The man offered up a more intricate trap made of several sticks still bearing the dirt and grime from where they’d been scavenged. It was tied together by a withered vine. “This one’s for envy.”
“Life’s not very fun if no one is jealous of me.”
A wind blew past. The witchtraps rattled, and Risa’s unease burrowed deeper.
The man scowled at them and stomped off to attend to a new customer who came in a blustering hurry to explain their situation.
Javi traced a slender finger over an ivory witchtrap made of three pieces of smooth bone in the shape of a triangle, the joints held together by rough twine that still contained bits of debris. “I used to make these when I was little. Called them friendtraps. I thought I could put them around the palace and find a friend.”
Risa must have looked at him with surprise, because he gave a breathless laugh in response.
“Silly, right? As if a prince needs friends.”
That was how Risa learned the prince didn’t always get what he wanted. When he had mentioned being without friends that first night, she thought it was because hedidn’twant them.
Risa didn’t know if she needed friends, but she had wanted them once, too. Before she knew what witchtraps really stood for, she had also fished through mud and sat in the dirt, tying sticks together to make a sorry trap, whispering a wish over each joint and knot.
Finger still caught in the witchtrap, Javi turned to the merchant, who had returned to glower at them after his other patron disappeared. “How much?” Javi asked.
The merchant made a face at the request. “Free. That story was sad.”
Javi paid with a smile and took the piece. He pulled Risa into the crowd and through the market until they were tucked beneath a set of stone steps that led back up to town. There, half hidden from the hustle, under the cover of shadow, he pressed the trap into her hands.
“Risa.”
She refused to look at him. She wouldn’t. Shecouldn’t.
But her head tipped back, and her eyes met his, golden hue resplendent.
“I hope this witchtrap works,” he whispered, too close.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Brunhilda’s spell unleashed an assault in her chest and stomach, small wings fluttering against her ribs and up her throat.
If she let him continue this foolish endeavor, if he wormed his way into her brittle heart, then her curse would not stop until he was battered and bruised or dead at the bottom of a well or a river or a desert dune. She had to keep him, and Amina, and Brunie, and her parents, and everything she ever wanted to love, as far from her as she could manage. No matter how desperate she was to be seen, she was far more desperate to have them live.
Enough was enough. She needed to tell him the truth.
She wet her lips to speak. Tried to ignore the way his eyes followed the movement of her tongue, the darkening of his gaze, the hitch of his breath. A feverish rush of heat followed the path of his thumbs as they brushed the tops of her wrists.
His gaze slipped past her to settle on something over her shoulder. A wrinkle appeared between his brows, and his hands fell away, taking the heat of his skin with him. He straightened, the moment splintering.
“What?” It came out breathier than she wished.
He shook his head. He was squinting at something beyond her. “I thought I—”
“Is Amina here?”
Javi was already retreating, starting for the stairs pressed against her back. “Stay here.”
“That’s the opposite of what Amina recommended.”
But Javi was out of sight.
Risa stood there, breathing fast, clenching the witchtrap between her fists.
It took her a few more breaths before she dared to look at her hands. She had crushed the bundle of twigs, twine slack, the fragile skeleton falling apart at her fingertips. At its center was a black stone she hadn’t noticed, wrapped in bits of twine. It sat in her palm, ice-cold, and her heart suddenly seized.
Brunhilda’s powerful spell compelled her to follow. The tether between her and the prince pulled taut around her heart. Tugged slightly, then all at once insistent, magic skittering along her skin like a thousand bugs.
