Sunlight fell through a painted glass-door, spilling rainbows over the well-used dining table and its mismatched chairs. The room was flooded with color, as if someone had fetched ten buckets of paint and poured them at random over fabrics and furnishings.
Adrik must have noticed my bemusement, for he said, “Before Lorell lost his sight, he could best see bright colors and sharp contrasts. He allowed us to paint his things after moons of persuasion and mishaps.”
How foolish of me not to have realized this much sooner about Lorell—the midnight visits seemed suddenly not so strange.
“Do you live here too?”
“I live in a little cottage near the river, down there where it curves into the forest. I love the old man dearly, but the idea of living with him?” Adrik gave a dramatic shudder. I bit back a smile, reminded of Lorell’s nocturnal trips. “I am down in the workshop most mornings,” he continued, indicating a crooked door beneath a narrow, twisting staircase. “In the evenings, I come over to cook, and throughout the day whenever Lorell calls for me.”
“You seem to be in high demand,” I said, recalling the nightingale-catching and late-night-riding.
“Ah, I am indeedhighlydesired, Evana.” He flung himself with grace into the armchair, popped a chocolate into his mouth and watched me with amusement while I stared at the fire, unable to bear his teasing smile. “Would you like to hear another tale?”
I nodded tensely. In truth, I wanted nothing more than to slip back beneath the covers and be released from his too-bright smile, his twinkling gaze. But with the favor I needed from him an ever-present weight on my heart, I dared not refuse him. Perhaps he’d slip up and reveal something of use to me.
That afternoon, Adrik told me the tale of the forge.
As he talked, the words turned into song and dream and rolling riverwaves that swept me off to another time, another life.
Down at the end of the winding street, tucked between the old mill and the bridge, stands Emond’s forge; a crooked cottage of darkstone walls and blue shutters. Yavor, Emond’s eldest son, has a passion for gardening and so, during the warm moons, their house vanishes behind a shroud of flowering vines.
Once, over a hundred winters ago, this forge was no forge. It was the home of a scribe, and of a famous bard with a voice so clear she coaxed lilies from the frozen earth in the darkest winter night. The pair had four children. For many summers, their home was filled with love and song.
But then came a war, and though no war has ever found these forgotten lands, the father was unlucky; he’d gone to Kresting to see his mother, and one dark eve a faerie prince came and took all those capable of wielding a blade.
The woman and her children learned of his fate weeks later from a hastily scribbled letter. They did not know where he was or if he was alive. The woman stopped singing, and the children marked each day of his absence by planting a seed in the garden.
None of the seeds ever flourished and the earth lay littered with scars. There were many such scars; first enough to mark the passing of a moon, then a season, then a year.
Three summers and two winters passed. At the height of the second winter, the woman woke from the sound of a wistful song. A song she used to sing to her husband. A song her lips had all but forgotten. She followed it to the willow behind the house, and for the first time since her husband had left, she sang. There, beneath the willow’s branches, bloomed a lily.
And in the garden, the seeds came to life.
The man returned before the moon had waned again, as if called home by his wife’s song and his children’s flowers. The war had left marks on his body, his mind, his spirit. He spenthis whole life healing, but he spent it well. The stars have long called him and his wife Beyond, but in the darkest night of the winter, without fail, a lily still blooms beneath that willow.
I blinked as Adrik fell silent, torn from another world.
His gaze had slipped to the window. Over his eyes hung a sheen of such tender sorrow, I felt a sharp echo of it in my own chest. There it was: A slight crack in his good humor. A flaw in his perfection. To discover that crack felt not nearly as triumphant as I’d hoped. I would much rather exploit a vileness for a favor than a wound.
Whatever spell had befallen me was shattered by the scratch of claws on wood. A beast came nimbly down the stairs. I caught a shriek between my teeth. It was as large as a hound but it moved with the sleekness only cats possessed. I could have mistaken it for a shadow—it was as black as a moonless night—had it not been for the pair of sharp, pale-green eyes.
“Adrik!” the cat cried fretfully. “What bad manners to leave an old lady starving. Starving!”
I did not catch my shriek this time. Adrik leaped from his chair to place himself between me and the cat, and he said to me, “I forgot to warn you.”
A warning would have been good, indeed, though it should not have shocked me that this town of spirits, wild witches, and good-humored fairies was also home to a talking cat. Her eyes glittered with devilry as she peered at me.
“Oh,” she purred, treading closer. “Oh, but I get to meet the girl at last.” She clawed with a hiss at Adrik’s leg. “What’s with the stare, girl? Never seen a talking cat?” Her chuckle rattled like the cough of a blight-sick person. “Of course you have not. One of a kind I am—am I not, Adrik?” His huff betrayed a hint of irritation. “I am Bahra, but no need to introduce yourself. I know all about the girl who got nibbled by the wolves. Oh, not thatstare again! Out with your questions, girl! You’re making an old lady rather uncomfortable.”
I turned somewhat helplessly to Adrik. He shrugged just as helplessly. “Go on, tell Evana what happened.”
“Dear boy,” Bahra purred, “a great many things happen every day. I am positively swamped. Just now I was with the baker, for the mice have returned—”
“What happened to grant you so generously the gift of speech,” said Adrik with deliberate calm.
“Oh,thatis what you mean." From the twinkle in her eyes I was certain she was nettling Adrik with intent. “I ate a mouse.”
“You ate a mouse?”
