Over the days that follow, we fall into a kind of routine. Luthan and Isidor already have their simple patterns in place – the rhythm of eating and sleeping, studying and household chores – and the rest of us fit around that without much difficulty. Fabithe performs the hardest of manual labour without comment or complaint, but otherwise keeps himself separate; I watch him carefully when he’s around Oriana, but his response to our conversation seems to be to avoid her whenever he can. Oriana herself spends a lot of time indoors, recovering, but she walks down to the lake and around the island every day, rebuilding her strength.
For my part, I find my days passing more easily than they ever did at Woodleigh. I help Luthan with whatever needs doing. I read Isidor’s books. And I talk to Oriana. A lot. Maybe more than I’ve ever talked before. It feels like it did with Peter, back in the days before our friendship fell apart, only less precarious. I could never quite believe he wanted to cross the invisible line between me and the rest of the world; maybe that’s why he never quite did. But Oriana is different. She doesn’t seem to realise the line is there at all.
Meanwhile, to my surprise, I stay in my own head. Luthan, Fabithe and Oriana are calm, their emotions stable; there’s nothing to pull me in. Save the odd flash of feeling or memory across our bonds, my thoughts remain my own. Even Toralé, my most elusive acquaintance, remains silent. Which is odd – it’s been ages since I went this long without seeing. Only a couple of weeks ago, it would have been a welcome respite from the turbulence of seeing through five different people’s eyes; yet now I’m down to one, I almost miss it. From time to time, I’m even tempted to take a deliberate peek … but I restrain myself. My ability to cross into their heads at will should be reserved for emergencies only.
Of course, when it comes to Toralé, I could class the need to find him as a very real emergency – yet the bond between us simply isn’t there yet. It was meeting the others that strengthened the silver threads in my mind. I’ve tried to feel my way into a vision, the way I did when we were looking for Luthan in the forest, but I don’t have enough details. I found Luthan by imagining myself in her place. With Toralé, I don’t even know where to start.
Where is he? The thought nags away at me, every morning when I wake up and every evening when I’m trying to fall asleep. I found the other three so rapidly, one after another, that I was sure Toralé couldn’t be far behind. Yet I haven’t so much as seen him since I arrived in Endarion.
Sunlight flashes at the corner of my eye, and I turn my head away from its distracting twinkle. Oriana and I are spending the morning ensconced in the armchairs by the window in our bedroom. She’s mending the holes in one of her borrowed shirts, while I – far less usefully, and with a slighter degree of success – try to sketch. It’s the first day since I came here that I’ve had the time or inclination to draw anything. But Isidor found me a stick of charcoal and a sheet of thick, textured paper very unlike the flimsy stuff I have at home, and I’m doing my best to capture Oriana’s image. My fingers are smeared in black powder, but the portrait stubbornly refuses to take shape.
Alyssia?
I look up. The room is quiet. Oriana’s gaze is on her sewing. Shaking my head, I return to my sketch.
Alyssia!
This time, I startle to my feet. And when I look at Oriana again, she’s suppressing a smile. I frown at her.
“Wait. You can make me hear your thoughts?”
She lifts her head, eyes dancing with merriment. “You said sometimes you can tell what I am thinking or feeling, even without crossing over. So it seemed logical that I might be able to reach you, if I tried hard enough.”
“Wow,” I say. “That’s … do it again.”
Do what?
“Wow.”
We stare at each other. Then I say slowly, “You know, this could come in really useful …”
And so we test it out. We have to be within sight of each other for me to read her specific thoughts, and the closer the better. Next to her, I can pick up the exact wording; further away, it’s more a general impression. Emotion helps – I do far better when she’s remembering something happy than when she’s listing the months of the year or counting backwards from ten. But overall … it’s amazing. In all the time I spent seeing through her eyes when we were apart, I never once guessed that one day, she’d be able to send me her thoughts when we were standing right next to each other.
“It’s a shame I can’t send anything back,” I say finally. “We could have entire conversations without anyone else knowing.”
“Have you ever tried?”
“I’ve never had a bond like this with anyone before.”
“Then try.”
I love you, Oriana Bluepeace, I think. She frowns at me.
“I … you are hungry?”
