Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
The slab had not appeared far away when I began, but it began to feel as though I had walked for hours. My legs wobbled, sweat stuck my bodice to my skin, and I struggled to hold on to what little courage and composure I possessed. I could not think of Grandmama and Noémi and János, outmatched in Eszterháza behind me. I could not think of what might face me when I returned. I could only move forward, one heavy foot after the other.
I stooped, cringing as a shadow passed over me. It was only a crow, landing several paces ahead of me.
A curl of hope lifted my heart. Ravens were good omen birds—at least in Hungary; surely some of that luck would attend its cousin. And I was no longer alone.
As I moved forward, memories began sliding through my mind. I did not consciously call them; something about this wilderness dragged them into light.
I remembered Hunger, the first time I had seen him in the bathhouse at Sárvár. I might have need of your heart, he’d said.
Then later, the first time I’d gone with Lady Berri to Attila’s Hill: You will have to sacrifice at the heart of the spell. You must pull the power of the spell into your own heart and let your heart break with it.
All magic had a price. I knew that. It cost time, energy, will—the imprisonment of ancient creatures. It had taken a blood sacrifice to craft the Binding; it would take a blood sacrifice to break it. My fingers curled around the bone knife I carried. I doubted my courage.
Hunger had promised I would not die. I clung to that promise as I walked.
I halted and raised my face to the sky. I let all of my frustration and fear and longing swell inside me: for my family, for Gábor, for a world I might not live to see. And for a world that might be changed beyond recognition by what I was about to do. I closed my eyes and whispered, “Hunger. I need you.”
When I opened my eyes, he stood before me, his golden eyes glinting in the sunlight. My heart fluttered, moved by something that might have been fear. Or desire.
“I have come to break the spell,” I said. The wind picked up my words and tossed them in the air, mocking me. In this land of stone and shadow, my will was a fragile thing.
Hunger cocked one eyebrow at me in amusement. “So you have said, my fairy-tale maid.” He began walking toward the stone slab, and I fell in pace beside him.
The crow led the way, winging silently before us.
“If I break this spell, will you promise me something?”
“Anything. Break me out of this world, and I will remake your world in your image. I will bid the stars sing out your name and the shadows guard your slumber. Break me out of this world, and I will even make you my queen.”
“No.” I shuddered. I knew I should thank him, but his offerings left me cold. “I need an army. If I set you free, you must help me free my friends.”
Hunger stopped walking and regarded me for a long moment. “You shall have one. You have my word.”
His golden eyes, full of dark shadows, caught mine. Fear skittered down my spine. What sort of bargain have I wrought?
The stone slab, when we reached it at last, was larger than I expected, and smoother. Veins of white and pink ran through the dark grey rock. Something translucent caught the sunlight overhead and cast a net of stars back into the air above the stone.
The scent of roses hung thick in the air, rising from low bushes surrounding the stone.
I turned to Hunger. “What must I do?”
“Can you feel the spell?”
I concentrated. I felt the tips of my fingers, which were cold, and the wind that whispered along my neck. I heard the shushing of the trees swaying at the foot of the mountain and the dry rattle of winter grass. I heard the caw of the crow and the rustle of its wings as it settled on the rock before me. I felt the sunlight on my cheeks. But I felt nothing of the spell.
I shook myself free of the memory of summer afternoons with Gábor, failing at spell after spell. I could not fail here.
Just as despair reached clinging fingers into my heart, I sensed it: a faint pulsing that came from the stone itself. I opened my eyes to find Hunger watching me.
“Look,” he said, nodding at my hand.
The Romani bracelet I wore glowed faintly, vibrating against my skin and skimming the excesses of a powerful spell as it was designed to do. If I could reach the spell through the stone, somehow, and pull it into me…
I reached outward, or tried to. Nothing happened.
I could sense, dimly, the tremendous thrum of power all around me. But it was as if I were separated from it by an impenetrable glass. I wanted to weep.
“What sacrifice have you brought?” Hunger’s voice was rasping, jarring, but it pulled me out of my despairing reverie.
I held out my hands. “I brought myself.”
Hunger frowned. “If you die with the spell, the Binding will not break.”
My heart squeezed into a tight, painful ball. “Lady Berri said my blood would be enough.”
“Then your lady doesn’t know this spell. The spell needs heart’s blood—and you cannot give that and break the spell.”
“You’ve lied to me before. Why should I believe you?”
“I would not lie about this. The spell was bound in heart’s blood, with the power only death magic can bring. It must be broken with the same.”
I pressed my hands together. Somehow I knew that, had known it since I stepped into the spell, but I had been hiding from the knowledge. “Is there no creature—” I began, but Hunger cut across me.
“No creature here can provide what you need. We are part of the Binding.”
The crow fluttered down from its perch to land at my feet. With a tremor that passed through its entire frame, the crow lifted its wings and expanded, blossoming into a man-sized shadow. As the blackness bled away from the shrinking wings, I saw it was no bird at all, but a shapeshifter.
“I will be the sacrifice,” Mátyás said.
Hunger’s eyes lit with interest. “A táltos. I did not think your kind existed anymore.”
A shapeshifter. Once, on a sunny summer afternoon, Mátyás had told me the story of a Hungarian shapeshifter, how a táltos could travel between worlds. I remembered now the crow that had attacked two guards at Sárvár. The crow had been Mátyás himself, not just a bird moved by an Animanti spell.
“Why did you never tell me?” I asked.
“I did not want you to look at me differently,” Mátyás said. “Those who know always do.”
I stared at him, my heart filling with a terrible hope and a terrible despair, before flinging my arms around him. He smelled of sweat and something bitter, and I did not want to let him go.
“You can’t do this,” I said. “You will…” I could not bring myself to say the word die. Mátyás’s heart thumped beneath my cheek. He knew.
“And what if I do not? Then the Binding does not break, the Circle goes unchallenged, and William, Gábor, and all my friends will die.”
“They might die even if you do.”