Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
W e retraced our steps from the previous night, intending to find the river and follow it back to Miendor. Every stretch of forest floor seemed suspicious without Jayne there to follow. Because we did not know which things in particular to be careful of, we were careful of everything, and it left us tense and moving far slower than we ought to have been. Still, as time wore on, one thing became clear: We should have reached the river already.
Neither of us said anything about this. Putting the realization to words would have only made the situation feel bleaker than it was already.
My arm itched and throbbed in turns. I didn't mention this either. Or the chills that swept over me periodically. Though perhaps the chills could be attributed to the fact that it had begun to rain—a cold sort of drizzle that seeped down through the branches above and soaked both our clothes.
If the forest was sinister on a pleasant day, I'll leave it to your imagination what the addition of thunder and the occasional flash of lightning added to the ambience.
Around midday Grimm surprised me by asking, "Is something wrong?"
I let out a short laugh. "Our woes are so many that I'm afraid to list them would take a while."
"I meant is there something wrong with you . You've been very quiet. It's… strange."
"Do you miss the sound of my voice? How touching."
Grimm looked at me with narrowed eyes. "On the contrary. I would find it relaxing were I not suspicious of the cause."
Even here, in this place of monsters, I was the thing that Grimm couldn't quite trust.
"I'm tired, Grimm. Not plotting anything, just tired."
Tired and sort of… murky. I couldn't hold as many thoughts as usual in my head, too occupied with where to put my feet and how to hold my arm so that it hurt less. Jayne had admitted the outlaws coated their blades in the mushroom elixir; had Mathias's arrow been coated with something as well? I had very little understanding of how such things worked (herbalism was not magic and therefore not taught at the Fount), but the idea of being exposed to any plant parts of unknown origin made my stomach swoop in unpleasant panic.
I was so busy weighing the strength of this new worry I did not realize Grimm had stopped walking until I stumbled into him, jostling my arm in such a way that I couldn't help but let out a swear and curl protectively over it.
"Why did you stop?" I asked, pain making the words accusatory.
"I thought I heard something." Grimm drew his sword in one smooth motion. "A sort of popping sound."
"Probably thunder," I said, glancing toward the obscured sky.
"No, I don't think so."
This section of forest was even darker than what we had traveled through previously. It was impossible to see farther than twenty yards ahead of us, and everything to either side disappeared into gloom as well. We both stood still for a moment, listening, but the sound didn't repeat itself. Eventually Grimm looked away from the trees and back at me.
"Your arm is bothering you," he said with the satisfied air of someone who had just fit a puzzle piece into its correct place.
"It's not so bad," I said, even though I'd just been contemplating whether the fact that my arm felt like it was burning meant I'd been poisoned or just infected with some flesh-eating river disease. "I'm not the type to complain about a little cut."
"Two days ago, you spent hours complaining about a blister," Grimm pointed out. "Literal hours."
"It was a very large blister."
Grimm sighed and sheathed his sword again. "Let me—I can take a look at it, if you want."
I raised an eyebrow. "At the blister? It's much better, thank you for asking."
"Your wound , Loveage," Grimm snapped, but I had encountered his exasperation far too often and was thus immune.
"It's a waste of time," I said, dancing backward to keep out of reach. "If we look now and it's bad, I'll only be distracted by wondering if my arm will fall off before we make it back to Miendor. I think we've got enough things to worry about without adding that to the list, don't you?"
"You're being dramatic. I doubt it would fall off that quickly."
This was said with such a straight face that I wasn't entirely sure if Grimm was in earnest or just in possession of a far drier wit than I'd given him credit for. Perhaps it was my fever, causing me to imagine Grimm with a sense of humor. I was saved the trouble of deciding when a sudden and distinct pop sounded from the trees off to our right. It was not like the crack of a stick breaking, or any other natural sound you might expect to hear in a forest. This was the delicate, half-imagined sound of a soap bubble breaking, amplified many times over until it was shocking and strange.
Grimm and I spun round to face the direction the sound came from. A pair of enormous silver eyes blinked back at us from the shadows. They blinked twice more, and then a wolf stepped out from the trees.
I call it a wolf because that is the closest example I can think to give, but it was clearly a monster. The creature's eyes were pure swirling silver, and its coat was true black, with no hint of sable or brown. It was far larger than an ordinary wolf, to the point where I thought that, if I were foolish enough to fling myself over its back, I would be taken for a ride.
The wolf monster looked at us cannily, head cocked to one side. It let out a low whine that caused all the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.
