“One meal included?” asked Marra. Listen to how normal I sound. I am having a normal conversation with a woman being strangled by a wooden puppet and we are all acting as if the important thing is meals being included with the price of the room.
The landlady nodded and fled. Marra inched farther into the room and closed the door. Fenris had arranged Agnes on one of the beds and stepped back out of the way. The dust-wife sat on the other bed, managing to look both annoyed and concerned.
“We can’t stay here!” hissed Marra. “That puppet thing—you can’t tell me it won’t do something awful!”
“It’s done something awful to the landlady, certainly,” said the dust-wife. “But it won’t do anything to the rest of us. It can’t. It’s just a curse-child.”
“Just?” Marra had a hard time imagining that clacking puppet as just anything.
“Probably a sad story,” said the dust-wife. “They usually are. Somebody gives a lonely child a toy and they pour all their hopes and fears and problems into it. Do it long enough and intensely enough, and then it just needs a stray bit of bad luck and the toy wakes up. Of course, it knows that the only reason it’s alive is because of the child. A tiny personal god with one worshipper. It latches on and … well.” She clucked her tongue. “Normally you get them pried off and burned long before adolescence. Impressive that it lasted this long.”
“We can burn it,” said Marra. “Burning is fine. I’ll get the kindling.”
“Not without her permission. You don’t go tearing off an adult woman’s god and setting it on fire.” The dust-wife gave her a sharp look, as if she were suggesting something rude.
“It was choking her!”
“It’s her neck, not yours. We can ask before we leave, if you like.”
“But it could be wandering the halls at night!”
“No, it would stay attached to her. They really don’t have power over anyone else. I suppose it could tell her to murder us in our beds, but any innkeeper could decide to do that, too, so I wouldn’t worry about it. It won’t risk losing its worshipper if we fight back.”
Marra opened and closed her mouth several times, completely unable to form words. How could the dust-wife be so calm?
“This works very much in our favor,” said the dust-wife. “She can’t tell anyone who or what we are. Nobody trusts a curse-child, and it’ll choke her if it thinks she’s paying too much attention to something else.” She nodded down to Agnes. “Her magic worked. Unorthodox and somewhat inefficient, but it worked.”
“Is the chick all right?” asked Agnes from the bed. Her voice was very weak.
Marra looked down at her hands. The chick’s fluff was a bit damp from the sweat on her palms, but it seemed fine. “Yes?”
“Oh good … I was afraid I’d…” Agnes closed her eyes. She was still very pale, almost shockingly white against the pillow. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”
“You drained yourself down to nothing on that bird,” said the dust-wife.
“Did I?” Agnes sounded bemused. “It’s never happened before … Normally the magic just takes or it doesn’t. But I kept redoing it in my head to make it stick…”
“Yes, and knocked yourself out in the process.” The dust-wife’s voice thawed a bit, and she patted Agnes’s pillow. “It’s fine. It worked. We’re here now. Now, you get some rest.”
“Wait!” said Marra as the dust-wife began to shoo her out the door. “What about—”
“We’re staying,” said the dust-wife. “This place is safe. Cheap, too.”
“No, I meant the chick.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to take care of a chicken.”
The dust-wife’s angular face drew into tight triangles. “It’s a chicken. Didn’t they teach you at the convent?”
“No! Chickens were someone else’s problem. I knit bandages and helped deliver babies.” She wedged her foot in the door to keep from being left in the hall in care of the chick.
“Babies happen occasionally. Chickens happen all the time.” The dust-wife plucked the chick out of Marra’s fingers, shaking her head. As the door was closing in her face, Marra heard, “I know you aren’t broody, demon, but you’re going to make an exception or so help me…”
The door shut with a click.
Chapter 14
The other room had two narrow beds with a small table and basin between them and a shuttered window. Marra collapsed onto one with a groan and put her head in her hands.
“Are you all right?” asked Fenris.
“Horrible puppet,” she said, “demon chicken, fairy godmother.”
“And it’s a fool’s errand and we’re all going to die,” said Fenris. He patted her shoulder. “Still, I have to admit I didn’t see the chicken or the puppet coming.”
“Nothing’s ever easy,” said Marra, too tired to yell at him for taking her fatalism to heart. She remembered suddenly that she had cried in front of everyone earlier in the day and felt herself flush with embarrassment. To hide it, she turned away, pulling back a corner of the blanket and investigating the mattress.
It was stuffed with horsehair and the blankets were coarse but clean. The room itself was shabby but painfully neat, much like the rest of the house. She did not see fleas jumping anywhere. “Well, it’s not a bad room.” It reminded her of her room in the convent.
“I’ve slept in far worse,” agreed Fenris. The small bed looked even smaller when he sat on it. Marra was fairly certain that his feet were going to hang over the edges. He gave her an apologetic look. “I, uh … realize it’s awkward that you have to share a room with me. If there were a stable, I’d offer, but there isn’t one. And honestly, I’d rather be close at hand, in case…”
He trailed off, but Marra knew that he was thinking about the curse-child. “I’d prefer you were close, too,” she said. “It’s fine. No worse than the road.”
Fenris made a noncommittal noise. Marra knew perfectly well what he meant. Once you added walls and a door, things became … complicated.
It’s not complicated. It doesn’t have to be. He’s your friend and you’re here to kill a prince and that’s all you need to know or think about. She forced a smile. “I suppose beds like this aren’t quite what you’re used to.”
Fenris shrugged. “I’m not really used to anything. I slept in barracks for a long time. When I was traveling, I’d sleep on the ground. Sometimes I’d go from sleeping on dirt to sleeping in the best guest chamber in the castle.”
“And sometimes in fairy forts,” she added.
His face changed. She felt as if a shutter had closed in his eyes. You fool, why did you say that? “I’m— I’m sorry,” she said, stammering a little. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have joked about it—”
“It’s all right.” He reached out and took her hands in his. The room was so small that he could do so easily. “Marra … Princess Marra…”
She winced. “Don’t. I’m not. I mean, I am, but I’m really a nun, except I’m barely even that.”
“You are the princess of the Harbor Kingdom,” he said. “I learned that at the first inn we stopped at in your homeland. Your sister Kania is married to Vorling of the Northern Kingdom.”
Of course he’d learn that. You should have guessed. It’s not like it was much of a secret. She told herself this firmly, trying to ignore the sudden clawing in her chest that screamed that he would tell Vorling, he would betray them all, he knew too much and it would all be used against them …
No. This is Fenris. He is a friend, and he has never been anything but decent. She stared down at their joined hands, trying not to feel trapped, wondering what price she would have to pay for his silence.
“People love to gossip about the royal family,” he said. His voice was very gentle. “They told me why you were sent to the nunnery. A few people thought there had been some scandal, but most of them said that you would be Vorling’s third wife if your sister died. You were being held in reserve, they said.”