Laughing, I link my arm through hers. “As it happens, I am. Is it nearly noon?”
“I think it must be – oh!” She stops us both by my chair, picking up the discarded sketch. “I did not realise you were drawing me.”
“Very badly.” I try not to fidget. I’d rather she didn’t look at it – both because it isn’t a good likeness and because my instinctive impulse is to conceal anything I create. But I know Oriana won’t laugh at me or judge me, so I keep myself still at her side.
“I look happy,” she says softly.
“And are you?” I don’t mention the bad dreams she has every night, the ones that wake her sobbing from her sleep. We both know they happen. But perhaps it’s possible to be happy even while you’re trying to heal.
“My father commissioned my portrait, once,” Oriana says. Maybe sidestepping the question, maybe not. “He had a dress made for me. Jewels for my hair. The painting was to hang beside my mother’s in his study. Yet while I was sitting for it, all I could think of was how much I missed her. Father said it was the saddest portrait he had ever seen.”
“So what were you thinking about while I was drawing?”
Carefully, she replaces the sketch where she found it. “I can barely remember. But it was not the past.”
Downstairs, we find Luthan and Isidor busy laying food out on the table. Oriana greets them politely, but I sense her withdrawal. Too many people. Too much uncertainty. Now I’ve had some time to think about it, I realise why she made the leap of faith to trust me, the day she woke up here: because she didn’t have a choice. Because she had to trust someone in the strange new world in which she found herself. But that doesn’t mean she’s ready to trust everyone. And when Fabithe walks into the house, as dark-eyed and unreadable as ever, she retreats into herself still further. It isn’t a conscious decision, but an instinct engrained into her bones. Make yourself small, and maybe he will not notice you.
Often we all carry our meals in different directions, back to our own favourite hiding places around the island – Oriana and I frequently sit out on the grass, enjoying the winter sunshine while it lasts, and sometimes Luthan comes too – but today, everyone ends up sitting around the table. Luthan passes bread. Isidor and Fabithe swap travel stories. I concentrate on talking to Oriana about our experiments this morning, and am pleased to see her begin to relax. As a result, when Luthan touches my arm to claim my attention, I’m taken completely by surprise.
“I have been wondering something,” she says. “How did you get here?”
“I fell through my window.”
“I know. But why did you end up here?”
I’ve been avoiding that question. I didn’t realise it, but I have. And I think it’s because I’m afraid there’s only one answer that makes sense: I came here because this is where my mind goes when I’m trying to escape from reality. I came here because ‘here’ doesn’t exist. Even though it’s been a long time since I believed that, part of me still worries about it.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “The window was glowing. Like a heartbeat. I heard … echoes. Of something I’d seen. Fabithe – ”
“You’d just seen through his eyes?”
“Yes. He’d been playing cards, and he got in a fight. I … followed him through the window. But I must have passed out doing it. When I came round, I was by the glass mosaic wall in Easterwood.”
“You were lucky,” Luthan says. “Glass can be dangerous.”
I wait for an explanation. When none is forthcoming, I hazard, “Because it’s … sharp?”
She shakes her head. “People can disappear in mirrors.”
“What did you do next, Alyssia?” Isidor interrupts. He’s watching me. Fabithe too. All other conversation has ended. Suddenly nervous, I swallow.
“Um … I went to the glass. There was blood drying on it. I saw my reflection, and that’s when I saw my birthstone for the first time. I’d never had a birthstone before.” I brush it with my fingertips. Odd, how used I’ve become to it since I got here. “So I panicked.”
Isidor exchanges a glance with Luthan. “There was blood on the glass? You did not mention that before.”
“Does it matter?”
“I imagine it was what brought you here,” he says. “Blood hit the glass, and somehow, that opened a channel between the worlds.”
“But the somehow is the interesting bit,” Luthan says earnestly. “Not just any glass would – ”
She stops talking, panic radiating down the bond between us. Don’t give yourself away. Follow Isidor’s lead. Ironically, it’s her anxiety that clues me in to what we’re talking about.
“Blood magic?” I blurt out. “That’s why I’m here?”
Isidor looks grave. “Perhaps. It is hard to say for sure. There was certainly some kind of power involved.”
“There you go again,” Fabithe says. “Talking about magic as if it’s real.”
