Spinning Thorns

by Anna Sheehan

  Will glanced at the dream-sharing spell, but it was rather ambiguous. It wasn’t a chant or a potion. It was just concentration, and putting your mind ‘in synch’ with another’s. That was going to be interesting – getting Will’s mind in synch with Lavender’s was going to be next to impossible. But it was worth trying.

  She fled back to her sister’s chambers and told her parents she needed to hold her hand to continue. She sat down beside her and closed her eyes, trying to find her sister in her mind. She held her warm hand. For some reason, she suddenly thought of Reynard, and his seemingly innate ability to understand how spells should be moulded to fit. She wished he was here now, to give her some pointers on moulding her own mind to make the spell fit. Still … nothing for it but to try.

  And it was easy. Surprisingly easy. And Will immediately wished it wasn’t.

  Pain, fierce and deadly, pulsing the life’s blood from my chest. There is anguish, too, and guilt, but the pain is what drags me, pulling me down and down. I can see my blood pulsing onto the ground, and I know that I am dying. I can’t move. I’m frightened, so frightened, and so hurt …

  There was more to the dream, but Will didn’t dare reach for it. She opened her eyes, shivering. ‘Pain,’ she said. ‘So much pain.’ She wasn’t sure whether she was shivering from a memory of the dream of pain or from fear. ‘She’s dreaming she’s hurt,’ Will told them when she could find her voice. ‘Mortally wounded. She’s in pain.’

  ‘No!’ Ferdinand flung himself back down at Lavender’s bedside. ‘Beloved, I will bring you back to me! You must come back to me! You are my heart, my joy, my sun, my spring! I cannot live without you! There must be a way. Please, all the gods above. Show me the way.’

  Will hated seeing him like this. Every word was like a stab to her heart. She wished her love for him would simply go away. It was the most terrible thing that had ever happened to her. She wanted to make him happy, so she wanted to give him Lavender back. But his being happy with Lavi wouldn’t make Will happy. Quite the contrary. Her heart was torn in two different directions, and she hated herself into the bargain. Never mind that she couldn’t bring Lavender back.

  Or could she?

  Reynard knew faeries. He had told her so. And he lived at the edge of this enchanted forest. If anyone had the chance of finding Mistress Cait in time, it was probably him.

  But did she dare ask him? No, she couldn’t ask. But perhaps, just perhaps, she could purchase his services. There was only one thing she knew he wanted. She closed her eyes. She’d have to offer all three volumes of The Zarmeroth Cycle. She had notes on it, of course, it wouldn’t be a total loss, though it would be a wrench. To get Lavender back, it would be worth it.

  If Lavender didn’t recover soon, Will knew what she had to do.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  I often thought of our burrows as prisons. Of course, my very Nameless existence was a prison of sorts, with everyone in the land as my gaoler. The afternoon that news of the new Sleep came to us the burrow was more a prison than ever.

  ‘What have you done?’ my mother shouted at me. She barely had to shout. We were curled up sitting on opposite sides of the burrow. My mother’s wings were drooping from the cold. It was freezing because I no longer had a spindle, and I’d used up all my wool even if I had had. ‘You’ve ruined us! We’ll be cursed forever!’

  ‘We were already cursed forever!’ I snapped.

  ‘But now they’ll all say we deserve it! The other faeries will have nothing to do with us now.’

  ‘They’ve never had anything to do with us before,’ I said, ‘I can’t see how this could make it any worse.’

  ‘Trust me, my son, this can make things so much worse.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ I said. ‘It’s only a temporary spell. She’ll be awake within twenty-four hours. Thirty-six at the most. I only had a drop spindle, the spell hasn’t poisoned her blood.’

  ‘But it was a spinning spell!’ my mother pointed out. ‘They’ll know it came from one of us!’

  ‘They don’t even know us,’ I said.

  ‘That princess you cursed does.’

  ‘She doesn’t know I did it,’ I said.

