He bowed his head ever so slightly in acknowledgment, his face remaining hard as a gravestone. “Sorceress, witch—what’s the difference?”
“That depends. Do you mean in an academic sense, a religious sense, or a folkloric sense?”
He blinked, taken aback. It was a tricky question, to be fair. If you’re not familiar with the professional jargon, the differences between a sorcerer, witch, magician, wizard, and warlock can be difficult to follow.
“For example, if you go by folklore,” I said, “witches eat people. I don’t.”
He shook off his confusion and resumed his narrow-eyed gaze. “Whether you do or you don’t, I find it interesting you failed to bring the matter up the day we rescued you. If,” he added, “we did, in fact, rescue you.”
I ground my teeth together, feeling foolish for not foreseeing this. Jack had wondered from the beginning if I was deceiving him, and now that I’d admitted to being a sorceress, he had yet more reason to believe I’d been hiding other things as well. The difficulty, of course, was that he was right. It was just that the things I was hiding weren’t nefarious, sorcerous plans. Or wickedly cannibalistic ones, for that matter.
“I’m a very minor sorceress,” I said. “It hardly seemed worth mentioning.”
“And how, pray tell, does one distinguish,” he asked coldly, “between a minor sorceress and a—” He stopped short as a tentative hand tapped him on his shoulder.
For some reason, I once again had no difficulty telling it was Sam.
“Jack. I, um…I thought we talked about this.”
Jack whirled to face his brother. “We did. And we agreed her behavior was suspicious.”
“Well, aye, that’s true,” Sam conceded. “But also…not. Evil masterminds don’t slip on a handful of peas and break their arm, do they?”
“It wasn’t broken,” I protested. “Only sprained.”
Jack ignored me. “You said you would follow my lead on these things.”
“On the mission.” Sam shifted uneasily under Jack’s glare. “Are you sure this is part of the mission?”
“Of course it is! She’s been keeping secrets—”
“And no one who keeps secrets,” Sam said to his masked sibling, “can ever be trusted, is that it?”
That did little to calm Jack down. “If you trust her, with everything that’s been happening, you’re a fool. A fool who’s fallen for a pretty face. I can’t believe you’d break faith with me overthat!”
“No one’s breaking faith with anyone!” Sam insisted. “You’re still in charge here, Jack. It’s only, she’s been in the castle for days—”
“And now here she is on the hunt,” Jack replied, his face dark. “We’ll see how safe that makes us. The last time she was with us is the last time we were attacked. Stop acting like a mooncalf. Stay on your guard. And don’t doubt I’ll be watching you, witch,” he threw at me as he stomped off, muttering to himself. Sam gazed after him, looking distraught.
The argument had made Poma skittish; she pranced in place, and her ears flicked back and forth with anxiety. I stroked her across the withers to settle her. “A pretty face, amI?”
“Well, you…That is, I mean, er…” Sam coughed.
I smiled into Poma’s mane, where he couldn’t see. “Thanks for defending me. I know you don’t like going against your brother.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me whatever else you’ve been keeping from us?” he asked cautiously. “Or even why.”
“Maybe another time,” I said, echoing his words from earlier. If I ever decided to reveal my identity to someone, it wouldn’t be in a crowded stable where any would-be assassin could overhear.
“A plausible explanation might help smooth things over with Jack.”
I turned back around. “Would it? He seems intent on making me the villain.”
Sam rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “You’ll have to forgive him. Jack isn’t usually so unreasonable. But it’s been hard on him, all this. The constant threat, and…and everything else.”
“Surely it’s been difficult for everyone.” I thought about the crowded courtyard packed with terrified farmers.
“It has,” Sam agreed. “But Jack has a particular…He’s got a good excuse for being…”