“What other force could carry a person out of one world and into another?”
“I don’t know. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to start believing in children’s stories.”
“I believe it,” Oriana says. She doesn’t look at anyone – her gaze is fixed on the tabletop in front of her – but her voice is clear. “Ifor controlled what the people around me saw and heard. Hurt me without even touching me. Pushed me from the tallest tower in the Citadel, and made sure I survived. What else could that be but blood magic? It is dark, and cruel, and it exists as surely as night.”
It’s the first time she’s talked about it, properly, since we got here – and she speaks in a way that suggests she doesn’t expect anyone to hear her. That’s what she’s used to, after all. Yet I’ve told my story, and hers, to everyone in this room, which puts them on the inside of the circle of isolation she’s been inhabiting for months. As a result, her words hit them like bullets. Isidor doesn’t react any more than he ever does, but Luthan looks stricken – I guess she can’t help but take such an unfavourable opinion of magic personally – and Fabithe’s hand, resting on the table, clenches into a fist.
“Excuse me,” Oriana says, still not looking at any of us. I hear the quaver of tears in her voice. She stands up, pushes her chair neatly under the table, and walks out of the house. I jump to my feet, ready to go after her – but Fabithe is ahead of me. Fierce with some tightly coiled emotion, he crosses the floor in a few paces and is gone before I have the chance to object. I hear him calling her name –
“Oriana!”
At the man’s voice, she stops dead, every muscle rigid. Her heart is racing. She cannot think or speak or do anything but tremble, like a child caught in mischief. That is how Ifor always makes her feel: like a child. Ignorant and requiring punishment.
But he is not here, she tells herself. That was …
Fabithe.
Her eyes are still brimming with unshed tears. She dabs them with the cuffs of her borrowed shirt. Then she forces herself to turn and meet his gaze, trying to stop shaking. It is not as if he looks anything like Ifor; his brown hair and skin, his dark brown eyes, mark him as a southerner. Nor does he have Ifor’s classical beauty, that perfect regularity of feature and proportion that first caught her attention. His mouth is a stern line, a scar marks one cheekbone, and his nose displays a slight crookedness where perhaps it once was broken. And yet …
He is tall. Imposing. His steady gaze bores into her without compromise. He has that steel inside him, that edge of ruthlessness promising swift retribution if his will is crossed. In all those respects, he and Ifor are much the same. It is simply that Ifor always concealed his sharpness with smiles and fair words, whereas Fabithe’s is there in his eyes. He will cut her, if she lets him.
On the other hand, maybe it is easier to trust a visible blade than one that is hidden. He gave her Mama’s dagger so she would not feel threatened. He told her he would not hurt her. So maybe …
“Did you want something?” she asks uncertainly. He nods.
“To speak to you.”
“A-about what?” His hair has a curl to it, she notices with the heightened intensity of being on guard. And his dark, dark eyes are not pure brown but hazel, like tree bark in the rain. Something quivers deep in her belly, but she cannot put a name to it. A new kind of fear.
“I …” He glances down, then back at her face. A mocking half-smile twists one side of his mouth, but she cannot tell if the mockery is directed at her. “I wanted to apologise.”
Perhaps he is playing with her. Perhaps this is some kind of game. She can imagine how the same conversation would have gone, with Ifor: every possible answer turned against her.
What for? – Are you really that stupid, Oriana?
There is no need. – So you think you can give me orders now, do you?
I accept your apology. – Then you agree I owed you one?
Yes, my lord. – Is that all you ever say?
As always, she is frozen by the knowledge that there is no way for her to win. Even silence will earn a rebuke – I am trying to apologise, Oriana; the least you can do is answer me – or else a long, unbroken stare until she breaks down and starts babbling nonsense.
“I took you from the clifftop so I could use you against your husband,” Fabithe says. Fabithe. Not Ifor. Yet her chest feels tight, as though compressed by an iron band. She wraps her arms around herself and tries to concentrate on his words. “But since Alyssia threatened to kill me, I’ve realised – and after what you said back there, I wanted to reassure you – ” He takes a deep breath, looks her straight in the eyes and says, “I’ll not let him hurt you. And I’ll not use you as a bargaining tool. I’ll not do anything that might return you to that bastard’s power, even if I could gain my revenge by doing it. All right?”
