The iron and ice I’d borrowed from the Queen fell away as I stepped outside and snatched my walking stick, dragging the door closed behind me.
Sobs rasped through the door, and I peered back over my shoulder.
She didn’t want my help or comfort.
And then the sound of her sobs seemed like every dark thing that had chased me since I left the castle. I clutched the spindle closer and ran down the path through the nettles.
I didn’t stop till I reached my little camp by the three rivers: my satchel slung over a tree branch to protect it from animals and thieves, the sooty remains of a fire in the hollow protected from the wind. I had to be at least a league from her cottage, but I still feared I’d somehow hear her cries and that maybe I’d become just like her.
Don’t be silly, chided Gavyn. Think about what you’ve learned.
I dropped my walking stick and sank down, my back against a tree. I hadn’t learned anything.
I thought the old woman would tell me who the Queen was.
I thought she’d tell me how to stop her.
I thought she’d be sane.
Think!
Very well, then. I turned the spindle over in my hands.
I’d learned that the Queen escaped from a mean mistress—or someone she thought was mean. And that the Queen sat by the nettles and sang.
So she hadn’t always been royalty.
Then the old woman had given her words . . . and a dress . . . and feet? Feet?
I pressed my free hand against my forehead. I wanted to talk! If I could tell someone what I’d heard, I might begin to understand it.
Not speaking was almost like not thinking.
And then I was back in Roden’s dungeon with the Queen gloating over all that I’d lost.
She’d said silence would open a chasm inside me.
No.
I leaped up, not minding that the spindle fell to the ground, and made Cadan’s rude gesture then—all of it—both hands held up to the pale slice of moon that hung in the blue sky. Let the Queen see that!
I’d be quiet, but I wouldn’t be empty.
And then I lowered my hands because it really was an awful gesture. Besides, it was time to think, not insult the empty air like a child.
I dropped to my knees, plucked up a flat rock, and used it to strip moss from the ground. Then I patted the exposed earth as smooth as a piece of parchment.
I drew a pair of bare feet peering from beneath a skirt. Then songs streaming like a summer wind from the Queen’s mouth.
She sang without words.
Or perhaps words the old woman didn’t understand. Perhaps the mistress the Queen had escaped from was foreign and the Queen needed words to be understood here, in Lacharra.
Feet. What did that mean? She’d been hurt? That made sense, if she’d escaped someplace foreign. How far away was the nearest place that spoke another language? I’d have to ask Gavyn—
How exactly was I supposed to draw that question so that Gavyn would understand? I drew more swirls next to the mud-Queen’s mouth, thinking.
A dress made the most sense once I considered it. If the Queen had escaped and come to the cottage so hurt she could barely stand, she’d need a new dress too.
And then she wanted to leave?
I’d left the castle seventeen days earlier and all I wanted was a safe place to stay. But she had wanted to leave the woman’s cottage after being given so much.
Can you blame her?
Maybe the woman had been mad then. Or perhaps it was the Queen’s handiwork.
Regardless, she’d left with a golden-haired man.
“. . . a golden king for my girl.”
Was he truly a king? What had happened to the Queen after she left? What did she do?
There was no way to know. But I did know what she wanted.
“I want it all. Every last morsel.”
I picked up the spindle again, turning it over in my hands. How could nettle tunics and a spindle stop the Queen?
I remembered the hatred in the Queen’s voice when she mentioned the old woman. She’d have killed her if she could. But she hadn’t been able to reach the nettle-covered cottage, because nettles reminded her of Before.
Whatever—wherever—that was.
The old woman was convinced that nettles would break the enchantment, that the memory was that strong.
Nettles—common weeds!—were such a pitifully small weapon.
Yet remembering had been a powerful thing for Father. Years of reading together were wrapped up in the scent of cloves, and the Queen had rightly feared that.
Very well, then. If nettles had stopped her, then I’d make nettle tunics—and pray they reminded the Queen of the Before she feared so much.
I’d harvest fields of nettles and use the spindle to spin every last one.
I examined the spindle the way I’d seen Mael look at a new sword, feeling the weight of it in my hand.
The thin rod was nearly as long as my forearm, its wood glossy from being used so often. The whorl—I thought that was what it was called—was a carved wooden disk almost as wide as my fist at the lower end. Uneven yarn was wrapped above the whorl, covering a few small gashes in the rod.
I gingerly touched the nubbly, gray-brown yarn above the whorl with a fingertip.
No sting. It wouldn’t hurt my hands to spin it, then.
I let the spindle dangle at the end of the yarn, trying to remember how the woman had used it. It had looked like a living thing in her hands. Almost magical.
Here in the sunlight, however, the spindle looked ordinary and cheap: more like a lopsided top than my best hope of defeating the Queen’s enchantment.
I’d imagined a daughter of the House of Cynwrig fighting with a sword, not stinging nettles and a spindle. But if this was my only weapon, I’d wield it.
I looked back over the path to the old woman’s cottage. What would happen if she changed her mind and wanted the spindle back? I imagined her bending over me while I slept that night, gloved hands reaching . . .
I gently placed the spindle in the satchel. Then I walked out to the curve of river where I’d submerged the weir. I upended the weir and dumped the fish inside it back into the river before strapping it to my back. There was no time to eat. I’d walk the last few hours of daylight and put as many leagues between me and the old woman as possible.
It was time to save my brothers.