped of leaves and twigs and crudely sharpened. “You’ve come to tell me about the end of the world.”
“You’re going to burn that stick up,” Kellan said, looking around. “Don’t you have any iron tools lying around this place?”
“No iron,” Rosetta said flatly.
Onal sighed and tried to explain. “Women of the woods and feral mages are not particularly fond of iron. They don’t like anything made of it either, even in the smallest amounts. Like steel . . .”
“Or blood,” Rosetta said, turning her yellow eyes on me. “Or magic that requires blood.”
“How did you know—” I began.
“I could smell it on you the first moment I saw you,” she said. “Worse than the wolf pelt, that smell. Like anger and iron and brimstone.”
I snapped, “I don’t care if you don’t like my magic. I don’t care if you don’t like me. I can’t say I’m particularly fond of you at the moment, either. But the wisest man I know told me to find you, so here I am. Asking—begging—for your help.”
“And what, exactly, do you think I can help you with, girl?”
“He said that you could show me how to go into the world between the Now and the After. He called it the Gray.”
Rosetta burst into hoots of laughter. “How wise can your friend be that he sent you to the one person in all the world who can’t go into the Gray?” She turned to face us. “I will let you stay the night, but you must be gone in the morning. I don’t have time for any more of this nonsense.”
“On the contrary,” Onal muttered, “you’ve got all the time in the world.”
* * *
I was burning with frustration and disappointment, but I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the past three days, and I knew that arguing with Rosetta would serve only to get myself removed from the homestead faster.
Rosetta gave me Galantha’s old room. It was a snug little space near the attic, with most of the furniture covered in white sheets to keep the dust off. I removed each sheet in turn and marveled at every discovery: a pine-bough bed, an old wardrobe carved with dainty spring flowers, and a chair painted a sweet, summery yellow.
