Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T he temptation to sneak away to Dwull's border immediately after Agnes left was great. But it would take more time than there was daylight left to walk there, and I was still worn out from our drive through the night.

"Think this through, Loveage," I said to myself. "Don't bite off more than you can chew."

Pretending to follow this advice, I decided to delay my departure until the next morning. Instead, I went for a walk, wandering outside the fence and down the hill until I found a patch of soft grass to lie down on. The day was warm, the curse was quiet for the moment, and I had a plan. For once, that was enough to lull me into a dreamless sleep.

It wasn't until hours later that Grimm's looming shadow woke me.

"It's time for dinner," he informed me, once I'd blinked my eyes open, and then waited impatiently for me to yawn and stretch before leading the way back to the house.

As we walked, I observed the fields around us, cast in the softened shadows of evening. Wheat was the most common crop in Dwull, and there was certainly plenty of that swaying gold to be seen, but a surprising number of fields had been given over to growing flowers. There were rows upon rows of them, some clearly past their season, but others still put forth blooms in a rainbow of colors. A cheerful sight.

I gestured toward the nearest field. "I was expecting your crops to be more practical. Aren't flowers a frivolous thing to grow?"

"The bouquets that fill the homes of the gentry have to come from somewhere," Grimm answered. "Or did you think they grew them themselves?"

"I suppose not." Certainly, my father had never gotten his hands dirty with such a thing.

"It's my mother's trade. She's well-known for it, in fact. She grows rare varieties that many seek out."

"And will you follow in her footsteps, learning the family trade?" I was only joking—it was laughable to think of Grimm on any path that didn't lead to the Coterie—but to my surprise, he nodded.

"That was my intention. Before we discovered how strong my casting abilities were. After, it made more sense for me to pursue a place at the Fount." He paused. "And a gentry title, someday."

"Of course." I shoved my hands in my pockets as my mouth twisted in something like a smile. "That much-coveted title."

"Coveted for a reason," Grimm said, faintly reproving. "Land and a title for ten years of Coterie service is a generous trade. Not to mention the wealth that comes with those things."

I gazed out over the sea of scarlet blossoms and the golden fields beyond. All this space made something in my heart sing. "I don't know," I said. "If I had to choose between money and all of this, I don't think the coin would win."

Grimm stopped walking and looked over at me. I nearly flinched back at the clear enmity in his eyes.

"How lucky for you," he said in a low voice, "that is a choice you don't have to make."

It only took one startled moment for me to realize I'd made an ass out of myself. My fondness for criticizing the gentry's snobbery did not mean I was innocent of it. I opened my mouth, unsure of what I would say, only that this was not the way I preferred to upset Grimm, but he spoke first.

"Dinner is waiting," he said, and lengthened his stride so that we arrived back at the house with me still a few steps behind.

The courtyard was a flurry of activity, full of friends and neighbors who had shared the work of threshing wheat in the fields that day and were now setting up for a meal. A long table had been placed on the flagstones, with two benches on either side. Grimm was apparently too annoyed with me to carry out introductions—he left me by the open gate and disappeared amid the bustle of strangers without a word.

Unlike Grimm, I was in possession of a working set of manners, and so sought out my hosts to thank them for their hospitality. Both of Grimm's parents were dark-haired, with only a few threads of gray gathered at his father's temples. His mother asked warmly after my health, which I assured her had much improved since my arrival, but she fussed over me anyway. Her face was as bright as the flowers she grew, and I was utterly won over. I'm predisposed to like anyone who tries to take care of me. It's a failing, as Agnes had informed me on many occasions.

Both of his parents were so pleasant I could only assume Grimm had never spoken a word of me to them. Grimm's mother even took me by the elbow, steering me toward the table where she pointedly gestured at the seat closest to the brazier burning in the center of the courtyard.

"You looked halfway to a ghost when you arrived last night," she said. "It wouldn't do for you to catch cold once the light fades. Move down, Sebastian. What sort of friend would you be if you allowed our guest to take ill again?"

It took me a moment to realize she was talking to Grimm, sitting on the end of the bench. I was shocked when he actually complied, moving to a spot farther down the table without a word.

