“Go.” Amma is blinking away tears.
Even though I feel Ivan’s eyes on us, I wrap my arms around my friend, pulling her close. “Look after my sister,” she whispers into my hair.
When I don’t break our embrace, she gives my shoulder a little push. “Go!”
Numbly, I obey, feeling the eyes of the crowd like a weight. I clamber into the cart and seat myself amid the other favored girls—all young, all pretty, but silent and stunned as we look back at our rejected friends, our sisters. The line is already half dissolved, and those who haven’t been chosen drift away into the rising fog. It’s only when the square starts to thin out that I see the tax collector, leaning under the grocer’s awning, watching the proceedings with his arms crossed. I stare hard at him until he notices, glancing up to meet my eyes. He gives me a short nod, like a stamp on our agreement—he’ll come for his time when I’m back. I let out the breath I’ve been holding, and murmur another prayer to the Sorceress.
Keep my father safe.
And: May he forgive me.
The men move through the remaining girls. Thirty-year-old Nora’s sent home with a jeer. Little Alia is already in the hay cart. Suddenly, I remember that as a child, I asked my father why there were so many children at Everless. They work harder for less, he answered, his voice brittle. They have no place else to go.
When the men are finished, about twenty girls sit crammed between the two carts. I’ve won my place at Everless, but I don’t feel favored at all. I feel like Amma has won this game, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
But it’s too late to turn back. The hay cart moves forward with a jolt. It smells faintly of manure. There are twelve of us inside, packed shoulder to shoulder on bales of hay. I put my arm around Alia—she’s crying silently, her eyes fixed on the town receding behind us. On my other side is a woman, Ingrid, from a farm a few miles from ours. She seems determined to remain cheerful, despite the morning’s nauseating selection process and the wind that bites at our faces as we trundle along the unpaved road.
“I heard Everless is five hundred years old,” she chirps as the village fades behind us. I refuse to turn around and watch it disappear. I’m half afraid that if I do, I’ll simply hurtle out of the cart and run home. “Imagine! They must have lesser sorcerers holding up the walls with spells.”
They’ve no need of magic to hold up their walls, because money serves just as well. But I have no desire to join in the girls’ excited speculation, so I turn away instead and feign interest in the low, patchy green curves of the Sempera countryside. When Papa was in better health, he’d borrow a horse from a friend and take me for rides outside the village. We should know our country, he’d instruct, and I wonder if he’d planned to flee Crofton someday, if we ever drew the notice of the Gerlings again.
Aside from Ingrid, no one says much. I can feel the others’ nervousness as the plains give way to woods, huge old pine trees that tower over us. This forest is owned by the Gerlings, but even they don’t hunt here—these woods are frightening, older than the one I roamed yesterday, and much darker.
Alia finally speaks up. “Calla said there’s fairies in these woods,” she says. Her eyes are wide. Like most in Crofton, she hasn’t ventured more than three miles outside its borders, except for the trip her mother made to save her.
“Fairies, indeed!” a girl in front calls out. “They’ll lure you in with their beauty, then drink the time from your veins.” She’s obviously teasing, but there’s a note of strain in her voice.
“It’s true!” declares another girl, her red hair coiled in a way that can only be deliberate. “Happened to my aunt. She got lost in the woods one day and woke up an old woman.”
“Lied about selling time, more likely,” someone else mutters.
“Fairies aren’t the worst of it.” This girl has beautiful dark skin and vivid blue eyes: she was one of the first to be chosen. “This forest is where the Alchemist roams. He still carries the Sorceress’s heart with him in a paper bag.”
“No, he ate her heart,” Ingrid corrects.
“Well,” the other girl says, with a roll of her eyes. “He’ll take yours, too, if you wander among the trees. Even the Sorceress won’t be able to save you.”
Alia squeaks in alarm. “Why? Why does he take hearts?”
“He hates people, so he gives the time in their hearts back to the trees!” the girl starts.
“Stop your nonsense,” someone else cuts in. Meanwhile, Alia’s lip is trembling, so I lean close.
“Pay them no mind,” I whisper. “The myths are only stories. The woods are nothing to fear.” I sit up without finishing the thought: I don’t know about the Alchemist, but the monsters she’ll meet at Everless are more dangerous than any fairies.
Then, the forest abruptly peters out, and we are in Laista, the small, prosperous town surrounding the Everless walls, where no buildings are permitted to be more than a story high. I remember Papa telling me that the Gerlings’ ancestors razed the trees and leveled the hills for miles around Everless so that the men who walk the parapets can see anyone who approaches. The sandstone walls come into view, each dotted with dozens of guards. From this distance, they look like figurines.
Instinctively, I slump down in my seat as we creak through Laista’s narrow streets toward the gates. When we’re close enough, one of the guards at the top of the wall commands us with a shout to stop.
The world is silent, still, frozen except for the beating of my heart. Next to me, Alia’s mouth is open, a wisp of hair sticking to her bottom lip. At the top of the wall, the guards are stone-faced, motionless. I have a sense the whole world is coming to an end, collapsing into that single moment.
Then, there’s an enormous scraping noise—the foot-thick, iron-studded slabs of wood and metal shuddering into motion—and our cart lurches forward again.
A shadow passes over us, and we are inside.
4
Everless is a thicket of towers and palisades, picture windows with paned frosted glass, and balconies hung with flags of green and gold. An alley of carefully tended trees cuts everything in half, including the estate. At one end, the path is stoppered by the gate, where we enter; though it’s not visible from where we sit, I know at the other end is a lake, bounded by Everless’s walls and blackened with old ice and shadows.