I could have wept with gratitude for Zora’s kindness.
We spent the midday hours with scissors and paper, honeyed tea and cream cakes in a pair of armchairs tucked into the far corner of the teahouse, where a wide window looked out over the frozen river. Zora possessed, much like Almira, a talent for talking without demanding much in return and, like Adrik, such warmth that I thawed easily in her presence.
“Adrik said you freed yourself from the vines.”
“Small magics,” said Zora with a gentle smile. “I’m trained in fire charms. I’m rather good at them too, but it bores me. I do not intend to fight in a war, nor do a faerie’s wicked bidding.” She must have noticed that I darkened. “I do not blame those who have no choice. But I spent long enough among wretched mages in wretched towers to know there are those who sell their powers willingly.” I stared darkly at my hands, calloused and worn but surprisingly unstained from the horror they’d wrought. I expected, whenever I looked, to find dark veins and a splatter of crimson. Zora said quietly, “I know Adrik asked you to help us. He did not do it lightly. He shoulders his burdens without complaint, but—”
“It wears on him. I’ve not known him long, I know, but I see it.”
Zora studied me with bright eyes. “You speak fondly of him.” I focused eagerly on shredding the paper in my hands just to escape her keen observance. “He speaks fondly of you, too.”
“He speaks fondly of everyone.”
“Ah, but there is a difference between kindness and fondness. He iskindto everyone. He isfondof few.”
“You know him well.”
“Too well. The little brother I never wanted, he is.”
“Is he not older than you?”
“Yes, but I am much wiser.”
I laughed quietly. It was not difficult to see their alikeness. My gaze slipped from the window, to the cliff where the castle perched like a gold-feathered bird. “Who was king before Adrik came?”
“We’d never had a king or a queen before.”
“Adrik just took the crown?”
“No,” Zora said with a snicker. “No, he was most unwilling. The people thrust it on him after he saved the town. Just passing through, he was. I was still in Kresting when it happened, but Pa says there were at least thirty faeries and mages, Almira claims there were fifty, and Adrik himself says there were a hundred. He defeated them all single-handedly.”
“Of course he did,” I said with a suffering sigh.
Zora eyed me with mild amusement. “He is rather great, is he not?”
“Rather great at showing off.”
“That too,” she said with a laugh. “We’d never had a king or a queen, but a castle had always stood on that hill because, long ago, the people of Wildemire resolved that every town needed one. Two summers before Adrik arrived, Emond decided that he must forge a crown, and Kalina had the sudden inspiration to sew princely robes. Pa said they thought she was quite mad for a while, for these robes did not fit anyone in town quiteright. Well, they fit Adrik perfectly. After he saved the town, people were so grateful they could think of no greater honor than crowning him king. That’s what they claim, at least.” Her voice trailed off, and when I glanced at her, she was staring blankly at the castle. “I believe that the attack shook them. They felt vulnerable and craved a guardian, someone who’d protect them, should we fall under attack again.”
“It seems that he protects them not just from attacks but from every minor inconvenience they suffer.”
“Indeed, he’s spoiled them. Too kind for his own good, he is.”
A kind king and a kind people, damned to suffer a fate worse than death. A haven, this place, amid violence and war. A refuge for the battered souls and broken minds. For people like me.
“Please,” I whispered, “Take me to Almira.”
Almira’s home was a crooked thing built like a burrow into the slope of a cat-shaped hill, nestled against the far edge of town.
Over the roof sprawled a thick blanket of moss, and in the garden sprouted wild herbs and pink-blossomed roses. A little to the side, peeking out between the swaying branches of a willow, lay a frozen pond.
Zora left me at the foot of the hill to attend to the throng of people at the teahouse, and I came to stand forlornly amid the roses. The arched door was ajar, revealing glimpses of moss-draped walls, an earthen stove, a bed cushioned with autumn-gold leaves.
“Hello?” I called.
A wide-brimmed hat appeared amid the roses. “Watch,” was all Almira said, before she returned her attention to a potted plant at her doorstep. It was a brownish thing that suffered from a well-meaning owner who had drowned it. Almira lifted a blood-specked finger to let it glide over the leaves. “Magic is the river that connects me to the earth. It is a stream, and it carries into the world whatever I feed it. I flood it with anger, and the thorns seek flesh. I flood it with fear, and the blossoms wither. I flood it with life, and it heals. Such is the wonder and the burden of magic.”
“You already know why I have come.”
