by Sara Holland
After a while, Stef puts down her tools. Open powder compacts and tubes of paint litter the table. Stef tugs on a lock of my hair, watching as the red-brown curl springs back up. Her eyes suddenly brighten, and she goes into that case again and brings out another mysterious bottle. She dips a comb in—it smells like roses—and when she runs the comb through my hair, it makes the strands fall straight and shining.
She pulls a small mirror from the velvet case and turns it toward me. “Different enough for you?”
My mouth drops open in surprise. I take the mirror from her so I can look more closely.
There is nothing drastically different in my face, but somehow I just look different. Older. My cheekbones and brow are more pronounced, while the hollows in my cheeks and under my eyes have been filled in. This girl that didn’t spend her afternoon splashing around in a river, or hiding from a huntsman. My lips are red and full. I look twenty-five years old, flush with blood-iron, strange and sleek and new.
Liam would be furious if he knew what I was considering, but something in me wishes that he could see me like this. That we were really just students, and on any given night we could slip out and go dancing. Even though I know that’s not possible, I can’t help but want to grasp at it.
“That is impressive,” Elias admits. He meets my eyes. “Jules, I’m not your keeper. If you want to go to the party, we can go.”
My heart beats fast. “I want to.”
Stef leads Elias and me across the darkened campus, a noticeable bounce in her step. Though it must be late by now, there are still people about—trailing toward the dormitories from the building Elias points out as the library, or drifting in groups along the paths, their laughter rising into the night. My skin prickles, but just as Stef promised, no one pays us any mind. She leads us to one of the dormitories; once inside, we descend a set of stairs until we come out in a dark, stone-walled tunnel.
I laugh nervously. “Where have you taken me?”
“It’s all right, Jules.” This time it’s Elias who speaks. “There are tunnels all over beneath the school. They were meant to help people get around in the winter, but now we mostly use them for other reasons.” He smiles, the torchlight from the walls shining off his white teeth. And sure enough, when I listen, I can hear voices somewhere off down the tunnel, music, laughter. Stef trots off in their direction, and Elias and I follow, until we come out into a larger space where several tunnels meet.
It’s filled with students who’ve shed their scholars’ robes and now mill around in dresses and waistcoats. A long table against one wall bears an array of bottles, ale and wine and madel, and two girls in one corner saw out a song on a fiddle and drum, and people circle them, calling out the names of the songs they want played—“The Queen’s Guard”; “An Hour for Love.” People greet each other, laughing and embracing.
The music reverberates off the walls, folding in on itself, and people sway to the beat, bodies pressed together. Nothing like the genteel beauty of the ball at Ina’s coronation or even the madel bar in Laista, it’s loud and dark and close and exhilarating. In the dim light it’s hard to make out the details of faces, too loud to hear any one specific voice. Slowly, I feel my muscles loosen.
It was reckless of me to come here, I know that, but the noise drives all the fear to the edges of my mind. Stef wasn’t wrong earlier. Who would think to look for Jules Ember here?
Elias turns to the table and then back, a drink materialized in his hands. He passes it to me, red wine in an old tin cup, and I take a sip, feeling the warmth flow through me. It’s too loud to really talk, so instead we stand with our backs toward the wall, watching the crowd. I haven’t the faintest idea how to dance, but I want to, as if the music is a magnetic force pulling my body forward.
I resist it, staying close to Elias’s side. My eyes land on Stef in the crowd. Lamplight gleams on her brown skin as she dances close with a beautiful blond-haired girl, their feet moving fast in a complicated pattern I can’t quite follow. She throws a glance at me over her shoulder and winks, and I feel a grin rise to my mouth.
Here, deep underground where no one knows my name or my face, I can almost pretend that I’ll be someone else when I resurface. Not the Alchemist, not even Jules Ember. As if I could transform into a girl just like any other at this party, and when I emerge into the moonlight, it will be to a safe bed and an unbroken roof over my head. A home, a past and a future not swimming in blood, not written in a language that I cannot speak.
