13 
Ottilie had just pulled on her boots when a black owl soared through her open window. Maeve transformed in mid-air and stepped lightly onto the floor. She had come so far from the frightened girl who once accidentally set a tapestry alight above Wrangler Voilies’ head.
Ottilie slid her cutlass into the sheath across her back. ‘You can’t stop me.’
‘I’m not here to stop you. I came to make sure you’re still going.’
Ottilie had not expected that. She peered through the shadows, meeting Maeve’s hopeful gaze. ‘Course I am. She said she’d let Bill go.’ Nothing could stop her. They were no closer to finding the healing spring, Ned was still dreaming and Scoot was still stone, but she could rescue Bill.
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Maeve.
It was tempting, but Ottilie was scared that if she didn’t follow Whistler’s instructions, she might not hand Bill over. ‘You can’t come.’
Maeve took several steps forward, her expression pleading. ‘I’ll go as the owl, and I won’t come into the caves. I’ll stay outside.’
It worried her, but Ottilie was such a bundle of nerves she couldn’t turn down the offer of company. If everything ran smoothly, Whistler would never know Maeve was there.
Nox dropped Ottilie on a ledge at the passage opening, then the wingerslink and Maeve flew to the top of the cliff to wait.
The last time Ottilie had entered these caves, it had been a trap. When they had come to rescue Ned, she and Leo had been ambushed by a bone singer and a horde of dredretches. Ottilie had lost part of her ear in there, and if it wasn’t for Maeve, she might have lost much more.
She had thought the difficult part would be leaving Fiory, but it wasn’t. It was here on this ledge, at the entrance shaped like a lightning bolt. Her insides squirmed and her feet refused to move.
She took a deep breath and thought of Bill. He had helped her even though he was afraid. He had led her through the tunnels all the way to Wikric and then, a year later, he had stowed away, entering monster-infested territory just to find her.
Ottilie shook out her shoulders, held her glow sticks aloft, and walked into the caves.
What was ahead? There had to be some sort of trickery involved. Did Whistler still have her lined up for a binding? Was there a particularly foul dredretch waiting for her by that crumbling well, ready to become her bloodbeast?
With a shaking hand, Ottilie drew her cutlass. She had to take this opportunity. She might never get another chance. The bone necklace hummed in her pocket, and with a jolt Ottilie realised why – it hummed when Whistler was near.
Clenching her fingers tighter on her cutlass, Ottilie rounded the final curve to find Whistler seated at a great chunk of rock laid with a blue tablecloth. Resting on the uneven surface was a jar of embers, like a fistful of fireflies. The amber glow illuminated a single teapot, painted orange, and two purple cups.
‘Ah,’ said Whistler, shambling from her perch on a rock. ‘Welcome!’
Ottilie froze, her eyes combing the cavern. There was no sign of Bill – no sign of anyone, or anything. There were no dredretches nearby. Whistler must have kept them at a distance to put her at ease.
Waving her sleeve at the rock opposite her own, Whistler chirped, ‘Sit, sit, sit.’
‘Where’s Bill?’ said Ottilie, still frozen in the mouth of the cavern.
‘He’ll be along.’
Begrudgingly, Ottilie moved forward and balanced on the very edge of the rock, ready to leap up at any second.
An amused smile tugged at Whistler’s lips as she poured the tea. Ottilie only wished her hand would stop shaking as she reached out and pushed the cup away. Some of the honey-coloured liquid slopped onto the tablecloth. Both Ottilie and Whistler stared down at the swelling puddle.
‘You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to,’ said Whistler. ‘Rude,’ she muttered, as if Ottilie couldn’t hear.
‘What do you want? When do I get to see Bill?’ Ottilie blurted, her heart still hammering.
Whistler smiled. ‘You’re a rumbler, my girl. That’s what I like about you.’
‘A rumbler?’ Her eyes darted all around, wary of attack.
‘A bringer of change, a mistress of floods, a drawer of tides. You remind me of me.’ Whistler lunged forward as if to take her hand.
Ottilie lurched backwards, the white tips of Scoot’s fingers fixed in her mind. ‘You don’t bring change – you bring misery!’
Whistler merely smiled and raised her hands like a scale. Tipping them up and down, she said, ‘Misery to some. Joy to others. You can’t please everyone.’
Ottilie scowled. Whistler seemed to think this was a big joke.
‘I offer choices. Choose right and you’ve nothing to fear.’
‘I’ve already told you I’m not going to switch sides.’ Ottilie didn’t know where she found the rush of courage. ‘Why are you wasting your time? Don’t you have more important things to do? What are you waiting for?’
What was the point of all this? Why did Whistler even want to talk to her? You remind me of me … That was troubling. But what did Ottilie have to do with anything?
‘Astute,’ said Whistler. She lifted her teacup delicately to her lips and took a loud, messy slurp. ‘I am waiting. Stuck for a bit.’ She took another gulp, her birdlike eyes fixed on Ottilie over the rim of the cup. ‘But I am offering you safety and salvation, girl. Do you consider that a waste of time?’
‘What do you mean, stuck?’
Whistler didn’t answer. Instead, she slammed down her cup and said, perfectly calmly, ‘I think, when you know more, you will come around to my way of thinking. Our hearts are aligned. You just don’t know it yet. I want to tell you a little about who I am.’
‘I want to see –’
‘And when I’m done you can see your friend.’
Ottilie bit back her retort.
‘Some of it you already know, so forgive me if I tread over old ground.’
Despite herself, Ottilie leaned forward. Whistler caught the movement and her eyes glittered.
