Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

WREN

Wren woke up on the floor, the candle still clenched in her hand. What remained of it.

Wax pooled on the ground and the pitiful malformed piece in her fist carried an impression of all the lines of her palm. A soft wail filled the air but Lindie wasn't screaming anymore.

Wren looked up to see Elodie standing over her, with such an expression of disappointment that she felt a cold rush of shame fill her aching body. Black strands of hair spilled around her face, unruly and wild, and far too long.

‘The baby?' she asked, her voice harsh against her throat.

Elodie held out a hand to pull her to her feet. ‘Safe now. Healthy. A girl.'

Wren brushed herself down and glanced to the bed where Lindie and her mother were fussing over the swaddled child. ‘She said she wanted a boy.'

Elodie raised her eyebrows with a certain air of disdain. ‘For that idiot husband of hers, no doubt.'

‘That's what he said,' Wren replied softly. ‘That they wanted a son and they…' She couldn't finish it. Telling Elodie felt like betraying a confidence even now. Even when she didn't owe Pol anything.

Elodie spun back to the bed on one foot.

‘Did you go to the darkwood and make a bargain?' she snapped. Lindie looked up, face the colour of parchment, eyes wide and wet. Her mother gave a shocked gasp. ‘What were you thinking? A bargain in the darkwood is never without cost and you could have paid with your life, you stupid girl. Besides, what use is a boy?'

‘We… we just…' Lindie stammered.

‘Just nothing. You won't be able to stay here. It will have marked you now, will have its eye on you. That's what happened here tonight. Had that baby been a boy, nothing would have stopped it coming for you, Lindie. You should move south. Away from here. Away from any area of old magic.'

Lindie's mother gathered the baby in her arms. She bustled around the bed. ‘My sister lives in the east, near Farringdale. She'll take them in. Her husband needs help on his farm.'

‘But Pol's not a farmer,' Lindie protested indignantly.

‘Pol's lucky either of you are still breathing,' Elodie snapped. ‘Enough. What were you thinking? We fight the Nox, not welcome it in.'

‘But the Nox is gone. It was just a bargain… just the darkwoods.'

‘There's no just about it,' said Elodie, and Lindie seemed to curl in on herself in fear as the hedge witch glared at them both and then, pointedly, turned her back on them.

She reached out, smoothing Wren's dark hair back from her face with a gentle hand. Elodie was sunlight and gold, everything about her. No more than twenty years Wren's senior, it sometimes seemed that she was so much older, or perhaps ageless.

Her voice, this time, was no more than a murmur. ‘You should rest. That was close.'

‘I'm sorry,' Wren began but Elodie just shook her head.

‘Not your fault, love. We'll talk later. At home.' Where it was safe to say such things out loud. Her hand still caressed Wren's hair, her pale fingers sliding through the silken locks, taming them with a touch. ‘Now, let's pack up and leave this young family to their new life.'

A young family that might never have been, that had begun with a foolish dark bargain. They'd gone into the woods together to get her with child, hadn't they? And asked the shadow kin of the darkwood for a boy, for Pol's pride. Oh he loved Lindie, but he was a selfish bastard through and through. Had the child been the promised boy, had the Nox found its way inside to take it or Lindie…

With her warnings Elodie had explained that there were places where its servants still performed rites to glorify it, every debauchery, every vice, all in its honour. A child imbued with its power would be a prize indeed to those who still served it, and the shadow kin knew that. They made bargains, they tricked the unwary. The fragments of the Nox were always waiting, those shadows with their seductive whispers.

Wren forced a smile onto her face and Elodie's bright blue eyes didn't miss the strain it took to do it.

Elodie wrapped the length of Wren's hair around her hand and gave it a gentle, teasing tug. ‘We'll have to deal with this too, won't we?'

Of course they would. It was already getting out of control. Wren nodded grimly.

It didn't take long to pack up their paraphernalia. Elodie spoke to Lindie, blessed the child with rosemary and yarrow, and left a garland of wildflowers above the window for protection. Wren hung back, holding the bags again, averting her eyes. Pol burst into the room as soon as he was given leave and made straight for Lindie, greeting her with wonder and kisses. He didn't so much as glance at anyone else. Not even the child.

For the best, Wren told herself. Definitely for the best.

‘Take more care, if you wander in the woods again,' Elodie warned them. Even the weight behind those words didn't sound as terrible coming from her. But Elodie had that way with people. Though the undercurrent of warning rippled along with her voice. ‘The darkwood is not for us and any bargains made there are dangerous. Leave soon. Find a new life where it's safe for you both, and your daughter.'

Pol looked up, defiant, and Wren winced. He really was a prize idiot. ‘There was no harm in it. Besides, it didn't hold, did it?'

Elodie straightened, and the dimly lit room suddenly grew brighter, the wave of warmth coming from her unmistakable. Lindie pulled back, shielding the child, and her mother's muttered prayers came a little faster.

‘There could have been great harm. We live in the light of the Aurum and under its watchful eye by day and by night. But there are places it cannot see, and the traces of the Nox are always ready for the unwary. Old magic is not like anything you could understand. It feeds the shadow kin and they call the remnants of the Nox. They offer all kinds of things, but none of it ends well for the unwary. Stay out of dark places, Pol, or you may not be so lucky next time. Take care of your chosen wife and your light-given daughter. It's time to find a different home, a safer one. Wren, time to go.'

Wren followed Elodie down the stairs, aware all the time of Pol staring after her, his gaze furious.

Did Elodie really have to say that last part? His chosen wife?

The journey home was ripe with awkward silence. It was dark and the moon was only the thinnest sliver in the sky. It could have been worse, if the child had been born a few days later, without so much as the thin thumbnail of light available now.

Elodie strode along the narrow path and Wren followed, lost in her own thoughts. They skirted as widely as possible around the darkwood, that patch of tangled shadows and malevolence that clustered around the old nodes of power in the land here. It was only when they were home, the door of their tower in the forest's depths sealed and warded, the kettle on the fire and everything packed away, that Elodie took down the hairbrush and the scissors and pulled out the chair for Wren.

‘Do you have to?' Wren asked. Her hair whispered against her skin, soft and beautiful. Part of her. Alive. Alive with magic.

Elodie pursed her lips. It might have been guilt. Or regret. It might have just been irritation. ‘You know I do.'

Wren sat there, as still as a statue while Elodie began to cut, ignoring the tears that slid silently down her pale cheek. It had to be done. That was the rule. Once it got to a certain length, it had to be done. Otherwise… otherwise… it drew attention to her. And no one wanted that.