“Is that the Jandanvari Palace?” Trystan said, horror creeping into his voice.
“That’s not what it looked like earlier.” I trembled. “It had been—beautiful.”
“Foxfollow.” Trystan said the name like a curse. “This is what you meant, isn’t it?”
I thought he was talking to me, but the wind rippled around us, and Isolfr said, Yesssss.
“You said he’d fortified it! Not that he’d amplified the Mists magic here!” Trystan dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “You could have warned me.”
“He did warn you,” I snapped. “He said it had been fortified. Of course he used the magic of the Mists. What would you expect him to do?” I turned back to the castle. The gray mass slid and undulated over the palace’s old lines, enshrouding it, keeping it locked away from us.
We came to a stop directly above the palace. Isolfr whirled around me and Trystan like a cyclone, holding us in place.
“You don’t have to help me,” Trystan said, his voice rising and falling with the wind. “I had no idea it was going to be this bad.”
He was looking at me as he spoke. I wrapped my arms around myself. Here was my chance. Trystan was more help to Isolfr than I ever could be—even Isolfr had to know that. “No,” I said. “I’ll help. I promised Isolfr.”
Thank yooooou, whispered Isolfr’s wind voice, and I knew then that even as the wind, Isolfr was scared.
“Very well,” Trystan said. He stared down at the palace, his expression hard. “Drop us, Isolfr.”
I took a deep breath.
Around us, Isolfr began to count:
One . . .
Two . . .
Trystan reached over and grabbed my hand.
Three . . .
And then we were falling. I clung to Trystan and tried not to think about the palace barreling up to meet us. The wind howled past my ears, but it wasn’t the north wind—it wasn’t Isolfr. It was the wind generated by my fall, and it was cruel and dangerous and terrifying.
Over the wind’s howling I could make out Trystan chanting in a language I couldn’t understand, although I could feel the strength of its magic rippling through my body. Please work please work please work, I thought. I knew my own magical abilities wouldn’t be able to help him—it was Mists magic, and too different from what I knew—but I thought I might be able to bolster its strength. And so I concentrated on that, on promising myself that this strange spell would work.
We were almost to the castle. The dark cover rippled and churned. I took a deep breath. Trystan was shouting his spell now, the words reverberating around us.
We hit.
It was like crashing into the ocean. All at once everything was dark and damp and cold, a cold that shot straight through my bones. We passed through the churning gray mass, magic crackling and sparking, and then we passed through the stone of the palace walls, sliding through like shadows.
We landed, hard, on top of a thick, lush carpet. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs, but it didn’t kill me.
Trystan’s spell had worked.
I stood up, shaky. The walls spun around. Everything felt muffled—my vision, my hearing, even my sense of existing. It took me a moment to realize that I was coated in the gray mass that had surrounded the castle.
I yelped and tried to scrape it off, digging my nails over my skin. But Trystan grabbed my wrist.
“No,” he whispered, peering at me from the dark mask coating his face. “It will hide us from Foxfollow’s spies. I just doused us in his own magic. Rather clever, don’t you think?” He grinned.
I glared at him. “You said it was worse than you expected.”
“And then I realized I could use it against him. It’s a better spell than what I had planned originally. Unfortunately, the same trick won’t hide Isolfr, so he’ll just have to stay in his wind form, like we talked about. Come, let’s go find him.”
We skittered through the hallway. The castle had changed with Foxfollow’s magic: the shadows coiled in the corners like snakes, waiting to strike, and the walls surged like sails rippling in the wind. Sometimes eyes would glow out of the darkness. They were never attached to any figures—just bright pairs of eyes, floating in midair, looking for intruders. Looking for us.
They didn’t see us. Trystan’s magic had worked.
We followed the hallway until we came to the servants’ stairs. They were tucked away behind a tapestry, just as they had been in those great houses we visited in the Mists—but here, the figures on the tapestry moved, tiny people chasing seals across the ice, red blood splattering in the snow. I turned away, my stomach churning. Lord Foxfollow’s magic had a darkness to it I had never seen before.
