I realize it, too. “Maekallus, I could will you back to your realm.”
Surprise opens his features. So that hadn’t been his thought. What, then?
“Perhaps.” A whisper.
I palm the stone. Hold it to my chest. Close my eyes. Descend, Maekallus. Return to the monster realm. Go. Return. Leave this place.
Nothing happens.
I open my eyes. “Perhaps we need a circle . . .”
“No,” he replies darkly, looking away. “The stone only controls the will of living creatures. It will not work.”
“Then how did I will you outside that glade?”
He grumbles. “You willed me, not the spell.” Wiping a hand down his face, he adds, “It never did affect me, when we were in opposite realms. Scroud usually stayed in the Deep, planning. I could breathe in the mortal realm. But if I didn’t carry out his commands, I’d feel it the moment I returned.”
Which would explain why Scroud couldn’t just force the human generals to surrender from the safety of the monster realm. How far did the stone’s influence reach? Enough to persuade a small army, but perhaps not enough to also cull a second army into submission. “We could try—”
“And we will fail!” he barks.
I teeter back from the power of his anger as though he’d struck me. His eyes blaze. I want nothing more than to be away from that stare.
I’m still holding the Will Stone.
The realization barely registers before Maekallus flies backward from the forest as if shoved by a great gust of wind. His arms and legs shoot out as he sails away, narrowly missing a branch, following the line of the thread connected to him. I gasp and watch him fly away until the trees mask his path.
The stone drops from my fingers. “Maekallus?”
Only a magpie answers back.
I am a coward, for I don’t follow Maekallus into the glade.
I gather my things and run back home, until my body is weary and ready to sick up from the exercise. I collapse inside the kitchen. I must have fallen asleep right there on the stonework, for I wake with a crick in my neck, and the side of my face is cold.
I hear the creaking of the cellar doors—Papa coming up from the mushrooms.
Pushing my basket aside, I pick myself up and grab the metal bathing tub, half hobbling as I pull it into my room. I fill it with two pitchers of unwarmed water before stripping off my bloody dress and scrubbing myself until my teeth chatter.
The bracelet hangs from my wrist. I palm the stone. How often have I used this unknowingly? When my father told me about the descent circle, was it because I willed the information out of him? Surely I hadn’t willed Tennith to kiss me . . . No, I had been prepared for him to decline. But I may have willed him not to speak to me about it, on the way to and from Caisgard.
Could I not also will the townsfolk to treat us kindly? Force Lunus Mather to give me fair prices? Will animals into waiting snares?
Persuade, with just a thought, a headmaster to permit my acceptance into a college?
For a moment my spirits lift, until something leaden and dark pushes down on them. What would my father think, knowing I’d forced his hand with the supernatural? Or Tennith, or . . . anyone? What must Maekallus think, for surely he must have pieced together what I’d already unknowingly done.
What if someone wielded the stone’s power against me, bending my will to theirs and forcing me to do what was against my nature?
I almost take the bracelet off. I don’t want to affect others in such a horrible, absolute way, especially not my father, who could not have realized the power he had bestowed on me when he first placed the bracelet around my wrist.
But then I think of the grinlers, of the hunger in their eyes, and I leave the bracelet be.
I let myself be normal—as normal as can be—for a little while. I don’t wish to see Maekallus. He saved my life, yes, and in turn I saved his. But I need to be with my father right now. I need to be . . . away from Maekallus’s revelation and the confusion his presence stirs in me.
My father is happy to have me around. I play fell the king with him, and to my sorrow, I also forget my strategy. Memory just . . . doesn’t hold as easily as it should, and the explanation is clear. It’s a long game, and it pleases me that Papa wins.
I fear the following day, when we must return to the market, but while my soul is in pieces, my mind is still sharp, and I manage just fine, though I change my usual path to avoid Tennith. I’m not sure what I’d say to him, and my moments of listlessness and blankness have me on edge. Occasionally, pain spikes in that deepness where my soul resides. I can’t remember the recipe for my grandmother’s meat pie, and I allow my too-tired body more naps than I should. But if I look past all of that, I’m well enough.
My father, however, is not. He starts to cough and look a little pale, so I put him to bed and make him vegetable broth and tea. It revitalizes him for a time, but when he goes to our vegetable garden to pull weeds, he sickens again, and I order him to spend the rest of the day in bed. I try to will him better, but it seems illness is not something that can be coerced.
With my father abed, I’m left to stew in my own thoughts. I wonder about the grinlers and how far the Will Stone’s power stretches. Nearly a dozen grinlers heeded my command, but they have limited intelligence. Would such a tactic work on greater mystings, like Maekallus? Like this Scroud? Could I not simply will him and his goblers to leave me be, should they return?
I write all my thoughts into my notes, filling page after page with questions and theories. I had willed Maekallus out of the glade to rescue me. Did he sacrifice himself to help me merely because the stone bid him to do so? Or perhaps he was persuaded by the fact that I am the one keeping him alive. Us alive.
Does it matter, his motivation? Why do I even care?
I wonder if I could will another creature to come to me. The gobler in the wildwood, the one who set the spell on Maekallus. Could I force him to break the spell, or will that interworld barrier prevent it, just as it banned Maekallus from descending to the monster realm?
I try, but the stone does not tingle, nor does it reveal its secrets to my mind. I document all of this in my book.
Papa sleeps late the following day. I make him a hearty meal in hopes of improving his stamina and a tonic of aster leaf, which is good for the lungs. My stone is cooler that morning, warning of the approach of a mysting—a rooter—nearby. I will it away, and the stone warms.
It’s the knowledge of its protection that finally gives me the strength to return to the glade, basket in tow.
Maekallus has worn an ovular track in the clearing with his pacing. I remember his claim of impending madness and feel guilty for my absence. The black spots blemishing his skin mark the time I’ve spent away. Gripping the stone, I try once more to will him back into the monster realm, but the stone does not heed my request.
I drop the stone. “I’m sorry.”
He spins about, finding me amid the trees. I can’t read his expression. Not quite relieved, not quite angry.
I swallow. “I needed some time to think. I . . . I didn’t mean to trap you here.” I lift my basket as a peace offering. “I brought you food and books.”
He guffaws. “I told you, I can’t read mortal writings.”
“I’ll read them to you. I don’t mind.” I step into the glade, over the matted grass and packed dirt of his track. I cross almost to where the binding spell pierces the earth, then set my basket down and sit on a patch of orchard grass. It’s strange, this absurd predicament I’m in. It’s bizarre and morbid and deadly, and yet in this confined space with this impertinent mysting, I feel . . . normal. Not the outcast, not the peculiar woman who lives on the outskirts of town. It’s as if here, I am truly myself.