“Ah! Ah. So you’re saying your witch friends are more important than me and my parents?”
“I’m saying that if I can stop the Wolf King—and I can, I know I can—then I must. And I have to concentrate on that before anything else! Think about it, Boots—there are thousands of witches in trouble, compared to your two parents. Besides, I don’t know why you’re so upset. We’ll just go get some more medicine! I’ve stolen before, and I’ll steal again.”
“But before we do that, we need to move on,” said Fox. “If we go back into town, someone might recognize us as the—if you’ll pardon me—mud-covered mad people from the party. There could be questions.”
“We’ll find another apothecary down the road, Boots,” Quicksilver said. “I promise. I’ve always promised to help you. That hasn’t changed.”
Sly Boots laughed harshly. “So you say. It’s good to know what you think is important and what isn’t. Bones first, everything else second. You’ve made that very clear. I like how your precious skeletons made it through the catacombs safe and sound. But you couldn’t take a second to make sure my parents’ medicine was safe too?”
“We were running for our lives! I told you, I’m trying my best!”
“Well, that’s obviously not good enough.”
Quicksilver stepped back as if she’d been slapped. “You were the one who went wandering off into that party like a besotted fool, leaving us to fight an army of skeletons by ourselves!”
Sly Boots, looking taller and more solid than he ever had before, marched up to Quicksilver. The shadows moving across his face drew strange shapes, and his eyes sparked like fire. “Well, maybe I wanted to spend time with some nice, normal people for once! People who are kind and pretty and actually like me. Is that so horrible?”
Quicksilver stopped in her tracks, her arms going stiff at her sides.
Fox turned slowly, growling.
Sly Boots paled. The strange light in his eyes faded, and he seemed himself again—long arms and long legs and soft, candle-colored hair. A boy dressed up in fancy clothes that didn’t fit quite right.
“Quicksilver,” he said softly, “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did. You meant every word. I told you to speak your mind, and you did, and I thank you for that. Now I know how you really feel, and there’s no more confusion.” Quicksilver returned to the log, opened the journal, and sat facing away from them all. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep looking for a way to help my friend.”
Quicksilver heard Sly Boots take a few steps toward her and stop. She waited, breathing carefully, as he moved about the clearing, and when she turned around at last, she found that he was gone.
Oh, Fox, Quicksilver thought, hating the sound of her own pitiful voice.
Fox said nothing and instead lay on her feet, for her thin dancing boots were wet and worn through, and her toes were icy cold. She read the journal until she could no longer see the words, hoping she might find a spell that could cut away the hurting pieces of her heart, and replace them with pieces made out of stone.
Sly Boots returned in the quiet night hours when the moons were bright as coins, but Quicksilver could not be bothered with him.
“I’ve found something,” she whispered to Anastazia, settling beside her in a patch of clover that shifted in color from pale peach to deep violet at her touch. “Sit up, won’t you?”
Anastazia, her hands folded across her stomach, did not move from where she lay in the clover. Her tattered ball gown seemed more ridiculous and ill fitting now than ever. Quicksilver removed Anastazia’s cloak from her pack. It had folded down, most marvelously, into a square the size of her fingernail, which was a spell Anastazia had promised to teach her someday—if, that is, she could still remember it. Quicksilver unfolded the cloak and arranged it over Anastazia’s body, tucking it close about her.
Anastazia raised a questioning eyebrow.
“That dress simply isn’t your color,” Quicksilver said.
“I see.”
“As I was saying, I think I’ve found something in here.” Quicksilver held up the journal. “Look at this—”
“I’ve failed you.”
Quicksilver frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I thought this would be it. That this would be the time we would beat him. You and me, after all the other yous and mes. And yet . . . I can feel it happening, Quicksilver. I can feel my mind slipping away from me like books piled too high on a shelf. Teetering, swaying, falling . . .”
Anastazia closed her eyes, her mouth twisting. “I should never have let us tag along with that . . . that boy and his delusional followers.”
“Olli?”
“Yes. Olli.” Anastazia batted her eyelashes.
