“Why?”
“It’s just how the bargain was formed. I think any heart would bind it, but that wasn’t a good enough story. To make people believe something deeply enough to hurt other people, the bargain had to be specific, had to create rules the town could ascribe meaning to. Could imbue with value. Trust me; people don’t like magic that doesn’t make sense, that isn’t easy to believe. It was easy to believe a strong, skilled, noble boy could be worthy of sacrifice, especially if he had a chance to survive.”
“You want to change the story.”
“We have to.”
“That will hurt too,” Haf murmurs, but not to argue against it.
For a moment, Mairwen listens again to the wind, the distant voice of the forest, and her gently beating heart. She knows Haf is right, or mostly right. It wasn’t the girl’s name or dresses that hurt Arthur. No, he was happy when they were all children. She remembers how hard Lyn Couch laughed. What hurt him was the rule change. Being forced out of girlhood into boyhood, as if it were only an either/or, as if to make any other choice was unnatural. He was so little when his world was dragged out from under him, it was no wonder he clung to the rules forever after. His world changed and he wouldn’t change with it, until he broke another rule, until he ran into the forest and witnessed for himself the lies. Arthur had to change to survive. Just like Three Graces. The rules of the bargain have changed, and they all have to find a way together to change again. For the better. Mair smiles. “We should all learn to be witches in Three Graces.”
“I’ll start,” Haf says.
Mairwen kisses her cheek, breathing in the wonderful smell of the sweet oil Haf rubs in the ends of her hair to keep it from drying out in the winter. “Let’s go.”
They finally reach the flat yard of stone and gravel, where no trees grow. There are the remains of the bonfire from the night of the Slaughter Moon, when she was the Grace witch and she anointed the saint and kissed him, not knowing what it was she sentenced him to.
Heading quietly past it, Mairwen pushes through the iron gate. At the heavy front door, she lifts a hand to knock, but discovers the door open a handspan.
“Oh,” Haf says, worried.
Mair uses her shoulder to shove the door open. “Hello? Lord Vaughn?” Her voice echoes slightly down the dim corridor. She follows it. “Vaughn?”
There’s no reply, and hardly a thing to hear. No crackling fire. No noise besides the shuffle of Haf’s feet at the threshold. Mairwen’s bare toes make no sound.
The girls wend their way through the manor, past pristine limewash and dark wooden panels, through the library and kitchen, sitting room and a narrow music room full of dusty instruments. They search every room they can find, even shoving aside the tapestries for signs of hidden rooms. Vaughn is nowhere to be found.
•••
AS HE MAKES HIS WAYdown into Three Graces, Rhun’s thoughts flit between a pleased anticipation for seeing Arthur again and worry that he won’t live up to his mother’s expectations.You do what you know is right.She’s proud of him, and he wants to keep it so, but he’s not sure what is right anymore. Haf Lewis says folks are upset—and rightly so—that instead of doing his duty he let Mairwen and Arthur change the bargain, rebinding it in a way that can’t last. They’re right, too. He did choose to live, to give Mairwen’s binding a chance.
There’s a moment he remembers now from the forest, when Arthur tried to give himself to the devil and save Rhun, and all Rhun could feel was a desperate need to survive. Forbothof them to walk out of the forest. Together. He forgot it, just as he forgot what is worth saving.
Rhun wants to live, but he doesn’t want Three Graces to suffer for it.
Moving as quietly as he does, Rhun startles Judith and Ben Heir, who are taking a turn with the sheep, nudging the herd toward longer grass. They’re holding hands, and Judith stretches up to whisper something, tickling behind Ben’s ear until he smiles. Last night at the Sayer table, Rhun heard from his cousin Delia, who heard from her sister-in-law, that Judith’s pregnant. The next generation of children to be sacrificed for the forest.
He stops. “Congratulations, you two.” It’s difficult to tell if he means it.
Judith leans back against her husband, whose hands grip her shoulders. “Thank you, Rhun,” she says with a smile.
“I want my child to be safe,” Ben says, less happy, but with a look that Rhun knows exactly how to interpret.
“I want that too, Ben. Have you seen Arthur?”
“No,” Judith answers. She hesitates before saying more.
Ben says, “How can we just let this all fall apart?”
“We’re trying not to. Arthur, Mairwen, and me, and Haf Lewis, and anybody else who wants to can try with us. Mair and Haf are up at Vaughn’s manor now, looking for answers. I need Arthur. For...” He shrugs.
“Strange birds flew out of the forest this morning,” Ben says. “And it’s been overcast for hours.”
“We need rain,” Judith reminds her husband.
“We usually get a perfect amount of it. Now, I don’t know. What if it floods?”
“What do you think we should do?” Rhun asks him.