Oriana cannot move. She can barely breathe. She returns his gaze and wonders how she could ever have thought him like Ifor when he is capable of such kindness. Because although she still sees steel in him, it is not directed at her. And that means it is not a blade, but a shield.
She wants to offer him her gratitude. To say something meaningful. Yet what comes out is, “Alyssia threatened to kill you?”
“Yes. She told me to be nice to you. I’m not sure I can achieve nice, but I’m hoping this is enough.”
More than enough. Oriana manages a nod. “Thank you.”
“One more thing,” Fabithe says. The twist to his mouth is rueful, now, as though he is speaking in spite of himself. “I could teach you, if you wanted.”
“Teach me?”
“To use that.” He nods at the dagger stuck awkwardly through her belt. She carries it with her, always, but he is right. She does not know how to use the thing. It is as much a reminder of her mother as it is a weapon.
“I will never be able to beat him,” she mumbles. “No matter how well trained I am. So why – ”
“To make you feel safer.”
She looks doubtfully down at the dagger. “I do not want to kill anyone.”
“I’d be teaching you to defend yourself, not assassinate people.” Impatience sparks in his eyes. “Well?”
Should I? She glances at the dagger again. He will soon become frustrated with my slowness. My stupidity. He will regret promising to keep me safe –
No. He said he would not hurt me. He is trying to be nice. And maybe … maybe I am not so stupid after all.
“Yes.” It is a whisper. She clears her throat. “Yes. Thank you. I would like to learn, if – if you think I can.”
He frowns at her. Then his expression softens. “I’m sure you can. And if not, it doesn’t matter. I’ve a terrible temper, but I’ll not take it out on you.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking me. Particularly not for …” He appears to be struggling to find the right words. Finally, with a scowl, he says, “I’m offering you the bare minimum of decency, all right? You don’t owe me any gratitude.”
Not at all like Ifor. “All right.” She cannot suppress the smile creeping in at the corners of her mouth. “I am sorry I did not turn out to be the weapon you wanted, Fabithe.”
He looks startled, but then – gradually – an answering smile transforms his face. She has never seen him smile before, not properly. It reminds her of dawn. Of how the night can seem dark and cruel and endless, but when daylight comes it remakes the world.
“It’ll teach me, won’t it?” he says softly. “Not to mistake people for tools.”
The fluttering is back inside her. The new kind of fear. Perhaps she will always be afraid. But this, at least, is a fear she can live with. It feels almost like …
“Oriana.”
“Mmm?”
“I said, are you happy to start now?”
She blinks. He has backed away a few paces, drawn a knife. He is no longer smiling. That smile lasted only a heartbeat, a day that died as quickly as it dawned. Yet now, when she looks at him, she sees more than steel. And that gives her enough courage to fumble the dagger from her belt and step into an approximation of his stance.
“Yes. Now is good.”
I shake my head. I promised Oriana I wouldn’t spy on her, yet apparently I still can’t help it if her emotion pulls me in. And to be honest, I’m not sorry to have been a secret witness to that particular conversation. If Fabithe and Oriana are beginning to trust each other, that can only be a good thing.
“He’s going to teach her to fight,” I say. “We should probably leave them to it.”
Isidor nods. “In that case, Luthan, perhaps you would help me with the dishes.”
“Would you like me to – ” I begin, but he raises a hand to say stop.
“Please, sit down. We can manage.”
I don’t argue. I get the impression that he wants to talk to Luthan in private. They stack the plates in silence, but as they leave through the back door to take them to the spring, Isidor says in a low voice, “You need to be careful what you – ”
The door closes, cutting off the conversation. I could slip across into Luthan’s head … but I shouldn’t even be thinking that. That decision has been made.
Curling up in my chair, I reach for the book Isidor lent me. He doesn’t have much in the way of fiction, but I’m taking the opportunity to fill in several large gaps in my extremely idiosyncratic knowledge of Endarion. Not that I can read a great deal in the Castellian script; though I’ve picked up some understanding of it from Oriana over the years, it’s only rudimentary. Yet this particular book is, at least in part, an atlas. There’s a map of the whole continent, followed by maps of every individual country within it. I need only be able to sound out the individual letters to learn from those.