Quicksilver heard Sly Boots shift in the grass behind them and wished he would go stomp off and sulk some more. The night was too quiet; she did not want him to hear.
“If we had gone our own way, we might have been able to avoid the . . .” Anastazia’s mouth pursed.
“The Wolf King?” Quicksilver suggested.
“It was too soon for you to meet him! You know hardly anything at all. I haven’t had time to teach you.”
“You’ve taught me quite a lot.”
“Pah! Not nearly enough. We will need so much more to defeat him.”
Quicksilver bristled. “I did use mind magic, you know. That’s not impressive?”
“You didn’t know what you were doing! It was an accident, Quicksilver, and if you were to try it again, it might hurt you, or worse. You could have died, all because I didn’t prepare you properly. And if you die, then I’m all alone. And even if I manage to survive long enough to find another you, in the future, I’ve no Fox to send you back in time. . . .” Anastazia rubbed her temples. In the moonslight, her skin was pure white, her wrinkles canyons carved into clay. “I’ll fail you. I’ll fail all of us.”
“Nonsense. You are me, and I don’t fail at anything. I’m the best thief in all the Star Lands, don’t you remember?” The words felt strange on Quicksilver’s tongue. She used to utter them with pride, and now they felt pale and small in the face of everything else. “And someday I’ll be the best witch. I mean, we’ve already got two skeletons, haven’t we? What’s five more? That’s nothing for you and me, is it, Fox?”
“Easy as finding sticks in a forest,” said Fox promptly.
“See there?”
Anastazia smiled up at Quicksilver. She pressed Quicksilver’s hand between her own. “I remember that young heart, how it felt to know my own strength, no matter what anyone said.” Anastazia cupped Quicksilver’s cheek. “I didn’t think I would like meeting you, you know. I thought you would be endlessly frustrating. I remember myself, after all. But now . . .”
The soft, gooey look in Anastazia’s eyes made Quicksilver squirm. “Yes, I’m sure we’re all very much in love with ourselves. Now, look at this.”
Quicksilver held open the journal to a page that included a list of scratched-out words and sketches of symbols—half-moons, ocean waves, a crossroads.
“Runes?” Anastazia asked, puzzled. “You’re not that advanced yet, my dear.”
“No. This.” Quicksilver pointed to two words circled some fifty-odd times with black ink: COLLECTIVE MAGIC.
Anastazia’s face became a web of hard lines. “That’s nothing,” she said, and she tore the page out of the journal before Quicksilver could stop her. “A foolish idea from one of our past selves, who was obviously too naive to know better. Never trust a witch. Didn’t I tell you? We can only trust ourselves.” She ripped the page into scraps and then turned away, hugging herself. “Don’t make me,” she said, in a soft, girlish voice. “I don’t want to go there.”
Quicksilver settled down in the clover beside Anastazia, wrapping her arms about her and squeezing tight.
She would not forget this idea of collective magic, no matter what Anastazia said about it. She had read the page so many times that she knew the wo
rds written on it by heart:
ONE CAN BE STRONG.
A FEW CAN BE STRONGER.
MANY WILL BE MIGHTY.
.31.
BACKWARD AND UPSIDE DOWN
Quicksilver was well and truly sick of trees.
I like them, said Fox, trotting to the nearest one and lifting his leg to prove his point.
Quicksilver rolled her eyes. Is it still steady?
Is what still steady?
Is what still—? Fox. Are you trying to irritate me? The skeleton we’re tracking. That. Is that still steady?
Yes, and getting stronger.
And you still think it’s the mouse?
I know you can feel it, too. Why are you asking me this again?
It’s just that—
It’s a mouse. I know it, you know it.
Yes, but—
All tiny and whiskery and perpetually frantic.
Quicksilver snapped off a sprig of moss and tossed it to the ground. Mice aren’t the only tiny, whiskery animals in the world. Maybe we’ve got this all wrong—
Fox, nosing through the undergrowth for sticks, snorted indignantly. We sorted through the Wolf King’s stolen memories, didn’t we?
