“I love you too, Da.” I willed myself not to cry. The least I could do for him is keep it together until I was out of sight, let him see me smile.
“You take care of yourself, all right?” he said.
“You too, Da.”
“And don’t let that sorcerer get any ideas.”
“Da!” I blushed furiously. “It’s not like that. He barely looks at me, and not that way.”
Da smiled a little. “Whatever you say, Foss.”
19
When I opened my eyes again, the light had taken on the flat, iron gray of a cold morning, and I had a crick in my neck that made it feel like my head was on sideways. I sat there without moving for a while, feeling the rumble of the still-moving carriage and letting my eyes drift, not fixing themselves on any particular spot.
Well, almost. They did have a tendency to float over to Sylvester’s sleeping face when I let them, drawn by both the spell and his beauty. Sleep deepened the petals of shadow under his eyes, and even his eyelids themselves took on a violet tinge, making him look almost deathly. Still beautiful, but deathly. They twitched a little as I watched. I wondered what sorcerers dreamed of.
I pulled back the black curtain and looked out the window. The rot infecting the kingdom was even more evident now than when I had ridden out to the border town the first time. Everything looked yellow and sick.
Cornelius awoke with a start on my lap and bristled. He growled, a noise I hadn’t heard him make before, which made the skin on my forearms get goose pimples. I roused myself fully and sat up straight. Cornelius stood up as well, back arching.
“What’s going on?” I asked the cat.
“I don’t know, but it feels ... wrong.”
“What does?” I looked out of the window again and knew that I needed to wake the sorcerer. Outside, a mist had closed in on the horizon—or, at least, mist was the closest word I could use to describe it. It looked like the edges of the world had been erased into a greasy yellow white miasma. I would have doubted my eyes, except for Cornelius’s clear discomfort.
“I think we’re at the edge of the kingdom,” I said. I nudged Sylvester’s knee with mine, trying to ignore the jolt of desire that ran through me. He woke without any of the spluttering or bleary eyes that we normal mortals would have, instead becoming immediately alert and wary.
“What happened?” he asked.
I gestured to the window, and he peered out. The fact that even Sylvester looked concerned when he saw it worried me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” was all he responded.
“Very helpful. Is it magic? Has your father sent it to stop us?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
I imagined getting lost in that terrifying, ravenousnothing. It reminded me a little of the spreading mold that had killed Jol, in a way, with its sense of sickness and corruption, except that the mold had been alive somewhat, while this mist seemed both impersonal and inert. Somehow, that made it more frightening.
I would rather have had a monster with claws and teeth blocking the road. I imagined that I could feel the mist nudging against the glass of the carriage windows, a numb ache pressing with terrible force. It wouldn’t eat you up or drain you of blood; it would muffle you into woolly nothingness.
“I will go and see what I can find out about it,” Sylvester said, stopping the carriage. “You stay here.”
“Fine.” I sat back in my seat and drew Cornelius into my arms. He would usually have protested, but he seemed disturbed enough that he succumbed to my petting, which was very concerning. The usual Cornelius would have given me a look of disgust at this indignity and retreated to the other side of the carriage.
Sylvester opened the carriage door, letting in a blast of cold air before slamming it shut again. I watched him through the black crystal window, and saw him pull up his high collar and bury his hands in his coat pockets as he strode toward the mist.
The cold had leeched the landscape of all color, and in the early morning light, everything was gray and white except for his stark, black figure.
“Wait,” I said suddenly, sitting up. “What’s that?”
I had heard something rumbling on the road behind us. The king’s men was my first thought, and I felt my body tense in readiness to run—not that I would get very far.
Then, as I peered out of the window, I realized it was simply another carriage, on the same road and presumably headed in the same direction. So, people did leave the kingdom from time to time, it seemed.