Castellany. There are the three castles, each indicated by a little rectangle with a coloured pennant on top: Stone Citadel to the east, Oaken Keep to the south, Glass Tower to the west. And in the north, the outline of a fourth. What Luthan called the Iron Fortress, once home of the Ruby. Destroyed by war, she said. Destroyed by magic.
Yet Castellany is only a smallish country at the centre of the continent. I scan the map, searching for other countries whose names I recognise. Northfell, a vast expanse of land in the north-east. Iridene, directly above Castellany. The Westlands, a large country down the west coast. It’s the first time I’ve seen how they fit together through my own eyes, and it fulfils a need I barely realised I had. There’s something reassuring about knowing exactly where you are in the world.
There are other countries on the map, but they hold no significance for me. Still, I spell them out and try to memorise them, because one day I might need to know: Duskmire, Lakeland, Ithaly. And scattered across the sea to the right of the continent, a whole bunch of smaller islands. Many of those have names, as well, but I’m not sure I have the mental capacity to learn them all –
I gasp as I’m hit by sudden breathless pain, like bumping an existing bruise. Oriana. Yet there was no accompanying flare of emotion, no fear or sadness.
Discarding my book on a nearby table, I creep up to the window until I can see out of it without revealing my presence. Fabithe is standing with arms folded, looking down. His expression is as intense as usual, yet his mouth twitches in a not altogether successful attempt to hide a smile. And Oriana …
Oriana is sprawled on the ground at his feet, her dagger just beyond the reach of her outstretched hand. Even from inside the house, I can hear her laughter.
It’s been a long time since I heard Oriana laugh properly, and never from within my own skin. With Ifor she learned to fold her laughter away, to make it small and hidden and quiet. But now she’s laughing the way she used to, helpless and infectious. My eyes prickle, yet I can’t help but smile.
Keep laughing, Oriana, I tell her silently; and like a twisted echo, another thought resonates in my mind. How dare she …?
How dare she laugh? Ifor watches his wife’s face in the mirror, silvered by the glass. An old mirror, this, a relic of a previous age. Any reflective surface would have done, but this is undeniably more convenient. As if everything I did to her meant nothing.
It was easy enough to call up her image, in the end. He had plenty of her blood available with which to make the connection – albeit old, which is why it took him some time. There is little power in old blood. Still, if he had hoped to pinpoint her location, he can already tell he will be disappointed. From what he can see, she is in a small, grassy space surrounded by trees. That is it. No other clues as to her location, just trees and flowers – including, incongruously, alith sia. And it is not as if he can hope to learn where she is by eavesdropping on her conversation. The channel is completely without sound; her laughter is silent.
Of course, he is not entirely in the dark. His men lost her somewhere beyond Easterwood, near the forest boundary. So her current surroundings would suggest she is in the forest itself. But Oakelm is a vast place, and he has no desire to waste time and resources combing through it. He needs to flush her out. But how?
More importantly, why is she there at all?
As soon as he married her, he won the game. She had no moves left; he had backed her into a corner. It was the first time he had outmanoeuvred all four of the lesser pieces before his real antagonist had even entered play. The Seer, gone. The Warrior, dead. The Builder, captive. The Healer, under his power. Perhaps he numbered them to himself, that evening, convincing himself that this time, finally, when the Mage arrived, she would be vulnerable. Powerless. Easy to defeat. And yes, perhaps he allowed himself to take some satisfaction in the idea. Was that so wrong?
Perhaps. If there is one thing he should have learned, after all this time, it is that complacency is for fools.
Still, he cannot see how he could have predicted that Oriana would escape the Citadel. By the time he left her, on the night of their wedding, her last spark of defiance was finally crushed. He is not even sure she left of her own accord. The guard from the gatehouse – the only one who avoided being knocked out – told a strange story. An armed man, appearing from nowhere to attack them. A northern girl, trying to stop him. It makes no sense. And the girl intervened on Oriana’s behalf, which makes even less sense. Oriana had no reason to be there. No strength left, defeated as she was, to concern herself with protecting her people from a random act of violence. So was she kidnapped, or did she run?