Yes—
We stayed up all night listening to them and working it out together, didn’t we? We agreed they smelled and felt and sounded like a mouse?
Yes, Fox, but—
Then stop doubting us. Fox trotted ahead, proudly holding a new stick. Have some faith.
In what? Quicksilver glared ahead at Sly Boots, who was walking much faster than the rest of them, his shoulders hunched and tense. He dragged his own stick across the moss-covered tree trunks, leaving behind a ragged, angry path in the bark. The Wolf King’s evil. Magic is good, after all, and so are witches . . . mostly. Anastazia’s going nutty on us. The sisters and the girls and Sly Boots’s parents back home might die if we don’t save them. Not to mention all the witches might die. We might die. Sly Boots is mad at us. And my parents—
She shook her head and kicked a thick, curling root, which did nothing but hurt her big toe. Everything’s backward and upside down. What am I supposed to have faith in?
In me. Fox dropped his stick and licked her palm. And in yourself. Mostly in me. He stretched, grinning a cocky dog’s grin.
Quicksilver rolled her eyes and marched on.
Days ago, they had left King Kallin’s Skullwood far behind, and then entered a darker forest called the Blackwood, and then an even darker one called the Nightwood, and now they were near the border of Falstone, where there was nothing but forests for long, lonely miles. And not even pleasant forests full of soft green paths and picturesque clearings. No, these forests were dense and tangled, the trees thick and towering, the clammy air as still as deep sleep.
There wasn’t even a proper path. They had to climb over colossal fallen trees and pick their way through bramble patches. Fat green beetles with shimmering orange wings plopped out of the trees with alarming frequency. Round, summer-gold eyes glowed from the shadows. The quiet air trapped every smell—the musk of animal fur, the sour turn of damp rot, the heady sweetness of the tiny moss flowers. When Quicksilver passed a clump of them, with Fox at her side and the skeletons in her pack, the flowers sighed happily, their dim glow turning brilliant.
“Tasty, don’t you think?” said Anastazia, poking her head through a sheet of hanging moss to smile at Quicksilver. It looked like Anastazia suddenly had a head of flowery green hair instead of her normal hair, and her lips shone bright pink with pollen, but Quicksilver couldn’t find the will to laugh.
“I wouldn’t eat the flowers, Anastazia,” said Quicksilver. “Might spoil your appetite.”
Anastazia nodded gravely. “Indeed. Good thinking. I’ll try the moss instead.” And then, promptly, she did, and belched.
Quicksilver guided Anastazia away from the trees and continued north, trying to ignore the hard knots of worry in her stomach. Anastazia spoke less every day—or at least, what she did say hardly made sense. And things with Sly Boots felt sticky and cracked. She glanced at him, saw the back of his pale head for an instant, and then blazed so hot with anger that she had to look away.
He had not apologized for what he’d said, and Quicksilver was not going to bring it up. As far as she was concerned, he did not yet—and would perhaps not ever—deserve her forgiveness. Maybe it was better this way, the two of them walking in angry silence forever.
But there were no villages out here, not even a lonely woodsman’s cottage. Quicksilver could not imagine that they would stumble upon any apothecaries or curiosity shops in such a forest. So, that night, when she and Sly Boots and Anastazia sat silently on a wide, flat stump, sharing yet another handful of wild berries, Quicksilver’s anger turned to a sick, twisting guilt.
She should have been more careful, that night in the catacombs. She had been so concerned with keeping the skeletons safe that she hadn’t even thought to check the other pouch. How long would it take them to find medicine like that again? And what if Quicksilver never even got the chance to learn time-traveling magic from Anastazia because her older self was now too dotty to teach her?
And what if Sly Boots’s parents died, alone and ill in the future, and it was all because of her?
Parents, she thought, should stay far away from her. They just ended up lost.
As soon as she thought that, Fox growled. You know that what happened to his parents is no fault of yours. You are doing the best you can, and you were right, what you said the other night: when you look at things straight on, a thousand witches are more important than two humans. You are thinking of the greater good.