Trystan led the way down the stairs. They were dark, all the torches burned out, but there was enough light seeping up from the kitchen that it wasn’t like it had been in the tunnel out of the Gallowglass dungeon. We didn’t pass anyone else. The kitchens were abandoned as well. A great roasted boar sat in the oven, the meat and vegetables blackened and burned and the fire long since turned to ash. Crockery was spread out across the table. A cake covered in spun-sugar flowers was turned upside down on the floor.
“They left in a hurry,” I said.
“Or they were killed,” Trystan said.
The possibility hadn’t even occurred to me. I wrapped my arms around myself and looked at the kitchen with this new revelation, trying to find clues that the chaos came from violence, rather than from fleeing.
Trystan slid open the door that led out to the courtyard. Moonlight spilled in. He stuck his head out, glanced around.
“It’s fine,” he said to me. “No guards.”
“Why aren’t there guards?”
“I don’t know.” Trystan stepped out into the courtyard. I followed him. The wind gusted, blowing dust from the cart path into my eyes. An easterly wind, not Isolfr.
“You don’t think that’s suspicious?”
“I think it’s very suspicious,” Trystan said. He glanced over at me. “But I couldn’t tell you how exactly Lord Foxfollow does things. I only know enough to know he’s up to something.”
I shivered, and not from the cold. The wind howled around the side of the palace.
And then, abruptly, it shifted, spiraling up like a cyclone. Dead leaves and grass flew around in a frenzy, reflecting the moonlight. In that shimmery light, Isolfr appeared, just for a moment, in his human form. He smiled at me. A scared smile, and a brave one.
“No trouble so far,” Trystan said. “Once you get in there, though—” His voice faded away.
Let me go first, Isolfr said. I will distract them away from you.
“No!” I cried. “You can’t—”
As long as I’m like this, I’m fine.
And then he whooshed past me, an onslaught of cold and starlight. My hair flew up around my face, and I could see the trace of him as he poured into the kitchen.
“Wait,” Trystan said, grabbing my wrist. “He’s right. Let him draw Foxfollow’s attention.”
I stood trembling out in the courtyard. I hated the idea that Isolfr was in there alone, even if he was in his wind form. I hated that he could be in danger and I was standing out in the cold. Waiting.
A shriek rose out of the palace, low and mournful. It set my teeth on edge, made the hair on my arms stand up.
“Isolfr!” I lunged toward the door.
“Hanna, no!” Trystan grabbed me and pulled me back. “No, that wasn’t Isolfr—that’s Foxfollow’s monsters—”
More shrieks filled the air. My ears ached with the sound of them. The gray mass churned over the palace walls, growing thicker and thicker.
“We’re going to get locked out,” I said, and I slipped out of Trystan’s grip and dove inside. The kitchens were undisturbed.
Trystan slammed in after me. “We have to give him time,” he said.
“You saw the covering! It was going to swallow up the doorway.” I glared at him. “We have t
o get to Foxfollow. Isolfr’s going to need our help.”
Trystan stared down at me. But then he nodded, once.
We left the kitchen, clambered back up the staircase. I was numb with fear but I forced myself to keep moving forward, reminding myself that Isolfr needed my help. That was enough to get me to the top of the stairs and back into the hallway. The glowing eyes were gone. Just as Isolfr had promised.
“This way,” Trystan said, jerking his head to the left. “I can feel him. He’s amassing strength.”
Amassing strength. I thought of the time I had faced down Lord Foxfollow in the in-between world, the floor a mirror reflecting us into ourselves. I had been protected there.
But here, now—I was in his domain. In a palace he had perverted to make his own.
Trystan and I jogged through the hallway. I let Trystan lead the way. He kept his head down, like a dog sniffing for scent. The shrieking started up again, and it was louder this time, and closer, and I could feel it jarring all the way down in the marrow of my bones.
