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There was no one outside, and no sign of Magda inside either. Swooping once more over the glass dome, Ana could only see Varradyn lying on his side, staring into a dying fire.
Ana landed, shifted, and stepped through the doors. Varradyn looked up with a half smile and propped himself onto an elbow.
“You’re late tonight,” he said, scooting into a seated position as she approached with bread, cheese, and ale. He loved the cheeses she’d brought in the past, so she tried to find something new for him to sample every time she visited. On one of her prior visits, he’d told her the only cheese they ever ate at the Rookery came from the midnight goats, served only on rare occasion, for the animals were sacred and had to give full consent to be milked.
“I had something else I needed to do first,” Ana said and lowered herself onto the fur beside him. He accepted his food and drink with a bitter but grateful grin. “I’ll tend the fire before I leave.” It was then she noticed the raw, angry flesh around his ankles. “Varradyn! What have you done to yourself?”
“It’s nothing,” Varradyn muttered. He tore a hunk off the loaf with his teeth, chewing with his mouth open. “Except more failure.”
Ana knelt near the pile of chains. Her hands fluttered above his mangled skin. “Why haven’t you healed yourself?”
Varradyn tilted his head toward the chains. “She’s bound my magic. Remember?”
The chains. “I’ll fix it.”
“To what point?” He shoved more bread in his mouth. “Not getting out of here anyway, am I?”
“You don’t know that,” Ana said quietly. Healing was the simplest of her magic, the first of her gifts she’d manifested as a girl, but it required as much focus, or more, as an illusion. “Be still. Please.”
Varradyn shook his head but complied. Ana closed her eyes and imagined his ankle whole. The soft, untouched flesh farther up his leg... spreading down and closing over the raw, exposed meat that would be infected soon if she didn’t—
“Focus,” she whispered.
“Don’t fuss yourself, Ana.”
His flesh was moving again, inching slowly closer to the wounds. Just as she’d imagined it, the fresh skin folded over the wound and closed it for a smooth finish. No evidence, nor scarring. No one would ever know he’d nearly torn the flesh from his feet altogether.
But he’d do it again. And again. Until he either succeeded or killed himself in the doing.
Time was not on their side, but only Magda understood how fast or slow the hourglass emptied.
“Shehasn’t been by today.” Varradyn’s lower lip jutted in impressed appraisal of her work. “Or yesterday.”
Ana sat back to catch her breath. “What has she said to you lately? When she does come?”
“I told you before. She never says a damn thing to me.” Varradyn tilted his head back and washed the dry bread down with some ale. His cheeks puffed with a sour look. “This is disgusting.”
“I’ll go back to bringing wine next time.” Ana folded her hands and stared at the fur. She didn’t know how to ask the question, and she was even less sure he would answer truthfully. “Varradyn, I—”
“Doyoudrink it?” he asked, forcing down another sip. He winced.
“Sometimes,” she said, eager to get back to her question. “But I was raised on it. I don’t know any different.”
“Disgusting,” he said again but drank more. “We make our own wine in the mountains. You’d probably find it off-putting, bitter, but we all like it.”
“Look, I need to ask you something.”
Varradyn’s eyes rolled in bliss as he rolled a bite of cheese around in his mouth. His robe slipped off one shoulder. “I’ve already told you everything. When the witch bothers to show up at all, she just burns me with those dead eyes of hers.”
Magda revealing her true form to Varradyn was the most certain indication of his fate Ana could imagine. “That’s not what I want to ask you.” Ana threaded her hands together. “You’re not the first Ravenwood to disappear.”
Varradyn chewed with his mouth open. “That’s not a question.”
Ana nodded. “But I wondered what your people think of it.”
He snorted. “You want to know what we ‘think’ about our people disappearing and never returning home?”
“I want to know what the Ravenwoods believe is happening to them when they go missing.”
