“That does sound more like something you’d vomit about,” Havilar said after a moment. “You’re right, though, it’s just a dream. Why would a devil want me anyhow?”
Farideh shut her eyes. Tell her, she thought. Tell her, tell her now.
“Havi … what would you do if a devil offered you a pact?”
“What, like Lorcan?”
“Another devil,” she said. “One you didn’t know. One who offered you anything you wanted. What would you do?”
Havilar’s eyes flicked over Farideh’s face, as if she were gauging the seriousness of the question. As if she were trying to decide what her answer ought to be and not what it truly was, Farideh noted.
“Tell them to heave off,” Havilar said finally. “I don’t want to be a warlock, and I don’t want to be indebted to a devil.” She slipped an arm around Farideh and hugged her tightly. “I don’t want you to be either. Do you think he’s making you dream that? Like if he wanted you back?”
“Not his style.” Lorcan’s attention made the lines of her brand ache-but no matter how shaken or ill she woke, her arm and shoulder were fine. If he wanted to lure her back, he would have started by needling at the brand. If he wanted to get her back, he would have let her know he was alive.
Besides, he still has me, Farideh thought, shutting her eyes. For the moment.
Havilar rested her head on Farideh’s. “Lorcan’s not better than nightmares.”
Farideh said nothing, but clung to her sister, listening to the wind streaking down the mountains and trying to drive away the fabricated memory of Lorcan’s bleeding eyes.
“If you aren’t going to pay attention,” Dahl said, “then why did you bother bargaining with me in the first place?”
Farideh turned from the window back to the open ritual book in her lap. She had been paying attention-half a day’s worth of attention-and it was only as she felt certain she’d grasped the magic of the ritual that she’d turned to the sound of sparring in the courtyard of the tower in Everlund, and the pine-scented breeze coming down off the mountain.
Farideh looked down at her careful copying of the spell, the rusty-colored ink laid down stroke by careful stroke. She wasn’t used to script and her hands were cramping after three days of it. But since Dahl had seized on it as a sign she wasn’t well enough to continue the day before, she kept silent. She wasn’t interested in hearing all the ways she wasn’t suited to this, and she’d be damned if she’d let him off his end of their bargain just because Tam had torn into him over it and he was embarrassed.
“I’ve finished.” Three days of Dahl’s lessons, and she’d learned a ritual for reading unfamiliar languages, one that made the cold and heat more bearable, and one that put broken things back together.
She traced the last lines of that one with her eyes, thinking of the spell Lorcan had shown her that shattered objects with a word. They fit together nicely.
Tam had allowed the lessons, once the worst of the poison’s effects had past and she could eat without being sick and walk without losing her balance. The magic of the Hells still pulsed somewhere far along the connection of her brand, waiting to be called up again and pulled through her like a pump pulling water. The rituals’ magic had an entirely different feel-almost like laying pieces of fabric on top of one another so that the light shined through the right shade.
She’d tried to explain this to Dahl and had gotten a funny look in return.
“Give me another,” she said. “There’s day enough left.”
“No,” he said. “You’re too tired to focus anymore. And Master Zawad said you’re not to be taxed. Besides, I’m too tired to try and make you concentrate.”
Three days of nonstop study wasn’t making him any more pleasant toward her. He stood and pulled a rope beside the door and said no more. Farideh took the opportunity to shut her eyes and rest her head against her open palm. She knew better than to say it aloud, but if she never read another word again, she could be quite content.
Except she still needed the ritual that would free Lorcan.
A servant came into the room, carrying a tray of raisin-studded rolls and a pitcher of watered cordial that she poured into two narrow, blue glasses before slipping back out of the room. The cordial was sweet and mild, and tasted of rosemary and oranges. Farideh took it in tiny sips-Tam might well have forbidden the stuff. Dahl drained his glass.
And smashed it against the floor. Farideh jumped from her seat. “What in the Hells are you doing?”
“Testing you,” he said. “Do the ritual. Prove you’ve learned it.”
Shards of blue glass littered the floorboards and scattered over the rug. “Are you mad? I haven’t got the ingredients.”
“Components. It’s not a recipe for stew.” Dahl hauled his haversack up from the floor beside him. “Use mine.” His gray eyes were positively dancing. Ready to prove I was distracted, Farideh thought. Henish.
Bottles of colorful liquids, packets of powders that gave off a bitter odor, little jars of paste whose lids seemed to be cemented on-the sack was heavy with a clutter of components.
“Do you use all of these?” Farideh asked, picking through them for the needed elements-beeswax, powdered sap, and salts of mithral.
“I can,” Dahl said. He straightened the pitcher on the tray, avoiding her eyes. “I like to be prepared.”
She found all three components to the spell and crouched down on the floor with them. Careful not to cut herself on the shards, she copied the rune from the ritual book, drawing it onto the wood with the square of beeswax. She bit her lip-was that straight enough? It was too hard to see. The sap and the salts she mixed in the palm of her hand and sprinkled over the floor, making sure to dust each splinter of blue glass.
The air started humming. It seemed to pull on her throat and made it difficult to breathe in-that was probably good. Farideh glanced up at Dahl. He made no sign one way or the other.
She held her hands out over the mess and the thrumming air seemed to yank the words of the ritual out of her mouth, shifting the magic and drawing the fibers of the Weave tight.
The pieces of blue glass surged up from the floor like a swarm of insects. Fragment met fragment with an audible clink as the edges touched, and fused-then again and again, faster and faster until the room was filled with the chimes of glass hitting glass. A flash of light, and the unbroken flute hung motionless in the air for a moment, long enough for Farideh to snatch it before it fell again. Her head was spinning.
Dahl took the glass from her and held it to the light. Despite herself, Farideh watched his expression carefully, as she eased back into her chair.
“You aren’t,” Dahl said, after a moment, “terrible at this. One’s missing.” He tapped a chip in the lip of the glass. Farideh scowled.
“Drink carefully.”
She looked out the window, down into the yard. Havilar was sparring with one of the mercenaries Mira had hired on, a wiry woman named Pernika, with a mass of blond braids and tilted eyes that suggested she might have ancestors in the Feywild. The mercenary’s bastard sword moved like a striking serpent, but she wasn’t quick enough to get past Havilar’s glaive easily. Beyond them, a second mercenary-a man called Maspero-stood scowling at the fight, his arms folded over his chest, his biceps like hams. Brin sat in his shadow. She sipped her drink.
“If you want to go out there with your sword,” Dahl said, “you should. I mean it: you’re not good for another lesson today.”
Farideh laughed and nearly choked on the cordial. “Hardly. The sword … I’m not all that suited to it.” She took a roll and smiled wryly to herself. “In our village, everyone capable of handling a weapon was sent on patrol by turns. They excused me, because I nearly took off the blacksmith’s foot when a marten ran across the path.”