I trek to my bakeshop.
I right the shelves, close the cupboards, and toss the spoiled ingredients into a bin to be discarded. My broom is still intact, and I use its bristles to coax the shop’s new six-legged residents back outside, then sweep out any remaining dirt and crumbs. The season has grown cooler, so the work takes a while to warm me. I’m glad. I work harder this way.
I find a spider in the corner of the storefront, and though I hate to destroy the nest it labored to weave, I prod it until it abandons its home and climbs onto the wall.
“You, too,” I say, careful not to hurt it as I guide it toward one of the broken windows. “Your meals have left, so you best hurry after them.”
The spider is stubborn and clings to my broom, so I walk it outside myself, shaking the broom out across the street.
That’s when I see him, just like before.
My breath catches. Sound dies in my ears. Blood rushes into my heart and leaves my limbs cold.
“Fyel,” I murmur, dropping the broom. I grab a fistful of my skirt and limp-run through the weeds and over tree roots into the cropped wood, rushing toward the pale, translucent apparition. He’s looking toward the west.
“Fyel!” I cry, and he turns around with a flap of his wings, his feet hovering above the ground.
I pause several paces from him. His skin—his skin has a peachy tone to it, no longer white. In none of my fragmented memories of him does he look this way.
He looks at me, studying me from my feet to the top of my head. Stares into my eyes. “You know me,” he says.
The chill in my limbs makes me shiver. “Of course I know you.”
His brow draws together. For a moment he looks at the earth below his feet. “I know . . . I am supposed to be here.” He lifts his head to the wood, scanning it before his gaze returns to me. “But . . . I do not remember why.”
My heart plummets to the earth.
We’re back at the beginning.
He doesn’t remember.
He doesn’t remember.
He doesn’t remember me.
The woman was so soft. She died so easy. They all do. But I won’t. I like the house too much.
CHAPTER 21
The realization hits me all at once.
This is what happened to me.
How else could I know Fyel, were I not a crafter? How else would I know regladia and steel, were I not of this world? How else would I have these memories of elsewhere, of other things? And my eyes . . . I have his eyes.
And I forgot everything.
Fyel, studying me with a curious expression, hovers nearly three feet above the earth. He always has. He’s never touched it, the trees, the buildings, me . . . until that night, when he touched one toe down and became as solid as I am now.
One toe.
I stand on the earth with both feet.
“Oh gods,” I mutter, backing away until my back collides with a tree. The peachy coloring of his skin makes him look more human. Makes him look more like I looked before.
Folding my arms, I press my fingers into the space just above either elbow. Am I imagining it from the panic building in my belly, or are there indentations there, deep in the bone?
But why did I come here? And why did I forget? The only man who can tell me is . . .
“Do you know my name?” I croak.
He tilts his head to one side and studies me. “No. But you know mine.”
“Yes.” I blink before tears can form. “Yes, Fyel. We met here, in this exact spot, almost . . . five months ago. But you knew me before, too.”
His white brows skew again. “I do not remember.”
“No, no . . . you don’t. You see, you came here for me.”
He eyes me again, looking me up and down, taking in my red skin and my gamre eyes. “You are a crafter.”
“Yes!” I nearly cry at the answer. It tears out of me like a falcon too long caged. Pushing off the tree, I say, “Yes, I am a crafter, but I’ve forgotten everything—where I came from and who I was. You were telling me. You were helping me to know.”
He touches his forehead as though it hurts.
“Maire,” I say, taking another step, but I stop short. I’ll probably pass through him if I touch him, but I’m too scared to try. What if I make it—this—worse? “Maire. My name is Maire.”
“Maire,” he repeats. I notice the subtle way he accents the word, the way his tongue clips it. The way I hear it in my memories. Maire.
Somehow that lilt makes me believe there’s still hope for us.
“I think,” I begin, clearing my throat because it’s closing in on me again, “I think you forgot because you touched down.” I point to the ground. “Just barely, the last time I saw you.”