I took the seat without protest. Not because I was actually cold, but because telling Grimm's mother I'm not sure your son knows the meaning of the word friend , and if he did, it certainly wouldn't apply to me didn't seem like the right thing to do.

Before eating, everyone joined hands round the table in a ritual I vaguely remembered from my childhood. Grimm's mother stood up and said, "Let this harvest be bountiful, but not so bountiful as the next. Let our fields never lie fallow, and let our hands always be busy. Magic preserve us, magic keep us, magic hear us." The table rattled as everyone stamped their feet, before reaching for the plates running down the table's center.

There were greens that had been blanched and dressed in tangy sauce, bread stuffed with olives and peppers, and sweet corn that had been cut from the cob and mixed with a variety of other vegetables and spices. A whole chicken had been roasted and dressed with fresh herbs and chutney.

Everyone was so distracted by filling their plates that it was easy for me to tuck two of the stuffed breads into my pockets—provisions for my journey the following day.

As we ate, I tried to make sense of Grimm in this environment and found it impossible. He spoke with his parents easily and addressed the people around him as plates were passed from hand to hand. But though he sat at the very center of them all, he seemed somehow removed, the same way he did at the Fount. I caught a few of the guests casting furtive glances at him every now and again. At first, I thought this was due to having a trained sorcerer in their midst, but the same people treated me with much more ease, even though I wore my coat and had my scarlet sash tied firmly at my waist. It wasn't Grimm's status but something about the man himself that seemed to cause everyone around him to lean back. The warmth of their company stopped short at the edges of him.

Meanwhile, I was having the opposite problem.

"And what of your family?" the woman sitting across the table from me asked. She was either a cousin or a neighbor, but I'd only been half paying attention when she'd introduced herself and had forgotten which. "Are they sorcerers as well?"

"Yes," I answered, resigned to the inevitable small talk about family, and its just as inevitable conclusion. "They both served in the Coterie, and now my father has a seat in the Citadel."

"Oh, how impressive! And your mother? Does she still serve?"

In situations such as this, I often found that sharing too much rather than a few tantalizing details led to the end of conversation much sooner. So I said, "Oh, no. She died when I was eleven. A masquerade flower crept over the border from the Wilderlands and hid itself in her garden. Nasty plant. Very poisonous, you know. Dreadful way to go."

The woman's expression fell. "That's awful."

"Yes," I said blandly, "it was," and the topic was quickly changed after that.

As the last of the daylight slowly faded from the sky, lanterns hanging from the porch were lit. The benches were rearranged so everyone could sit closer to the brazier. Acting on impulse, I retrieved my violin from inside and struck up a tune I remembered my mother playing during the harvest years and years ago. The words had slipped from my memory, as words so often did, but some of the people around the fire knew the song and began to sing along. They called out a few requests after that, and then, once everyone's voices had grown tired, I played a less dramatic version of the spell that had unleashed chaos in my father's parlor.

This time the burning shapes danced off my bow and floated up into the open air of the night sky, accompanied by sparks and soft murmurs of appreciation from those watching. The sound soothed something inside of me that had been left rumpled and aching since leaving my father's house.

"What was that?"

I was startled to find Grimm standing next to me in the dark. His eyes were fixed on the glowing remains of my spell as they winked out, one by one.

"It doesn't have a name."

"Not the song, the spell." Grimm looked me over and frowned. "You did something similar before, when you brought that piece of paper to life in order to guide me around the library. You hummed something over it."

"I call them spellsongs," I said, loosening my bow before tucking it back in its case. "They're just little fancies. Things I make to amuse myself."

"Casting such things is costly for scrivers. You should be more cautious, lest you overextend yourself."

I chuckled. "I'm touched by your concern, Grimm, but I know my limits. Besides, casting always costs me less when I do it through music."

"I did not know you played so well," he said.

"Surprised?"

"Yes," Grimm answered. "I thought such a skill would require more…"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "More what?"

"Discipline. More than you possess, at least."

"Ouch," I said. "Fucking ouch , Grimm. I'll have you know that I can be very disciplined when I want to be. Or did you think I survived our first four tiers at the Fount simply because of my charming personality?"

