Page 73 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

As she prodded, and because it made a distraction if nothing else, he told her about the Conference of the Birds and the charge under which he was laboring—or had so labored, up until this morning upon his return—to find his broom.

She had always seemed unshaken by the notion of flying dragons. When he asked why, she told him that she’d heard rumors of such creatures a few years back. They were involved in an action in the provincial capital.

“Qhoyre,” he filled in. “It figures.”

“If there were going to be troubles, you’d expect them in Qhoyre,” she concurred. “It began as a tax revolt or something. The garrison of the Emerald City military was stormed by Quadlings, and more or less annihilated.”

“I don’t

believe you can be more or less annihilated. You either are or you aren’t.” He thought of the suave, genteel Commander Cherrystone, and hoped that he had been one of the ones who had been killed.

“Don’t look to me for accuracy. I’m a simple soul. I’m merely telling you what I heard my uncle say. Some of the reasons we left.” Candle continued. It was calming for both of them to avoid the matter of her pregnancy. “He said that the Emerald City flared up in reprisal. Overreacted. A small fleet of flying dragons was unleashed against the Quadlings at Qhoyre. It was pretty terrible. There were only a few survivors, and who could trust what those poor traumatized loons said? Flying dragons? Quadlings are so superstitious. No one knew what to believe—so let’s get out of here, said my uncle.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “So I’m not surprised that it has turned out to have been true.”

He put his head in his hands. The other fellows in his squadron. Had any of them survived? Ansonby, Kipper, Somes? Burny, Mibble? The one they called Fathead? Or what about their girlfriends—were they tarred as collaborators?

It wasn’t just the girl slung from the burning bridge—it was all of them. Her parents, their neighbors, the countryfolk. The occupying forces, the officers and the infantry, the support teams, the ambassadors. The repercussions seemed endless and only to grow in force and significance, never to recede.

Candle saw his expression. She took his hand, and he had to work hard not to snatch it away.

“Remember why you went to the Conference,” she said. “Before you save anyone else, you have to save yourself, Liir. Otherwise you’re just a bundle of tics, a stringed puppet manipulated by chance and the insensible wind.”

“I will stay here, whether you’ve been sleeping round the countryside or not. We are called to be as limbs of God,” he said.

“That piety curdles on your tongue, and you know it. If you don’t rescue yourself, Liir, you might just as easily be a limb of evil.”

“One has to admit one’s destiny.”

“Naming your destiny the will of the Unnamed God doesn’t make it so. And self-glorifying, besides.”

They lay down in the same bed that they had shared before. Neither of them slept, though not this time from being racked with desire.

2

THEY AROSE WHEN IT was still dark, besting the cock at his own business.

Tea in a cup with a crack in the glaze; small beads of tea lined up vertically. He stared at it, wishing to learn a new language.

“Whom will you choose to save?” said Candle, when the sun made an effort to lighten the room. “I am not that girl, you know. That Quadling girl you saw pitched into the burning river. You cannot make me her by beggaring yourself for my needs. You can’t choose me in that girl’s place.”

“Maybe I can’t save anyone,” he said. “Since Elphaba died, how many times have I set out to try? There was Nor, who was in prison. There was Princess Nastoya, in medical extremis. I make no headway in either direction. Even some miserable boy I saw on a road, whose granny was willing to sell him in exchange for my broom—I just walked on by. Why should I be beholden to those Birds? Find the old broom! Speak out danger to the world! I’m not a spokesperson for myself; how could I be for them?”

“You can do what you choose to do. You’re hardly on death’s door,” she reminded him. “I mean, not anymore.”

“And you’d have me believe that I have lost my virginity, and I don’t even remember it. Life in a coma. Well, it figures. It’s consistent, isn’t it? I’ll give you credit for that: you’ve read me correctly.”

“You owe me nothing.” Candle stood up and put her hands on the small of her back. “There is enough food and firewood here to see me through my months. It’ll be spring before the baby comes. The goat will provide backup milk if I run dry. Or I’ll take myself back to the mauntery for the final lying-in. The maunts will know what to do. It’s not the first time the maunts have seen such.”

“If I owe you nothing,” he said, “no one owes anyone a thing.”

“Maybe no one does.”

“Except the Unnamed God.”

“Maybe we don’t owe the Unnamed God anything,” she said. “Maybe not allegiance, maybe not gratitude, maybe not praise, maybe not attention. Maybe the Unnamed God owes us.”

He sputtered at her impiety, but she looked queasy: a touch of morning sickness upon her, no doubt. She hurried away to take care of it in private. The yard outside the house was rimy with hoarfrost, and the new sun shone upon it harshly. He had to squint to watch her cast herself away from him.

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