“Come on,” Arthur mutters, pushing past the two of them. “I’m starving and Rhun is going to fall over.”
Instead of arguing, Rhun only continues to walk, sliding Mairwen a worried glance. He includes his once-cousin too, and briefly his expression grows darker before he forcibly shutters it and passes.
The Grace house sits empty, thatching gilded by the morning sun, walls smooth and white and the windowsills and door recently painted a cheerful red. Rhun had helped with the painting. They’d worked beside each other to the smell of baking pie. Elderberry and apple, Rhun’s favorite, and the only thanks he’d accept.
There are no baking smells now, but only the sharp scent of drying herbs as Rhun pushes through the door and holds it open for the others. Mair goes straight to the fire to wake it up, but the embers have died over the long night and she crouches to shove in more kindling. “Arthur?” she says, and he appears with his fire steel in hand.
Arthur obliges Mairwen to set a spark in the hearth. She busies herself gathering the kettle and tea leaves while he gets the flames going. Rhun drops an armful of logs from the stack across the kitchen at Arthur’s feet, then goes to the loft ladder and climbs.
“Rhun, wait,” Mairwen says.
“I’m tired.”
“We have a few things to discuss before we sleep, and before we face town again.”
“I can hear you.” Rhun pulls himself up onto the loft and disappears against the sloping roof where Mairwen’s bedding tucks.
Arthur’s jaw clenches as he grinds his teeth, and Mairwen is moved to touch his cheek.
“Why did you do it? Why did you run in?” Mair asks, looking at Arthur over her shoulder. She is a piece of the wild forest: tangled vines of hair; beautiful dress torn and heavy at the hem with mud and water; insistent, dangerous eyes; lips parted; cheeks flushed. An ax loose in one hand like she’s the vengeful spirit in a terrible story.
“Saving him is the only way to be better,” he says.
“Better than him?” she whispers, shaking her head.
“Better than myself.”
He wants to ask why she followed him, but Arthur knows. Mairwen Grace belongs here.
Mair and Arthur jerk apart. It had beenhismemory, but she remembers it now. Until she touched him, she’d forgotten the moment herself.
“Is this the same as the altar in the forest?” Baeddan asks before she can say anything to Arthur. The devil drops to his knees at the fire, hands spread wide against the massive hearthstone.
“Yes,” Mairwen says, though she’d forgotten that, too.
Baeddan lays himself against the stone, his lips moving in a quiet song she can’t quite hear. It’s awkward to reach over him and hang the kettle, but she manages. “Will you get water, Arthur?” she asks. “We need to wash.”
He goes outside, and Mair continues preparing a meal. She finds cheese and dry mutton, ignoring the strange ache in her bones and the dragging weight of blood in her veins. Her collarbone, too, blooms with bruising that seems to grow larger instead of healing. She needs to remain focused, to get through eating and cleaning, and they need to speak together, compare memories. However meager they might be.
Food spread on the table, she calls Rhun. He doesn’t answer. She’s about to climb up to fetch him when Arthur shoves the front door open and says angrily, “She won’t go.”
Startled, Mairwen meets Haf Lewis’s wide eyes. She’s carrying a bundle of clothes. Haf shakes her head helplessly, and her gaze sinks to Baeddan splayed like the sacrifice he was against the wide hearth. “Mairwen,” she says, strained.
And Mairwen is before her in an instant. She throws her arms around Haf and Haf hugs back so very tightly. Arthur makes a disgusted sound and stomps past, sloshing the water in his bucket. But Mairwen doesn’t care at all. Like this house, Haf is familiar.
•••
RHUN STARES UP AT THEthatch from the floor of the loft instead of the bedding. He’s too filthy to touch quilts and the soft straw mattress. This slatted wooden floor is good enough.
Branches as thick as his wrist frame the roof into place, stripped of bark and polished a lovely rich brown. Layers of wheat-straw spread in bundles muffle sounds from outside, holding warmth in. Though most of the ceiling has been sealed with limewash, this section of the loft is uncovered thatch. It seems older for it, darker, full of tiny hidden secrets.
Below, Arthur argues with Mairwen over how long to steep tea and how thick she’s spreading butter on bread and even over Haf Lewis being allowed to stay.
It should amuse Rhun and aggravate him, but he feels everything from a dull distance. Even Arthur’s spikes.
Rhun closes his eyes and glimpses the dark forest: leaves flashing past, the splash of marshy water, flickering orange light. A white veil. Arthur’s mouth open, gasping. Mairwen with—Mairwen with the... no, with Baeddan.
He opens his eyes to the thatching. He should still be in there. Cut to pieces and bound down by the devil, to fulfill the bargain.
