Page 85 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

“Welcome Arms. I suppose it figures.” Liir came up behind to look. As Trism stretched, the shirttail lifted above his shapely rear. Liir reached out and settled his hands there, to support Trism should he fall, for the ledge was shallow and Trism’s balance precarious. Trism made a sound in his throat.

He managed to dislodge the first volute of brocade an inch or two, and a colony of blue moths, the size of penny blossoms just going by, issued forth and settled upon them both. A thousand pinches without fingers.

The brocade shifted some more. The drapes were cut from an old tapestry design. Once pink and yellow and rose, it was now the color of dirt and ash, but the ravaged faces of society charmers still peered out through threaded expressions. Moths are the death of brocade potentates and hostesses, pavilions and rose arbors and islands in some impossible sea. Moths eat such faces alive. The faces of living humans they merely explore, and the peninsulas of their forearms, and the promontories of their breastbones, and the shallows of their tympanic chests, which when heard close up thunder too loudly for moths to notice.

“Right,” whispered Trism hoarsely.

“Come on,” Liir answered. “We have to be quiet. Maybe these soldiers aren’t looking for us. Maybe she’s too drunk to remember we’re here. There’s no way out, anyway. Not till they’re asleep, at least.”

“We could jump out the window into the river.”

“Too late for that; we’ve already jumped. Anyway, I’m going to jump you now. Come on, to bed. It’s just the next part of history, right? If we’re going to be found, we might as well be found out.”

10

DESPITE THEIR EXHAUSTION, they hardly slept. They clung to each other, making the least possible noise, and when it got too much to bear they buried their faces in pillows. Spent, at least briefly, they dozed, and Liir’s last thought was: sleeping with the talent. A dragon mesmerist, of all things—what magic a body is—all that you couldn’t know about the world packed up tightly in the flesh lying on your breast.

All the things Ansonby and Burny had known about—not about girls, but about people—how they felt when they were closer than clothes could ever be. How secret, still: how still, and secret. But a connection nonetheless, dared and decided: a new way of knowing, new burning letters falling through the air—and the words that could be spelled weren’t all disastrous.

At last, in the deadest part of the night, they crept back into their clothes and braved the staircase. From the larder they nicked a hock of ham, and from the pasture by the river’s edge they nicked two horses. Trism’s way with dragons, it seemed, had suggested to him a language for comforting horses, too.

They led the horses away by the river’s edge, where the noise of the water would afford the best cover. A mile out, Trism showed Liir how to climb into the saddle. Liir had never ridden before. “I’m not sure tonight’s the best night for this lesson,” he said. “Ow.”

“It’s the next part of history. Now, where are we going?”

“Are we going together?”

“We seem to be. For now, anyway.”

Liir shrugged. “We’ve got to cross the Gillikin River and keep Kellswater on our right. South through the oakhair forest.” As far as Apple Press Farm, he thought, but he didn’t want to say that yet.

“I don’t know these parts, but if we’re crossing the river, let’s not wait for a bridge. We’ll ford it here where we can, and confound the soldiers if they come looking for their rides.”

The moon was nearly down, but there was enough light for the horses to pick their way safely across the water. They gained the far bank, which rose to a prominence. Looking back, the fellows could see the Welcome Arms they’d abandoned. From here, with its smaller second story, it looked like a lopsided old boot.

“The Boot of the Apostle,” said Liir.

“The Apostle only wears sandals, to judge by the graphics advertising that exhibit. That Apostle Muscle exhibit.”

They rode till dawn, though at a safely slow pace, keeping to well-worn tracks. Gradually the sky lightened, cheerless and without bold character, the look of molasses dissolving in milk. They hoped a wind would arise to shift the scratchy snow and cloak their tracks, but it didn’t.

By the time they could see their own breath in the cold dawn, they had reached the edge of the Shale Shallows. They could begin to move faster. They were now apparent to each other again, though in the daylight it was harder to meet one another’s eyes. They didn’t talk much.

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Siege

1

SISTER APOTHECAIRE WAS drying her hair with a towel when Sister Doctor rushed into the ablutory. “He’s back,” she said.

Sister Apothecaire did not need to ask who he was. “With the girl?”

“No. With a boy. Well, a young man, I mean.”

“Do up my veil snap, will you, Sister? I’m hurrying.”

Along the stairs, they met Sister Cook. “Famished the both, malnourished the one, perhaps, though I’m not a doctor, being only the cook,” she reported. “They’re both deeply into their third helping of sausage and beans. The Superior Maunt is waiting in her chamber.”

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