Quickly, before she could catch on, Anya dipped a finger into her own welling blood. She reached out, touched her bloody finger to Mira’s forehead and drew the spell, short and simple.
Still.
Not harm, they had all decided when Sabina taught Anya the spell. And besides; it was one Sy had made himself, and on paper, he was dead; no longer a king’s wizard or a scribe. Academy rules hardly seemed to apply.
Anya knew their rules said she must purse her lips, must blow.
She knew life itself was an endless game. A series of moves and counter moves, of struggling until your struggle ran out, until someone or something stronger stifled your body, snuffed out your spirit like a light.
At least, it was if you saw it from a certain perspective.
From another, life was not a game; it was many. Always changing, never ending, the rules as fluid and varied as the weather. You could not make or break the weather.
Rules, though. Rules were made. What was made could always be unmade. Remade.
The rules certainly didn’t apply in the forest, where, without a single law or regulation, a woman could change into an insect and then change back again, where the earth drank blood to sprout rowan and birch, where flowers of every color could bloom underground.
As the blood touched Mira’s skin, she froze in place, as she had frozen Anya moments earlier without even a touch. Anya did not need to speak or share her precious breath.
But the only way to free Sy from Mira’s bond was to kill her. Bit difficult to argue around that one doing harm.
She had a plan for that, too. But she would need his help.
He watched Anya, almost as stunned as Mira, his eyes wide with fear, or perhaps wonder. He still thought she was a stranger; might still think she meant to take him back to Äbender, to the king, to another gilded prison.
Holding his gaze, she took the ink pen, still wet with her blood, and scrawled across her palm, in letters tinged red as rebellion:
Trust me?
He closed his eyes. She held her breath.
Then he stepped forward, reached for her, and ran his hand over her mouth.
Where his fingers touched, she felt the silk pulling from her lips like string from cloth. Then she felt her blood running free, felt her lungs fill with air.
With a grin, she turned to Mira, still frozen, her eyes wide with fear. “I could now, andoh, how I want to, but I will not harm you,Your Ladyship. You will do that yourself. You will let this spell turn you as cold and brittle as your greed, as your fear, as your empty, grasping heart.”
With her blood, she drew the spell once more atop the first.
She blew.
As her breath touched Mira’s skin, it turned white. The color spread, growing, covering her face, her hair, her burnt orange suit, her eyes endless blue. If she could, she wouldn’t have time to blink.
In an instant, the witch of Bosquet Mire had turned entirely to white, solid stone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sy felt her death – a smothering shroud lifted from his face, cotton pulled from his throat. All his pent-up emotions, dammed by her hold, flooded back. Overwhelmed, he stumbled, clutched his heaving chest.
At the same time, the fiddlehead footman by the fireplace became a tall, dark-haired woman. After a reaction similar to his, followed by a beaming smile, she reached without hesitation for the iron poker beside her. Still smiling, hefting the poker like a club, she approached the stone statue on a warpath.
And the emissary was in the crossfire.
Ortolan Gander was oblivious; he only had eyes for Sy, his forehead creased in concern. As the former footman lifted the poker over her head, Sy gripped the man and pulled him aside, out of the weapon’s way. The footman brought it down heavy, hard, over and over, sending bits of stone flying over the room.
Sy ducked with Ortolan, shielded him with his arms. Tiny bits of stone pelted his back. Their foreheads touched; their breath mingled, synced. The man’s warmth was comforting. Familiar.
As the smashing abated, they both lifted their heads. Speechless.