Maybe, if he watches her long enough, he will get some answers.
He studies her face, to start with, but he cannot bear that for long. She laughed like this at the Battle of the Three Stones. She laughed like this with Ihudis. He has seen enough of her laughter for several lifetimes, and he had hoped he would never have to see it again. So, instead, he searches for clues.
Her clothes are ill fitting, and of masculine cut. They do not belong to a wealthy man; they are old and well worn, although clean. Unlikely, then, to have been a kidnapping by the Emerald – which is no great surprise. The Highest Lords of the Emerald and the Diamond are well aware of the alliance between the Sapphire and Northfell, which is why they have turned their petty grievances primarily towards each other.
What else? Wherever she is, it is not currently raining; not only that, but every so often sunshine breaks through the clouds – which is sufficiently unusual to be worthy of note in this miserable hole of a country. The trees are the usual patchwork of colour, but those flowers are a strange mix – including alith sia, a plant he has never seen outside his own land before. It may look like a wild meadow, but someone has cultivated it. And there, in the grass … a glint of sapphire and silver snags his attention. Her jewelled dagger. The one he used to mark her as his own.
Even as he notices it, Oriana’s fingers close around the hilt. Her laughter has faded, now. She is looking up, saying something. In response, someone extends a hand to her. A man. The one who overcame the Citadel guards? He pulls her to her feet, and Ifor sees his face –
No.
She is with him.
Despite everything he did to ensure his control of her, she is with him.
Pain stabs through Ifor’s hand. Looking down, he realises he is clutching the carved frame of the mirror so tightly that the edge has cut into his palm. He forces his fingers to relax, lowering his arm. Blood drips to the floor, spending its power uselessly, but he ignores it. His own blood holds no interest for him.
You are meant to be dead, he flings at the boy in the mirror. The Warrior come to life. The Dark Knife. I have seen you die once already in this lifetime! How can you possibly …?
Oriana is saying something, but although Ifor should be trying to read her lips, he cannot help but watch his old rival’s face. Because the boy wants her; that much is clear. It is there in the dark intensity of his gaze, the way his hand lingers on hers. He might be trying to fight it, but he wants her. And from there, the rest will follow in all its inevitability. He will take what does not belong to him, as he always does, and he will get away with it.
Not this time, Ifor tells himself. This time, I have laid a claim on her that cannot be ignored. And a man who was destroyed once can be destroyed again.
The thought dulls fear’s edge, helps him to assess the situation rationally once more. This unexpected appearance might be a shock, but it is not a disaster without remedy. In fact, it has gained him one very important advantage: he now knows the truth, which means he cannot be surprised by it again. And since the two of them are together, it will be no more work to regain them both than it would have been to capture Oriana alone …
Yet still, his unease lingers – because this should not have happened. Because two are far more dangerous than one.
Because if he has failed here, perhaps he has also failed in other places.
The boy holds out his own knife and points with his free hand, showing her how his fingers curl around the hilt. This is the best grip. Keep your weapon low. Stand like this. He is trying to teach her how to fight, for all the good it will do her. But she cannot follow his instructions. She drops the dagger. She stumbles over her own feet. Her laughter gone completely, she stares up at him. Ifor knows how tempting that fearful, wide-eyed expression can be. How much it begs for cruelty. But when the boy moves, it is only to pick up the dagger. He frowns at it for a moment, before returning it to her. The accompanying gesture makes his meaning clear, despite the lack of audible speech. Put it away. We’ll try something else.
She obeys, looking doubtfully at him. He takes a step towards her.
May I …?
She nods, though her body is tense and her eyes full of alarm. He takes one of her hands, curls it into a fist. Shows her how to stand, how to drive the blow home. Then he steps back, arms spread, hands open. Go ahead.
She hesitates, of course. She fears a trick. But he remains still until she lands a cautious punch on his arm – barely enough to move him.
Again.
A slight shake of the head. She does not understand. Yet he holds his stance, and his gaze catches hers.
Again.
She hits him harder, rocking him back on his heels.
Again.
