An empty fireplace sat against one wall, but it sprang to life as the master spelled a burning blaze into existence. A yellow and lavender settee perched in the corner, a contrast to the bare, rough-hewn walls surrounding it. The other side of the cottage contained a kitchen area with a round table for sitting, a sink, and a heavy worktable bearing a kettle, a few wooden bowls, and some colored pottery.
I shivered, and my eyes swung back to the fire. Then I stopped, staring at the tapestry hanging along the back wall, embroidered with various shades of green. Light shimmered and flickered from behind it.
“Y-you have a w-w-wizard door?” I demanded, my voice holding as much outrage as a voice could when the speaker still couldn’t feel their lips.
The master looked up from the fire he had woven. “I have no interest in traipsing through the woods for hours to get here.” His glance at me carried the barest hint of amusement. He was laughing at me. Laughing at how I’ve been near to freezing to death for the past few hours.
“B-but why—”
“Only a handful of people know the door exists.” His tone made it clear I was not one of those people. “This is where I come for solitude. That wouldn’t work if I made it easy for people to get here.”
I swallowed my indignation and reminded myself I had a higher purpose in being here—and it wasn’t to rage at the master. I pushed past him to get nearer the fire. “You W-Wendyns are the m-most exasperating people—” I trailed off as the warmth from the blaze sank into me. It felt so heavenly that for a moment I stood there, letting the heat thaw me, my eyes closed.
“I’ll assume Grandfather’s not back yet.”
His voice was so close it surprised me. My eyes popped open, and he was standing to one side of me, looking down at me with those inscrutable dark eyes.
“What makes you say that?”
He reached for the scrying stick, which I still held. “He rarely lends these out. I can only conclude you took it without asking. Here, let’s have it.”
I let him twist it out of my hand, glad to free up my icy fingers. “It was an emergency. I didn’t know how else to find you.”
He raised an eyebrow as he examined the scrying stick. “Grandfather will be furious if you damaged Forthwind.”
“I don’t think that’s Forthwind. And anyway, didn’t you hear me?” I stuttered in a voice that sounded shrill to my ears. “It’s an emergency.”
He slipped past me to lay the stick on the table. “You could be right. I can’t tell the difference between any of his sticks. And yes, I heard you,” he tossed over his shoulder as he continued toward the kitchen area. “Has anyone died?”
“No, but—”
“Is anyone close to dying?”
“Well...not yet.”
“Is my family at the Hall?”
I paused and then answered, “Sort of.”
He gave a snort as he set about pulling two mugs from a shelf and then filled them from the kettle. “That explains it. Definitely not going back there, then.”
I should have argued more and made him listen, but instead, I closed my eyes and leaned into the warmth of the fire, letting it thaw the last remnants of cold out of me. I’d argue in a minute.
“Look, this is all very interesting, but let’s get on to the real reason you’re here, with none of the false drama,” Master Wendyn said from across the room.
My eyes flashed open. “What do you mean?”
He approached, two mugs in hand, and extended one toward me. “Do you think I’m a fool? You expect me to believe you hiked all the way out here because of some benevolent wish to save my family from some ambiguous danger? I know why you’re here, Mullins. You want me back as your master.”
I blinked in surprise. “There’s nothing wrong with your ego, is there.”
“Fine then.” His tone turned mocking. “My family’s in danger. Well, go on then. Tell me about the danger.” He gestured with the mug again, which I had yet to take. “And drink this while you’re at it. You’ll need the warmth when you walk back through all that snow to the Hall.”
I took the mug and resisted the urge to fling the drink in his self-satisfied face. Instead I took a sip of the steaming brown liquid, which had a nutty, sweet flavor. Warmth coursed through me. I looked up at the master.
“What runs in your veins, Master Wendyn?”
His brow furrowed. “Blood, obviously.”
At the word blood, the tether stirred in my chest, as though waiting to spring. “And what is it you and I have sworn between the two of us?”
He scowled. “Look, Mullins, if you’ve dropped in on my solitude to play some childish guessing game—”
I held up one hand. “It’s not a game. I swear.”
“Oh, you swear. Your promises don’t mean much, though, do they?”
“Please. Just bear with me a little longer. What have we sworn?”
For a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer, but at last he did. “An apprentice oath, of course.”
“Just one more question now. Your friend, the one you suspected me of having an—an improper relationship with.” With the fall of dark, shadows crowded the edges of the master’s face, so that I couldn’t read his expression.
“What about him?”
“There is something—” I began, and I felt it coming, the swoon of forgetfulness. I cut myself off before it could hit me. The feeling subsided. “There is...something,” I said again. “To those three things I said. Something to think about.”
There. It was vague, but the forgetfulness hadn’t come. That, too, was something.
The master stared at me and took a sip from his own mug. Then he turned, walked back toward the round kitchen table, and placed his mug on it. “Mullins,” he said without turning. “I’m tired of your games. All you need to know is that I’m not taking you back. I will never take you back.” He turned to look at me. “I think it’s time you left.”
“The three questions. Think about those three questions,” I said, gritting my teeth and wondering if I had the patience for this.