"No," Grimm said. "I did not think it was because of that ."

Judging by his tone, there was more he could have said on the subject. But before I could provoke a more thorough explanation, Grimm withdrew to the other side of the fire. His mother, passing by, said something to him that I could not hear, and Grimm looked at her and smiled.

It seemed practically unnatural to watch Grimm's mouth curve in a direction that wasn't down, but it was there. It happened. And then, in response, his mother laid a hand on his shoulder.

A wave of longing swept over me, breathtaking in its severity. I had to look away.

Nothing here fit neatly with the image I had of Grimm. I wished I could unsee it. Better I had not learned of where he came from, or realized I was jealous of it.

I stayed on my own side of the brazier for the rest of the night. It would be much easier to keep my promise of good behavior to Agnes if I spent as little time speaking to Sebastian Grimm as possible.

The next morning, I lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the house emptying as Grimm and his family returned to work in the fields. Once I was certain they were gone, I rose and wrote a note explaining where I was going and placed it on Grimm's pillow. Then I got dressed, gathered my things, and left, giving the barn a wide berth in case Grimm was inside.

As I walked, the early-morning fog began to burn off and the blue sky revealed itself—a perfect day for traveling, sunny but with just enough bite to the air to make walking pleasant. I had spent enough time in Dwull to have a general understanding of the geography, and Grimm's home was no more than a day's walk from the southernmost edge of Miendor, with the Unquiet Wood beyond. My plan was to follow the road south until I found the dwellings or town nearest the wood and start asking questions. If the sorcerer actually existed, perhaps she was known there. I thought the curse would be uncomfortable by that point, but not unbearable, so I would spend that evening listening to what tales the people there could tell me, and then return to Grimm's property the following day.

That was my plan, but I had not gone very far down the path before my heels began to drag with tiredness.

I cursed the third cup of wine I'd had to drink last night and continued.

My stomach began to churn unpleasantly at the half-mile point. The air was cool, but I was sweating. Fields stretched out on either side of me, and I had a powerful urge to lie down in one of them and close my eyes. Or better yet, to turn and make my way back to the house.

With a growing sense of trepidation, I paused in the middle of the road. The moment I stopped moving, something inside me heaved a sigh of relief. I was still too warm, but all the other unpleasantness was suspended.

One step back down the road the way I had come, and my queasiness receded even further. Then I darted three steps forward and had to pause, gasping, as it all came crashing back. My stomach leapt and my heart pounded. My legs trembled, threatening to give out entirely.

There was no mistaking the signs of the curse. Go back , the magic in my blood seemed to whisper. You are not where you should be.

I clenched my fists tight, determined not to listen. This was much, much sooner than I'd expected the curse to make its presence known. I was not even a mile down the road. Grimm had been gone from the Fount for at least a full day before I'd even noticed his absence last time. It seemed impossible that the leash binding me to him could have grown so much shorter so quickly.

I pushed onward. If anyone had been there to see my progress, they would surely have thought me drunk. I stumbled forward, weaving from side to side as I fought against the urge to move backward. It was a slow, painful process, and within a dishearteningly short period of time, I was nearly in the same state that had prompted Agnes to bundle me into a carriage and drive me all the way to Dwull.

The turnoff for the main road was in sight, but I couldn't make it there. Neither could I bring myself to concede defeat by turning back, so instead I collapsed in a spot of shade by the side of the path and sat in my discomfort, waiting to see if it would lessen enough for me to take a few more steps.

I'm not sure why I thought reaching the road was so important (by this point it was clear I would not be traveling anywhere alone). I suppose it came from a need to prove to myself that my world had not really shrunk so alarmingly. That I was the same person I had been yesterday, capable of the same things.

But I wasn't. This was worse, even, than being bound by my father's wishes. At least I had carved some freedom for myself out of the Fount's hallowed walls, and I could have walked away at any time, though it would have meant losing something dear to me. But here, now, I literally could not walk away from Grimm. I carried the curse with me. There was no trick I could pull to leave it behind, even for a moment, and the inescapable weight made me feel very small.

The discomfort didn't lessen and neither did my stubborn urge to resist it, and so I was left at an impasse, feeling just as terrible at the thought of going back as I did about moving forward.

