It was the distant tolling of the harbour bell.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then Gwen carefully put the swimming costume back in the cupboard and turned towards the road that led back to town.
Isobelle hurried to do the same, and Gwen’s temper flickered, her exhaustion rising up to strike out at the nearest target. She clenched her jaw. ‘Stay – enjoy the hot springs. Take care of Sylvie. You don’t have to come with me every time.’
The others tactfully drew apart a few paces. Isobelle reached out and touched Gwen’s arm, which had gone rigid as she realised she would have to fight again, and so soon.
‘Do you really not want me with you?’ Isobelle asked.
Gwen’s anger fell away, and with it went a portion of her exhaustion too. In the moment the bell had rung, she’d felt a wave of fearful despair. It was too soon, she hadn’t been able to rest, at this rate she’d collapse before the necromancer weakened … Now, Isobelle’s hand on her arm might as well have been the touch of a curse-breakinghero in a fairytale. To her surprise, she felt her eyes sting with a sudden surge of … something.
Love, said her heart pointedly.
Shut up, said the rest of her.I have to go kill a sea monster.
Gwen slid her hand into Isobelle’s. ‘Of course I need you with me,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go.’
From here, dear reader, I regret to advise that matters go rapidly downhill.
No, no, fear not – Gwen is not defeated by the ravening sea monster. We do not sharply turn to a tale of Isobelle’s revenge on the beast that slew her love.
Gwen fights the creature, and she defeats it. And then she fights it again. And again.
And again.
And again.
The bell rings each day, sometimes twice a day. And each day – sometimes twice a day – our hero takes up her sword. Each night she wakes, sweating, with nightmares. Each morning she’s a little more stiff and withdrawn. Isobelle, forced to bear witness to Gwen’s misery, can scarcely stop herself begging Gwen to stop, to let them find some other way to weaken their adversary.
But she can’t bear to force Gwen to carry her fears and worries, too.
Are their efforts weakening the necromancer? Is Lord Bingleton’s strength failing, as he raises his foul minion from the dead each time? Alas, there is no way to know. He has not been sighted in some time.
What of Master Grimshaw’s demand that they return to Darkhaven immediately, monster or no? Well, they were prevented from departing by the fact that the carriage wheel had become broken mysteriously in the night. And once that was fixed, two of the horses threw their shoes, and for some reason there was not a single nail to be found in the entire town. Then the rope for the well snapped, and there was no way to refill the water skins for travel. And then the statue in the town square managed to topple from its plinth and land – strangely intact – directly across the carriage access.
But as the days pass, Jane, Hilde and Sylvie are beginning to run out of ways to stall Master Grimshaw.
And Master Grimshaw is getting angry.
It is a desperate time, and as the shortest, darkest day of the year approaches, even the bravest soul might start to falter.
26
One who spurned you, and the other who humiliated you
Isobelle overslept, and woke from a bad dream.
The details evaporated when her lashes lifted, but she could still feel the fear of it trying to ooze its way through her veins.
Stop it, she told herself firmly.You don’t have to fight the creature. Gwen’s doing all the hard work.
But that wasn’t true. Watching was just as bad, in its own way. She fought each day to keep her own fear from showing. To hide the dread that sat in the pit of her stomach like a stone, from the moment she woke to the moment she fell asleep. Every day Gwen picked up her sword and stepped aboard theElizabeth, and every day Isobelle watched her, desperately trying to believe she would be all right.
It had been thrilling, the first few times, to watch Gwen do what she did best. But the knight was getting tired, andit was showing – her reflexes were slower, her split-second decisions riskier. How long would it be before she took one risk too many? Gwen fought with a grim determination that chilled Isobelle all the way through. Like she didn’t care about the outcome.
Like she wouldn’t mind all that much if she …
Isobelle couldn’t finish the thought. Dismissing the notion from her mind, she rolled out of bed and found a robe, ready to emerge from her room for what would probably be her lunch tray. Exhausted from the stress of the endless battles, both she and Gwen were sleeping when they could now. If she could snatch a few extra hours, she’d take them.