He made a noise of impatience and then raised a hand, three fingers out. “Very well.” He ticked them off. “We two swore an oath, you’ve been having an affair with Kurke, and I have blood running in my veins. How enlightening. You forgot number four: you’re desperate to keep your master.”
“I didn’t have an affair with Kurke, and you’ve got the order wrong,” I snapped. “Besides, why should I want you back as my master? How desperate do you think I am? You’re incapable of trust, and more often than not, you’re in a foul mood. Are you under the mistaken impression that there’s a line of underwizards hoping you’ll deign to become their master? There’s not.”
His back had gone stiff. “And that’s what you came to say?”
“Of course not, you bumblehead!” I bellowed. “I came to tell you that Kurke fo—”
I meant to say forced me to swear, but instead I blinked, my head swimming. Master Wendyn stood a few paces off, glaring at me. I couldn’t remember why. I couldn’t even remember what we were talking about—if we were talking about anything at all.
“Very well, out with it if it’s so important to you to say it,” he growled. “Kurke what?”
My mouth opened. “I...don’t remember.”
“But you—” The anger on his face evaporated, and he stood in front of me in four strides, his hands gripping my upper arms, dragging me closer to peer into my face. “Mullins, have you sworn something with Matt? An oath?”
Hope rushed through me, and the tether gave a yank in my chest. “Ye—”
Again I blinked. A dull pain thumped at the base of my head. Master Wendyn had me by the arms, peering into my face so I had to stand on the tips of my toes.
“God’s ghost,” he said and released me.
***
I blinked, trying to clear the fog in my head.
“You’ve sworn a blood oath.” The master’s face had gone ashy as snow. He staggered
backward, latching onto a chair with one hand for support. “Just how big a fool are you?”
Ah, now I understood—at least a little, anyway. “I’m a fool? I didn’t have a ch—” I blinked and wondered what I was saying. The master stood a few steps in front of me, leaning on the back of a chair pushed up against the meal table. He looked as though he might collapse with the weight of some heavy thing.
What had I been saying? I exhaled, breath leaking out of me in a stream of long, slow confusion. It took words with it, things I meant to say.
He wiped an arm across his forehead, his fine sleeves dragging across pallid skin. “Choice? Is that what you were going to say? How could you not have had a choice?”
The room felt like a spinning top, and his confusing words didn’t help matters at all. “A choice about what?”
He shook his head and muttered something about this oath being a thorn in his heel. “I’m speaking of you and Matt. Does the oath you swore have anything to do with the romantic involvement you keep denying?” He raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps Matt discovered your gender and swore an oath to protect your secret? It’s more chivalrous than I give him credit for, but maybe for the sake of true love...”
“For the last time, there's no romance. Never in a million years would I even consider it. Friar’s bones, I’d fall for you before I’d look twice at that slimy eel!”
With a thump from the chair—two legs meeting floor—Master Wendyn straightened. A tinge of color had crept back into his face. “Why would Matt have become involved in blood magic, anyway? Under duress, perhaps? And what did you swear? And if he needed help, why didn’t he come to me or Grandfather?”
I held up my hands. “Give me a chance to answer, will you?”
“Fine, answer. Start at the beginning. And leave nothing out.”
Which, from what I could remember, was what I’d been trying to do. “All right. You want to know if he was under duress? Not even a lit—”
My voice stuttered to a halt. What was I saying? I stared at my hands, held before me, two strangers whose actions I didn’t recognize or understand. After a moment of silent consideration, I dropped them to my sides.
Master Wendyn rubbed at his forehead. “This is getting ridiculous.”
“What is?” I rubbed at my head too, near the back. A dull pain had commenced near the base of my skull.
He shook his head. “We have to figure out a way to talk about this without you getting all forgetful every other sentence.”
Oh. It had happened again. “This would be so much easier if you knew the spell Oscar used.”
His gaze shot up to meet mine. “Grandfather? Used a spell? What are you talking about?”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that. Now he’d ask questions, and I couldn’t afford for him to find out the state I left Oscar in.
Maybe I could skirt the truth.
“Oscar knows a spell that makes it possible for me to speak of the—” But I could feel it this time, the cloud of forgetfulness waiting to descend on my thoughts, and I stopped myself short of speaking the words that would bring it on. “It makes it possible for me to speak of...what we’re speaking of. Without the side effects, understand.”
“Grandfather knows about all this? The oath and everything else?”
“Yes.”
“So he is back. And, what, he sent you out here?”
“Something like that.”
He folded his arms. “Was it something like that, or was it that?”
I scratched my nose. “The details aren’t important.” And then, because I couldn’t think of any other way to distract him, I asked, “Have you heard about the deaths in Hutterland?”
His eyes narrowed at the change of subject. “What deaths?”
“Forty-two.” It took only a moment for me to explain the things Oscar told me a few hours ago.
The master’s face went grim again. “Matt had a part in something as heinous as that?”
I shook my head. “Not a part. He had the only role.”
