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People tended to ignore Carrick until they couldn’t, and then afterward, they tried to forget about him as quickly as possible. Sometimes they would say or do just about anything to make him go away. That had its advantages.
Carrick passed a squirrely page boy gnawing a thumbnail down to the quick as he walked, and grabbed him.
“Lady Lillian’s heaviest armored cart. Where is it?” he asked, standing a little too close.
“I don’t know—the carts are that way?” the boy replied with a desultory wave of his hand. He was trying to extract himself, but Carrick just smiled, unnerving the boy even more.
“What’s your name?” Carrick asked, friendly-like, sidling even closer.
“G-Gavin,” the boy stammered.
“Gavin, I’m in a lot of trouble if I don’t find our Witch’s biggest, heaviest cart. I’m supposed to already know where it is.” Carrick leaned over the boy, still smiling, and the boy leaned back, desperate now to get away.
“There is one she’s kept separate. Over that ridge, out of sight,” he said.
Carrick released him. “That’s the one. Thank you, Gavin. If there’s ever anything I can do for—”
But the boy scurried away, probably already trying to forget the encounter had ever happened.
Carrick mounted the ridge and dropped into a crouch behind a boulder. The cart that was housing the bomb would be guarded, of course. He’d have to kill the guards swiftly and without them ever really knowing what it was that was taking their lives, or Lillian would know, too. But Carrick had spent so long out in the wild with the Woven that he knew how to move like them, strike like them, and leave no trace. Except, of course, for the useless bomb he would leave behind. But no one would know about that until they tried to use it, and then it would be too late.
Carrick waited until dusk. He stayed crouched down until he was almost a part of the rock, like he was growing out of it, turning to stone. He stared at his hands. He’d just gotten them clean again.
Captain Leto strode confidently to the waiting greater drake, wearhyde riding clothes creaking, sliver epaulets flashing, and looking very much like a grizzled old Viking stepping forward to slay a dragon.
“You want to check the cinch around the drake’s neck before you climb up,” he instructed. He tugged on the leather straps that encircled the drake’s long, lowered neck. They didn’t budge. “Nice and tight,” Leto said approvingly. “Next, you see that the stirrups are the right length for you. Then, just grab hold of the pommel and swing yourself up.”
Leto mounted the drake and it squawked, shifting onto its thick hind legs and grasping the air with its smaller forelegs for a moment before settling back down. Lily took a reflexive step away and bumped into Rowan, who was standing right behind her. He steadied her and gave her a little push forward.
“And you wonder why I never learned to ride one,” he teased quietly in her ear.
“You never learned because you’re a big baby,” she whispered back. She felt him chuckle and elbowed herself away from his chest. “And since you never learned,” she continued accusingly, “I have to ride to the nearest speaking stone with Leto. You should feel horrible for abandoning me like this, you know.”
“Oh, I do,” he replied, grinning. The drake flapped its talon-spiked wings, irritated at being penned in by the huge spruce trees. “Just horrible.”
“It’s perfectly safe to come forward now, Lady Lily,” Captain Leto called.
“Ha,” Lily retorted.
“Leto is a good man,” Rowan admitted grudgingly. “He won’t let anything happen to you.”
Lily took a step toward it, and the drake squawked again. “It’s not Leto I’m worried about,” she grumbled.
“Who’s the big baby now?” Rowan said.
Lily forced herself to stride confidently to the drake, even if it did look like a giant dragon with red eyes. She swung herself up behind Leto and found that although the drake’s neck was wider than a horse’s, the feel of it wasn’t so different. The drake’s hide was warm, which surprised her. She was expecting it to feel cold, like a snake’s.
“Hold on tight,” Leto said needlessly.
The drake lurched under her as it clawed its way up the trunks of two of the surrounding trees. She could hear the wood crack as the drake scrabbled with alarming speed up above the canopy of evergreens. Then she felt an undulation in the drake’s neck and heard the billowing sound of a sheet snapping in the wind as the drake’s wings made the first massive downstroke. Her stomach swooped as if she’d left it behind on the rapidly diminishing ground. The wings churned on either side of her, jolting Lily up and down and back up again. Then the pounding stopped abruptly, and they were hanging in the sky as if caught on a hook. Lily felt weightless as they began to soar.
“It’s actually quite enjoyable once you get used to it,” Leto yelled over the whistling wind.
Lily allowed herself to relax and watch the scenery fan out around her. After what seemed like only a few more strokes of the drake’s wings, she saw the mountain peak they were headed for—Mount Mitchell in her world, the tallest peak in the Appalachian Mountains. Somewhere on top of it rested a speaking stone.
Leto had the drake bank, and it spun delicately on a wingtip. They circled the green peak, but the dense red spruce and Fraser firs made it impossible to see the ground. As they came around the hulking shape of the mountain, they saw that the eastern slope had fallen away, leaving sheer cliffs.
“There,” Lily said, pointing toward the top of the ridge. She’d seen a brief glimmer, like a mirror flashing.
