“What?” Glerk said. “No. Of course not! She’s turning into a grown-up. And a witch. Both at the same time. And look! There she goes. I can see her magic from here. I wish you could, Fyrian. It is the most beautiful shade of blue, with a shimmer of silver lingering behind.”
Fyrian was about to say something else, but he stared at the ground. He laid both his hands on the dirt. “Glerk?” he said, pressing his ear to the ground.
Glerk didn’t pay attention. “And look!” he said, pointing at the next ridge over. “There is Xan. Or her magic, anyway. Oh! She’s hurt. I can see it from here. She’s using a spell right now, transformation by the look of it. Oh, Xan! Why would you transform in your condition! What if you can’t transform back?”
“Glerk?” Fyrian said, his scales growing paler by the second.
“There’s no time, Fyrian. Xan needs us. Look. Luna is moving toward the ridge where Xan is right now. If we hurry—”
“GLERK!” Fyrian said. “Will you listen? The mountain.”
“Speak in complete sentences, please,” Glerk said impatiently. “If we don’t move quickly—”
“THE MOUNTAIN IS ON FIRE, GLERK,” Fyrian roared.
Glerk rolled his eyes. “No, it’s not! Well. No more than normal. Those smoke pots are just—”
“No, Glerk,” Fyrian said, pulling himself to his feet. “It is. Underground. The mountain is on fire under our feet. Like before. When it erupted. My mother and I—” His voice caught, his grief erupting suddenly. “We felt it first. She went to the magicians to warn them. Glerk!” Fyrian’s face nearly cracked with worry. “We need to warn Xan.”
The swamp monster nodded. He felt his heart sink into his great tail. “And quickly,” he agreed. “Come, dear Fyrian. We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Doubt slithered through Xan’s birdish guts.
It’s all my fault, she fussed.
No! she argued. You protected! You loved! You rescued those babies from starvation. You made happy families.
I should have known, she countered. I should have been curious. I should have done something.
And this poor boy! How he loved his wife. How he loved his child. And look at what he was willing to sacrifice to keep them safe and happy. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to un-transform and explain everything. Except he would surely attempt to kill her before she could do so.
“Not long, my friend,” the young man whispered. “The moon will rise and we will be off. And I shall kill the Witch and we can go home. And you can see my beautiful Ethyne and my beautiful son. And we will keep you safe.”
Not likely, Xan thought.
Once the moon rose, she would be able to capture at least a little bit of its magic. A very little. It would be like trying to carry water in a fishnet. Still. Better than nothing. She’d still have the drips. And maybe she would have enough to make this poor man go to sleep for a little bit. And maybe she could even ambulate his clothing and his boots and send him home, where he could wake up in the loving embrace of his family.
All she needed was the moon.
“Do you hear that?” the man said, springing to his feet. Xan looked around. She hadn’t heard anything.
But he was right.
Something was coming.
Or someone.
“Can it be that the Witch is coming to me?” he asked. “Could I be that lucky?”
Indeed, Xan thought, with more derision than was likely fair. She gave the man a little peck through his shirt. Imagine the Witch coming to you. Lucky duck. She rolled her beady little bird eye.
“Look!” he said, pointing down the ridge. Xan looked. It was true. Someone was moving up the ridge. Two somethings. Xan couldn’t account for what the second figure was—it didn’t look like anything that she had ever seen before—but the first thing was unmistakable.
That blue glow.
That shimmer of silver.
Luna’s magic. Her magic! Coming closer and closer and closer.
“It’s the Witch!” the young man said. “I am sure of it!” And he hid behind a tangled clump of undergrowth, keeping himself very still. He trembled. He moved his knife from one hand to the other. “Don’t worry, my friend,” he said. “I shall make it very, very quick. The Witch will arrive. She will not see me.”
He swallowed.
“And then I shall slit her throat.”
40.
In Which There Is a Disagreement about Boots
“Take those off, dear,” Sister Ignatia said. Her voice was cream. She was all soft steps and padded claws. “They simply do not become you.”
The madwoman tipped her head. The moon was about to rise. The mountain rumbled under her feet. She stood in front of a large stone. “Don’t forget,” the stone said on one side. “I mean it,” it said on the other.
The madwoman missed her birds. They had flown away and had not come back. Were they real to begin with? The madwoman did not know.
All she knew at the moment was that she liked these boots. She had fed the goats and the chickens, and gathered the milk and the eggs, and thanked the animals for their time. But all the while, she had felt as though the boots were feeding her. She couldn’t explain it. The boots enlivened her, muscle and bone. She felt as light as a paper bird. She felt like she could run for a thousand miles and she wouldn’t lose her breath.
Sister Ignatia took a step forward. Her lips unfurled in a thin smile. The madwoman could hear the Head Sister’s tigerish growl rumbling underground. She felt her back start to sweat. She took several hurried steps backward, until her body found the standing stone. She leaned against it, and found a comfort there. She felt her boots start to buzz.
There was magic all around this place. Tiny bits and pieces. The madwoman could feel it. The Sister, she could see, felt it, too. Both women reached their nimble, clever fingers this way and that, hooking shiny bits of magic into their hands, saving it for later. The more the madwoman gathered, the clearer the path to her daughter became.
“You poor lost soul,” the Head Sister said. “How far you are from home! How confused you must be! It is so lucky that I found you here, before some wild animal or roving ruffian did. This is a dangerous wood. The most dangerous in the world.”
The mountain rumbled. A plume of smoke erupted from the farthest craters. The Head Sister turned pale.
“We need to leave this place,” Sister Ignatia said. The madwoman felt her knees start to shake. “Look.” The Sister pointed to the crater. “I’ve seen that before. A long time ago. The plumes come, then the earth shakes, then the first explosions, and then the whole mountain opens its face to the sky. If we are here when that happens, we’re both dead. But if you give me those boots”—she licked her lips—“then I can use the power inside them to get us both back home. Back to the Tower. Your safe, homey little Tower.” She smiled again. Even her smile was terrifying.
“You are lying, Tiger’s Heart,” the madwoman whispered. Sister Ignatia flinched at the term. “You have no intention of carrying me back.” Her hands were on the stone. The stone was making her see things. Or perhaps the boots were making her see things. She saw a group of magicians—old men and old women—betrayed by the Head Sister. Before she was the Head Sister. Before there was a Protectorate. The Head Sister was supposed to carry the magicians on her back when the volcano erupted, but she did nothing of the kind. She left them in the smoke to die.
“How do you know that name?” Sister Ignatia whispered.
“Everyone knows that name,” the madwoman said. “It was in a story. About how the Witch ate a tiger’s heart. They all whisper it. It’s wrong, of course. You don’t have a tiger’s heart. You have no heart at all.”
“There is no such story,” Sister Ignatia said. She began to pace. She hunched her shoulders. She growled. “I started the stories in the Protectorate. I did. They all came from me. There is no story that I did not tell first.”
“You’re wrong. The tiger walks, the sisters said. I could hear them. They were talking about you, you know.”
The Head Sister turned quite pale. “Impossible,” she whispered.
“It was impossible for my child to still be alive,” the madwoman said, “and yet she is. And she was here. Recently. The impossible is possible.” She looked around. “I like this place,” she said.