His eyes narrow. “I would never—”
“You did,” I interrupt. “You have to trust me. I trust you, do you understand? You asked me to trust you, and I do, so trust me.”
He doesn’t reply.
A jabbing in my boot lifts my heart back into my chest. Squatting, I wrestle the crystal out of its hiding place and show it to him. “Do you—”
“Where did you get that?” Fyel asks, his voice softer. His wings flap twice. He reaches out as if to take it. I know he can touch it, but he pulls back.
“I found it. I found it by the gingerbread house I built in the forest. Do you remember that house?”
He’s starting to fade. He shakes his head. “Where is the other?” he asks.
“I-I don’t know yet.” I sound like I’m begging, and maybe I am. My eyes are dry, but the sound of tears leaks into my voice, and their unseen weight dampens my breath. “I can’t find it . . . but I’m looking. I’ll look harder. Just please—” Blink blink blink. “Please try to remember.”
Fyel lifts his eyes, and his entire body hardens. His wings flap outward—looking larger than I’ve ever seen them—and he reels back a few paces. “Him,” he growls. “I know him.”
Turning, I peer through the trees toward my bakeshop, where Allemas has appeared. There’s a sack of flour in his hands. He’s standing with his face pressed against the one whole window, looking inside the shop. Looking for me.
I shove the crystal back into my boot. “That’s Allemas.”
“He has no name.” Fyel glowers, his tone rough. “You need to stay away from him. Maire.” His face relaxes, and he refocuses on me, even as more of his body shifts into transparency. “You need to come home.”
He seems confused by the words as he speaks them, and I wince as they cleave my heart in two.
“I will. I promise. I’ll try.” A tear escapes and trails down my cheek. “Fyel, promise me you’ll come back. Promise me! Please.”
He touches his head, pained, and vanishes.
I cover my mouth with both hands and crouch, trying to shove down the sob born in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut, but a few tears still leak through the cracks. Oh gods, why are you tormenting me? What have I done? Please, just let him remember. I can’t do this by myself.
I need him.
A rock half the size of my fist hits the ground near me. Peering over my shoulder, I see Allemas standing in the middle of the road. Waiting.
“He has no name.”
“Stay away from him.”
Fyel told me that the first time, too, but later changed his mind. “Study him. Watch him, observe him, learn about him. It might help you.”
A headache pulses in the center of my forehead. Which Fyel am I supposed to believe?
Allemas throws another rock. This one nearly hits me.
“I’m coming!” I snap, rising to my feet. I take a few deep breaths, dousing the flames in my core, and leave the small wood.
As I cross the street, I see that Allemas has indeed done as I asked. There is flour, sugar, butter, even dried herbs lying in the gutter outside the shop’s door. More than what we had in his house.
“Did you steal these?” I ask, but of course he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even offe
r a nod or a shrug.
I sigh. “Okay. Let’s get these inside. Thank you.” Fyel will come back to me; I just need to be patient. I trust him.
I sort through and arrange all the ingredients in the time it takes for Allemas to trudge into the back with the sack of flour. He moves as though both his feet are booted and he’s thigh deep in meringue. I wonder if he’ll just stop one day, a doll without a little girl to move him about, a marionette with its strings cut.
I finish cleaning and use the curtains to cover the windows until they can be replaced.
I’m going to open the shop tomorrow.
I’ll stay where he can find me.
It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.
CHAPTER 22
I realize Allemas hasn’t eaten for days.
I’ve not seen him eat since our arrival to Carmine, and that was five days past. Any man would be sickened by fasting so long, but Allemas appears unchanged, save for the slight thinning of his face.