This was the state in which Grimm found me.

I knew he was coming by the way my nausea began to lessen, along with the terrible, feverish ache in my limbs. But there was also something else that I recognized from my time surreptitiously following Grimm at the Fount—a prickling sort of awareness that overcame me in degrees, as each step of distance between us was eaten up. It reminded me of the tide coming in or a piece of yarn being gathered into a neat ball—something being drawn inexorably closer. The sensation was odd and carried with it far more familiarity than I'd ever hoped or wanted to hold for Sebastian Grimm.

It was quite clear that this bond did not extend both ways, because Grimm passed by me entirely, hidden as I was by the long grass at the side of the road. He walked with a sense of brisk purpose and held a scrap of paper clutched tightly in one hand. I was fairly certain it was the note I'd left on his bed.

That, and the clear annoyance on Grimm's face, made me reasonably certain he was looking for me, rather than just out for an afternoon stroll.

I sat up with a rustle of grass. "Over here."

Grimm stopped and spun round. He looked me over, first with thin-lipped disapproval and then, as he noticed my wilting form and the sweat-soaked tendrils of hair plastered to my face, with an air of puzzlement.

He held up the crumpled piece of paper. "Did you actually intend to visit the border, or was the idea of making me take time out of my day to come looking for you simply amusing?"

"I was going to go," I answered sullenly.

"Then why are you here?"

He would not have gone much farther in search of me, I realized. If I had made it just a little farther down the road, Grimm probably would have let me go and welcomed the reprieve. It was possible he was just as annoyed about finding me as he was about being made to look in the first place.

Well, there would be no reprieve for either of us now.

"It's gotten worse," I said. In as stark terms as possible, I outlined the new parameters of the curse for him, leaving nothing out. If I was going to be made to feel all of it, I thought it only fair that Grimm should at least suffer the weight of knowing how dire this had become.

Indeed, he looked more and more alarmed as I spoke.

"Well, this changes things," he said, once I was finished.

I was surprised Grimm had come to the same conclusion I had so quickly, but also relieved. "It certainly does," I said. "Now we both need to go."

Grimm, who had been directing a concentrated sort of frown down at the ground, looked up at me and said, "Go where?"

"To look for the sorcerer, of course. We can't wait this out, not anymore. Isn't that what you meant?"

"No," Grimm said. "I meant that we will have to be more careful than ever to keep this hidden until we find a counterspell."

At first, I was stunned. Then, beneath that numb surprise, I realized that I was angry. Very angry, actually. If I hadn't by this point spent hours stewing in my own misery by the roadside, I might have been able to recognize that Grimm was only one of many things I was angry about, but I had sat there stewing, and now Grimm was standing in front of me, the perfect receptacle for my frustration.

I got to my feet.

"Until we find a counterspell? Do you suppose there's one that will just be left lying around somewhere for us, Grimm? Or are you still placing all your faith in Cassius to cough one up, because I can tell you right now that my patience on that front is running quite thin. The curse is tightening its hold every day. Do you really think we'll be able to keep it hidden once we're back at the Fount? Do you think no one will ask questions once the curse has me on a leash so short I'm forced to sleep outside your door like a dog?" I sneered. "And as for the trials, I'd like to see what it does to your chances when you have to complete them with me shadowing your every step."

Grimm blinked at me. "You're upset," he said. "I understand that. But the risk of discovery is lesser than the risk of going to the Unquiet—"

"What about the risk to me!" I shouted. "You're so good at memorizing spells, don't you remember the words of the curse?" This was one of the things that had been running through my head again and again over the past few hours. There was no word without meaning given over to a spell—I was a scriver, I knew—and the words of the curse were harrowing indeed.

" Until every wish need not be spoken ," I quoted. "That's how it ends. Maybe you're willing to let the curse progress until I'm a mindless puppet, but I'm not. If you won't agree to find the sorcerer, I'll just have to ask someone else for help."

"Who?" Grimm asked, eyes turning sharp.

"There's a long list of powerful scrivers I could go to. My father, for instance. He's a bit of a stickler for rules, but I confess I don't much care anymore what trouble we get into if it means getting rid of this."