  ‘She will when she wakes up!’

  ‘And when she wakes up, maybe she’ll know why I did it!’

  The kit had been sent outside after she’d returned with the news she’d overheard in market, about the princess being cursed with the contagious Sleep. My delighted grin when I heard this was all my mother needed to know it was my spell. Motherwise, she always knew when I misbehaved. Technically I was a full-grown man of my own, but faerie clans typically stay together, and in the absence of my aunt, my mother was clan leader by default. I should have obeyed her injunction against spinning magic. I should have asked her permission before I set the curse on Princess Willow. I did neither of these things, and she was furious. Nameless or not, my mother was still a faerie, and a faerie’s anger can be caustic. The kit was better off outside.

  Or so I’d thought. ‘My brother, there’s someone out here looking for you.’

  My mother and I both stared at each other. ‘This is it,’ she said.

  ‘Hide!’ I cried to the kit. I got to my hands and knees to climb out and protect her.

  ‘What for?’ the kit asked. ‘She’s not dangerous.’

  The kit had better instincts for that kind of thing than I did, but not strong enough to trust absolutely. ‘She?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye,’ the kit said. ‘She was calling out, “Hello? Hello?” so finally I answered her. She asked if I’d seen a young man in a russet hood. That would be you.’

  ‘And you led her here?’ I snapped.

  ‘No,’ the kit said. ‘I led her away from here. She was already coming straight towards us, I thought you’d be pleased.’

  I climbed out into the snow. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Down at the spider clearing,’ the kit said. ‘I’ll show you.’

  ‘No, kit, wait!’ I called after her, but she was already running between the trees, her white hair disappearing into the snow. I chased after her, wondering who in all the seven hells could be looking for me? One of the witches from the club?

  I should have guessed, but I’d been convinced she was asleep and dreaming of my Namelessness. Princess Will stood in the centre of the clearing which, due to the patterns of the wind, held vast numbers of spiderwebs in the autumn, so that it glittered all over with gossamer. Now the clearing was bare and cold and bright enough that I had to be sure I kept to the shadowed edges. Willow stood in the sun. She looked pale and tired, but very much awake. Her dark hair had tints of red in it in the sunlight.

  She knows! I lunged to grab the kit and put her behind me. ‘What do you think this is going to achieve?’ I shouted at the princess. ‘You think you’ll get back at me, do you? You know full well I owe you nothing. Nothing!’

  She didn’t look frightened, or angry. ‘You’re still here!’ she said, with what I read as relief. But that couldn’t be right.

  The kit pulled away from me and went up to her, careful to stay in a shadow from a tall tree. Despite the kit’s care, I was terrified. ‘No! Get away from her!’ I yelled.

  The kit looked at me, confused, and then shook her head. ‘Are you the princess?’ she asked.

  Will sighed, looking tired. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘And you are?’

  ‘He’s my brother,’ the kit said, pointing at me. ‘I like your scarf.’ She fingered the edge of it. ‘I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.’

  The scarf Willow was wearing with her cloak was of a royal blue, and made of a thick, rich wool. The ends were fringed with amber beads that clicked as the kit fondled them. ‘Here,’ said Willow, and she took the scarf off and wrapped it around the kit’s shoulders. ‘The amber matches your eyes.’

  I was afraid she’d look too closely at the kit’s eyes. I jumped forward and snatched the scarf away. ‘We don’t want your charity,’ I snapped, handing
it back to her.

  ‘Hey!’ the kit said. ‘She gave that to me!’

  ‘Aye!’ Will said, glaring at me. ‘You think I’d curse it or something? You think it’ll make you beholden to me? I’ve got dozens of the things.’ She took the scarf out of my hands and placed it back in the kit’s. ‘Don’t you let him take it from you,’ she hissed.

  The kit stuck her tongue out at me and ran into the woods, wrapping the scarf around her head.

  ‘What are you trying to achieve, Princess?’ I scowled at her.

