by Sarah Driver
I start to shudder, scanning the air for signs of a spirit, but nothing’s there that I can see. The Opal is still in my hand and my fingers are cramped from holding onto it so tightly. I fold into a ball, dragging the thin blanket over me.
I unlock each stiff, sore finger from around the Opal. The gem is warm against my palm and if I focus I can almost feel a pulse inside it. Then I snatch my breath. The Opal is casting swirling patterns of light on the grey blanket, a miniature dance of the fire spirits, just for me. My hair crackles with charge.
Golden flecks twist and flutter under the Opal’s skin. They settle my bones and help me remember. Rattlebones told me the merwraiths and my Tribe need my help.
But – you are his weakness. What did the old wraith mean?
There’s a sudden rustle and the sound of something scraping over the stone floor. I gasp and pull the blanket off my face. In the foggy moonlight my breath is a white cloud.
And near the far wall, another cloud steams.
Something is in here with me.
I scramble into a crouch, every muscle tensed. My pulse booms in my ears as I remember the thing that tried to steal my body, and I grip Bear’s amber amulet.
Something rushes towards me, so I whip a merwraith scale from my pocket and tuck it between my knuckles. I raise my fists. ‘Stay back!’
‘Noooo, shhh, oh the gods, no fretting,’ a girl husks. Her words have a sweet, songlike tilt to them. ‘I stole you a mug of hot goat’s milk, from the Protector’s own night-cauldron—’
‘Not that flaming Protector again!’ I splutter.
‘I’ll spice the milk,’ she begs. ‘And let you have the last cheese and garlic pancake on the mountain. But please be calm!’ Her breath has puffed closer, and the shadowy outline of a tall figure lurks behind it.
My head’s stuffed with confusion, and my wound throbs, dull-sharp-dull. Why is this shadow garbling on about pancakes? ‘Who are you?’ My lips bleed when I move them, and my teeth chatter. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘They left you with nothing to keep you warm – you could have frozen to death. I snuck in to watch over you. But what do I find?’ Her voice sharpens. ‘That you’ve been night-flying.’ She speaks like I’ve done the stupidest thing in the world, but her words are snagged with envy, too.
‘How do you know?’ I snap, before I can guard my tongue.
‘When you fly, the smell sticks to you. The memory of flight is tell-tale.’
She can smell my dream-dancing?
She strides closer. Her arms are full of shaggy white goat skins that she dumps next to me. I grab one and tuck myself into its musty folds. The warmth shocks tears of relief into my eyes.
The girl squats in front of me. She closes her eyes, a smile spreading over her face.
I shrink away from her. ‘What you doing?’ In the weak moonlight all I can see are snow-goggles and a headful of messy braids.
She lifts the goggles onto the top of her head. Her green eyes slant up and out like a cat’s. She’s the girl I saw when we landed – the one garbed in a cloak of feathers. ‘Remembering,’ she answers, weary sadness weighing down her voice.
Then comes another wrenching crack-crash-BOOM-roar-rush-splinter as Hackles spews more ice. I bury my face in the goat skin.
‘Our stronghold is more agitated than usual,’ says the girl thoughtfully, when the turret stops rattling.
I swallow. ‘Aye. There’s something making the world wild—’ I stop myself cos I don’t know a thing about this girl.
She lunges close and grabs my wrist. ‘Yes. Every beat that the draggles’ wings brought you closer, the weather raged fiercer. Something is stirring.’ Her light brown face is covered in splodgy rust-coloured freckles and she’s got the same gold bull-ring through her nose as the others. ‘Where did you fly?’ she asks urgently. ‘What did you see? What is it like ?’
I stay silent, watching her. Part of me wants to tell her how it’s like there’s two of me – the me in this world, and the me in the world of shadows. She stares back and takes a breath to say something more but I cut her off, a whip-stroke of defence burning my insides. ‘Don’t know what you’re babbling about.’
The girl cocks her head and looks at me like I’m denying the tide will come in. Then she shrugs and plucks a moonsprite from her pocket.
I curl my lip, remembering the heart-sore sprites held prisoner in the passageway lanterns. But the girl’s long fingers are gentle as she drops the sprite into a cracked glass jar.
Lamp-snoozings, it gargles, throbbing a silvery glow into the cell that shows the girl more clearly.
