“It’s—” Kate struggled to explain. “It’s a city. Thousands and thousands of people.”
“Bah,” said the cat again, but very softly. He was looking at his toes.
“You saved me,” she reminded him. “On the boat. And Linay almost killed you. Did you have a cat’s reason?”
“I’m fond of you.”
“And you’re more than a cat.”
Kate smoothed her thumb along Taggle’s eyebrow whiskers, trying to soothe him, but he lifted a paw and batted her hand away. He stood up. “There is something else we could do.”
Something in his voice, the way his coat rose just slightly over his tight muscles, made Kate’s scars prickle. “Taggle,” she whispered. “What is it?”
“He gave me words, when he took your shadow. If we break the gift, we break the magic. Your shadow would no longer be his to use. The creature he made would come apart.”
“You mean,” said Drina, “you could just stop talking?”
“Oh, no,” said Kate. “No.”
Taggle shook his head, humanwise.“My mind is full of words. Ithink in them. It has changed who I am. That’s the magic, not the talking.”
“Then what—”
Taggle looked up at her, his amber eyes deep as the loneliness Kate had felt before he became her friend.“The traditional thing,” he said slowly, “involves the river and a sack.”
sixteen
the peace of lov
“No,” said Kate. “No.”
“It’s your wish, though,” said Taggle implacably. “To save the city. All those thousands and thousands.”
“It’snot—” Kate found tears stinging her eyes. She batted them away angrily. The three of them sat staring at one another.
“Drina: If I die, Linay will lose Katerina’s shadow. I am right, am I not?”
But even Kate knew he was. It was the first rule of magic: the exchange of gifts. Cream leaned over and tried to eat Drina’s hair. The Roamer girl nodded to Taggle and turned and flung her arms around the horse’s neck.
“There’s another way to stop him,” said Kate. Her voice had gone hard as oak root. “He can’t do his spell if he’s dead.”
Drina whipped around.“Kate!”
“Yes,” she said, standing up. “We have to kill him.”
“He’s my—” Drina began to object, and stopped. They were all standing now, facing one another, and only the horse was calm.
“Ilike this plan,” said Taggle, spreading his toes. “It is much better than the other plan. This is what I think we should do. We should find him and kill him in his sleep.”
Linay, who could move in a blink, who had struck Taggle down with an uplifted finger. Kate said nothing, but Taggle read her face.“It’s true he’s large prey,” said the cat, “but you are missing the genius of my plan: the sleeping part. The finding-him part should be easy because we know where he’s going.”
“I can’t,” whispered Drina. “He taught me to swim.”
“Taggle…” Kate hesitated—and decided. “How?”
“You can carve,” he said. “Do that. Skin is softer than wood.”
Kate thought of the hanged women with the hexes carved on their hands.“I am not sure I can.”
“Become sure,” said the cat, his eyes flashing green in the firelight. “Once you leap on a boar’s back, you can’t sheathe your claws.”
“Even if—” said Drina. “He’s strong, or he was.”
“He still is.” Kate’s wrist still ached when she thought of Linay’s hands.
“Listen,” said Taggle. “There’s something on the road.”
Through the swaying trunks of the birch trees, light danced and flared. In a moment they could see men coming up the forest track, a party of men with torches. They were all dressed the same, in dark clothes with a yellow patch on the chest, and on that was embroidered a red boat beneath crossed oars. One even carried a flag. Kate had never seen uniforms before, but she knew what they were.
In the torchlight their faces were pale. Kate saw the dark pits of eyes turn their way. The girls drew close together. Cream stamped and snorted. But the men didn’t stop.
Drina was so close that Kate could feel the beat of her.“Soldiers,” she whispered. “The city guard.”
The cat had melted away into the darkness. In another moment he was back.“They go across the bridge. To the city.”
“They’re the ones—” said Drina. “They came for my mother.”
They stood looking out across the river. The city stirred restlessly in its sleep, sent them snatches of sound and flares of light.“This is too big,” said Drina. “We can’t do this.”
“Yes, we can,” said Kate, who suddenly saw how. “We’ll tell the guard…” She trailed off as the implications came to her, but braced herself and went on: “We’ll go to the guard and tell them he’s a witch. We’ll turn him in.”
Drina stood and Kate saw her start to shake as she too thought it through.“They’ll burn him.”
“Yes,” said Kate. “I know.”
¶
They couldn’t speak after that, but somehow they slept, tight together in thevardo, with Behjet’s limp hand dangling down and resting on Kate’s back. That was uncomfortable, but a comfort too: Linay had killed. In drawing the rusalka, he’d murdered half the countryside. He’d killed Behjet, or nearly: The man’s skin was drawn across his skull like a drumhead, and he smelled of death. Linay had done that. He had killed the women hanging from the trees, the plowboy in the poppies, killed Stivo and Wen and little Ciri, and hundreds of others. He deserved whatever the city guard would do to him.
But he didn’t, said Kate’s little thoughts,because no one did.
And I helped him. What do I deserve?
She slept in fits and nightmares and woke just after dawn. Overnight, the weather had changed. The endless fog and drizzle had pulled itself up, and clouds crouched above them, low, green-black, rounded like the backs of river boulders: hail clouds that sent down swirls of cold air. Thin twilight slanted under them.
Lov looked bigger by daylight. Its huge walls were a muddy gray. Roofs and squat spires rose above them, tiled in slate the same color as the clouds. The whole city steamed and smoked in the chilly morning like fresh manure. Kate looked at it as she greased her feet and pulled on her socks. The road was muddy, and having enough socks that one pair would always be dry was the only way to keep your feet from rotting. She was glad she stolen Linay’s.
Linay.
Drina came out of thevardo. Her chopped hair stuck out in all directions; it made her look older, ravaged. Kate could see the slice in her ear; it had healed almost black with scar. Drina winced from her gaze and turned away, binding up her hair in a dark turban. Her long thin shadow stretched blue among those of the birches.
Then Taggle came back from his morning ablutions, dragging a half-dead, spitting mink.“Today,” Kate told him. “Today I’m going to kill someone.”
“I can live with that,” drawled the cat.
¶
They had to leave thevardo. There was a fee, Drina said, to take a wagon into Lov, and they couldn’t pay it. Kate found her old pack-basket and filled it with what food they had, extra socks, and the blue cloth with the stars to cover her patchy hair. Drina washed Behjet and tried to feed him broth. She couldn’t: He had stopped swallowing. Tears sprang up in Drina’s eyes but she said nothing, just set the broth down at Behjet’s hand, and went out to tend to Cream. Taggle killed the mink and cleaned his whiskers like a gentleman. And then they went.
The city of Lov stood on a hump in the marshland. The Narwe, like a great moat, guarded three sides. From behind, the city looked peacefuclass="underline" reeds like brushstrokes on the square stones, a town of storks nested among them. The huge white birds stalked slowly through the dark water.
A canal came out of the river and went into the city through a metal grille. A pool at the base of the wall was jammed with small boats of all descriptions. Among them was a little green barge, painted and carved in the Roamer fashion. Taggle pointed with one paw, looking like a human trapped in the skin of a cat.“He’s here.”