After setting up two cakes for purchase—there are not many people here who will buy, and those who linger do not make much money—I cut butter into flour to make a crust for a tart. I think of Franc bossing about the farmhands he hired last summer, and the method in which Arrice collects eggs to minimize damage to their shells. Sensibility. I also think of myself, of my life story as I related it to Allemas. Without understanding, I would never have come to terms with the enigma this man has become in my life, and I hope that, in turn, this tart will help him understand me. Perhaps it will be enough to convince him to leave and continue whatever life he had before we crossed paths.
I make a sugary pudding, simple and plain, as I don’t have a lot to flavor it with. I whisk out its lumps and focus on the energy of the strokes, imagining the effort in my muscles funneling down my arm and into the mix. I top it with currants, breathing deep as I place each small berry, trying my best to channel something like peace.
When the tart is set, I cut a wide triangle from it, plate it, and hand it to Allemas, who sits on a broken bench just inside the door. It takes some coaxing to get him to lift his hands high enough to take it, and then he stares down at the plate.
“Eat it,” I command. I didn’t intend to force him, but the words are said. “It will make you feel better, Allemas. You need to eat.”
Lethargic, Allemas raises the tart to his lips and takes a roach-sized nibble.
Frowning, I take the rest of the tart down the road to offer it to those who are building the wall, looking briefly for Cleric Tuck, but he’s likely piecing his shrine back together or offering words of comfort to the villagers. The sky is overcast and smells of rain. The cooling season is upon us.
Franc is with the wall workers. Their labor is constant, and the wall’s growth is slow and steady. I wonder if Fyel could build this wall with a sweep of his hand, or if that would be too much interference.
I need a cookie.
I cut slender slices of the tart to account for the number of workers and trek back to the bakeshop with an empty tin. A raindrop taps my cheek, but the heavens remain dry, for now.
The door to my shop is open when I arrive. The bench where Allemas was sitting is turned over.
“Allemas?” I call, setting the tin on a shelf and peering into the back of the shop. “Allemas?”
I hear a grunt as I retrace my steps, and I follow the sound, hurrying out of the shop and across the road, to the bridge that spans the narrow creek. Allemas is beside it, his feet in the water, his back hunched and shuddering. The grinding of his teeth scrapes my ears, and his breathing comes in choppy gasps.
“Allemas?” I approach him. He doesn’t answer.
A growl climbs up his throat and slips through his teeth as a muffled cry. His skin and muscles are taut, and he quakes from the inside out. This is the worst it’s been. I’ve never seen a living creature in so much agony.
I put a hand on his trembling shoulder. “Allemas, what’s happening?” Another gasp. “Deep breaths, now. In and out.”
He curls in on himself until his crown is inches from the ground. The clouds above us thicken, casting Carmine in heavy shadows.
A twig cracks beneath my now-shod feet. No, not a twig—dead weeds. Plants that look like they’re drought starved, mutated into skeletons by the sun. They form a ring around him four finger widths thick.
Allemas’s hands, which had been folded against his chest, shoot down to the earth. He grips handfuls of matted clover and mewls. Thin, gray liquid seeps out from under his sleeves. It drips onto the clover and makes the leaves sizzle and curl. Within moments the clover is devoid of life.
I inhale, my hand rushing to my mouth. My instincts tell me to run. My sinuses burn with the wrongness of him, but I force my feet to hold their ground. I can’t leave Allemas like this. No matter what he’s done.
“No no no . . . ,” he whispers, and his voice shocks me to my senses. He gasps as though rising from the depths of a lake. “It’s mine . . . stay in, stay in . . .”
“Allemas?” I kneel beside him. “Allemas, what needs to stay in? Allemas?”
He shakes his head back and forth, grunts, and cries out.
I reach down to the creek and scoop up a handful of water. “Here,” I say, lifting it to his lips. It’s difficult to sound calm when my heart and head are consumed by swirls of color I don’t recognize. “Drink this.”
“No!” he shouts, but not at me. The water spills from my hands. The gray fluid oozes out of his collar, his hands, his face—oh gods, it’s coming out of his skin.
I reel back, shivering. That wrongness chews on my bones and numbs my fingers. My ears ring.