She’s oak-tall – might’ve gathered about sixteen birth-moons – all knees and elbows, garbed in a long scarlet dress stitched with stars and moons, and draped in the feather cloak. A bright half-band of gold circles her neck and stripes of gold paint flash on her face, from the middle of each lower eyelid down to her jaw.
‘What’s that paint on you?’ I ask.
‘It means I am a sawbones; a curer. I can only wear it when my mother isn’t watching, mind.’ She gives a low chuckle.
I flood my eyes with scorn. ‘Don’t need no healer.’
‘Would you prefer to let the rot hunker down in that wound, and eat away half your face?’ She shudders. ‘Trust me – I’ve seen it happen. Though lately, injured prisoners disappear before I can even sneak a check of their wounds.’
A flurry of arrowheads storms my blood. ‘Wait – if you’re a healer, have you been helping my brother, too?’ I blurt. ‘Did the guards tell you about his shaking fits, like I asked?’
Her smile gutters out. ‘I have not been allowed near him. But I listened at the pipes – your message was delivered. He has a broken arm, and a fever.’ She holds up a hand and signals for me to wait. ‘He may not wake for some time, but they are treating him with success. He is safe, for now. In fact, his sickness is what protects him. She wants all her prisoners well enough to be tried.’ She gabs it all in a rush, like she’s been waiting moons and moons for someone to talk to.
‘What? I ent letting some loon woman put him on trial!’
‘Be quiet!’ she hisses, fright tightening her face. ‘Hackles has ears. The Protector of the Mountain is not some woman. And all three of you will be judged. If she finds you guilty, the punishment will be – severe.’ She looks away and stands up.
I don’t wanna think too hard on what severe might mean. ‘But we ent done nothing!’ Then I fall forwards and put out a hand to catch myself on the stone floor, bile rushing into the back of my throat. When I’ve finished retching I look up and the girl’s watching me with a face full of sorrow.
‘I don’t need your pity,’ I bite out, wiping my mouth.
She chinks a tiny smile. ‘I have something better than pity.’ She rummages in her pocket and pulls out some yellow petals. ‘You have the mountain-sickness. These will help calm it.’
I twist my mouth and don’t move, but she holds them closer to me. One of her hands is sprinkled with fine white scars, and the knuckles are bloody. On the other she’s wearing a dark grey glove. ‘Take them,’ she says gently. ‘They will make it better.’
I blow the air out through tight lips and reach for the flowers. The petals are cool and smooth between my fingers. When I crunch them a bitter, earthy taste fills my mouth.
‘Heart-thanks,’ I stutter, mouth ash-dry. Then a thought squirms in my belly. She’s gifted me kindness. Maybe I can get her to help me escape.
‘Oh!’ she exclaims, making me startle. Then she winces at her own noise. ‘I almost forgot your milk,’ she whispers. ‘Hope it’s not bone-cold.’ She searches the floor behind her, then presses a steaming clay mug into my hands. A delicious warmth spreads through my fingers, all the way up my arms.
‘Wait, it’s better with this mixed in.’ She takes a vial from her pocket and pinches some rust-red powder into the cup before I can snatch it away. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says quickly. ‘It’s nutmeg and cinnamon – I’m n
ot in the business of poisoning! You should be glad of a little flavour. These days it’s just goat’s milk, goat’s cheese, tough old goat’s meat and bog myrtle.’ She ticks them off on her fingers. ‘We’re on lock-down. No trade, because of the war.’ She speaks fast and tight, like she’s afraid someone’s gonna spring out of the shadows and gag her.
‘Ent never met someone before that can babble faster than me.’ I take a sip of the drink. It warms me from chest to toes, and the spices tingle on my tongue.
‘Suppose I have many trapped words to spill.’ She turns again and places a dented silver platter by me. There are two fat lumps of dough on it.
I raise my eyes to her face. ‘Will you help me, for real? Can you—’
‘Eat,’ she says, cutting me off. ‘The food will give you wondrous fire-in-the-belly.’
My hope fades painfully, just as one of the pipes in the wall starts to rattle and clank like a crazed thing. I scuttle backwards and my foot skids out in front of me, kicking the food platter across the floor. The noise spreads through the pipe to a small chute that enters the turret from a hole in the roof and ends in a rusty metal door.