He eyed me. Then all at once he straightened from the chair he leaned on and gave it a swift kick in the leg. It crashed into the table and teetered sideways, clattering against the wooden-planked floor. He paced the length of the room and then swung around before the rough-hewn timber of the south window. “There’s still something I don’t understand. What you’ve sworn. It wasn’t to kill all those people in Hutterland, or else you wouldn’t be able to speak of it. Just what did you swear then?”
It would be useless to try and force the words out, but then again—shouldn’t I at least try? I opened my mouth. “It has to do with O—”
I blinked and looked around me. This place seemed familiar. The longer I stared at it, the more I remembered. Ah, yes. Master Wendyn’s secret cottage.
“Blast it all!”
I jumped at the sound of the master’s angry voice, which brought to my attention a dull pain thumping at the base of my skull. He strode toward me.
“Why are you in such a foul mood?” I asked.
“You said the oath has to do with aw. Aw-what? What’s the next sound?”
Oh. I probably tried to say Oscar. “Sc—” I broke off into blinking confusion.
The master stood before me. His expression turned from bewilderment to dread to horror. “Oscar? The oath has something to do with Grandfather?”
“Who told you that?” I rubbed at my neck. “My head hurts.”
“He’s hoping to wipe out my entire family,” he said slowly. “Starting with Grandfather. You swore to help him kill Grandfather.”
Surprise lit up my face. But I could feel the blankness waiting to spring on me, depending on what I said next. “I—I’m sure I can’t say anything in response to that.”
“Never mind.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “You just did. It’s written all over your face. Matt’s spell can’t regulate your expressions, at least. So he wants to kill my entire family? He’s lost his mind.”
I didn’t disagree with that. “Thank you. I’ve been trying to tell you that for months.”
“Months?” He fixed me with a look and strode closer to grab my arm. “How long do we have? When is he planning on putting this little genocide into motion?”
Before the winter solstice, that’s what Kurke said that day in the library. Still more than a month away, but that was a large window of time. “He said before the wi—” Black foggy forgetfulness descended on me.
“Before the what? Is it soon?”
I blinked and stared and wondered why he had hold of my arm. “Is what soon?”
He made a noise of exasperation and dropped my arm. “This is impossible,” he growled. “Can you at least tell me if it’s happening at this moment? Is that why you rushed out here through two feet of snow?”
Ah. Now I remembered what we were talking about. “Everything is fine back at the Hall.” Not counting an unconscious Oscar, but I wasn’t about to mention that. “When I discovered what had been going on in Hutterland, I knew I had to find a way to tell you. Especially since I'm leaving tomorrow.”
A part of me hoped he’d ask me not to leave so soon, now that all this was out in the open. That part gave a twinge of disappointment when he said, “And you couldn’t have just written me a letter before you left?”
“I’ve tried that,” I informed him. “Writing letters is no good. Anything I write disappears.”
He strode across the room, past the south window, past the staircase, past the wizard door. A small table stood against the wall, stacked with papers and parchments, which he rifled through. “If we could only speak of this, Matt and me. Is it possible I could get him to see reason?”
I made a noise between a laugh and a snort. “See reason? You’d have more luck convincing a rock it was a tree.”
He stared at me before dropping the papers and rubbing at his eyes. “What am I saying? He’s decided. There’s no going back from this.” He went back to rifling through the papers. “Go
d’s ghost!” he ground out in frustration. “Is there no calendar in this place? What is the date?”
I blinked at him. “The date? What does that matter?”
“Ah, never mind. Here it is.” He pulled out a sheet of parchment and held it closer to the candle on the table.
“What are you looking for?”
He shook his head, and then all at once his body relaxed, the parchment dropping to his side. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said, halfway to himself. “It is this week. He’ll be too busy to try anything until next week, at the earliest.”
“What’s this week?” I asked.
Again he shook his head. “Not important. We’ve got to come up with a plan of action, you and I. I’d like to go back to the hall and get Grandfather’s thoughts on this. He has more experience with blood magic than I do—and more connections at the Conclave. I suppose he’s researching, and that’s why he sent you on alone?”
Blast it all to hell. He wasn’t supposed to ask that. And here I was trying not to lie to him anymore. “Yeah, research.” The untruth tasted like dust in my mouth.
“Good.” He gave a decisive nod. “I’ll grab a few of my things, and we can take the door back to the Hall. If we’re lucky, we’ll have this mess figured out before midnight. Then you can still be on your way in the morning.” He headed for the staircase in the corner and took the steps up two at a time. I stared at the empty staircase and gathered my thoughts.
No. It wouldn’t happen like that at all. Oscar would turn me over to the Council and I’d be Punished before suppertime tomorrow.
I needed a better plan. One that didn’t involve the Council.
Once we got back, I’d wake Oscar from the sleeping potion. Then I’d slip away while he was still groggy. After all, with both the Masters Wendyn aware of the truth, they didn’t need me any longer. I’d be more of a hindrance than a help in this situation.
Yes, that was true.
I stared at the staircase and listened to the master moving around upstairs.
Then why did I feel so guilty?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Tethered by Blood Page 26