The hallway opened into an entryway. Trystan and I faced a pair of wooden doors. They were carved with the faces of former queens, but in the presence of Foxfollow’s magic their expressions were twisted and horrified, eyes wide and mouths open in eternal screams.
Beyond those doors was that terrible shrieking, and the roar of the wind like a storm trying to bring down a ship.
And magic. I could feel the magic sparking inside of me.
It was time.
I took a deep breath and glanced over at Trystan. He was already staring at me, waiting. I nodded, and he stepped forward and pushed the doors open.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Darkness flowed out of the throne and enveloped Trystan and me. The entire world blinked and for a moment I thought I had died. I wondered if this is what it meant to swim in the sea of the dead.
But then I felt Trystan’s breath near my ear:
“Use your magic. It’s a trick.”
My magic. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the darkness. At first all I could feel was Lord Foxfollow’s magic, crawling and snaking over me. There was no way I could work enchantment with that. I needed the wind. I needed Isolfr.
And as soon as I had the thought, I felt him, distantly, the soft cold breeze of the north wind. The south wind was the north wind’s sister, he’d told me, and I knew I could harness its power, his power, inside of me.
And so I did.
I reached out for him, reached out for the magic on the wind, and drew him in close. It was easier than it normally was, and I knew he was coming to me, that he was choosing to help. My bloodstream sparked and shivered as if it were turning to ice. But then there was a surge of power, and for a half-second the throne room lit up.
The walls were lined with monsters.
A wind storm raged inside.
And Foxfollow stood on the throne, feet balanced on either armrest, chanting with his hand pressed against his heart.
I gasped and stumbled back. The image blinked out, replaced by darkness. Something caught me.
“Isolfr?” I said weakly.
“No, Trystan. Can you see?”
“I did, for a moment—”
“Try harder then. He’s keeping us in the dark. Seeing him is the only way we’ll be able to fight.”
Trystan helped me to my feet. It was disconcerting to feel his touch but not see him. Black ink oozed around us. I felt for Isolfr again. He was close, waiting. His magic threaded through me.
“Isolfr,” I whispered, “help me.”
Power blasted into me and magic swelled up inside my chest. I could see again. The monsters crawled over the walls, their claws digging in tightly to stop from being blown away by Isolfr’s strength. They hissed and shrieked and clambered over one another. Some of them looked like the monsters that had attacked the Annika, thin-snouted and sharp-toothed, but others oozed like snakes or flapped thin, membranous wings like bats. Looking at them left me nauseated, and I forced my attention up to the throne.
Up to Lord Foxfollow.
He dropped his hand to his side. I moved back, unsteady on my feet. Trystan was a few paces away from me, kneeling, tracing a pattern on the floor.
Lord Foxfollow opened his eyes.
He opened his eyes and pain swelled up inside my head. I slammed back against the wall and the squirm of monsters. One of them slithered across my throat and I flew forward, hitting the ground. The pain throbbed in time with my heart.
Hanna, whispered Isolfr. A triiiick.
A trick. Magic. This pain, as much as it pounded inside my head, was a phantom. It was pain generated by a spell.
I screamed and forced the pain away, transforming it into a ball of light that exploded in the center of the room. The monsters shrieked and turned away from the light, scurrying into corners and behind tapestries.
Lord Foxfollow gave me a cold smile.
“Daughter of the Sun,” he hissed, “did you come to aid the North Wind?”
I didn’t answer him, just curled my hands into fists and concentrated on drawing in the magic from Isolfr. I needed to transform it inside of me into something that could defeat a lord of the Mists.
“Get out of Jandanvar,” I said.
Lord Foxfollow looked at me and laughed. The wind swirled between us, throwing my hair up in long streaks behind my head. Magic burned inside of me. Lord Foxfollow was still laughing. Trystan—where was Trystan? I didn’t dare look away from Foxfollow, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him hunched on the floor, still tracing his patterns. He needed time.
I gathered up my magic. It coalesced into a cold, searing point inside my chest, and there was so much strength there, so much power, that for a moment I didn’t even feel afraid.