‘Ah, here he comes, at long last,’ the girl says grimly. She turns towards the chute, skirts swirling. Her hem is fire-licked, like she’s too close to the hearth.
‘Who?’ I ask, filled with dread. ‘And who are you?’
She stares down at me, a mix of emotions that I can’t read swirling behind her eyes. ‘I’m Kestrel.’ The way she says it fills me with a fresh burst of hope that I cling onto with all my might. I can feel the heart-strength she had to summon just to tell me her name.
The chute rumbles and clangs, gives a thud, then falls silent. Kestrel scowls at it, fiddling with a chain hooked to her belt, then steps towards the chute and starts wrenching her key back and forth in a keyhole set in the door.
The chute flies open and a small, fat shape gushes out, trilling latelatelate! Latequickhelpcarryoooooooosnacks!
The creature darts for the plate of food on the floor, but Kestrel gives it a sour look, ducks low and grabs it in cupped hands. ‘Squidges don’t eat pancakes!’
They do! it chatters desperately, oozing a puddle of black stuff – like ink – into Kestrel’s hands.
‘Oh, Ettler! Calm your silly self. Anyone would think you a fat princeling, not a sawbones’ helper.’ When she lets the creature go again, it stares at me, chatters oddbeastfrightfulfeathers! and slams itself into the wall in distress, oozing more puddles of ink. I swallow my beast-chatter, cos I don’t want Kestrel knowing about it.
The beast is all kinds of oddness. It looks like a tiny round squid, no bigger than a sea-hawk’s egg, covered in shiny gold feathers. It moves through the air by wiggling and flapping, pooing ink behind it that grows an icy crust on the floor.
‘Ettler, you must learn to hold your ink!’ Kestrel scolds. ‘You know I need it. Use an ink-pan if you want letting out.’
‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘You called it a . . . squidge?’
She nods, eyeing the not-quite-squid. ‘We’ve scores of the grumblesome things, working in the pantries, but this one kept stealing food—’
Not true! shrills the offended squidge, hooting anxiously at the girl. Then mischief gleams in its round black eyes, and it chortles.
‘And so,’ she says to me, wrinkling her nose, ‘when trouble came sniffing he hid in my clothes chest. By the time I found him, all my things were covered in ink, but he was too afraid to leave my room. So I took him on, as my so-called assistant. What a fantastic decision that turned out to be.’ She turns back to the chute and rummages inside the hatch. ‘So shall we stitch that foulsome wound on your face?’ she asks, voice muffled. ‘You’ve been up to strugglings, huh?’
‘I was trying to save my brother,’ I tell her, curling my tongue over the edge of my teeth. ‘Not that it even worked.’ It don’t matter if you save Sparrow, cos you ent never gonna save him from his sickness, snickers a wicked voice in my head.
Kestrel pulls an oiled leather bag from the chute and sits cross-legged in front of me. She roots through the bag. The squidge farts anxiously around her, dripping ink into her hair. ‘Aagh, Ettler !’
He flaps stickily away and hides in the chute, whimpering.
‘Here are the things we need,’ chirps Kestrel. ‘A tear-vial, for catching your tears.’
I frown, shame prickling my scalp. ‘Tears are for weaklings and babs. I don’t need—’
‘Pish,’ she says. ‘Our Tribe used to wear these ’til our tears were swallowed by the air – that’s when the mourning has passed.’ She takes my hand and balls it into a fist, then places it against my chest. When I open my fingers there’s an empty glass vial inside my hand, with a bone stopper.
She wrinkles her nose and squints at me. ‘And . . . what else?’ she wonders aloud. ‘A spool of silk and a needle-clutcher.’ She pulls a thin roll of leather from the bag, opens it and draws out a sliver of white bone. ‘A needle and some—’
‘Why would I let you practise your pox-ridden dabblings on me?’ I blurt. My gut boils at the thought of anyone touching my face.
‘That cut is too deep to be left alone.’ She raises her coppery eyebrows. ‘Always think you know best, huh?’
I clutch the bandage tighter and turn away from her. ‘You ent touching me.’
‘’Twill fester.’
My forehead burns fierce, even worse than my sore throat. I know I’m already getting sick. I sigh, then nod quickly.