After the song winds down, Stef reappears at our side. The blond girl is at her elbow, and behind them are three other students, their eyes on Stef.
“Do your magic!” one of them urges her, laughing. “Summon the Sorceress to bless this party!”
My heart thuds in my chest. I’m careful not to react, though I feel Elias tense beside me at their shouts.
“Wine! Someone get me a pitcher of mulled wine,” Stef calls. The blond girl spins away and returns with a wooden pitcher, steam curling from its top. She presses it into Stef’s hands.
“Gather round,” Stef says dramatically. The students cluster around us, the shoulders of strangers pressing against mine. I haven’t been around so many people since the kitchen at Everless, and it’s terrifying and comforting all at once.
Stef holds a week-coin in her hand, gleaming bronze in the low light, and there’s a soft hiss as it slides from her palm into the wine. I force myself to smile along with everyone else, though my heart is still pounding. Next Stef opens her other hand to reveal a collection of small objects—ice holly, I realize as I look closer, with its strange dark berries, its silvery leaves. A chill trickles down my spine as I remember what Caro told me, that ice holly grew in the places where the Sorceress once walked. I can’t go an hour, it seems, without a reminder of her.
Stef squeezes her fist shut, then opens it over the goblet, dropping the silver and blue bits into the wine just like she did with my blood regression. The smell that wafts from the pitcher now is strange, metallic and intoxicating all at once, and I find myself leaning forward along with the others to see what will happen.
“Ice holly and blood-iron together,” Stef intones in a deep, singsongy voice. “The powers of the Alchemist and Sorceress, combined.”
I suck in my breath, then have to quickly disguise it as a cough when a curly-haired boy turns to stare at me. It’s been so long since I’ve spent time with friends, I have no idea if Stef is purposefully teasing me. I glare at Stef, willing her to feel the heat of my gaze, though she has her eyes closed now and is muttering over the wine in some approximation of ancient Semperan. My fingers dig into Elias’s arm without my meaning them to. “What is she doing?”
Elias rolls his eyes. “Nothing. Ice holly sweetens the taste of cheap wine. She does this every party to scare the new students. It’s all in good fun.”
My laugh rings false in my own ears. I slip my hand into Elias’s elbow and tug him away, toward the crowd of dancers in the center. The instrumentalists have started up another tune, fast and light and sweet, and the movements don’t seem so complicated anymore now that there’s a bit of drink in me. Elias takes my hands and spins me around and around. When the crowds part, I glimpse Stef across the room, sipping the steaming wine, still holding court over her unbelieving followers. I wave in her direction until she raises her head, pausing whatever trick she’s in the midst of.
By now Elias is dancing with a group, and he doesn’t notice me slip away, making my way over to Stef. My blood feels warm, my heart light. Stef is in a similar place, judging by the pink tinge of her cheeks, her bright glittering eyes as she waves her hands in a complicated dance, cutting up the smoke now rising from her cup. A strange mix of jealousy and sadness rises in me as the people around her laugh along with her movements—her magic is just one more amusement in a night full of them, something to gawk at in between madel and dances.
I break into the circle, grabbing Stef’s arm. “I need some air,” I almost shou
t in her ear. The party has gotten louder in the hour since we’ve arrived, more crowded. “Come with me?”
Stef looks over in annoyance, but her eyes widen when she sees it’s me. She glances over a shoulder, dropping a wink at the blond girl. “I’ll be just a moment. Don’t miss me too much.”
Once she’s packed her things away—shoving the remaining ice holly into a hidden pocket inside her shirt—I lead her a little way down one of the branching tunnels, laughing as we hurry past a couple entwined in a deep embrace. Once we’re past them and out of sight, Stef slows and sinks down against the wall, swiping the back of her hand across her brow. The music and noise of the party floats down the tunnel to us, but here it’s quieter and peaceful. I sit down next to Stef, grateful for the chance to catch my breath.
“Did you find anything interesting in my journal?” I ask her, emboldened by the drink.