I murmured a prayer to the ancestors and then I shot the magic straight at Lord Foxfollow. It manifested as a column of cold blue light, and it slammed into him and threw him up against the wall behind the thrones. He’d clearly underestimated me. The monsters howled and hissed and roiled around on the wall, crawling back out of their hiding places. I collapsed on the floor, overcome with exhaustion. I felt empty. I was empty.
Lord Foxfollow wasn’t moving, but the monsters were. They peeled themselves away from the wall and slunk low over the floor, a hundred different things crawling and creeping and sliding toward me. Every single one of them had their mouths pulled back to reveal long rows of jagged teeth. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even move to sit up. I was too weak.
“Help!” I cried out, to Trystan, to Isolfr, to anyone. “I can’t—”
The monsters’ faces flickered. Their features were animalistic and cruel, but as they edged toward me I saw traces of humanity in them. I saw Mama and Papa and Henrik. I saw Kolur.
“Help!” I screamed. “Sea and sky! Trystan! Isolfr!”
One of the monsters leaped. All I could see was its long silver claws flying straight for my face. But then it was knocked away by a freezing blast of wind. It hit against the floor, yelping. The others hissed and swiveled their heads. Another jumped. The wind knocked it back.
I felt around on the floor, trying to push myself up to sitting, but I heard Isolfr’s voice in my head:
Stay stiilllll. Rest. Recover.
I knew I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t going to lay out in the middle of a battle while monsters tried to kill me. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
With a burst of strength I sat up. The wind howled. A shadow moved past me—Trystan, rushing toward the throne, to the place where I had thrown Lord Foxfollow.
“Stay down!” he shouted, just as a gray damp magic arced through the air. It struck me on the side of the face and immediately began rioting inside my body, reacting to my own magic. I gasped and braced myself against the floor, trying to ride out the counterbalance. I could just see beside the throne, light building between Trystan’s palms.
“I said get down!” Trystan shouted again, and he shot a blast of magic, that same gray dam
pness, at Foxfollow. He ducked. The magic splattered across the far wall and the wall turned transparent and hazy.
Foxfollow laughed. “You aren’t going to get me, Lord of Llambric,” he said. “We’ve already been through this once.”
“Shut up!” Another blast of magic, another dodge. Foxfollow leaped up on top of the queen’s throne and crouched there, his gaze sweeping across the room.
His eyes began to glow.
I got a sharp tug in my stomach. I scrambled backward across the floor. Isolfr was still knocking the monsters away, and they snarled and bit at the air. They had seemed to mostly forget me.
Lord Foxfollow turned his head. Stopped at me.
Fear turned me to ice.
His lips moved. The air trembled. It was distorting, shaking, changing.
“No,” I whispered, and I was still crawling backward. “No no no—”
The air vibrated against my skin. A monster launched itself at me but was thrown back. Trystan was shouting something but I couldn’t hear him over the distortion of the air. I just kept crawling backward, trying to get away.
And then the room went still as death.
And Isolfr, Isolfr in his human form, dropped hard against the floor.
“There,” said Foxfollow. I could hear his voice buzzing inside my head. “That’s a more even match, don’t you think?”
Without thinking about my exhaustion or the depletion of my magic, I jumped to my feet and shot my power out into the room, not at Foxfollow but at the monsters. It blasted into them and they were flung back in a circle and my head swooned and I dropped down beside Isolfr. I was wrung out. My magic was gone.
He turned his head toward me. “Hanna,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He reached one hand toward me, slim and pale and lovely even in the midst of all this terror. Behind him I could see Lord Foxfollow climbing down from the throne. He was walking toward us, slow and careful.
Here it was, our moment of defeat.
“No,” I said, and I reached out for him, and even that one action was painful and slow, like my limbs were drying out. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop him—”
Our fingers touched, grazing across each other, and I thought about how this was the last time I would ever touch another creature in this life, and I thought about how I was glad it was Isolfr, that I wouldn’t want to touch anyone else in the moment before I died.
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