In fact, my father was the last person I would have gone to. Putting aside the fact that he held the Sahnt estate hostage against my good behavior, my father's involvement would alert not only the Coterie but also the Citadel council who governed it. I wasn't actually desperate enough to invite that kind of scrutiny. But Grimm didn't know that, and I thought the idea would provoke him.

When he did not immediately react, I added, "I could write him a letter and have this solved by tomorrow. I'm sure his arrival would be a little confusing for your family, so perhaps we had better tell them what's happened now."

I turned and began to walk back in the direction of the house, but made it only two steps before Grimm said, "Stop."

The command locked my limbs in place. With great difficulty I was able to turn my head to look at Grimm where he stood in the road. I'd wanted to provoke him and now I had. It showed in the clenched fists hanging at his sides, and the way that he still hadn't revoked his order, even though the effect of his words was clear.

This, I supposed, was what Agnes had been afraid of, leaving the two of us alone together, but in a twisted way, it felt right. Being at odds with Grimm was part of the natural order of things, like thunder followed lightning and night gave way to dawn.

"Are you enjoying this?" I asked him, coldly furious. So long as the fury was there, I didn't have to think what might happen next, or wonder what it would feel like if Grimm simply turned on his heel and left me standing frozen in the road. Being angry with Grimm was easier than being afraid of him.

Grimm drew in a short breath. There was a war fought in the span of that one inhalation. "Never mind," he said, and the tension in my limbs released.

The first time Grimm had ordered me to do something, I'd wanted to run, but this time I knew that the curse wouldn't let me go far, even if I tried. I gave in to it instead, taking a few steps toward him. Finding that line where everyone else seemed to pause when approaching Grimm, and then deliberately crossing it.

This close, I could see the way Grimm's whole body trembled with how tightly he held himself in check. It had been a long time since we'd actually come to blows, but we weren't bound by the rules of the Fount here, and part of me relished the idea of pushing Grimm until he snapped. There were some things even I could not say with words. Some emotions that could only be expressed through contact.

And I so badly wanted to ruin that finely kept control.

"You didn't answer my question," I said. "Shall I answer it for you? You act so perfect. So noble. But admit it, you'd love to just give in and use the curse to tell me what to do."

"Maybe someone should!" Grimm shouted, and finally, finally exploded into motion.

I braced myself, nerve endings already alight with the impulse to strike back, but all he did was grasp the collar of my coat and jerk me forward. Fabric pulled tight against my throat, causing me to choke a little, even as sparks of exhilaration skittered down my spine.

"Maybe if someone else were making your decisions, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place. And what about you? You accuse me of wanting to abuse my power, but you're the one who's fond of issuing threats." Grimm scoffed. "You're just like every other gentry-born sorcerer. Worse, because you're not even making anything of yourself. You're spoiled with privilege, yet put none of it to good use. So, no, to answer your question, Loveage, I am not enjoying myself. How could I, when I'm stuck with you?"

He released me all at once and I stumbled back. Blood roared in my ears, and my skin stung with heat. I wished Grimm had just punched me. That would have been cleaner, somehow. But if this was the fight he wanted, I knew how to respond.

I did not know how to win Grimm over by being pleasant, but I could work with him like this, when we were both at our worst.

I reached up and made a show of brushing the creases from my coat, as though my own hands weren't trembling now too. Then I said, "Well, Grimm. Since you're so keen on deciding what's right for the both of us, let me lay out your options, as they stand. The first option is that we go on a little jaunt to the Unquiet Wood and see what we can find there. I even promise we'll be back in time for the trials. The second option is that I seek help elsewhere and this whole thing is blown wide open. What would happen after, I don't know." I paused. "And then there's the third option. Where we do things your way. Not because I agree to it, but because you make me."

The challenge hung in the air between us. It was an ugly suggestion, and we both knew it. Spoken like this, it could not be shrugged off as a mistake or a provocation. I did not think Grimm would actually want to be so tainted, but there was always the chance I'd misjudged him. Or that the curse was changing him in less perceptible ways than it was me.

I raised my chin and met Grimm's unhappy gaze with my own. "The choice is yours."