“You’re offering tea?” the boy said. “I wouldn’t mind a dirty teacup. Wouldn’t mind a dog dish, actually.” He smiled. “Hard work, backing down.”
Sarid stared. “You can have the clean one.”
She was immediately annoyed with herself. Outside the wind knocked at the walls and a hard snow rattled against the windows. The night was wild, perfect for spellwork, and the fear had plagued her all week. But it was too late, and she decided to make a kettle of elderflower tea.
“Look at that!” said the boy, as she (naturally) lit a fire in an old, dry fountain in the corner of the room. “Am I causing you trouble? I hate to cause trouble.”
“Only a little.” She blew on the smoking straw and the twigs caught fire. “Uncanny in a boy.”
“You’re fairly uncanny yourself, hidden away like this. Why haven’t I seen you before? What’s your name?”
She told him, thinking it harmless.
“Sarid? That’s the name for a fat girl! You’re a bunch of bones. Face is pretty, though.”
Sarid didn’t know whether to feel insulted or flattered. She dropped the leaves into the kettle. This hung above the fire on a rod sticking from the wall: the pipe that used to spout water into the fountain. She stirred the flames with a stick. “You don’t live here year-round. Otherwise you’d know not to bother with me.”
“Gods. What are you that I shouldn’t bother with you? A flesh-eating bauk?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“I’d ask you, but it’s rude to inquire after family secrets. You’ve probably a saebeline grandfather. Unseelie. Pure malice. You’ve poisoned the tea, I’m sure.” He sat on the ground.
“Too much of anything is poison.” She filled the clean teacup and gave it to him.
“I shall only take two sips, then.” His shadow moved behind him. It was long and black and deep.
She took a pinch of dried yellow petals from a bowl and threw them into his cup. “Drink all of it.”
He eyed the unfurling petals dubiously. “What’s this?”
“Goatweed. Cures sadness.”
“I’m not in the least bit sad.”
“You will be.”
“I’ve a saebeline grandfather.”
“Will you curse me if I don’t drink this?”
“Drink it.”
“Don’t curse me. I’m potentially very important.”
“You’re already cursed. Drink your tea.”
He drank it, thanked her courteously, and left, more smoothly than he had entered, through the fireplace.
She stood still for a moment, listening.
It was a wonder he’d found her. She was hidden (just like a hungry bauk) in an abandoned part of the hall, far from whispers and prying eyes.
She bent and picked up the cup he’d left on the floor. Her hands trembled and turned cold; she couldn’t feel where her fingers stopped and the cup began. She dropped it.
It shattered into three big shards and a thousand little ones, and instead of going for a broom she backed away and sat down in a chair. Her heart beat violently and her hands and legs shook in big jerks. Her candle spellwork had done nothing, had flickered and gone out. The fear was back. Irrational, completely irrational––the worst kind. She couldn’t find the source to stem it. She could only cure the symptoms.
And so she decided, after a few hours of spinning sleeplessly under her dusty sheets, that she would go get herself a wolf bite.
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Books in the Estralony Cycle Series:
Aloren
Wind Over Bone
Table of Contents
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three