He left off before he could name what. He stood tense, his nostrils flared, frowning into the forest.
“I thought I did,” she said, hiding her hands behind her back until she could get her claws safely away, “but I see nothing.”
“Nor I,” said Marcus.
“Likely we’re all on edge,” said Toinette.
“But,” said Raoul, frowning, “is this a wise place to build? Meaning no disrespect,” he added toward both Toinette and Marcus, “but if men died here, mightn’t they take it amiss? And if”—he gestured toward the forest—“if that sound was real, what is it?”
“It’s a fair question.” Not for the first time, Toinette wished that they’d brought a priest along, or that she’d learned more of magic with Artair. She spoke slowly, drawing her thoughts out on the words as thread on a wheel. “But men have died in many houses, and many by violence, and there’s plenty live there safely after. We’re burying these. With luck, that’ll count with them, if their spirits do linger.”
“And whatever spell traps us here, it hasn’t done anything to harm us yet,” Marcus added. “Lights and noises have never yet been deadly. High tides in winter, on an island—I know that danger, and it’ll take more than a juggler’s trick or two to make me chance it.”
* * *
In the center of the magical circle, Erik sat facing three skulls. Having Toinette at his side bolstered his courage, but still he was far from easy as he began to speak the incantation. For one, he’d never learned any distinct spell for this. He knew a few ways to break spells, and he’d put this rite together by combining that knowledge with what little he’d learned of the restless dead.
For another, he didn’t know that these deadwererestless, whatever might be the case with their spell. He’d committed a great many sins in his life, repented of a few, and lived well enough with others. Necromancy was new.
His throat was dry as he went on speaking. Each word took an age to form.
Gradually his vision shifted. He rose up above his body, seeing the island from above once again. This time, though, he saw it wrapped in a dense web, the purple-black of plague sores. The furthest tendrils, fading almost to gray, reached far out into the ocean, and Erik knew in that moment that the storm had been no mere freak of weather.
Drawing back to his body and the beach around it, he saw thinner black strands reaching for him and all his companions, wriggling obscenely, and then drawing back from the circle around the fire. Wood or flame or simply the presence of men drawn together to talk and eat like civilized creatures…something kept the web’s influence at bay. Erik was glad of it; he knew not precisely what that influence might be, but doubted it was good.
He reached out and put a hand on each of the skulls nearest him, with Toinette doing likewise. Her fingers settled on top of his right hand, slim but callused from the sword and the ship’s wheel, and her power linked to his. They would send it through the skulls and punch a hole in the web.
Indeed, the skulls took the power easily. Glowing golden, they rose from the sand and hovered in midair—but nothing else happened. The magic went into them, but the black web of the spell rested unmoving and unharmed around the island.
Briefly, from a farther distance than Erik could truly imagine, he caught the wisp of a feeling from the skull in front of him: regret.
Looking closer, he saw that the black webbing lay only lightly on the skulls, without the inward growth or the strength he would have expected from a true connection. Those bones, in life, might have partaken of the spell, or might have merely been trapped as Erik and his companions were, but they weren’t part of it.
There was nothing there that he could use.
Twenty-One
“Now what?” Toinette asked. She would have felt bad pressing Erik on the subject under other circumstances, but the men were watching, she knew they were asking the question in their minds, and it was best she be the one to give it voice.
Even so, she regretted the necessity. Erik looked gray and weary; since Toinette had a headache pounding at her temples and a mouth that tasted like the inside of a boot, she was sympathetic. She thought the spell had been a mite easier on them both than the scrying, which perhaps meant they were getting back into practice, but that was a low bar to clear.
“They didn’t cast the spell,” Erik said, gesturing to the skulls. “We’ll need to find the people who did—ortheirbones.”
“That means searching more of the island. Of course.” Toinette sighed.
Erik turned toward her, eyes narrowing. “Would you rather be trying to break the spell by ourselves? Wi’ nothing to give us an opening?”
“No,” she said. Even thinking about it made her headache worse. Nor could she truly accuse Erik of having engineered this, or even of taking pleasure in it. Still, she knew it would be a relief to him if hecouldtell Artair he’d looked as well as he possibly could. No sworn knight would lightly break off his mission, after all, and even escaping from a haunted island might count as light enough to trouble a man. Despite her angry words before they’d realized they were trapped—it seemed a lifetime ago now—she couldn’t fault the mission itself, either. With Balliol’s invasion, it had become clear that the English were acting out of vengeance now, and she could blame no man or country for wanting protection from that.
Toinette wanted to spit, and cleared her throat instead. “Same as before, then. We each take a day to go forward and a day to help build, or fish, or whatever’s needed.”
“Aye. I’ll take first,” said Erik, settling back into weary resignation. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. First we’ll have the burials.” Toinette looked back at John and Samuel. They’d briefly been studying the landscape intently, as men did in proximity to an argument they wanted no part of, and the realization made her wince. She hid it with a smile and felt every muscle involved. “Think of it this way: the further in we go, the better chance we have of finding food besides nettles and roots and fish.”
“Do you think there might be a deer or two in there?” Samuel asked. “I’ve seen a few tracks that made me think so, but they were old.”
“If there was one, there might be more,” said Toinette. “I’ve seen squirrels enough that it’ll be worth getting good with a stone again.”
