“I need to take a look at him.” My fingers clenched tight in my hair. “I have to—”
“Later,” said the hunter, laying a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “There’s no time.”
“My brother’s strong. He’ll recover.” Jack’s voice wavered ever so slightly. She wasn’t any more certain of that than I was. “The chirurgeon has prescribed a course of care.”
“The chirurgeon’s cures are bloodletting and dung!” I shrugged away the hand and tried to leave, but a few of the others grabbed me and pulled me into the Great Hall along with the rest of them. I barely restrained myself from lashing out at them with my fists.
I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to make sure Sam wasn’t being bled white, though there’d be little enough else I could do for him. The recommended treatment for a coma is to wait, do nothing, and hope the patient wakes.
I have always hated the recommended treatment for a coma.
The hall was as packed full of Tailliziani noblemen as it had been before. Now, however, there was a pervasive undercurrent of fear. The murmurs were sharper, angrier. As I struggled free of the hunters’ grip, I heard furious shouts echo from the other side of the room. In spite of the chill weather, there was a sharp aroma of sweat beneath the nobles’ perfume. Sweat and something else. Something uncomfortably familiar.
It pulled at me, whatever it was. I took a few involuntary steps. The hunters kept pace withme.
The nobles fell silent and parted before us as we neared. Theirexpressions were strange and grotesque—leering grins; rage-filled snarls; terrified, wide-eyed stares. When they watched us pass, I could practically feel their gazes searing my skin.
As we approached the far side of the hall, the shouts resolved into words. “…must return them to the wall at once!” Gervase yelled, red-faced with fury as he came into view, angrier than I had ever seen him before. “This castle will fall if we don’t—”
“The castle will fall if we fail to expose the traitors in our midst!” the lion bellowed back at him. His mouth was close enough to Gervase’s head to swallow it with a snap of his fangs. “This simple test—”
“Is preposterous! It makes no sense! Why would any woman be compelled—”
“THEY WILL!” the lion roared. “IT’S IN MY BOOK!”
The last of the noblemen moved out of the way, revealing what had been hidden. It had been placed beside the wall, a few feet from where Gervase and the lion were embroiled in their quarrel.
A spinning wheel.
I finally recognized the familiar scent for what it was—not a scent at all, truly, but a feeling, a presence. The air was thick with dark magic.
I’d spent much of my childhood feeling that same disquieting prickle across the hairs on the back of my neck. I half expected to see my stepmother somewhere in the room, brewing a potion or chanting an incantation under her breath. But this felt indefinably different from her magic; its flavor wasn’t the same, perhaps, or its color. My stepmother hadn’t cast this spell.
“They will approach the spinning wheel because it is the nature of human women to spin,” the lion said in a calmer tone. “This is scientific fact based on observations and interviews with the women in this very castle. The deception of your supposed huntsmen will at long last be revealed.”
“Nonsense!” Gervase snapped. “This has gone far enough. Amessenger will be sent to countermand your ridiculous summons. And once this siege has been lifted, Lion, you will no longer…” He paused, noticing that the rest of the Great Hall had gone quiet. As he turned, frowning, his eyes fell upon the twelve of us marching across the chamber, our footfalls echoing in the otherwise silent room.
The spinning wheel was the locus of the enchantment. It practically pulsed with power. The light was dimmer around it, the shadows deeper. Who had set the spell on it? The lion? He was watching with a smug expression on his muzzle as we drew ever closer to it. But that didn’t seem right. If he was capable of this, why hadn’t he done it before? The peas had been ordinary peas.
“Jack?” Gervase said, sounding perplexed. “Jack, what are you doing?”
She took another step and didn’t answer. I tried to answer for her, to give a warning, but my mouth wouldn’t open. The magic kept me silent.
The spell targeted us; that much was obvious. The noblemen, the lion, Gervase—they were ignoring it. Only the hunters and I were driven by the compulsion. But that couldn’t be all there was to it. A spell that was only intended to make us touch a spinning wheel wouldn’t have needed to be so powerful, so dark. Something else was going to happen when we put our hands onit.
A curse. Spinning wheels were used for the worst curses possible. Death, destruction, decay. Endless pain. Eternal sleep. No matter what enchantment had been cast on it, it could be nothing good.
But even if I knew the exact spell, its weaknesses and strengths, I’d never be able to unravel it before we set if off. We were mere paces distant from the spinning wheel. Gervase still looked puzzled, but he made no move to stopus.
A dozen right feet lifted up, swung forward, dropped. Adozen left feet did the same. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t stop, couldn’t run away fromit.
It occurred to me, however, that running toward it might be an option.
The spinning wheel wanted me to approach, after all. It wanted me to succumb to its lure. I tried to pick up my pace, and my feet responded.
I gathered as much speed as I could and threw myself on top of it. I felt a sharp pain as the spindle stabbed into my thigh, but wood broke beneath me with a satisfying crunch.
Breaking the enchantment had been beyond me. But breaking the enchanted object? That would do. The spell had been mighty, but the spinning wheel itself had not. It hadn’t been made to bear weight. The dark magic leaked out of it, the shadows receding, the air becoming easier to breathe.
