“Can be cured with phoenix blood.” Her voice had taken on a startling urgency. “A single drop.”
He shook his head, adamant. “No. You’re not making any sense.” The arrow, the glyphs. The fair beneath the foul. The shouldn’t, but must.
Something else, something humiliating, bubbled to the surface, and he couldn’t stop it. “In the cavern–”
“You are good at deluding yourself, aren’t you?” She laughed, sharp and cold, no longer fighting against her own tongue. “Everything you imagined between us was a fantasy. But fear not – if you really want to see me again, perhaps some day I’ll hire you. If the king can spare you, of course.”
The haze cleared.
A fantasy. A shadow, dissipated with the setting of the sun.
And this was the truth, glaring. He’d had it backwards. Anya Degen’s rough exterior protected nothing petal-soft. She donned that softness like camouflage to mask a vicious cutthroat, cunning and ruthless. He could delude himself further, or, for once in his life, accept the bitter truth.
“Well,” he managed. His throat didn’t want to work; but, like her, the spore pressed him on. “I had not realized how clouded I had let my judgment become. It seems I must thank you for clearing it up for me.”
“Shut up,” she said, her voice empty once more. “Don’t say anything else. I can’t take it.”
“I–” He exhaled, willed his tongue to still. He chose his next words with great effort. He couldn’t hope to best her; it felt as good as begging. His only chance was to follow her – to wait and hope for the solstice to complete the curse before she shot the bird.
But he wouldn’t. He would pay this debt, at least. He must.
“There may still be a way to help us both,” he managed. “I owe you that much.”
“Oh. I see.” Her tone changed; her posture straightened. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she sounded genuinely surprised. Perhaps, hurt. “You owe me.”
“For saving my life,” he clarified. “It’s only fair.”
“Of course. Youoweme.” The bitter emptiness returned. “Fair payment for services rendered. And what luck, for a base provincial such as I to haveearnedsuch a reward. And froma man of such quality.” She spit on the ground. “There. Now we’re even.”
He stood, stunned, hollowed out. “That’s it, then.”
She turned her back on him. Her wings extended, hiding her from him, cloaking her. If he didn’t have that color tattooed on his heart, she could almost vanish into the darkening trees.
“You’re at a clear disadvantage,” she said over her shoulder, “so I’ll give you a head start.”
“How honorable of you.” He tossed her knife to the ground at her feet. “Happy hunting.”
She laughed, a brittle, flaking sound that might have been a sob.
He didn’t stop to determine which.
The phoenix feather was still in his pocket. Slightly crushed after his jaunt with Aquila and Claude, but still intact. Like most things he’d seen and felt since he’d entered the Lichtenwald, he couldn’t explain it, but from the moment he’d picked it up, it had seemed to lead him, a dowsing rod for its former owner. It took him to the meadow; it showed him the bird’s tracks. The phoenix had been there recently, said the tracks, or the feather, or the leaves; but it had since moved on.
Unfortunately, before he could determine where to find it, Aquila and Claude had found him.
Then Anya had. Again.
Did magic lead her to him, as magic changed her, piece by piece, into something inhuman? Or perhaps it was as she said of the flowers in the grotto – something not so distinct. Something both and not quite magic, both skill and intuition, both rational and irrational. Both, and all. The should, the shouldn’t, the could be. The way of the world.
You ask for too much, she told him.
You do not demand enough, he had wanted to say.
He twirled the feather in between his forefinger and his thumb. Even this, severed, had magic.
There must be a way, he thought.There must.
He stared at his injured hand, at the lines that determined all his past and all his future. He ran a thumb over the cut along the length of his palm. Nasty, and deep.