  She scowled right back. ‘What? She looked cold.’ She shivered. ‘It’s not as if I’ll suffer from the loss of it.’ She smiled after my sister. ‘She’s cute. Doesn’t look much like you, though. A little bit about the eyes, maybe,’ she added.

  Hoping to distract her, I shifted to another part of the clearing. I took care to stay in the shadows so my darkness wouldn’t be noticeable. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘Oh, I followed you,’ she said.

  I blinked at her. ‘You what?’

  ‘I followed you,’ she said. ‘That night after the Monument, I followed you here. You live somewhere over there,’ she said, pointing toward the burrow. ‘Under some tree. Do you have a magical house under the earth?’

  A burrow scratched out of the frozen ground. ‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She didn’t answer at first, and looked down at her hands. ‘It’s a little hard to explain.’

  I couldn’t fathom what might be in her mind. If she had been truly frightened by my little curse, she’d have brought her guards. Her face held no remorse, so my attempt at making her understand my suffering had either failed or caused a backlash. So she could only be annoyed at me. ‘If you’re trying to get me to apologize, I’m not going to.’

  ‘Why would I want you to apologize?’ she asked. ‘I need your help.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Help? You expect me to help you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I’m asking.’

  I frowned. ‘Help you with what?’

  She bowed her head. ‘A new Sleep has overtaken the palace,’ she said. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry out in horror. ‘It’s terrible. The victims are plagued with nightmares, and nothing wakes them.’

  ‘Wait a few days,’ I said. ‘It’ll probably blow over. Now leave me alone.’ She didn’t know it came from me? I tried not to heave a sigh of relief.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ve been waiting. We’ve tried everything. Cold water, searching her body for poison, Prince Ferdinand tried kissing her. Nothing works.’

  ‘Like I said, wait. And quit bothering me with minutiae.’

  ‘But it’s been nearly a week!’ she cried.

  I froze. ‘A week?’ I turned to her. ‘Wait. You didn’t get the Sleep?’

  She frowned at me. ‘Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.’

  ‘But I just heard,’ I said. ‘My sister heard in the market, the princess had caught the Sleep.’

  ‘My sister. It’s old news,’ Willow said. ‘We couldn’t keep it contained any longer. It must have slipped out with the baker’s order or something. It happened the morning after I met with you. Something awful happened when I used that spell on the thorns.’

  ‘It doesn’t work?’

  ‘No, it does work. And I knew it would work, and got cocky. Lavi saw me get too close and got scared, and tried to pull me out of range. Then I botched the spell because she distracted me, and we both got caught by the thorns. We fell. There was this awful crunch, and Lavender hasn’t woken up since.’

  ‘Probably just knocked unconscious,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she told me. ‘Her dog fell asleep too, and then several of the cooks and our head baker. Whatever it is, it’s contagious.’ She dug her arm out from under her cloak and pulled up her sleeve. The red lines of half healed scratches contrasted her skin. ‘When Ferdinand pulled us out of the thorns we were both bloody and scratched. I was pulling thorns and splinters out of my skin for days. But Lavender was already asleep by then. I can only assume that the magic I cast on the thorns made them … oh, gods, I don’t know. They were part of the curse on my mother, maybe they remembered the other half of the curse, too, and put Lavender to sleep when they pierced her skin.’

  I frowned at her. It wasn’t bad logic, if you didn’t know about my sleep spindle. ‘You say there was a dreadful crunch when you fell?’ I said. ‘Did you happen to see threads caught in the hedge afterwards?’

  ‘No,’ she said. Then she hesitated. ‘But … Lavender was knitting something for the poor. There was an entire hank of yarn tangled round her neck. Why?’ She took a step forward. ‘Did you hear something? Were we unable to keep this as quiet as we thought?’

