“We got word to him that you’re safe. So. You have a choice. Would you rather stay dead and leave town? Or go back and take your chances?” He held up a hand. “Before you decide, you should know that the king an’t forgot about you. The blackbirds is looking for you on the quiet. Asking questions, trying to find out who you are. Nobody knows nothing, of course.”
Jenna’s middle hardened like iron slag. “Delphi’s my home. I’m not going to leave my da behind.”
“Wouldn’t he go with you? To save your life?”
“He’d have to leave the inn behind,” Jenna said. “It’s not that easy to make a living these days. He’s too old to start over. I don’t want to ask him to do that.”
Fletcher sighed. “I figured you’d say that. What if you come back as somebody else? Somebody brand-new to town, with a different name?”
Jenna thought about it. Could she really pull it off? She’d always liked pretending to be somebody else.
“I know it’s a risk, if you’re found out,” Fletcher said. “I just don’t want that boy Riley to have died for nothing.”
Me neither, Jenna thought, her fingers finding the raised emblem on the back of her neck. It was all her fault. First, she’d drawn the attention of the Breaker by laying claim to a power she didn’t have, a destiny rooted in witchery and fairy tales. Then she’d jumped the king with no thought to what might happen to those around her.
She wasn’t a child—she couldn’t afford to be a child anymore. This was real life, not a fairy story, and she wouldn’t forget that again. She’d come back as someone whose feet were planted firmly on the ground.
“All right, we’ll try it,” she said, blotting tears away with her forearm. “Could I ask you something?”
“Ask away,” Fletcher said. “I don’t know that I’ll have the answer.”
“Is it true, what they say? That you’re one of those Patriots?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to join up,” Jenna said. “I mean to make Arden pay for what they’ve done.” By “Arden” she really meant the king of Arden, but he was far away already. So she’d start close to home.
Jenna thought he would say no, would tell her she was too young, that it was too dangerous. Instead, he gave her a long, studying look. “You know what happens if you get caught,” he said.
Jenna thought about Riley, about how he died, and tried to ignore the shiver of fear that went through her. “If not for you, I’d be dead already.”
“True enough,” Fletcher said, rubbing his chin. “We’ll see.” It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, either.
“There’s one thing I just don’t get,” Jenna said. “The bad times really started after the explosion last year. What makes the king think we blew up the mine on purpose?”
“What makes you think that we didn’t?” Brit Fletcher said.
Their eyes met, and held. “Good,” Jenna said. “I’m going to help you burn Arden to the ground.”
5
THE VOYAGEUR
Adrian lay on his belly on a rooftop in the city of Delphi, peering down at the shop below. A gnarled walking staff hung next to the door, the sign of the Voyageur. Over the doorframe, a wooden sign had weathered to a whisper. La Ancienne. The Old One. Voyageur children with stick-straight black hair, flat noses, and thick, embroidered sheepswool coats herded goats around the yard.
It was two weeks since his father had died, ten days since he’d slipped across the border onto enemy ground. Since his stays at Marisa Pines lodge in the high country, Adrian knew how to survive in the mountains and navigate off-trail. The border was porous to a single rider in a white winter cloak—even a rider with a bad ankle, a stolen pony, and a broken heart.
Riding into Delphi was like descending into a fuming, sulfurous hell—if hell happened to be bitterly cold. The air was thick enough to chew, but almost impossible to breathe. It stung Adrian’s eyes and set him to coughing. Everything was covered with a layer of soot and coal dust thick enough to kill what little color there was. The people were thin and haggard and hollow-eyed, so worn out and weary that they took little notice of a stable boy with mud-brown hair (the result of a night spent rubbing black walnut paste and strong tea into it).
He’d come here hoping to intercept the healer Taliesin Beaugarde on her way to Oden’s Ford. She’d told Adrian that she planned to visit relatives in Delphi who owned a shop that sold herbs and remedies. This was the only one in town, so it had to be the place. He’d been watching it for a week, and there’d been no sign of Taliesin so far. It was risky to stay here, but he had nowhere else to go.
The ankle was worrisome—swollen twice its size, purple and green. Maybe he deserved whatever pain he was in, but he wouldn’t seek healing from someone he didn’t know. A wizard can’t use his gift to heal himself, and incompetence would only make matters worse. So he kept it wrapped and hoped for the best.