Triumph thrills in my veins. I am done doing what Liam Gerling—or any Gerling—tells me. Before I can think better of it, or consider the consequences, I snatch up the brown notebook and slip out the back door.
I hurry around the building and down the street to the tavern, my head ducked in case Liam glances out the front window. My heart is pounding, making my head spin. When I reach the tavern, I lean against the brick exterior and open the journal, rifling through the pages, catching a glimpse here and there of numbers, dates, and notes. It’s in what must be Liam’s hand, neat and blocky, but one page catches my eye. The words themselves are familiar—strange, simple stories, but achingly familiar.
One night, Fox and Snake wanted to play a game of sticks. But the man in the tower said no. Fox was so angry, she crushed her soup bowl to powder, and Snake made it burst into flames. . . .
I devour the page. The words melt into one another and over me, hot and searing, like wax dripping from a candle. When I realize that, for some reason, I’m crying, I don’t wipe away the tears.
“I’ll free us,” Snake said. “All you have to do is trust me. . . .”
Stories. These are my stories, my games, from childhood. What could Liam possibly want with them? Am I to lose everything I’ve ever had at his hands?
Then Ina’s voice is at my back, shouting my name. I look up to see her and Caro emerging from the tavern.
Quickly, I slip the book into an inner pocket of my cloak. Ina and Caro are hurrying toward me, looking concerned. Ina sees the tears on my face and takes my hands in hers. But Caro is looking warily at something over my shoulder.
I follow her gaze to see Liam stalking toward us through the snow. My heart sinks—he must have realized his notebook was gone, and that I lied. I start polishing another lie in my head, not wanting Ina and Caro to know what I’ve done.
But he just stops a few feet away from us and bows low. “Lady Gold. I didn’t expect to meet you here.”
“Liam,” Ina greets him. She sounds wary. “What brings you here?”
“I saw Jules outside, and just wanted to catch up with an old friend,” Liam says coolly. He’s speaking to Ina, but his eyes don’t leave mine. “I’ve been thinking about the stories you used to tell, Jules. Do you remember?”
Fox crushed her bowl to powder; Snake made it burst into flames. A little girl’s nonsense. What does any of it matter to him? My hands curl into fists at my sides. From the gleam in his eyes, I know that he knows about the journal tucked into my cloak. We are having two parallel conversations, one that includes Ina and Caro and one that is just between us. “Childish things,” I say.
Liam shrugs elegantly. “They were good stories. You ought to try to remember them.”
Caro’s eyes narrow as she looks from me to him. “As nice as this is,” she says politely, “we still have one more stop tonight, Lord Gerling. I’m sure you don’t begrudge Lady Gold a little frivolity before her wedding.” She moves subtly so she’s in front of me, half shielding me from Liam’s gaze, and I feel a rush of gratitude for her.
“Not at all,” Liam says, his voice somehow gracious and cutting at the same time. “I’m sure my brother is doing the same. I’ll let you be on your way.”
Ina makes a face after Liam as he strides off, and I have to bite back a relieved laugh. I turn to mouth Thank you to Caro. But she is staring at me, her head cocked a little, like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve.
“I’m freezing,” Ina says. When neither of us respond, she threads her arm through mine and tugs on Caro’s sleeve. “Let’s go.” She has the gleam in her eyes that I’ve come to understand means she’s conceived some madcap idea—it’s the same look she had in the stables before we went to the orphanage, and in her room this evening when she told me of her plans for this last hurrah before her wedding. She squints at me.
“Jules,” she says, “why were you crying?”
“Just thinking of my father,” I tell her. “I needed some air.”
“Well.” She pauses, her voice hesitant. Then, she plunges on. “Caro’s had this thought—she knows this place—well, you tell her,” she finishes, turning to Caro. Ina’s swaying slightly, still holding on to my arm. Tipsy, I imagine, with madel.
Caro smiles her secret smile and tucks an arm around Ina’s waist. “Ina let slip that she’s curious about her birth parents,” she informs me in her soft voice. And I had an idea—I’ve heard stories about a hedge witch around here who can do blood regressions.”
“Blood regressions?” I echo. My heart is sinking. The realization of Ina and Roan’s impending departure, the glimpse of Addie pouring tea, and most of all the encounter with Liam have wrecked me. I feel grossly out of place in this elegant, smoky town, and I long to run; I want to be back at Everless or nowhere at all, to throw the Queen’s door open and demand that she spill her secrets.
Somewhere in the haze of the street lanterns, Caro is still speaking, explaining blood regressions—an old countryside ritual, where a hedge witch trances you into falling back through your own time and letting your buried memories float to the surface. I don’t understand—nor can I bring myself to care. I’m bone-tired, and just now appreciating how foolish I was to come here with Caro and Ina, foolish to think I could be like them, with their pretty dresses and strange larks.
But of course I am not in charge, of course arguing would be even worse, and so I don’t protest when Ina links her arms through both of ours and heads off.
I’ve long lost track of the passing hours, but I can tell by the low-hanging moon, the dark windows, and the exhaustion creeping into my bones that it must be well past midnight as Caro leads us down a side street and toward a small, ramshackle old storefront tucked between pubs. I stopped drinking before Ina and Caro, and so though they seem comfortable in their cloaks, I’m shivering as we knock, watching the thin crack of light that shows between the door and the ground.
I’ve never been out so late, and resentment toward Caro and Ina is growing. And I can’t help glancing nervously over my shoulder every few moments. Looking for Liam Gerling.
But the streets remain empty, a slight wind whistling off the sleeping buildings. It seems wrong to knock on a door in the dead of night, but Caro’s assured us that the hedge witch operates at all hours. As long as you can pay, she says.
After what seems a long time, the door opens to reveal a small, hunched old woman with gray hair down to her waist. She wears a tattered, patched gown that looks a little like that of Everless’s Lady Sida, out of style by a hundred years or so—but looking at Caro’s supposed lesser sorcerer, I can tell right away that she is more like me than the Gerling matriarch. Her age is the ordinary kind, her face burnished with sun and lined with the weight of years, though she’s powdered herself pale and painted her lips a bloody red.