Page 45 of Twin Crowns

“Clearly,” said Shen with great exasperation. “Rose, I can explain.”

Rose forced herself to remain calm even as her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. It was a misunderstanding—it had to be. “Please do,” she said curtly. “Who,exactly, is Wren?”

“Wren is your sister!” Tilda burst out. Her cheeks were bright red, and she was bouncing up and down with excitement. “She lives here in Ortha. Well... no, actually. I guess, technically, she—”

“Stop talking, Tilda!” snapped Shen.

Rose’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t think. She could barelybreathe.“Is that true?”

Shen winced. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—”

“You told me I could trust you.” Rose stumbled away from him. Of course she couldn’t trust a kidnapping bandit! How could she ever rule a kingdom if she let herself be so easily taken in by a thief with pretty words and a nice smile? She’d been a fool, a terrible fool. “You’ve been lying to me all this time!” Over his shoulder, more witches were drifting toward her. Suddenly, it all became too much. She couldn’t face them; she couldn’t face any of this....

Rose tore down the beach, away from Shen and his false words and the grinning red-haired girl, and all those witches swooping down on her like vultures. Ortha became a blur around her, streaks of browns and blues and gold blending together as she ran. She heard the whispers on the wind, glimpsed faces watching her as she flew past.

Witch, witch, witch.

There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. She would claw her way back up those cliffs if she had to. She had to get out of here. She lunged recklessly for the rocks, then froze in midair.

Rose screamed as a band of wind tightened around her waist, like a rope. She was tugged backward, toward Ortha. Toward the witches.

“Let me go!” She fought against the wind, but it only yanked her harder, until she landed with a thud on the sand. The strange pressuresnapped away as quickly as it had come, and Rose found herself blinking up into a fierce emerald gaze.

It belonged to a wiry old woman with creviced skin and short white hair. She wore a forest-green cloak, the silver clasp winking at her throat. “Forgive me, Rose, but I can’t have you leaving when you’ve only just arrived.”

The woman’s voice was deep and earthy, rippling with a power of its own. “My name is Banba,” she said as she extended a hand. “Perhaps you and I should take a walk.”

Rose glared at the woman’s hand. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Because I am your grandmother.” The old woman moved her fingers, and the wind tightened its grip around Rose. She was yanked, roughly, to her feet. “And I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter.”

17

Wren

The secret tunnel underneath the east tower made sneaking out of Anadawn Palace so much easier than sneaking in. This was fortuitous for Wren, who had a pressing, poison-related errand to run in Eshlinn. All she had to do was wait for nightfall, then enchant the guards outside her room, before slipping down the stairwell. Within minutes, she was winding her way through the firelit underbelly of the palace, following the river wind. She clambered out onto the banks of the Silvertongue and picked her way through the reeds. While a lone starcrest circled overhead, she skipped across the bridge and left the ivory palace staking the darkness behind her.

On the other side of the river, beyond the mill, the cobbled streets of Eshlinn shimmered in the moonlight. The smell of sweet smoke and ale wafted from taverns, accompanied by the distant trill of laughter. Wren slipped by unnoticed, the hood of her cloak casting her face in shadow.

She shuffled past the Howling Wolf inn as a red-faced man hollering obscenities was carted out, nose first. From there, she crossed the street, hurrying past the blacksmiths and then the wheelers, towhere the edge of town languished in darkness. But Wren’s memory was alight, and Eshlinn still matched the maps Banba had made her study, over and over. She counted six side streets before ducking down a narrow lane, where a single candle burned in a cloudy window.

The crooked sign above the door read:

ALVINA’SAPOTHECARY.

A bell tinkled as Wren pushed it open. “We’re closing,” came a woman’s voice, croaky with age. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Devil’s root.” Wren slammed three gold coins on the counter. It was littered with mason jars of dried herbs and dead insects. The shelves on the walls were just as cluttered, with hundreds of glass vessels winding up and out of view. “And then I’ll be gone.”

Alvina stepped out of the darkness. Her hair was long and raven-black, and her dark eyes were ancient. “Poison is forbidden,” she said carefully. “We do not sell it here.”

Wren dropped another three coins on the counter. “Yes, you do.”

The woman’s eyes flickered from the coins to the folds of Wren’s cloak, where Rose’s purse was concealed inside her bodice. “That’s a lot of coin for a girl so young.”

“Will it be enough?”

The silence lingered, the woman weighing the risk in her head. Then she drew back and swung a ladder across the shelves. She climbed it all the way to the top, where the jars were dusty and unreadable. The one she brought back to the counter was no bigger than a thimble, filled with a fine white powder. “It’s tasteless. Odorless. And quick.”

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