‘Good.’ She unwraps my face from the bandage I made. The cloth has stuck to the wound, so she opens her cloak to reveal a leather circle strapped to her chest, holding six daggers with leather pommels. She pulls one out and uses it to carefully slice my bandage off.
Hot, sharp pain stabs into me as the skin underneath is torn. ‘Argh!’ I hiss as she pulls the last of it away.
‘Sorry.’ She winces, and takes my chin in her hand to peer at my damaged face. ‘Claws, looks like?’
‘A terrodyl,’ I whisper. ‘Must look grim.’
‘Some folks will fear to look at you. But I say away with them! What counts is on the inside, no?’
I nod. ‘In heart-truth, a captain could use a frightful face.’ Even as I say it, I remember how I won’t be captain now, and how I don’t wanna tell her anything about me.
‘Captain?’ she whispers in an awed voice. ‘Are you to be a sea-captain?’ Curiosity shines through her.
Hawk-swift, Grandma’s face appears. A voice deep inside me whispers, over and over, you’ve got no home, you’ve got no home. The deck flashes into my brain, clear as lightning, with Grandma bundled on the plank and Stag pointing his gun at her. Sweat coats my palms and I begin to tremble.
‘I’m sorry.’ Kestrel lays cool fingers on my wrist. ‘Try to breathe. We will not talk about it now.’
My tears blur her face. She twists round and gives a soft whistle. Ettler pokes out of his hiding place and whizzes up and out through the hole in the wall. He quickly puffs back in again and thuds down beside us, a ball of snow gathered in his tentacles. Then he dumps the snow onto the floor and huffs back to the chute.
‘For numbing,’ she tells me. As she reaches for the snow, her left sleeve slips and I notice there’s something different about the arm. It’s the same dark grey as the glove, and it’s got the sleekness of a gun. I feel my eyes widen.
She stares me down, the slush dripping through metal fingers.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’ I start, but her face splits into a grin.
‘You noticed my iron-arm,’ she says, gleeful as anything. She pushes up her patched, fraying sleeve to show me. The arm’s made of a smooth metal, and when she wriggles her fingers, it’s like some kind of magyk is letting her thoughts control them, just the same as with flesh and bone.
It’s the best flaming thing I’ve laid eyes on. ‘What’s it like?’
‘Ever had a dead arm?’ she asks.
I nod, remembering the times in our b
unk when me or Sparrow slept on our own hands. Sparrow proper hates waking up with a numb arm.
‘It’s like that, much of the time.’ She flexes her metal wrist, watching it in wonder. ‘Until I whisper to the runes that our runesmith keyed into the metal. Then it comes back to me in a wave of warmth and tingles. For a while I thought I’d never feel it again.’ She takes a bottle and a swab. ‘First, a saltwater cleanse.’ She starts to wash my wound.
‘What happened to you?’ I hiss through the stinging.
‘An accident,’ she replies vaguely. ‘So my mother travelled to the city of Nightfall to find a smith gifted enough to forge a new arm for me. That was before, though.’
‘Before what?’
She watches my face, like she’s quietly deciding all kinds of things about me. When she blinks, a clear membrane slicks up and down her eyeballs like on the eyes of a hawk. Did I imagine it? ‘Before the conflict sharpened its teeth.’ She dips her needle into a flame and threads it with silk, then brings it towards me. ‘Before the banning of books, and study.’ She drops her voice to a breath. ‘Before I was forbidden to leave the mountain. Before everything changed.’
‘So how long you been scrapping with these Wilderwitches?’ I ask.
‘Oh, many years,’ she answers, eyes resting on mine. ‘But there was a tense half-truce we grew used to. Then, four years ago, the tenseness exploded.’
Before I can ask why, she presses a handful of snow to my cheek and eel-quick her needle pulls through my skin. I ball my fists to keep from screaming.
She pinches the edges of my wound together with her right hand and uses the iron fingers of her left to stitch. Her sleeve is by my eyes, and I swallow back a gasp cos the stars and moons are unpicking themselves into loose strands of golden thread.
Could it be cos of her being so close to the Opal in my pocket? I pray to all the sea-gods that she don’t notice anything.
Kestrel mops my bleeding face with linen and keeps stitching, poking out the tip of her tongue. ‘I have fresh skirts for you, as well.’
‘I ent wearing no skirts!’ Despite the pain that’s making my eyes stream, a sudden laugh punches out of me.
