‘Gwen—’
‘Sir Gwen!’ Before Isobelle could get any further, a keen young man clutching a sheaf of parchment popped up before them like a jack-in-the-box. ‘I’m Lord Bingleton’s official sketch artist. Archibald! Archie, if you like. I was wondering if I could trouble you for a quick pose.’
Gwen blinked at him, nonplussed – it was a perfect reflection of Isobelle’s own response, to be fair, with Isobelle’s only advantage that she’d spent a lifetime perfecting her poker face. As she watched Gwen’s expression clear, though, her features released from that awful, frozen stillness, a cold finger curled down Isobelle’s spine. She’d seen that freeze before, or one very close to it.
‘A pose?’ Gwen asked Archie, blinking again.
‘I’m capturing the moment,’ he said brightly, fanning out the sheets of parchment to show them a series of quick sketches. There were Hilde and Jane, toasting each other with tankards. There was Lord Bingleton, hands on hips,gaze nobly directed towards the horizon. There was their captain, Henry, still looking a bit traumatised if Isobelle was completely honest.
Archie set down a placard, which read:Hand-held Portraites of Selfe with Towne Landmarks and Sytes!
Isobelle raised an eyebrow. ‘You know, Archie, you really need a pithier name for your product,’ she advised him. ‘Can’t you boil all that down to a word or two?’
The artist’s gaze became thoughtful, and he began muttering possibilities to himself as he set up and got to work. Isobelle was barely listening, though, her mind still on Gwen’s stumbling speech earlier, and its terrifying resemblance to the way the townsfolk acted when asked about the sorceress.
She stepped in close to Gwen as the artist arranged their pose, and felt a lump in Gwen’s pocket pressing against her hip. Gwen noticed it too, and when Isobelle went rummaging, she pulled out a small pouch.
Ignoring Archie’s pleas for her to hold still, Isobelle asked, ‘What is this?’
Gwen shrugged. ‘One of Olivia’s scent sachets, I suppose. I haven’t worn this dress in a while.’
Isobelle swallowed, the little bag feeling like a leaden weight in her hand. She managed to pose for a little while longer before asking the artist if she could go fetch herself a drink. He muttered about the creative process but otherwise didn’t look up, so Isobelle let her feet carry her away.
She glanced at Gwen, still posing, and then slipped into the relative darkness between two houses.
The sachet was no more than a square of burlap, its corners gathered up and tied with twine and sealed with black wax. When they were packing for this trip, Isobelle hadn’t been able to find any of the scent sachets. It was possible one could have been left in this dress before, in Gwen’s clothes chest … but Olivia would never have used burlap. Or, for that matter, wax that could’ve stained the fabric.
For some reason, Isobelle’s fingers shook as she dug her nails through the wax and snapped the twine.
The contents spilled out onto her palm, a confusing jumble of textures and shapes. The sharp smell of black pepper. Some unidentifiable thorny herb. A few dried berries that Isobelle recognised as deadly nightshade. A rusty nail. A dead spider.
Isobelle dropped the handful as if it had burned her, and stood panting, staring down at the shadows where the objects had fallen. Then, for good measure, she stamped on them, and kicked dirt over the whole mess.
She glanced back out between the houses, where Gwen was beginning to shift her weight from foot to foot, glancing about, no doubt wondering why Isobelle had abandoned her to the not-so-tender mercies of the portrait artist.
A strange calm had seized Isobelle, a determination that she’d felt before, though admittedly mostly before she barrelled headlong into a sticky situation.
They hadn’t been sure whether magic was causing the odd behaviour in this town, but now Isobelle was certain. Someone was influencing this place using magic, for reasons that were, as yet, unknown.
But whoever it was had made one fatal mistake: they were trying to hurt Gwen.
Anyone at the party could’ve slipped that bag into Gwen’s pocket, or into Gwen’s luggage when they entered town. The strangeness had begun then, long before tonight.
Gwen pushing Isobelle away after a nightmare, her confession to Tabitha that the dragon was haunting her, dropping her sword at a crucial moment in the fight against the sea monster … and, just now, choking on her own words in the exact manner of the innkeeper and the other townsfolk.
Gwen was under a spell.
And she, Isobelle of Avington, was going to rescue her.
13
What do you believe the world to be?
Isobelle spent the morning on necessary personal maintenance with the girls – Hilde gave her a manicure in the exact shade of the banished sea monster – and in contemplation of her next steps.
She had woken worried about Gwen and the strange pouch in her pocket. But when she’d poked her head into Gwen’s room, she found it empty, the bed neatly made, and no sign of her champion. When they were at Darkhaven Castle, Gwen often slipped away in the mornings to train with Madame Dupont, and Isobelle was perfectly content to have those mornings to herself and the girls. Now, though, a sinking feeling took up residence somewhere in her abdomen, like she’d swallowed a rock for breakfast.
She didn’t know what to do. Andthatwas an intolerable state of affairs.