Grimm, who had been reaching to draw his sword again, paused, clearly worried that movement would trigger an attack. I understood the impulse, but standing still made me feel like a mouse frozen in the eye of a cat. I looked at its long legs and thought that one leap would bring it nearly down on top of us. Every nerve ending in my body began to sing that we should move and move now . That to stand still was akin to offering ourselves up on a platter.
The wolf took another step toward us, and something within me snapped.
"Run," I said, and pushed Grimm toward the trees.
There was not much Grimm could do after that except follow my order, cursing under his breath. This was not a coordinated retreat. I did not have any plan in mind except for away .
But it didn't matter how fast we ran. A moment later, that same strange pop sounded and now the wolf was ahead of us, blocking our way forward and forcing us to skid to an abrupt stop. Its mouth was open in a lazy smile, red tongue lolling. This creature saw the chase as a sort of game. It had none of the dark malevolence of the wood kraken, tearing the forest apart to find us; nonetheless, its goal was the same and it was even more well equipped to catch us.
The wolf gathered its long limbs underneath itself and sprang.
Grimm and I were not far apart, but he was just that little bit in the lead. It was clear that the beast would land on him. I could see it happening in my mind's eye, just as I had when we'd stood across from Jayne and Mathias on the riverbank—visions of Grimm being torn apart by arrow or spell or tooth. Once again, I felt called to act without thought, darting forward to place myself between Grimm and the monster.
This senseless bit of sacrifice was entirely discordant with my character, and I was just beginning to feel puzzled by it when the wolf landed on top of me.
I was bowled over backward in a tangle of limbs and fur. A blanket of moss cushioned my fall, but the weight of the monster pushed the air from my chest, leaving me gasping. The heavy scent of dog and something wilder overwhelmed my senses—a wet woolen blanket sort of smell, mixed with the bright ozone scent of lightning.
The wolf's teeth were very close, flashing white as my lungs strained for breath. My arm hurt terribly, but I couldn't do anything about it. Everything had happened so quickly that my body and mind seemed disconnected, unable to communicate well enough to put up a fight.
The wolf placed one paw firmly on my chest, holding me still. Its silver eyes swirled, faster and faster, until there was a pop and the world around us dissolved.
I was still where I was, and the wolf was still there too, but the colors of our surroundings bled together, green running into blue into red into brown, and on and on. It was like being inside a painting, watching all the brushstrokes melt away like butter on a hot pan. The chaos was beautiful, but no matter how much I wanted to look, my eyes couldn't quite comprehend what they saw. Eventually I had to blink, and in the instant I wasn't looking, the world turned solid again.
The wolf's cold nose pressed against my neck and I yelped. This was it. I had been taken to its lair and would be eaten for lunch. And all because I'd seen fit to leap in front of Grimm ( Grimm! ), who never in a million years would have understood or returned the gesture.
The worst part was, I was still glad I'd done it.
The wolf's head drew back slightly, and I braced myself. Then its tail thumped once against my legs, and it popped out of existence again, leaving me alone.
I didn't move right away, thinking that it would surely come back. But a minute passed and then another. I sat up slowly. My body still didn't feel quite like my own, limbs wobblier and spine more bendable.
My surroundings had shifted. Now I was in a grass-filled clearing, marked by birch trees around its edge. The trees grew in a near perfect circle, and beyond their pale and graceful trunks, the rest of the forest pressed in close.
At the center of the clearing, dark and tall, stood a tower.
My breath caught a little at the sight, and I scrambled to my feet.
The description in the book Cassius had given me had been quite clear: The sorcerer lives in a tower built of black stone, unlined and organic, appearing to have grown fully formed from the earth rather than being built by human hands. It stands much taller than an ordinary house, looking like nothing so much as a lonely watchtower. Though what it watches for, I cannot say. The only view in that place was of trees, trees, trees, and more trees.
This description was so apt that I felt a strange sense of déjà vu as I stood in front of the tower, marveling at its smooth sides and ebony height.
As I was doing this, there came a now-familiar popping sound, and I turned in time to see the wolf stepping off Grimm's prone form. Like me, he had arrived unharmed, though he'd clearly put up more of a fight. His sword was drawn, but he seemed disoriented, managing only one half-hearted swing at the monster as it retreated.
"All right, Grimm?" I called out, to let him know I was there and had not had my face bitten off (yet). When his eyes found me, they were glassy and unfocused. I had never seen Grimm drunk, but I imagined it might look a little like this.
"Loveage?" he said, and then dropped his sword to roll over and be sick in the grass. He remained kneeling even after it was over, head bent and eyes closed. Traveling by monster did not seem to agree with him.
I took a few steps closer and paused. The instinct was there to reach out and pat his back, as I would have done for Agnes. But this was Grimm. I did not think such a gesture would be appreciated.
"All right?" I asked again, this time cautiously.
