For a long time, she didn’t answer, watching the lazy, winking glow of the fireflies. She told herself, over and over, that she wasn’t going to. That she shouldn’t. That he would only use it against her.
Then she said, “Not the forest. The witch.”
His forehead wrinkled. “The witch?”
“Mira of the Mire. Her magic is forest magic, ancient. The forest isn’t evil. She is. She does awful things without even the slightest provocation. She’s a monster.”
“I take it you have…provoked her.”
“I killed her pet,” she said. “Her familiar. I didn’t mean to. It looked like any other fox. Just a very pretty one.”
She wiped her eyes. They weren’t wet, but felt as if they should be. A stone settled in her gut as she pictured the fox pelt in her empty kitchen.
“I almost feel bad for her,” she added in a small voice. “She must be very lonely, all alone in her house in the woods.”
He retrieved his pencil, but even after several minutes, she never heard it scratching against the paper. When she looked up, he was watching the fireflies.
“Why can’t you go back?” she asked. “I need to hear it. From you.”
“Why?”
“Because I have to.”
He lifted a dismissive shoulder. “Do you know how much blood it takes to force a liver twelve decades old into the shape of a twenty-year-old’s?”
“Enlighten me.”
“A great deal,” he said dryly. “Particularly when the attached stomach and tongue are so fond of brandy and foie gras.”
His words rang true; and even if they didn’t, the effects of his work on his body were plain to see. But his bitter humor was too calibrated. His voice too fine-tuned.
“That isn’t it,” she said. “That’s part of it. But not it.”
At her words, he stared at the mark on his hand for so long she gave up on getting an answer. Then he moved closer, sat beside her, and held it up for her to examine. He had let her see it when he gave her his gloves, but now she really looked at it. It was a mess of markings, one on top of another. Far more complicated than the spells she had watched him draw. Something about it reminded her of the markings on Mira’s arrowhead. It was the way they seemed to suck light from the air, she decided.
He watched her studying it. “Do you know how this works?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think anyone does, except the scribes who composed it. It binds me to the king. From wherever I am, he can summon me.Summon.It sounds very polite, doesn’t it? The kind of word one can discreetly mention over tea without spoiling anyone’s appetite.” He nodded, as if to himself. He wouldn’t look at her. “What it really means would spoil teatime quicker than curdled cream. It means my body isn’t my own.”
Anya felt her stomach clench, felt a pinprick of fellow feeling as she watched his fingers curl shut. “You don’t just mean your blood. Do you?”
At that, he did look at her. He thought a moment before answering. “When he calls, it hurts me. I must answer and obey to make it stop. The more I try to resist it, the worse it gets. The one time I tried to defy him directly, I thought I would die from the pain. Or end it myself.”
“Why? Why did you defy him?”
He stared at the notes he had made. “Edgard is cruel. He performs well enough in public to keep the nobles from plotting his overthrow. But behind his palace walls…he hurts people. Takes their choice, their speech. Their faces, some of them. And even with the respectability my education has earned me, even withthishanging over my head,” he said, brandishing his hand, “I know I’m not above such treatment if I make him angry enough.”
She watched his throat work as he swallowed.
“So I have learned more indirect methods of defiance. I won’t do certain things, and so there are certain compromises I must make. You asked why I must have the phoenix. This is my last chance, myonlychance. If anyone else gives him the spell he seeks, if anyone else wins the prize, then I’ll remain stuck, tied to his will until the day I die. And Anya, I am afraid of what he will ask of me without even the mere specter of death hanging over him. Of what I will be unable to refuse.”
She wanted to reassure him, but found she couldn’t speak.
“I don’t have anywhere near the worst of it. I’m lucky. I know it. But…” He let out an ironic breath. “But I don’t want to hurt. And I don’t want to hurt anyone else. And yet it seems I can’t escape it.”
“You’re talented. Take on wealthier clients,” she said, aggravated on his behalf, on her own, wishing she could solve it for them both.
