There! A glow of licheny green.
There! The young man she had hurt.
There! Some kind of monster and his pet.
The mountain rumbled. Each time it did so it was louder, more insistent. The mountain had swallowed power, and the power wanted out.
“I need my birds,” the madwoman said, turning her face to the sky. She leaped forward and clung to a new branch. And another. And another. And another.
“I NEED MY BIRDS!” she called again, running from branch to branch as easily as if she was running a footrace across a grassy field. But so much faster than that.
She could feel the magic of the boots lighting up her bones. The growing moonlight seemed to increase it.
“I need my daughter,” she whispered as she ran even faster, her eye fixed on the shimmer of blue.
And behind her, another whisper gathered—the beating of paper wings.
The crow crawled out of the girl’s hood. He arranged his fine feet on her shoulders and then snapped his shiny wings out, launching himself into the air.
“Caw,” the crow called. “Luna,” his voice rang out.
“Caw,” again. “Luna.”
“Caw, caw, caw.”
“Luna, Luna, Luna.”
The ridge became steeper. The girl had to grab on to the spindly trunks and branches clinging to the slope to keep from falling backward. Her face was red and her breath came in gasps.
“Caw,” the crow said. “I am going up ahead to see what you cannot.”
He darted forward, through the shadows, onto the bare knoll at the top of the ridge, where large boulders stood like sentinels, guarding the mountains.
He saw a man. The man held a swallow. The swallow kicked and fluttered and pecked.
“Hush now, my friend!” The man spoke in soothing tones as he wrapped the swallow in a measure of cloth and bound it inside his coat.
The man crept toward one of the last boulders near the edge of the ridge.
“So,” he said to the swallow, who struggled and fussed. “She has taken the form of a girl. Even a tiger can take the skin of a lamb. It doesn’t change the fact that it is a tiger.”
And then the man took out a knife.
“Caw!” the crow screamed. “Luna!”
“Caw!”
“Run!”
42.
In Which the World Is Blue and Silver and Silver and Blue Luna heard the crow’s warning, but she couldn’t slow down. She was alive with moonlight. Blue and silver, silver and blue, she thought, but she did not know why. The moonlight was delicious. She gathered it on her hands and drank it again and again. Once she had started she could not stop.
And with each gulp, the scene on the ridge became clearer.
That lichen-green glow.
It was her grandmother.
The feathers.
They were somehow connected to her grandmother.
She saw the man with scars on his face. He looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t place him.
There was kindness in his eyes and kindness in his spirit. His heart carried love inside it. His hand carried a knife.
Blue, the madwoman thought as she streaked through the trees from branch to branch to branch. Blue, blue, blue, blue. With each loping step, the magic of the boots coursed through her body like lightning.
“And silver, too,” she sang out loud. “Blue and silver, silver and blue.”
Each step brought her closer to the girl. The moon was fully up now. It lit the world. The light of the moon skittered along the madwoman’s bones, from the top of her head to her beautiful boots and back again.
Stride, stride, stride; leap, leap, leap; blue, blue, blue. A shimmer of silver. A dangerous baby. A protective pair of arms. A monster with wide jaws and kind eyes. A tiny dragon. A child full of moonlight.
Luna. Luna, Luna, Luna, Luna.
Her child.
There was a bare knoll on the top of the ridge. She raced toward it. Boulders stood like sentinels. And behind one of the boulders stood a man. A licheny green glow showed through a small spot on his jacket. Some kind of magic, the madwoman thought. The man held a knife. And just over the lip of the ridge, and nearly upon him, was the other glow—the blue glow.
The girl.
Her daughter.
Luna.
She lived.
The man lifted the knife. He fixed his eyes on the approaching girl.
“Witch!” he shouted.
“I am no Witch,” the girl said. “I am a girl. My name is Luna.”
“Lies!” the man said. “You are the Witch. You are thousands of years old. You have killed countless children.” A shuddering breath. “And now I shall kill you.”
The man leaped.
The girl leaped.
The madwoman leaped.
And the world was full of birds.
43.
In Which a Witch Casts Her First Spell—On Purpose This Time
A whirlwind of legs and wings and elbows and fingernails and beaks and paper. Paper birds swirled around the knoll in a spiral winding tighter and tighter and tighter.
“My eyes!” the man yelled.
“My cheek!” Luna howled.
“My boots!” a woman groaned. A woman that Luna did not know.
“Caw!” screeched the crow. “My girl! Stay away from my girl.”
“Birds!” Luna gasped.
She rolled away from the tangle and scrambled to her feet. The paper birds swirled upward in a massive formation overhead before alighting in a great circle on the ground. They weren’t attacking—not yet. But the way they keened their beaks forward and menacingly opened their wings made them look as though they might.
The man covered his face.
“Keep them away,” he whimpered. He shook and cowered, covering his face with his hands. He dropped the knife on the ground. Luna kicked it away, and it tumbled over the edge of the ridge.
“Please,” he whispered. “I’ve met these birds. They are terrifying. They cut me to shreds.”
Luna knelt next to him. “I won’t let them hurt you,” she whispered. “I promise. They found me before, when I was lost in the woods. They didn’t hurt me then, and I can’t imagine that they will hurt you now. But no matter what, I won’t let them. Do you understand me?”
The man nodded. He kept his face curled to his knees.
The paper birds cocked their heads. They did not look at Luna. They looked at the woman, sprawled on the ground.
Luna looked at her, too.
The woman wore black boots and a plain gray shift dress. Her head was shaved. She had wide, black eyes and a birthmark on her forehead in the shape of a crescent moon. Luna pressed her fingers to her own brow.
She is here, her heart called. She is here, she is here, she is here.
“She is here,” the woman whispered. “She is here, she is here, she is here.”
Luna had an image in her head of a woman with long black hair, writhing from her head like snakes. She looked at the woman in front of her. She tried to imagine her with hair.
“Do I know you?” Luna said.
“No one knows me,” the woman said. “I have no name.”
Luna frowned. “Did you have a name?”
The woman crouched down, hugging her knees. Her eyes darted this way and that. She was hurt, but not on her body. Luna looked closer. She was hurt in her mind. “Once,” the woman said. “Once I had a name. But I do not remember it. There was a man who called me ‘wife,’ and there was a child who would have called me ‘mother.’ But that was a long time ago. I cannot tell how long. Now I am only called ‘prisoner.’ ”
“A tower,” Luna whispered, taking a step nearer. The woman had tears in her eyes. She looked at Luna and then looked away, back and forth, as though afraid to let her eyes rest on the girl for too long.
The man looked up. He drew himself to his knees. He stared at the madwoman. “It’s you,” he said. “You escaped.”
“It’s me,” the madwoman said. She crawled across the rocky surface and crouched next to him. She put her hands on his face. “This is my fault,” she said, running her fingers across his scars. “I’m sorry. But your life. Your life is happier now. Isn’t it?”
The man’s eyes swelled with tears. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes. It is. But no. My wife had a baby. Our son is beautiful. But he is the youngest in the Protectorate. Like you, we must give our baby to the Witch.”