‘Years ago,’ she began, ‘my father, fresh from destroying the Laklands, gained the title Viago the Vanquisher.’ Whistler said the name as if it were an insult. ‘I have told you before,’ she continued, ‘that after he broke the promise and destroyed the Laklands, the dredretches emerged and a rumour took root. People began to whisper that my family was being punished – they called it the Vanquisher’s bane. They said that my mother was barren, like the Laklands, and the Sol line would end. But, ten years after the war, she finally fell pregnant. My parents rejoiced, believing this proved the bane was not real.’
Whistler’s lip curled. ‘But then the baby was born. Me. A daughter with a misshapen hand – and the rumours twisted into a new shape. They said my mother could birth only monsters, like the land that my father had destroyed. And when I started showing signs of magic … you can only imagine how that fuelled the fire. The clawed witch, they called me.
‘With the birth of my younger brother, the rumours – the legend – found its final form. My brother, Feo, was healthy, normal – no twisted limbs, no magic. So, they decided, my parents included, that I was the bane, I was their punishment, their curse, and from then on all Sol daughters have carried my burden.’
Disgust darkened Whistler’s face. ‘My family believes females are bad luck – that they carry on the bane, and are destined to be the ruination of the Sol family and the lands they rule.’
Ottilie narrowed her eyes. ‘But …’ She looked Whistler up and down. ‘They were right. You are a’ – she thought of the giant winged creature – ‘monster,’ she whispered, ‘and you’re destroying everything …’
Ottilie expected her to lash out. Strangely, Whistler smiled a self-satisfied smile. ‘Have I taught you nothing? Hexes, curses …’ She shook her head.
Ottilie frowned. True, she was yet to hear about any form of curse that had not turned out to be a complete lie …
‘There’s always a choice,’ said Whistler abruptly. ‘No matter how trapped you find yourself, there is always free will. I was no curse, just a young innocent girl, but my life was shaped by people’s belief in that curse’s existence.
‘At seven, I was imprisoned in my father’s dungeons, allowed out only to use my magic to help punish his prisoners, or force them to speak. My mother abandoned me, forgot me. I never saw her until years later, long after I escaped at age twelve.’
‘Where did you go?’ Ottilie felt a twinge of guilt – was she just satisfying her own curiosity? This wasn’t why she’d come. How was this helping Bill?
‘Many places,’ said Whistler. ‘I studied magic, honed my craft, visited far-off lands where witches still practised freely, unthreatened.
‘I returned to the Usklers long after my father died. My brother, Feo, was a good king, but I was wary of his son, Varrio, who I found to be a freakish double of my father.
‘When my brother passed and Varrio became king, I watched from afar. I saw him become a cruel, war-hungry ruler. He invaded the independent islands to the south-west, conquering land for the sake of it, massacring entire communities, crippling ancient civilisations and leaving the dregs to rot.
‘I heard rumours he was planning on expanding the Usklers by launching an assault on the Triptiquery Principalities – the Usklers’ closest neighbour and strongest ally, and our salvation in the Lakland War.
‘Just like my parents, Varrio and his queen had difficulty producing an heir, and rumours of the bane were revived. When the queen bore his first child, I heard it was a girl – the first Sol daughter since myself.’
Varrio’s first child … Ottilie had never known much about her. She had died long before Ottilie was born.
‘I feared for her and immediately installed myself at the palace.’ Whistler’s voice had changed. It softened and swelled at the same time. Ottilie sat up a little straighter.
‘Varrio had never met me before. As far as he was aware, the clawed witch, Fennix Sol, was long dead. I used a false name and had myself instated as the Royal Mystic to watch over the princess.’
Just as Ottilie had sensed in the Withering Wood, Whistler’s emotions billowed out. Ottilie could almost see them, like smoke swelling. She knew the princess had not lived long. Was this what Gracie had meant by vengeance? Was Whistler’s vendetta against the king something to do with the young princess?
‘Enough history!’ snapped Whistler, and Ottilie saw the shadow of the winged beast in her eyes. ‘Does it sound to you, Ottilie, like I was a curse?’ she growled. ‘Like this innocent girl after me was cursed?’
‘Of course not.’ Ottilie’s fingers twitched towards her knife. She felt strangled and shivery all over, as if Whistler’s emotions were pressing in on her. ‘But now …’
‘Now, yes, now,’ snarled Whistler. ‘That’s the point. I made a choice to give them all what they feared most, to become the terror that they believed I, and every Sol daughter after me, would become.
‘I aligned myself with the same breed of monster that my father’s callous ambition brought forth. And now, I will see the end of the Sol line, and bring about the ruination of all they rule.’
Ottilie felt as if spiders were crawling up and down her spine. ‘What happened to the princess?’ she dared to ask.
Whistler leapt out of her seat. Ottilie rolled sideways, ducking behind the stone table, waiting for an attack that didn’t come.
‘I’m giving you a gift,’ said Whistler icily.
Ottilie peeked above the blue tablecloth to see Whistler strolling away from her.
‘I don’t want any more gifts,’ she said, staying low to the ground.
Whistler turned, her eyes bright. ‘You want this one, possum.’ She rested a hand on the crumbling well.
Ottilie stared at it, her mind humming. She had never considered it before. From Ned’s dream, it seemed that a coven of witches had once inhabited these caves, and here in the middle of it all was a well. She’d seen it before, of course, but she hadn’t thought …
Despite everything, hope sparked. Ottilie jumped up, her eyes fixed on the ruin. It could just be ordinary water, but Whistler’s smile suggested that the well contained exactly what Ottilie had been hoping for – the healing spring.