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The next half hour kept us busy with sorting out supplies, preparing for travel, and getting back on the road to head toward the canyon pass. The brief visit from my ancestor who had looked younger than me was put aside and forgotten, especially when Indigo decided to renew his objections about taking the toll road through the pass.
“We’re traveling through the pass, and that’s final,” Melaina told him.
“Oh, I’ve stopped arguing that point,” Indigo shot back. “Now I’m just saying, if I’m already going to be wearing manacles, I should be the prisoner with a glamoured Graykey mark on my arm. I want Quilla’s arms free to use in defense if things go awry. And besides, if the guards decide to get rough with the prisoner, it’ll be me they go after, not her. You two should pose as the guards.”
Melaina shot Quilla a grin. “See. Didn’t I tell you he’d come in handy?”
I grunted in non-response. I wasn’t a huge fan of the canyon-pass route either, but I wasn’t going to be a coward and avoid it just because it was too risky either.
All life was a risk. I could quarantine myself in my home all my days to avoid the horrors of the outside world, only for someone else to come along and burn it down around me, killing me inside. The only assurance we had was the inevitability of death. And when death came, it came. I’d fight against it accordingly, no matter how scared I was.
Indigo squinted at me. “What’re you thinking? Your mood turned very grave and finite just now, as if you’d just come to a doomed conclusion.”
Shaking my head, I scowled at him, irritated for about the millionth time over the fact that he could read my emotions.
“Nothing,” I muttered and glanced toward Melaina, dismissing him. “If this is the way we’re going to play it, then you might as well change us now. The road’s going to get busier the closer we get to the pass.”
“Whatever. Fine.” My aunt twirled her finger in a bored gesture, and the crawling sensation started as my transformation began.
“I will never get used to this,” Indigo grumbled from atop his unicorn/brown horse. I glanced over to see him become my cousin Qualmer, or at least an aged version of him from how I’d last seen him when I was twelve. She’d even put an eyepatch on him.
Recoiling in horror, I spun to gape at Melaina incredulously—who had finally disguised herself this time as well. “Really?”
She gave an unconcerned shrug. “What? He said he wanted to look like a Graykey.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Indigo spoke up in concern patting his face but unable to feel the change in his appearance. “What do I look like?” He looked down at his shackled hands, only to flip his forearm over and shake his head as he pulled the Graykey cursed mark closer to his face to inspect it. “So weird.”
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I rode closer to Melaina so I could hiss, “What the hell? I told you Qualmer killed his parents.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone would want to go around, posing at their parents’ murderer.
Melaina notched her chin regally high. “So what? It’s what the High Clifter deserves.” Then she lifted her voice so Indigo could hear her. “Because I’m still miffed at him for outright telling Corandra Graykey, of all people, that we were looking for her amulets. Seriously…” She cast him a telling glare. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking she’d know where her own jewelry might be more than anyone would,” he countered.
“And you thought she’d just hand them over to us?”
“To save her own great-whatever-granddaughter from succumbing to a curse that had been plaguing her family line for centuries?” he shot back. “I don’t know! Maybe. You’re the one who told me all those generous, sympathetic legends about her, making me think she might actually have a selfless, caring bone in her body. What could it hurt to ask her about them?”
“It could hurt if she didn’t want us to have them and then went to her own powerful lengths to purposely keep them from us, now that she knows we actually do want them. God. You’re so stupid. Because that’s exactly what she told us she didn’t want! And how dare you let the stories I told you sway your mind about her, you idiot? I told you she was the one who wrote them all.” Shaking her head, she hissed, “Fool.”
But Indigo wasn’t done arguing his case. “She knew who we were. She knew where to find us. She knew my mark had discovered Quilla as my mate. And she was riding with a goddamn soothsayer. If she hadn’t already realized we were looking for the fucking amulets, she was going to find out eventually. Why not just go ahead and ask about them?”
“Are you two going to wrap this argument up soon?” I asked as the looming chasm between the mountains came into view. “Because it’s about time to put our acting skills to the test.”
Indigo—still looking like Qualmer—whipped his head up and cursed under his breath.
“And you’re calling me foolish,” he hissed to Melaina as he swept out a hand toward the canyon pass, “as we’re walking right up to our certain death here. Jesus. I’m telling you right now, taking Quilla through that canyon and right past all those guards is not wise.”
“We shall see,” was all Melaina answered in a prim voice.
Indigo edged his horse unicorn alongside mine. “You have all your daggers at the ready, right?”
“I’m prepared for whatever might happen,” I said without even glancing his way.
“Good. And just remember—size, strength, speed. None of that matters when going up against an opponent. All you have to be is smarter than them. You can overcome anyone by out-thinking them.”
