“Where do you sleep? Please, I need to know.”
I sense her annoyance since she pushes it toward me with incredible force.“In Rada’s cottage.”
“Thank you. I’ll leave you alone since you so badly want to avoid me,”I vow, doing my best to sound light even though I’m despondent and angry. “Cowardly entrail girl.”
“Wait. Since you’re here—why is the rot so damn hard to cure? It’s your invention, isn’t it?”
“It is. I made it to be incurable.”
There is a brief silence, and then an image pops in my head, a bleeding, coughing Igor with pus running out of his eyes and ears, Jaga’s hand holding a fistful of his hair to lift his face.
“Are you telling me I spent the last month with these useless maggots for nothing?! Youtold meI could find a cure! You never said it was impossible!”
I can’t help the snort of laughter that bursts out of me. I’ve missed her so much, and her fury—the most.
“Because itispossible. Every spell can be broken, one way or another. Every illness can be cured with time and resources. Or so I’ve always believed.”
She is silent, and I sigh, already regretting this brief interaction, because it makes me miss her all the more. A few minutes pass, and Jaga speaks again, sounding reluctant and grumpy.
“What’s wrong with everyone? Nyja’s been here. She screamed at me for quite a long time. Said it’s all my fault that your alliance is in shambles.”
I smile ruefully, thinking about my fearsome partner, who still burns as bright as ever. I love that she fights so hard. Maybe she’ll manage to keep Nawie going on her own once I’m gone.
“Not your fault. All mine.”
There is another long silence. I grab my dewberry wine, a perfect copy of Jaga’s, and swig it straight from the bottle. It’s laced with a few poisons that will addle my brain enough to stop me thinking for a few hours. I wish to be drunk.
I wish to sleep but I can’t if she’s not by my side.
“Have you given up? Are we going to lose?”Jaga asks, and there is no accusation in her thought-voice. She sounds resigned and heavy, exactly the way I feel.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to fight when we can’t figure out what to do.”
“Tell me the secret of going back in time. I know you know it.”
I sit up straight, putting the wine away with a thud.“What? Why now?”
“There’s something I have to do if we’re going to lose.”
My heart hammers, and I grip the edges of my seat, thinking frantically. My thoughts are fickle and dazed, evading my grasp. I’ve drunk enough wine to poison a bear, and my mind is muddied.
The only clear thought I have is born of habit and reinforcement, and not knowing what else to do, I repeat my past mistakes.
“Let me have your soul and I’ll teach you how to go into the past. Please.”
Jaga falls silent, and I drain the bottle, laughing and raving like a madman as I wreck my throne room. I pull gems out of the walls and shatter them into dust, destroy furniture withrelish, and finally set fire to the bedroom, which is long overdue. Nothing cures my abject disappointment. When I’m sober enough to understand the pointlessness of my behavior, I set out looking for Jaga, ready to hammer out a trade she might be more willing to accept.
But she’s not in the torture chamber. I go to Rada, not too worried yet, and she receives me with wide eyes, a bit fearful, a bit compassionate.
“I haven’t seen her since yesterday,” she says in a soft, sweet voice, while little Dar jumps onto a pile of wood behind her, settling on top of it with his golden dragon paws in front of him like a cat.
“He’s a proper little beast,” I comment while my heart performs anxious somersaults in my chest. “I have a dragon serving in my army. Maybe you’d like to talk to him?”
She nods gratefully. “Oh, yes! I have all sorts of questions. Usually, I can keep up with him well enough, but sometimes…”
“Consider it done,” I interrupt. “Now excuse me. I must find Jaga.”
Have I fucked up?I wonder. Has my cowardly surrender finally driven her away? I shudder at the thought of her going to Perun now that she’s certain I’m done fighting. I send my shadows racing through Nawie to find her, already knowing she’s gone.
