“Here, Glenda. I’ve made one of those portals you love so dearly.”
A force struck her back and sent her hurtling through the opening void. As she fell, shrieking, she heard final words from the witch: “Do consider the redhood flower.”
Glenda toppled into dirt and weeds, the portal sealing behind her. “Damn you!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet. “Damn you, you damn witch!”
A sound brought her attention to the trees. The same man they’d seen when the carriage first touched down, all those days ago, stood there again with an armful of collected timber.
“What are you looking at?” Glenda howled. Without a word, the man dropped his wood and turned, sprinting away down a woodland path. Smoke rose from somewhere in the trees, betraying the presence of a nearby cottage.
“Damn it!” Glenda cried, recognizing the location. She’d been abandoned near the outpost village—too far to rejoin the witch, too far to reclaim her prey, completely shut out from whatever would unfold. “Damn you! This was mine! This was supposed to be mine!”
Depleted from her exclamations, Glenda crouched panting in the soil. It was with supreme annoyance that she realized she was hungry.
CHAPTER 49
In Which I Am in a State of Utter Panic, and Am Also a Bit Worried About the Sorcerer as I’m Sure He Didn’t Intend for the First Meeting with His Long-Lost Sister to Be Quite So Nude on His End, or Quite So Threatening on Hers, and In Which I Am Deeply, Sincerely Uncomfortable with the Number of People Who Have Just Seen My Cock and Balls.
There’s no time, no time! HURRY!” the sorcerer shouted, which did not in fact speed up my dressing. I hopped, one foot in a pant leg, while Merulo waved his wand with a rasp of discordant syllables, opening a call to his sister.
“I felt someone poking about, but they left too quickly,” came Hydna’s growl. “Who was that? Who’s found us?”
“Domitia,” said the sorcerer, loading the name with emotion.
“We’re fucked, then.”
“Hydna!” Merulo sounded aghast. “We are not ‘fucked.’ You’ve finished your end, yes?” He waved at me again to make haste, and I complied as best I could, crawling across the floor to find where my shirt and shoes had landed. Why, oh why had we not undressed me in a more orderly fashion?
“I told you!” Hydna’s shout reverberated around the bedroom. “I haven’t finished checking for errors!”
She must be in dragon form to create such a noise. Having collected my garments, I dressed in the corner, feeling grim relief at having a sword to buckle at my waist.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Merulo. “We must proceed immediately with what we have.” He seized his knife from the desk, slashing at a finger, and threw himself to the tiled floor to smear bloody glyphs. “My arm, I need my arm! Hydna!”
“How can I help?” I asked, watching the scrawled patterns develop. Even in his urgency, the lines came out exact, the curling loops and sigils elegant and clear. Before he could answer, a portal opened in the room, spitting out an ice-covered limb that fell to the floor with a thud.
“I’ll do it now, Mer.” Hydna spoke through the portal, without entering. “This might be goodbye. Best of luck.”
“Say you love each other!” I cried, before she could close it. “You absolutely do, so just say it!” I raised my hands, exasperated.
“Fine. Yes, I do ‘love’ you, Hydna.” Merulo kept his eye fixed on what must be an especially interesting patch of floor. “You have a brilliant mind regarding pre-Descent matters. And you’ve been of great help, despite—”
“Despite you being a constant asshole? Yeah,” she said. “But I love you too, somehow. Try not to die.” With that, the portal folded shut, leaving us alone in the inn room with its paper-pinned walls, the severed arm slowly defrosting on the floor between us.
“Using this”—Merulo abandoned his spell-work to grab it, closing artificial fingers around his former wrist—“I will ‘reach’ the entire world!”
When I failed to laugh, he looked genuinely disappointed.
“Where is Hydna going?” I asked.
“Five pre-determined locations around the globe, to place the points of a pentagram.” Merulo returned to his own pentagram, clamping teeth about his finger whenever the wound threatened to close. “I haven’t finished my research for this one,” he admitted, somewhat hoarsely. “But it should work. Ithas towork.”
“What about your leg? Don’t you need that as well?” I hoisted the bed with a grunt, toppling it against a wall to give the sorcerer more floor-space to draw on.
“Fuck!” Merulo cried. He jerked to his feet in an unhinged motion that had me fearing for his linework. “My leg! And my eye! The next spell depends on them. Cameron, you know where my sister sleeps?”
“Um . . .”
“I’m not accusing you of sleeping with her. The building beside the arena, she’s hollowed it to make a den. Inside, you’ll find an icebox. Exactly what it sounds like, a box filled with ice. It contains my leg, my other eye, and most likely, an enormous quantity of chicken livers. Run, as fast as you can, and fetch those for me. Not the livers, the other things.”
