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“I’m not leaving you,” Kellan said determinedly, eyes flinty. “So stop asking me to.”
“As much as I’d love to leave you all to this nonsense, I don’t think any of us will be greatly benefited by returning to Greythorne,” Onal said.
Rosetta said, “The bell. Focus on the bell.”
“It was around the neck of a horseman I saw at the edge of Stiria Bay. I didn’t get a good look at his face. But the bell was unmistakable.” More vehemently, I said again, “I have to go back in.”
Kellan grimaced. “How long will it take for us to get to Achlev from here, Rosetta?”
“I can bend the roads a little,” she said, “and give your horses a spell for fleet-footedness.” She shrugged. “Maybe two days? For you, that is. I can get there in one.” She smiled a foxy smile.
“We can’t all just transform into whatever creature suits us on a whim,” Kellan said irritably.
“That’s too bad for you,” Rosetta said. “You’re missing out.”
“Tomorrow morning,” I said, standing.
“But you’re not yet—” Kellan protested.
I turned and repeated with all the conviction I could muster, “We are leaving for Achleva first thing tomorrow. Understood?”
I’d made a demand, and no matter how much the part of him that was my friend wanted to protest, it was the soldier in him that replied, “Yes, Princess.”
* * *
I woke near midnight to the sound of a soft, whirring clatter coming from the first floor of the cottage.
Trying to be quiet, I tiptoed down the stairs to investigate, but the very first step let out a creaking groan in protest of my weight. From the room below, Rosetta’s voice said, “Come down if you’re going to come down.”
She was seated beside her spinning wheel, feeding fibrous filament into it as she pumped the pedal, the spokes of the wheel blurring together as it turned.
I curled up in a chair and watched her work, mesmerized by the rhythm of her movements. Some sort of alchemy was taking place, transforming the waxy fibers between her fingers into the silver string on the bobbin.
“How are you doing that?” I finally asked. “Spinning flax into silver?”
“This definitely isn’t flax.” She stopped spinning for a moment so she could remove the bobbin and let me take a closer look. “This is made from the fibers in sombersweet stalks.”
She watched me inspect the thread.
“It’s beautiful. Why don’t more people use it?”
Amused, she said, “Most people don’t have spelled spinning wheels.” The wheel had slowed to a stop, and I could see the patterns etched into the wood.
“Ah,” I said, handing the bobbin back to her.
“Sombersweet was created from the very last of the Ilithiya’s immortal essence. It is a very special plant. And this is very special thread. I call it quicksilver.” She snipped off a piece and held it in one palm while her other hand drew a pattern in the air above it. “Named after the subtle filament that connects our souls to our bodies.”
The silver melted together, and where there once was a string, there now sat a small bead. She let it roll from her hand into mine, where it changed shape again, returning to the form of the string. She plucked it up and turned back toward the wheel, but she was standing too close to the spindle, and the pointed end made a wicked slice across her arm. She let out a hissing breath, clamping her hand over the wound.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Are you all right? Are there bandages I can fetch? Here, let me see—”
She yanked her arm away. “No. Don’t bother. It’s not deep. See? No blood.”
The skin around her eyes was stretched taut, and her smile was stiff and forced, but she was right; there was no blood. I would have felt it if there were.
Rosetta seemed to have tired of my company. “If we’re really leaving tomorrow morning, you’d better go back to bed,” she said dismissively. “You’ll need all the rest you can get.”
“And when will you sleep?”