She shrugs. “I didn’t read it.”
My brows knit together in confusion. Stef sees this and laughs.
“I just wanted to mess with Liam Gerling.” The last two words fall from her lips dripping with scorn.
“Why don’t you like him?” I ask without thinking. Then I hear my own words and trip over myself to add qualifications. “I mean, I understand. I didn’t either. Until recently.”
Stef watches me, a small, knowing smile tugging at her mouth.
Red creeps into my face and I look down at my hands. “Aren’t you from the five families too?”
“Not officially. But I take your point.” She sighs, tips her head back. Soft music floats into the silence, notes falling around us like gentle rain. “It’s just, I thought if I ever met the Alchemist, my mother would be beside me.”
I glance back in the direction of the party, the crowd. “Is this really what you want out of your life? Little tricks and secrets that no one around you will ever understand?”
Stef laughs, but there’s a bit of an edge in it. “As it happens, I like my little secrets,” she shoots back. “I hope you didn’t mind that business with the Alchemist and Sorceress and the ice holly. It’s habit at this point.” She gives me a rueful smile. “I forgot that I had distinguished company tonight.”
“It’s all right,” I say automatically. And it is. Perhaps I should feel more protective of my history, but I feel a sense of kinship with this bitter, laughing witch. “Who knows,” I add, trying to sound offhand and not longing. “Maybe the ice holly could have unlocked something in me.”
Stef looks at me sidelong. “I wasn’t lying earlier, Jules. I don’t know how else to help you. I’m sorry. But I thought of someone else who might be able to.”
“Oh?” My heart picks up. “Who?”
“My cousin Joeb. He’s the son of one of the most powerful hedge witches in our family, Althea. She died recently under . . . mysterious circumstances.”
My stomach clenches. “What circumstances?”
“It looked like she’d died of old age, run out of time, but we knew she had plenty of blood-iron stored up. And a relative said that some things were missing from her home, old letters, relics.”
Caro, I think darkly. Reality comes crashing down on me, driving out the sounds of the lighthearted joy filtering down the dark hallway. “I’m sorry.”
Stef shrugs, the motion small and controlled, and I know she’s acting casual for my sake. How many times have I done the same thing?
“We weren’t close,” she says. “Althea and Joeb were eccentric, even more than the rest of us.” She looks down. “But needless to stay, it’s made everyone nervous.”
“Is Joeb a witch too?”
Stef shakes her head. “Not that I know of. But he keeps records of our family’s history, all the way back to the time of the Alchemist and the Sorceress. If you can get on his good side, he might share them with you. Plus, it’s rumored that he collects and trades artifacts—most are fake poultices and charms, but he might know something about your weapon.”
I laugh. “Trust me, I need all the possibilities I can get.”
She smiles crookedly at me. “I’m glad you’re here, Jules.” She pulls something from an inner pocket of her robe and holds it out toward me, tilting her palm toward the torchlight. At first, I think she has more ice holly, but no—it’s a small, smooth, polished gray stone, carved roughly in the shape of a face.
“My mother gave this to me,” Stef says, placing it in my hands. It’s cool, cold really, despite having been in her pocket. “She said it was a token, meant to remind you that evil doesn’t always wear the face you expect. It’s kept me safe.” She blushes, casts her eyes down. “Anyway, show it to Joeb when you meet him, and he’ll know family sent you.”
While she gives me directions to Joeb’s cottage, I look at the little thing in my hand, trying to keep my confusion off my face. It’s the simplest of carvings, just a slight ridge for a nose and indentations for eyes and a mouth, like the stone statue of the Sorceress Papa kept on our windowsill.
A loud noise from the direction of the party makes us both freeze—a few shouts, rising above the general hum, and the next moment the music falters, quiet rippling out. I’m on my feet before I can think, dropping the stone into my pocket and drawing my knife. Stef stands too. We exchange worried glances, and then Stef is off, striding back down the tunnel. I hurry after her, not wanting to be left alone here.
