“The less you know, the less you can spill when you talk to your sister about getting us into the palace. You’re a terrible liar, Marra. You look as if you’re afraid the universe is ashamed of you.”
Marra didn’t want to accept this, but the dust-wife locked the door to the bedroom and left her to toss in bed and fail to sleep. Her sister had given birth. They were going to the palace of the dead. Her sister had given birth to a boy. Kania’s life was in terrible danger and if she died, she would be buried in one of the tombs underground, next to Vorling’s tomb, and she would have to stand next to him for eternity. Could ghosts torment one another? Would Vorling’s bones creep from his sarcophagus and hammer on the lid of Kania’s coffin?
Oh gods and saints, she thought, rolling over and burying her face in the pillow. Oh. Let them only be empty bones.
“I never could sleep the night before a battle,” said Fenris.
Marra turned to face him, even though she couldn’t see. “Is this going to be a battle?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what to expect. It might be. Or maybe we’ll just wander around in the dark for a while and the dust-wife will wave her hands and it will all be over.”
Marra shook her head, forgetting he couldn’t see her in the dark. “I doubt it. Whenever I go anywhere with her, something terrible and magical happens and then I wish it hadn’t.”
“I had noticed something of the sort, yes.”
“I suppose that’s still better than a battle.”
“Mm.” She could picture his expression, the way his lips would be twisting at one corner as he considered this. “Battles are terrible, but they’re also comprehensible. You know what you’re doing. Well … all right, that’s not entirely true. You know what you’re supposed to be doing. There’s a lot of yelling and hitting things and then you look up and it’s over. But once you’ve been through a few of them, you know more or less how things go. Magic, though … I don’t know how it’s supposed to work or why.”
Fenris paused for so long that Marra wondered if he had fallen asleep. Then he said, “I was never so frightened as when we were leaving the goblin market. If you had not led me out, I would still be hiding in a corner there, hoping that everything would go away.”
Marra blinked up at the darkness. “I didn’t lead you out. We went together. I leaned on you for half of it.”
He chuckled softly. “That’s not how I remember it. I remember you holding my arm. You were very calm and very brave, even though you’d just had someone yank your tooth out.”
The Toothdancer. Marra shuddered. “I didn’t feel calm or brave.”
“You hid it well.”
It was easier to talk in the dark, somehow. Marra took a deep breath. “I don’t feel brave now. I feel frustrated. I want to run in and drag Kania away from that monster, but I can’t. If you hadn’t found the way into the tombs tonight, I would probably have done something foolish.”
“So long as you take me with you.”
“I’d rather you didn’t get killed for my foolishness.”
“I have been resigned to dying for a long time.”
“Fenris…”
“No, no, don’t sound stricken. What else am I good for now? You gave me something useful to do with my death. I will be grateful forever.”
“No dying,” said Marra angrily. “I don’t want you to die! I want you to live to a ripe, old age so that I can say, ‘Hey, Fenris, remember the time we went into a horrible catacomb and the dust-wife said something cryptic and Agnes waved a baby chicken at us,’ and you say, ‘Of course I remember,’ and I don’t have to try to explain to someone who wasn’t there.”
The silence from the other side of the room was suddenly deeper and more textured. Marra bit her lip. “Besides,” she said, after a moment, “someone has to chop all my firewood. I’ve gotten spoiled.”
“Hmm.”
She rolled over again. She could not seem to get comfortable.
If I ask, he’ll think I’m propositioning him.
… Am I?
No. Definitely not. Not while all this is going on. It’ll just make things terrible and complicated, and they’re already terrible and complicated enough.
I might never get another chance.
But if I do and it’s awkward and weird, then we’ll probably die with things being awkward and weird and I cannot handle that.
Marra thumped the pillow and then gave up. “Fenris?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know how to ask this without giving you completely the wrong idea.”
“All right?”
“Do you remember on the road, when we slept back-to-back?”
He did not answer, but she heard the bed creak, and then the indignant snuffle of Bonedog being nudged out of the way. Her own bed sagged as Fenris sat on the edge of it. Marra scooted up against the wall to give him room.
His back was as solid and warm as she remembered. She sighed and felt something unclench, although whether it was in her jaw or her gut or her soul, she couldn’t say.
“You’re a saint,” she mumbled, tugging the blanket up around her shoulder.
“You have no idea,” muttered Fenris.
* * *
They slept as late as they could, and then got up and stared at the walls. They ate. Marra threw the nettle cloak over her clothes, watching the owlcloth break up the outlines. Fenris went out for an hour and came back with his pack full of food. “God knows how long it’ll take us down there,” he said. “I’d rather we didn’t starve.”
Marra had been doing frantic math in her head. If the child had been born before midnight, they had two days to the christening. If the child had been born after midnight, they had three days. Neither of these options were good.
The only kindness was that darkness fell early. The moment the shadows began to stretch, she was up and pacing.
“For the love of the gods,” said the dust-wife. “Let’s go. I’d rather fight with the dead than watch Marra wear holes in the floor.”
“Will we have to fight the dead?”
“Anything’s possible.”
Marra paused. “There are stories about graverobbers having their souls ripped out and haunting the catacombs.”
“These things happen.” The dust-wife stood up, held out her staff, and let the chicken settle herself. Agnes tucked Finder under her scarf.
They made their way down the stairs in a grand procession, only to encounter the innkeeper in the hallway.
“Miss Margaret,” said the dust-wife. “We thank you for your hospitality.” Her words rolled out with the air of a dread pronouncement, as if she were sentencing the innkeeper to be thanked, perhaps for all eternity.
Miss Margaret looked bewildered, then dropped a curtsy. The puppet glared from her shoulder.
Quick as a striking snake, the dust-wife reached out and grabbed the puppet’s head. As soon as her fingers locked around it, it went limp. The cord at the woman’s throat went slack and she gasped, clutching at her neck. Raw furrows had been etched against the sides of her throat, the skin abraded so many times that it had left patches as red and scaled as a dragon.
“It cannot hurt you now,” said the dust-wife.
“Don’t hurt him!” cried Miss Margaret, voice suddenly loud. “Don’t!”
“I have not hurt … him. If I release him, everything will be exactly as it was. But you have been kind to us, so I offer you a choice.” She loomed over the innkeeper, a tall, rattle-bone creature of deserts and dust, shockingly out of place in the little hallway. “Say the word and you can be free. He will be destroyed and never trouble you again.”
The choice was so obvious that Marra never doubted, and so the innkeeper’s words were doubly shocking.
“Put him back!” she shrieked, tugging on the dust-wife’s wrist. “Let him go! He never hurt you; he never hurt anybody!”
… What?
“You are certain?” asked the dust-wife, implacable as death.
“Let him go! Don’t hurt him!”
“Very well.” The dust-wife released the puppet and stepped back.