As if in response, the bridge swayed beneath her weight.
No, Sophia thought at it, even as she grabbed the guide rope and whimpered. She kept walking, though. Stopping would give her too much time to think. It might also show the bridge—or the world, or Valerius—that she was afraid, and she thought perhaps that was a bad idea, as with dogs and horses. Although she was aware of every movement of every muscle, even though she cringed inwardly every time she put her foot down, expecting it to land on empty air, she kept going.
She began to think of the stone sections as islands, places of safety, although she knew logically that there was no reason for it. They weren’t real stone, nor did they have anything in the way of support keeping them up. Sophia tried not to think about that very much. If the stone bits felt safer, she would take safety from whatever corner it came. They certainly felt solid, and they didn’t move. That was enough to be thankful for.
Gradually the distance shrank, until it was a man’s height, then half that, then only a few more steps, and Sophia finally stepped onto solid ground. She wanted to collapse then, just as she’d wanted to run the last few feet, but she didn’t let herself do either. She could see nothing menacing around her, but that didn’t mean nothing was there.
Also, as good as solid ground was in comparison to the swaying bridge, the ground beneath her feet was even worse than it had been back in the forest: softer, wetter, more redolent of decay. Sophia didn’t want to get any closer to it than necessary, and her first few heaving breaths of relief quickly became much shallower and further apart.
Ugh.
Up close, the castle was huge and dark. Not only did nobody come out to meet Sophia—although she wasn’t certain she would have wanted that—but she couldn’t spy so much as a light in any of the windows. The great doors were closed, and the portcullis was down. If there’d been a drawbridge, she thought it would have been up.
Whywasn’tthere a drawbridge? If Sophia had been making a castle in a dream world, she’d have put a moat around it. She’d have gone ahead and put in some sharks too, or mayhap vitriol instead of water. One couldn’t be too careful.
Instead, she could walk right up to the castle walls. That might have come down to arrogance, but it suggested more what Sophia had been starting to think: this was a place where Valerius had less control. The castle most likely mirrored some counterpart in the waking world—at least to a degree. The actual place probablywasinhabited and guarded, and she doubted that the walls felt spongy to the touch.
UGH.
Wiping her hands on her skirt did little good. The doors felt just as awful, and they didn’t budge when Sophia tried to push them open. Reluctantly, she knocked on one, but received no response.
Standing back, she contemplated the building, thinking of it now not just as a physical object. Half through what few laws she’d observed of the world, and half through a feeling she couldn’t put into words, Sophia thought that the castle was an anchor—the inalterable center from which all alterations spread, mirror of and clue to the man behind the dream.
From Cathal’s first description, she’d known Valerius for a vain and petty man. Moiread’s information had only confirmed that much, but now Sophia thought of lines of descent and pacts forged in blood, strands of information knotted together into a fishing net. Valerius was not isolated, not even as much as another man might be. He had connections; there would be an opening, or—
—there.
Near the base of one wall, a brick had crumbled. Whether it had always been so and Sophia had only just noticed it or whether she’d worked her will on the castle just then, she didn’t know. Later it would make an interesting theoretical question. Just then, she knew what she needed to do. The brick was not an opening, but it might be what she needed.
Bending, for she still didn’t want to kneel, she plucked the pieces of brick one by one off the bare earth and held them in her cupped hands. Against her skin, they seemed almost to move, or to pulse with a faint and foul heartbeat.
Sophia gritted her teeth, closed her hands tightly around the stones, and woke herself up.
This time there was no disorientation. It was morning. Alice was sitting beside her, watching and frowning. Her face cleared as soon as Sophia opened her eyes, but not entirely. “Your hands are glowing,” she said, “and I don’t like the look of it.”
Indeed, a nimbus of dull light surrounded both Sophia’s hands. Any but a close observer might not have noticed, but it was there, and the same red-gray as the sky in Valerius’s world. It was repulsive; it was satisfying.
“Bring me”—Sophia bit her lip, held her hands away from her that she might not touch anything with that sickly energy, and thought—“the branch I took the holly leaves from. Please. I think it might be helpful.”
Twenty-five
This time the potion was dark brown, with threads of black and gray swirling through it. The vessel was lead. To magical sight, the whole thing had a dark glow to it, an impression of being moresolidthan anything around it, and a nasty strand of red-gray that Cathal was relieved to see dull and muted by comparison. Standing at Fergus’s bedside, Sophia frowned down at him, then up at Cathal and Sithaeg, and her hands were tight on the cup’s sides.
“It’s the appropriate day and hour,” she said, not clearly speaking to anyone in the room but herself. “Yes, and the logic stands.”
Still she hesitated. Watching from the other side of the bed, Cathal saw her eyes dart up to his, then again to Sithaeg’s. Her mouth opened. “This…” she began, and then stopped.
From the past few months, Cathal recognized the impulse she felt in that moment. Sophia had already presented the facts to them, as best she could with their limited understanding. Saturn would confer strength and bind Fergus’s body more to the world of matter. The bit of Valerius’s will—or soul, or whatever had gone from dream to Sophia to holly branch—should give Fergus power over the wizard. With matters as they stood, the reverse shouldn’t be a worry. She couldn’t be certain.
Sophia had told those things to him and Sithaeg. Neither had objected, and Cathal didn’t think she had any new information. What she wanted now was to lay the case in front of them again and have them decide to go forward, or not, so that the blame wouldn’t fall entirely on her shoulders if the results were dire. She wanted what most men did from their leader or their lord: freedom from decision. Christ knew he’d longed for it often enough.
He was about to step forward and speak—Go ahead, lass—when Sophia shook her head. Her shoulders went back and up; her spine straightened. “This one should not explode,” she said, “even should it fail. But you might both wish to stand back, in case I’m in error.”
Instead, Cathal went to her side. Sithaeg’s presence would be chaperone enough, even were the work ahead of them insufficient; his greater physical strength was justification. The hand he put on Sophia’s shoulder had no such excuse, but he regretted it not at all. Beneath gown and kirtle, her muscles were taut as lute strings, and he could do nor say nothing just then to relax her, only hope that his presence and the warmth of his hand rendered the moment easier to bear.
He kept his other hand on the hilt of his sword, the blade half an inch out already. The wards should hold; the time wasn’t right for demons, but he’d take no chances.
Sithaeg retreated back to the wall, lips moving in quiet prayer as the beads of a rosary slipped through her fingers. Her face was gray even in the morning light, tense with hope and the refusal to hope.