  I turned and rubbed my forehead. I felt very agitated now. ‘And you were pulling splinters from your skin. Both of you.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Well, no, Lavender seemed all right. Except for that stick that punctured her shoulder when I fell on her, but that was my fault.’ I closed my eyes. My drop spindle had more than pricked the heiress’s finger. It had stabbed deep into her flesh. The princess was still talking. ‘I think it only caught Lavender because she’s the real heir. Or something. Maybe it only works if it creates a Sleeping Beauty, and I’m really not.’

  I glanced at her. She really had no clue that I had anything to do with all this. I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what this meant. The curse I had spun was in the princess’s blood now, would not unwind as time passed by. This was no longer a temporary curse I had created. The Lyndar Princess was indeed cursed to an everlasting nightmare sleep.

  I felt torn. I was elated at how well my revenge had come out. But this was now an unknown spell. If it was still a contagious sleep, as I had intended, how would it play out? ‘You say it’s contagious?’ I asked. ‘In what way? Do the people have to be near her? Touch her?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘People are falling asleep all over the palace.’

  Faerie Light, but that was bad. I hadn’t keyed the spell to the palace. I had keyed it to the people. In fact, I had keyed it towards my hatred. ‘Who did you say fell asleep first?’ I asked. ‘The heiress, her little yappy dog, and who …? The baker?’

  ‘Our head baker, two undercooks and a serving maid were the first to succumb. But it seems pretty random.’

  Yes, I knew the palace baker – she’d thrown a stone at my sister, once, knocked her out for a day and a half. And if I had to guess, I’d wager that the two cooks and the serving maid who’d fallen prey were the ones who went to the market on Stormsdays, and often recognized me. And I despised yappy dogs, they alerted people to my presence. The spell was perfect. And now it was spreading, likely along the lines of my hatred. I hated everyone in the palace, yes, but I hated many, many more than that. If it was weaving through the palace to unconnected victims, eventually it would work its way out of the palace, to the people outside. It would weave its way to everyone who had ever said a word against the Nameless, it would touch everyone who looked down upon me and my kind. That meant – eventually – everyone.

  A quiet, angry part of me grinned in triumph. Good! They all deserved it! Every rock thrown at me, every time they tried to hang me, every angry mob that attacked me, all of this would be avenged. And yet … and yet … Cursing the kingdom forever hadn’t been my intention. I looked back at Will. Why hadn’t it all gone as I’d expected it to go? If Will and maybe a few others had fallen asleep for a few days and woken up knowing what it was like to be Nameless, it wouldn’t have caused serious damage. This had a very ill potential. Especially considering I had no idea how to undo it.

  That thought gave me pause. ‘What makes you think I can do anything about it?’ I asked. Maybe she did know.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I need to find Mistress Cait.’

  ‘Faerie Caital? You need to find Faerie Caital?’

  ‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘She’s the faerie who saved mothe
r a hundred and twenty years ago.’

  ‘And caused the interregnum,’ I reminded her.

  She sighed. ‘Yes. But she’s the only one who could ever do anything about this kind of curse. The queen has sent a message to the Winnowinn clan, but she’s not optimistic that they can help her. They were the ones that granted her Mercy, and Mercy isn’t a very difficult gift to grant. Apparently. As far as faeries go, Mother says they aren’t very powerful.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, they aren’t,’ I muttered. ‘Ice magic is all temporary, melts away.’

  ‘But Mistress Cait granted Life out of Death, and that’s a very powerful spell. If anyone left in the kingdom can still help us, it’ll be her.’

  ‘And why are you talking to me?’ I asked.

  ‘Because she lives in the enchanted forest,’ Will said.

  I frowned. ‘And?’

  ‘And so do you. So I thought that you might be able to find her.’

  I baulked. ‘Me? You expect me to find Faerie Caital for you?’

  ‘No one else can,’ Will said. ‘Mother hasn’t been able to get a message to her since my christening.’

  ‘And why do you think I should fare any better?’

  ‘Because you’re a magician,’ Will said. ‘And you live here!’ She gestured to the towering trees around us. ‘Actually in the enchanted forest.’