Daja called to the metal on her hand and in her mage kit, the strange living metal that was always growing and absorbing new metal. She drew on the strength of the kitchen’s metal and fires as well, adding it to the liquid metal until she could spin wires of power out of herself. They twined with Briar’s vines, following the paths the magical plants had taken through the openings in Quen’s spells. Busily they worked themselves into Briar’s prison, encasing him as his vines had encased Daja.
Slowly, the spells that enclosed Daja and Briar began to melt, like thick ice under boiling water.
Quen dropped fiddle and bow and stretched a hand out to them, his lips moving as he tried to renew the spells. The mess around Briar and Daja struggled to rebuild, and collapsed completely.
Quen gestured. A fresh shield billowed toward them like a giant, thick bubble. Daja leaned forward and blew like a bellows, hard and long, forcing the heavy thing back toward Quen. He fought to hold it off. While he was occupied, Briar reached into an outer pocket of his mage kit and pulled out a small cloth ball. Deftly, he tossed it on the floor. It rolled to Quen’s feet.
Briar filled the seeds in the ball with green magic and called them to wakefulness. Weaving the shoots as they thrust up, he gripped them in an iron hold and kept them from sinking roots. All of their strength had to go into growing up, not down. He needed this cage to move.
The plants shot through the cloth of the ball that held them, weaving. They were as high as Quen’s knees before he saw the danger. He turned his shield on them, but Briar was ready. The vines, thick with thorns, spread out and over the shield, still growing.
Watching Quen’s sweaty face, Daja pulled a spool of fine wire out of her sack. She sent the wire’s end snaking toward the base of the vine cage, where it began to weave itself in among the vines. As it climbed she called light to it, making Quen blink and shield his eyes. It was a distraction, something he could not afford. While he tried to shield his vision, vines and wire finished a globe of a cage.
Briar had prepared the seed ball to withstand the magic of mages and hill shamans alike, both hazards of the road to Gyongxe. It was why he had brought it downstairs. Daja had made this spool of wire to handle and contain power, her own or that of others. Bearing down with their wills—Briar’s forged in the streets, in epidemics, and in war; Daja’s, in forges and mammoth blazes—they tightened their cage on Quenaill, crushing his last shield.
Briar and Daja joined hands and fed their cage a last surge of power. The gaps between wire and vines blazed, sealed against magic from within. The pair let go.
For a moment they could hardly see Quen inside the cage. Magical workings rayed out from the man like sunlight, connecting him to every spell he still had in place—those on the inn, and those that served Sandry’s kidnappers. They blazed with silver fire in Briar’s and Daja’s vision.
“Once more,” Daja said, panting. “Drain him, so his other spells break.” Her knees wobbled; her thighs felt loose. They touched fingers this time and hammered the cage with the last of their strength. At first they saw no difference. Then the first fiery strand vanished. Another followed, then three, then more. All winked out inside the cage. At last Quen stood inside, naked of power.
All around them, the inn stirred. Briar could hear the inn’s staff moving in the private room. He sat down on the kitchen table and began to eat chunks of carrot. Daja took a seat on a stool and leaned against the wall.
Will it be enough? she asked him wearily. Their bond to one another remained even when their power was as weak and floppy as a dead fish.
We cut off all he had. Sandry was at the end of some of it. We’ll hear her soon enough. “Can we get some food in here?” Briar yelled. “I’m starving!”
Sandry was moving. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that a man sat with her in his arms, one easy tan hand holding a horse’s reins. She saw the reins, and the hand, when she opened her eyes just a crack. Little weights struck her lightly all over her body, clinking when they hit one another. All around her she heard men talking and joking. Someone asked if he could actually bring himself to wait three days, and the man who held her laughed.
“I want her in my little love nest, all nice and cozy, where I won’t need all these charms Quen put on her to keep her tame,” a too-familiar voice said.
Charms, Sandry thought. That’s what the little weights are, and the clinking noises. Someone has tied a basket full of charms all over me, as if I were some nomad’s bride to be protected from spirits.
“With the potions I have for her to drink, and the spell patterns he gave me, she won’t be able to lift a finger against me once we’re inside.” Lips kissed the back of her neck, making Sandry’s skin crawl. Shan added, “She’ll get accustomed. She was half in love with me before some idiot gossiped to her. I just have to convince her that Her Imperial Majesty was a relationship of convenience, while she is my own true love. Trust me, you tell a woman things like that, and she’s putty in your hands.”
“Her Imperial Majesty won’t kill you when she learns?” someone inquired.
“She needs every copper this lady’s lands provides. All that adventuring along the Yanjing border has stretched the imperial treasury very thin,” Shan explained. “If I make a big enough present to Her Imperial Majesty, she’ll let me be.” The confidence in Shan’s voice made Sandry want to scream. Instead, she continued to flop in front of him, limp and supposedly well asleep.
It’s morning, if not afternoon, she realized, hearing birdsong and feeling the sun’s heat on them as they rode. There’s a river nearby, and lots of echoes. We’re in the canyon people spoke of, I think.
They rode on for some time. Shan had just called for a break to rest and water the horses when a thin magical voice filtered through the spell that still lay on Sandry’s skin like a film. Can you hear? Daja asked. It’s taken hours for the workings to wear off enough for me to find you. We’ve been trying since dawn. Why do those charms even have magic still?
Maybe he bought them from someone else, Briar put in. We undid all his spells to keep us all under wraps, but it didn’t touch the extra charms he used.
I’m waking up, Sandry replied. Yes, there’s still a bit of power in these charms.
Shan let Sandry drop into another man’s arms. This captor placed her gently on a patch of grass. Don’t worry about me, she told Daja. The charms are on my outside, but I’ve all my magic still, and the pig-swiving bleat-brain tied the charms to me with ribbons. I suppose it didn’t occur to him ribbons are made of cloth. I’ll come to you when I’m done. Quen did all this magic?
Our little friend Quenaill, Briar said with contempt. He spelled us asleep. If I hadn’t been wary, thanks to Zhegorz ... We owe old Zhegorz a big apology. He tried to warn us, and just because he talked crazy, we didn’t listen. He paused for a moment, then asked gruffly, Do you need our help? We know you like Shan—
Used to, Sandry interrupted, I used to like him. She sank into her magic, and spoke a word of command. The knots that tied those carved-stone charms to her clothes and body came undone at once. They slid to the ground with a soft series of clinks.