Allemas arches his back and cries. Gray liquid pours from his eyes, nose, mouth. It crawls over the earth, devouring.
The birds and insects are quiet. A man down the road stops and looks at us, but he must feel the wrongness as well, for he turns and runs.
Allemas’s skin is taking on a pale, green color. His next wet cry echoes between the trees.
There is so much I don’t understand about myself, about him, but I move forward of my own accord, avoiding the gray sludge as best I can, but when I kneel, it seeps into my skirt, burning my skin.
I grab Allemas’s wet shoulders. “Get inside him,” I whisper, fumbling for a command. “Get inside him!”
The fluid leaks. Allemas drops his head into my lap.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I scoop the liquid into my hands and press it to his scalp. “Return from where you came! You are his!”
A gale sweeps over us, cold and pierced with thorns.
“You are his!” I repeat, and the sludge springs from my hands and into Allemas’s ears. He shudders, then chokes as the fiery liquid leaps up from the earth and into his mouth. I scoop up what I can in my arms—it burns like hot peppers against my skin—and then I embrace this man who called himself my master, squeezing him as hard as I can until the burning abandons my arms and knees, until his clothes become dry, until his weight sags against my breast.
Rain falls—large, hard drops that break leaves and pierce every layer I’m wearing. The sky above us has darkened to near black, and it churns and growls without lightning, brewing a storm unlike any I’ve seen. Another gale hits us, stronger than the first, pelting us with soil and dead foliage.
The rain thickens until I can barely see down to the bakeshop.
The gods are angry. I can feel it. I peer into the wood, aching for Fyel, waiting for him to tell me why, to explain, but he doesn’t come. Or, if he does, I can’t see him through the storm.
“Allemas.” The rain cuts through my voice. “Allemas.”
He groans.
“I can’t carry you,” I plead.
He is even slower than before. I help him stand, though the rain tries to push us down, tries to flatten us against the rust-tinted earth. With one of Allemas�
�s arms slung over my shoulder, we inch toward the bakeshop with painful slowness.
I add extra wood to the stove, but by the time the storm passes, we’re both still drenched and shivering.
Her face. I will not forget her face. None of the other faces are right. They’re all bad. I hate them, I hate them.
CHAPTER 23
Franc comes after the storm, having taken shelter in a nearby home. The blacksmith’s apprentice, who also survived the marauders, lets us load Allemas into his wagon and drive him to the house, where Franc and I haul him up the stairs and lay him in my bed. He hits the thin mattress hard, knocking something off of it. It hits the floor under the bed with a thud. I think it must be a book of mine or some other knickknack, but when I crouch to look in the darkness beneath the bed frame, I only see clumps of dust, a hairpin, and a piece of sketching charcoal.
I lift my head and lean on my good leg. “Allemas?” I ask. His eyes are closed, but his breathing is steady. I’ve never seen him sleep before. He looks almost . . . innocent. Almost.
“He’s done this before?” Franc asks.
I nod. “Not this bad, though.”
He huffs. “I’ll pull up the chair and keep an eye on him, case something happens. I don’t like leaving him unwatched besides.”
Arrice, from the doorway, says, “You can stay with me tonight.”
“Thank you. Just”—I pause—“come get me if he starts . . . leaking.”
Franc eyes me, a deep canyon forming in the skin between his eyebrows. I just offer him a shrug, grab a clean dress out of my dressing chest, as I don’t want to destroy any of my trousers to fit my boot, and slip into the refuge of Arrice’s room. I close the door and even shutter the windows, blacking out the gray light. I don’t even light a candle, just sit and wait. Wait for him.
I fall asleep listening to the memory of his voice.
I float in a space endlessly white.
I can’t help but notice my own weight against the earth. This solid, unyielding connection I have to Raea. Unsevered, save for when I jump, freeing myself from its pull for the space of a heartbeat, only to be tugged down again.
Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet Page 18
