“Have to say, I thought you would be older.” He shrugged. “Either way, you’re well past due to learn a few useful skills. Think you can talk and learn at the same time?”
I nodded, feeling suddenly desperate to prove to him I wasn’t useless.
“All right. Best you start from the beginning, then.”
With little more than an occasional grunt and the odd word, Cécile’s father showed me how to care for my horse while I talked. I didn’t start at the beginning of today, or the moment when Cécile arrived in Trollus. I started at my beginning, and I told him everything. Revealing so much about myself was entirely at odds with my nature, but I found the story slipping off my tongue as though it wanted to be told. Louie was Cécile’s father, and I needed him to know who I was, to prove to him as best I could that despite everything, I wasn’t entirely unworthy of his daughter.
We moved from the horses to the cows to the pigs, him asking the occasional question, but for the most part listening in attentive silence. By the time I finished, all the chores were complete and dusk had settled onto the land.
“So you say this witch intends to kill Genevieve tomorrow night?”
“It is a near certainty.” We were sitting on the front stoop of the house, and Louie was smoking a pipe, the smell of it both strange and comforting at the same time. “She’s been maintaining her immortality by killing her female descendants. Cécile believes she needs the link of the bloodline in order for the spell to work, and that the only time she can access enough power is when the solstice aligns with the full moon.”
Louie grunted in understanding, then blew a puff of smoke into the air. “And if she succeeds, then Cécile will be next?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
He nodded. “Now you say trolls and humans can…” Wincing, he puffed out a series of smoke rings.
I knew what he was getting at. “Around three-quarters of Trollus’s population has human blood running in their veins.”
He was quiet for a moment. “How well would this Anushka’s spell work if Cécile’s girl-children were half troll?”
He’d landed on a notion I hadn’t even considered. “Not well at all.”
“Then it would appear that no matter what you two decide to do, the witch’s days are numbered. Can’t say I entirely understand where your aunt gets her prophesies, but it would appear she was right.” Climbing to his feet, he knocked the embers out of his pipe. “I’ve a few last chores to finish up. Why don’t you head in and get washed up for dinner.”
Instead of going inside directly, I sat for a minute longer, taking in all that was around me. The glow of the sun fading behind the mountain peaks. The cold wind smelling of pine. The sounds of the animals in the barn. One of the dogs came up and sat beside me, brown eyes bright as she surveyed her domain. It was more than just a different life – it seemed like an entirely different world, and I allowed myself a moment to imagine what it would have been like to grow up here. To have a father like Louie. To have siblings who weren’t trying to kill me. To spend my days growing crops and raising animals rather than at politics and plotting. It seemed a very grand life, a perfect life, and it made me realize what Cécile was risking to help me.
Inside, I was greeted by the smell of wood smoke, cooking food, and Cécile’s little sister stirring a pot on the stove. “Put you to work, did he?”
“We had a great deal to discuss.” I tried scraping the mud off my boots, but it seemed like a lost cause, so I pulled them off and left them at the door.
She snorted and set the spoon aside. “You don’t say. Thirsty?”
“A bit.”
Josette went to a small cask sitting in the corner and returned with a mug of dark ale. “It’s this or water.”
“This is fine, thank you.” I expected her to go back to stirring, but she stood her ground, unabashedly looking at me from head to toe. Josette was quite a bit taller than Cécile, and blonde, but otherwise there was no mistaking that they were sisters.
“She’s upstairs with Gran, if you were wondering,” she said. “They sent me to finish dinner so they could talk.”
“How is she?”
“Upset. Scared.” Josette looked at our feet, then back up at me. “She cried for a long time.”
“She had reason to,” I said. “We lost a close friend today. And another is in grave danger.”
“She told us that.” Josette lifted her chin, and there was no missing the judgment in her eyes. “Cécile’s a crybaby. Always has been. Weeps when she’s happy, sad, mad. Last time I saw her cry like this was when Fleur got stung by a bee and bucked her off. But she got back on. My sister always gets back on.”
It was a challenge if I’d ever heard one, and I sensed that if I said a thing against Cécile that Josette would spit in my face and stick a knife between my ribs.