And now she needs no encouragement. She punches once, twice, a flurry of times. Both fists now, indiscriminately. She is saying something, a whole stream of things, her face twisted in fury. She hits him and hits him until, finally, he catches her wrists and she collapses against him, tears flooding her cheeks. His arms move tentatively around her. And Ifor has to look away, for fear that rage and bitter frustration will shatter his soul.
Let them fall in love, he tells himself savagely. It will hurt them all the more when I rip them apart. Yet he cannot help feeling sick; sick and tired. Because this is why he wanted the Warrior dead, more so than any of the rest. Because the pair of them are not even close to deserving the solace they will find in each other.
He almost leaves the mirror. Almost closes the channel. Yet perverse fascination draws him back to it. He is in time to see Oriana tense, all over, as the surge of emotion ebbs, leaving her stiff and afraid in a stranger’s embrace. A moment later, the boy feels it too; he snatches his hands away from her, taking a step back. She hugs her elbows close to her chest. He folds his arms, a frown descending on his face. They shoot each other wary glances. He says something that makes her bow her head, the heat rising in her cheeks. And Ifor smiles.
Maybe this time, they will not forget him so easily.
The boy speaks again, though whether in apology or attack it is impossible to tell. Oriana nods. She begins to turn away. Yet then she glances up, quickly, as if she has heard something else. The two of them look in the same direction. And there, walking forward to greet them …
A girl. Younger than the Dark Knife. Older than Oriana. A mane of silver hair, a thin face, mismatched eyes. Ifor has never seen her before. Yet he recognises her right away, without doubt or hesitation, like a long-lost friend. A long-lost sister. A long-lost enemy.
Luthan.
Ifor has been looking for her for a long time. Years, in fact. But unlike the other four, Luthan had no family or community to connect her to the world, no footprints to follow. It has always been that way, with the Mage. She is rootless. Homeless. Nameless. As changeable and as hard to pin down as the wind. She is the shadow that lurks behind the others, using them as a shield while she gathers her strength. And although Ifor is relieved to have found her at last, a shiver crawls over his skin. Because if two are worse than one, then three …
As if to mock him, someone else arrives in Luthan’s wake. Another girl. The girl, the one who was involved in Oriana’s escape.
No.
Dark hair. Fair northern skin to match Ifor’s own. And even before he gets a good look at her face, his heart begins to pound.
No.
Clearly, certain instincts that were once finely honed have grown rusty with disuse. Because all these surprises are beginning to make a horrible kind of sense. Because she is –
He closes his eyes, fighting the unfamiliar sensation that the world is spinning out of his control. All this time, he has believed himself to be safe. To have the upper hand for once. Yet now fate is tightening around him, as it always does, forcing him onto the same old path –
He chose differently this time. He tried to keep her away. And yet there she is. And she is with them. Four of them. Four of them, together.
He feels the descending spiral of panic, but does not let it touch him. A part of his mind that has not been used for some time – because he thought he was safe, because he thought he would never need it again – flares back into life.
You have to control yourself. Control yourself, and you control the situation.
She does not know –
Thoughts are like wild horses. Unruly, but they can be tamed into tools.
Perhaps he was wrong to –
You have full command over the words you speak. So why not the words that remain unvoiced?
Silence. He learned this skill the hard way, and that means he learned it well.
Once Ifor is certain his thoughts are all running in the same direction, he begins very carefully to consider the situation once more. He still has the Silversword boy. And four out of five is incomplete. Kill Toralé before he has a chance to meet the others, and they will never reach their full power. That is what he thought he had achieved by arranging the Warrior’s death, and it is not too late. Only this time, he will drive the knife home himself. He can afford no more miraculous reappearances.
In fact, now he thinks about it, perhaps it was always going to be this way. The Builder was the first to die, last time round. And Ifor has learned to his cost, over the years, that what has happened before will always try to happen again. History likes its cycles, its endless repetition, and it will cling to them whenever possible. The only opportunity for change lies in the subtle variations. He has always pushed that opportunity to its limits; just one more push, one further step, and he will finally break free of it all.
He just has to make sure Toralé dies.
I’m standing at the window. Oriana is on the ground, her laughter only just beginning to fade. My brain is spinning. As carefully as I can when I feel like I’ve been to sea in a storm, I stumble back across the room and fall into my chair.
Ifor.