"Fine," he croaked. "Where are we?"
I looked back at the tower. "Surprisingly, I think we're exactly where we want to be. Look, this must be where the sorcerer lives. I can't imagine there's that many towers like this in the Unquiet Wood. I think our message spell worked!"
"So she sent a monster to retrieve us?" Grimm hauled himself to his feet, frowning at the tower. "Some invitation."
The monster in question had been sitting on its haunches a few feet away, watching us. Now it got to its feet and trotted toward the tower, pausing once or twice to look back over its shoulder in an expectant manner. At the base of the tower was a door, left open as though in welcome. The wolf trotted easily inside.
I began to follow.
"We shouldn't just go inside," Grimm said.
"Why not?" I asked. "I don't think the door would have been left open unless we were meant to."
"This could be a trap, some trick of the forest, or another of Jayne's maneuverings. I don't trust it."
"You don't trust anything."
Grimm's mouth took on a decidedly stubborn tilt. "Whereas you have all the caution of an inebriated toddler! We know nothing about this person, and that puts us at a serious disadvantage. I have no spells in my pockets, and you've no paper to write more. I don't think we should go inside."
I gaped at him. "You can't mean for us to turn around and leave? Not when the person we've been looking for this whole time is likely just past that doorway. Be reasonable, Grimm!"
"I am reasonable," he said hotly. "Not wanting to be murdered by a mysterious wood dweller or her pet monster is a reasonable concern."
"And what about my concerns?" I asked, crossing my arms and glaring. "This curse isn't going away by itself, and I, for one, think that getting rid of it is worth a little risk."
"You have yet to meet a risk you didn't think was worth taking," Grimm said bitterly. "That's the problem."
The tower was at my back; I could feel it looming. So close.
Close enough that I could walk away from Grimm and through that door without it even hurting. For all he wanted to be rid of me, there was no way Grimm could possibly understand how much I needed the curse gone. The desperation was all-consuming, like being drunk, or on stage, or in love. Maybe Grimm was right, maybe I was reckless with it, but I was afraid that if I let it linger, I would grow used to living with it, and that terrified me.
I looked Grimm square in the eyes and said, "Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained." Then I turned around and began to walk toward the tower.
I thought one of two things would happen next. The first was that Grimm would grudgingly concede and follow me inside. The second (and more likely) outcome was that he would stubbornly hold his ground while I went in to face the sorcerer alone. I would not have minded this outcome very much. I wanted to meet her, after all. Indeed, it felt like everything that had happened over the past few days had been leading up to this, events coiling tighter and tighter until there was no other result but that I should be spat out here to beg for her aid. I was certain I could do that without Grimm there. He would most likely only sulk and make a bad impression.
I had forgotten that there was, of course, a third option, which was Grimm letting me get a few steps away and then calling out, "Loveage, wait!"
Immediately, I froze and waited. There was nothing else I could do, nothing else I wanted to do. Behind the blissful haze of obedience, a frantic part of me wondered how long I would remain there, statue-still, if Grimm did not rescind his order. But that worry was distant, the part of my mind responsible for action vacant. I would wait for him, until all reason for the order was lost to time, and moss and lichen turned me into just another curiosity of the forest.
"Never mind," Grimm said, and just like that, the feeling was gone, leaving me hollow and vaguely nauseous instead.
Every time it happened like this was a little worse. Every time, I felt like I'd lost a little more when it was over. I stood very still and very straight, taking deep breaths until the panic receded and I could calmly turn around and face Grimm.
His face was still damp with sweat from being sick. A few pieces of pale hair were plastered across his forehead, nearly translucent. He looked thoroughly wretched, or as close to it as someone like Grimm could, anyway.
I found I didn't care.
Slowly, taking great care to enunciate each word so there would be no mistaking my meaning, I said, "I'm going to talk to that sorcerer."
"If you would just take a moment so we could at least—"
"No. I'm going inside now. You can do as you please."
I turned around again and pretended exposing my back didn't make me feel utterly vulnerable. Like this, I couldn't see if Grimm was about to speak, but I didn't think he would. Not in that way, at least.
"Curse you," Grimm said bitterly, and followed.
I didn't know if he wished me further cursed for making traveling together so fraught, or for making resisting the urge to order me around so difficult, or if it was simply my very presence that caused him grief. I suspected it was some combination of all three. But he followed anyway. Perhaps because he'd done something to be ashamed of and sticking with me was a type of penance.
That was the control I had over him , you see.
"Cheer up, Grimm," I called out with false gaiety. "If I'm right about this, you'll be rid of me soon."
With these words of encouragement filling the air between us, I stepped over the threshold and into the sorcerer's tower.