Perhaps the new sorceress would wonder a little about the child who had given her life, as Sylvester did, but mere nostalgia seemed a poor exchange for a real life fully lived, even if it was a meager, short, and lonely one.
“Do they treat you well?” I prodded. Surely, they wouldn’t abuse the child if she was going to become one of their own.
“I get food,” she said again. She seemed to be entirely focused on food to the exclusion of everything else, but I suppose that was natural for a sprout who’d been foraging on the streets for most of her tender years.
Being indoors with a regular supply of victuals and water was probably enough, after her experiences, to put up with all manner of oddities and strange folks.
“How long have I been here?” I asked next.
“Not long,” she answered. “I don’t know. I’ve been asleep. I woke up and you were here.”
The light coming through the slit of the window grate now had a cold, daylight quality, and I supposed it must be the next day. I had been unconscious for several hours, then.
I wondered again where Cornelius was, and hoped that he was safe and had found shelter. It was likely. He was a cat, after all, in a city that was teeming with food and potential hiding places. Still, I missed him.
I was not surprised when the heavy door opened on a waft of honeysuckle-scented air to admit one of the sorceresses, but I was relieved to see it wasn’t Clarissa.
The room seemed to glow as soon as the magic-worker stepped in, and even Millie’s sharp little face took on a sort of beauty in the reflected light. As usual, when confronted with one of the magic-workers, I felt a queasy blend of inferiority and mindless adoration.
This one had black hair as rich and iridescent as oil, and eyes like copper coins. Although she and Clarissa looked nothing alike, there was an affinity between their two faces that I could not explain: not just the unnatural gorgeousness, but an exquisite ferocity, an unidentifiable sense of threat that set the heart to beating faster.
And yet I was drawn to her—wanted to draw near to her as you would creep toward the warmth and light of a fire.
The sorceress looked at me with disgust. The ugly expression sat oddly on her beauty, like a skin forming on custard, and let me better shake off her spell and force my face from gaping with awe into something more like a glare.
Millie shuffled herself back against the wall and turned her shoulder to me, seeing that I was in disgrace with the pretty sorceress, and distancing herself from her disapproval. Millie was under their spell, for certain.
“You,” the sorceress said to me, with loathing.
“Me,” I said, agreeably, striving to keep myself from smiling at her. There was still that terrible instinct to please, to worship. I was a mouse mesmerized by a cat, a ferret paralyzed by the sweep of an owl’s wings above. She stood there and stared at me, flexing her long fingers with their pointed nails.
“Does Sylvester know I’m here?” I asked her.
“Sylvester,” she spat, “knows nothing. That is why we are in this ridiculous situation in the first place.”
Ridiculous, indeed, because even though I knew I was chained to the wall and probably about to be butterflied like a piece of meat, I still felt a surge ofspecialnessand, yes, joy, to be in her presence and to be the object of her undivided attention. I could have slapped her just for that.
Would they ever just leave me alone, these magic-workers? Was my heart to be pushed and pulled and worried about by them until the end of my days (which was probably rapidly approaching)?
“Why am I here?” I demanded. “Why not just let me leave? I was trying to go home. I would have been out of your pretty hair for good.”
She gave me another flat stare.
“If it were up to us, you’d be dead already.”
“Charming.”
“The king wants you here and alive,” she said, giving me a look that indicated I should consider it an honor that he bothered with me at all. For a moment, I almost believed it was an honor myself—that’s how powerful her presence was. I could look at her and know she was a monster, but still want to throw myself on her bosom and have her stroke my hair.
“What am I here for, then?” I asked. “If he’s not going to kill me.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t,” she said. “He just wouldn’t letusdo it.”
Oh.
“And he will likely do it soon,” she added, “because we will all be riding out before long. Enjoy your last few hours.”
The sorceress turned on her heel and left the room. It was sudden and left me disappointed, as I was ready for a good fight. I had hoped she would stand there and explain, even out of spite, exactly what was happening, but I supposed I would have to wait.