That’s the second time I’ve been inside his head, and coming back from it is harder than any of the others. I’m tired and angry and ready to break the world if I have to, and I’m not at all sure how much of that is me and how much is him. Yet although the whole experience was overwhelming – and though the details are beginning to fade, as always – I did learn several things.
First, Ifor recognised Fabithe. He recognised Luthan. He even recognised me. And that recognition wasn’t dependent on a previous encounter – he’d never seen Luthan before, and he can’t have seen me. He simply knew us, the same way I knew Fabithe when we met in Easterwood. He thinks of us as a group, one to be resented and destroyed and maybe even feared. So whatever this thing is that connects me to four other people, he knows about it.
Second, I watched myself through someone else’s eyes … again. And he saw my face, yet I wasn’t flung out with a warning from the universe like I was when I saw myself from inside Luthan’s head. I’m still not sure of the details, but I’d guess the restriction is on coming face to face in person. The mirror provided enough distance that I could lurk behind Ifor’s eyes as he watched my future self … but I’ll set that aside for now, because it’s making my brain hurt.
Third, and most importantly, he has Toralé. He plans to kill him, soon. And if I want to prevent that, I’m going to need help. Not only that, but I think I’m going to need everyone’s help. Ifor feared the five of us coming together, which means that’s what we should do. I just need to convince the others to help me.
A voice rises outside: Oriana. I remember what Fabithe is doing, the catharsis he’s offering her. I’m impressed by his insight. Yet I also remember Ifor’s vindictive fury as he watched them – and I’m uncomfortably aware that he’s watching them now. That’s something I can never tell them, not without spoiling any peace that Oriana may gain from being allowed to release her emotions this way. And so I sit very still, listening to the rise and fall of her anguished words until, at last, they die away into tears.
“Is everything all right?” The voice makes me jump. I look up to see Luthan entering the house through the back door. “I heard shouting.”
I can’t explain what happened between Fabithe and Oriana without explaining a whole lot more than that, so I just say, “Yes. Really, it is – ” as she looks doubtful. “Go and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
It’s only once she’s walked out of the front door that I realise why I didn’t go with her: because in the scene I saw through Ifor’s eyes, Luthan arrived – will arrive? – before me. I knew we weren’t going to show up together, and that’s why we won’t show up together. That has to be some kind of paradox. Or a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or something.
Whatever you see is inevitable, because it has already been set in motion. That’s what Luthan told me. So presumably, if I hadn’t seen what I just saw, there would have been some other reason why I didn’t go with her. But how can Luthan be sure of that? How can anyone? It seems just as possible that anything I see beyond the present moment could be changed, if only I knew how to do it.
Maybe I could try right now …
I fling myself out of my chair and run after Luthan, arriving on her heels just as she joins Fabithe and Oriana. Which, in fact, is exactly what I saw in Ifor’s mirror. I’m not sure that proves anything, so I park the question for later.
“Are you all right?” Luthan asks Oriana. She still has tearstains on her cheeks, but she looks up and manages a smile.
“I am not going to be accounted a warrior any time soon.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Fabithe says. Voice stern, expression closed off, but I’m beginning to understand that his hardness is very like my impassivity: a wall behind which any number of things can hide. “I’ll have a few bruises in the morning.”
“I am sorry – ”
“I’m not.”
She looks at him, and a hesitant smile brightens her face. He doesn’t return it, not this time – but somehow, in the way his gaze falls on her, I see what Ifor saw. He might be trying to fight it, but he wants her. I think that’s been the case since she first smiled at him. Since he carried her through the forest. Maybe even since the clifftop. It might be tangled and conflicted, but there’s something in her that calls to him, whether he’s aware of it or not.
Yet I also know that Ifor was right about something else: Oriana won’t forget him that easily. Her wounds run deep, and they can’t be healed by anything other than time. So really, if it’s to happen at all, the question is whether Fabithe has the patience and understanding to let her lead the way.
Before today, I would have said no. Yet now, I’m not so sure.
Don’t count on anything, I tell myself. You haven’t asked them about Toralé, yet. There’s no guarantee Fabithe or anyone else will stick around after that.
My stomach turns a somersault. I take a deep breath.
“Have you finished out here, for now? I need to talk to you. All of you.”