The greater good? Really, Fox? Witches who don’t trust me, and who I’m not supposed to trust either? Why bother saving people who want nothing to do with one another?
Because it’s the right thing to do. Fox bounded after a butterfly whose long wings changed color with every flutter—from emerald green to dazzling turquoise to mustard yellow.
Quicksilver watched him, envious. Fox was the only one who seemed happy about anything anymore. She curled up in a patch of soft, shimmering blue-and-indigo grass while Anastazia sang a gibberish song at the base of a thick, knotted tree. Her blistered feet throbbed in her ruined dancing shoes.
I’m glad you’re happy, Fox, she thought as exhaustion crept up on her. I’m glad somebody is.
Fox abandoned the butterfly to snuggle against her chest, and did not complain when she squeezed him too tightly.
Everything will be better soon, master. We’re all just tired and sick of eating forest food. Anastazia will be herself again once we find a town and get some sugar cakes and sunlight. You’ll see. Don’t worry.
Quicksilver peeked through the hair that had fallen over her eyes to watch Sly Boots sleeping restlessly near a stand of crooked trees. The distant light of the half-moons illuminated his tense face.
Would everything be all right? She could not say. She had found nothing useful in the journal to help Anastazia—at least, nothing legible. All she could keep thinking about were those three lines:
ONE CAN BE STRONG.
A FEW CAN BE STRONGER.
MANY WILL BE MIGHTY.
Each time she recited these words, they made her angrier.
Only many can be might? Pah!
I am mighty, she told herself. Me. Alone. I do not need Sly Boots. I do not need Anastazia. I need no one but myself.
And me, Fox mumbled sleepily.
Quicksilver kissed his snout and recited the words over and over until she fell asleep:
I am mighty.
I need no one.
.32.
THE LADY IN WHITE
Quicksilver awoke to a pale dawn and the sound of a woman singing.
She sat straight up and listened. Except for Anastazia, she was alone. Fox was gone. Sly Boots was gone.
“What is that?” she whispered.
Hush. Fox was creeping away through the trees, his body tense.
I think we’re close.
To the skeleton?
Close to . . . something.
Quicksilver settled Anastazia on a fallen tree and shoved the journal into her hands. “On one of these pages,” she said, “I’ve written a tiny secret message for you. It’s very hard to find, but you must sit here quietly and look for it until I get back. Do you understand?”
Anastazia immediately bent over the journal, her eyes darting back and forth across the pages.
Quicksilver threw on her pack and followed Fox, tearing through vines sticky with sap and brambles lined with vicious bloodred thorns. Across a brook, down a muddy slope, through a tangle of the shimmery hanging moss—and finally, breathlessly, out into open air.
She blinked in the sudden light. She stood at the edge of a vast clearing surrounded by black trees that twisted into a layered canopy overhead. At the far side of the clearing stood a tree as fat as a castle tower, its roots spilling across the grass like a mass of dark snakes.
It seemed to Quicksilver in that moment that everything in the Star Lands radiated from this tree, and was held up by its branches. Vines with leaves as large as houses hung from the tree in glossy curtains. The billowing mounds of grass at its roots were deep green in the shade and a vivid pink where the sunlight hit.
Sitting on one of the great tree’s roots, in a pool of green forest light, was a pale Lady all in white. A filmy white dress clung to her slender frame. Her hair fell down her back in cascades of pearl and moonslight and cloud. She sat unmoving, one hand up as if in greeting.
Quicksilver cried out and ran toward the Lady, her eyes hot with sudden tears. She had to touch her, tell her how much she loved her, tell her how long she had been waiting, desperate, to meet her—but Fox bit her tattered hem and tugged hard.
Wait, he whined. Something isn’t right here.
Quicksilver struggled to break free. “Let me go! I must see her!”
The Lady’s mouth curved into a gentle smile, and though her lips did not move, Quicksilver knew it was her voice singing, filling the clearing with silver bell tones. She could not understand the words, but they nonetheless overwhelmed her with longing, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
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