The music has stopped and the room is mostly quieted by the time we get back. Almost everyone stands in a huddle at the center of the room, their backs to us, a murmur of voices blocking out whatever’s going on inside. Stef barges forward, throwing elbows to get through, me slipping along in her wake.
And then I see what’s captured everyone’s attention, who is at the center of the circle.
Liam is here, and when I step into the circle his eyes draw to mine, flashing from cold to livid. Heat radiating off him in waves, he leads me out of the archway, into the tunnels.
“You’re acting ridiculous, Liam,” I whisper as harshly as I can, though I know that’s not true.
Elias lingers in our wake, casually waving good-bye to the partygoers throwing us curious glances. When we’re far enough down the dark hall, Liam slows us to a halt and turns to face me. Even though he’s angry—fuming, by the rise and fall of his chest—the sight of him brings relief.
“You’re safe,” I whisper without meaning to.
“Yes. The Huntsman was called away just as we came down to dinner, to conduct a sweep of the dormitories.” His eyes flicker. “We need to leave. I shouldn’t have let you and Elias convince me of anything different. Do you have your things?”
I grip the strap of my bag, feel the weight of the journal sitting there. “Yes, and I have an idea of where to go next. Stef told me about a hedge witch, a distant relation of hers named Althea. She died recently under mysterious circumstances.” I shiver. “Maybe it was Caro’s doing.”
Liam glowers. “Jules, we have to leave Sempera, not just Bellwood.”
“What about Althea?”
“A bleeder probably got her,” Liam says.
It’s been so long since I’ve lived a normal life with Papa that it feels almost comforting to be reminded of Sempera’s nonmagical threats. Bleeders, the people who stalk the woods and towns, cutting down people for their time. “No, not a bleeder. She had her time pulled from her. Her son is still alive, we—”
“It’s not worth an hour-coin.”
My stomach curls at the expression, only used by nobles, to whom an hour is worth nothing. “You’re wrong. It’s Caro. It must be Caro.” My mind starts to race. Why else would she target someone who’s a stranger to me, and not someone I loved, or who was connected to me? “She’s killed anyone who’s been an ally to me. Althea’s son has his mother’s collected papers. Maybe he knows something—about the weapon, or about the river that runs red. And there must be a reason Caro did this.”
“A reason?” Liam’s words are suddenly scalding. “You should know that Caro doesn’t need a reason t
o murder. If it was her, she was probably just bored.”
I open my mouth to point out that I know Caro better than he does, but my voice dies as Roan’s face flashes behind my eyes. She killed him to break my heart, though she failed. Then, I remember another face—the Queen’s, tipped back and horribly blank, blood flecked over her lips and teeth. Had she earned her death at Caro’s hands?
A small strangled noise escapes Liam. Before I can stop him, he slides his hands up my arms, pulling me slightly closer to him. I can feel him shaking.
“Listen to me,” he says, voice raw and aching and desperate. “More soldiers will be flooding into Bellwood tomorrow—they’re searching everywhere. It’s not safe here. Not anywhere in Sempera. I’ve arranged a room for us at a local inn, the Green Hour. We’ll stay there tonight, then go with Elias in the morning, and get to Connemor as quickly as we can.”
For a brief second, I want to say yes, to take his hand and lead him away to some distant shore. The room is already small and cramped with desks. Too cramped for the charge growing between us, the frustrated scream swirling in my throat. Only it’s not a scream—it’s a question, fully formed and blinding.
Do you love me?
I shove Liam away as hard as I can. “I’m not leaving with you.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” he responds. In a single second, his eyes freeze over, shadow changed into ice. I recognize the cruel slash of his mouth—and all at once, I know that he’s planning to take me away, even if it’s against my will, just like he dragged me away at Everless.
But it’s not his choice to make.
I back away quickly, throw my hands up to stop his movement. In the distance, Elias is striding out the door. Neither of them can stop the bubble of time that barrels out from my open palms, the invisible bonds that freeze them in place.
