The Seamstress broke the silence. She waved a hand at the corner of the cabin. “You look the same size as I was back when I had need of boots, Shadow Queen. There might be some over there.”
She was loathe to turn her back on these two, but Neve did need shoes. She went to the corner and brushed away cobwebs, finding a dusty pair that looked ancient but intact enough to be an improvement over bare feet. She shoved the boots on and laced them up, glad for something to cut the chill even if it was centuries old.
Behind her, Solmir and the Seamstress stood in silence. But it was a heavy kind, one that made her wonder if they were carrying on a mental conversation of their own, one she’d been dismissed for.
“Thank you,” she said as she walked the short distance back across the cabin, both out of genuine thanks and as a way to signal her presence if they were deep in each other’s thoughts.
The Seamstress didn’t look at her but gave Solmir a sad, small smile. “One favor for another.” Her legs turned, revealing what she’d taken from the cupboard.
A bone.
On first glance, it looked like a human femur. But the proportions were off—it was too short, the nodule at one end too small. The other end had been carved into a sharp point, making it about the size and shape of a dagger.
“The Weaver gave me this,” she said, peering at the ivory as if she could see a future in it. Maybe she could. “So many eons ago, when I was just a human woman with no idea what awaited me. A bone from one of my Weaver’s own legs, as a token of our devotion.” Her eyes turned to Solmir. “You have been a good friend, once-King. At least, in the way of friends in this place. And you hold the magic for the Shadow Queen.” She put the bone in Solmir’s hand and, slowly, knelt before him. “You will need more. And I am so tired.”
Understanding slipped into place like a hand to a glove; the death of the wormlike lesser beast, the way it broke into shadow—but the shadow had been magic, unmoored from the Shadowlands, free for the taking.
That’s what the Seamstress offered. More magic, through her death.
“I grow weary, Solmir. This world dies all around us.” She looked up, faceted eyes peaceful. “My power is small. But you will need every scrap of it you can get, to do what you must do.”
The King’s eyes blazed blue, a battle in them whose sides Neve couldn’t make sense of. Then he nodded, one jerk of his chin.
“May the next world be kinder, Beloved,” he said quietly.
The Seamstress closed her eyes, smiled. “It has to be.”
Then Solmir plunged the sharpened bone into her neck.
No blood. Instead, shadows, spilling from the wound like smoke. Scraps of magic skittering away from a dead vessel.
Solmir raised his hand. The shadows flocked to him, inking his palm black, his forearm, seeping up to his heart. His teeth set on edge, but he made no sound.
Neve wondered if it hurt.
Thank you.
It was a bare breath of sound against the inside of her skull, and she somehow knew Solmir heard the same thing, a warped kind of intimacy.
Then the Seamstress was gone, the cottage empty but for Neve and Solmir. She didn’t even leave a stain on the floor, no sign of her life but the pulsing shadow working through Solmir’s veins. Slowly, it faded, packed down and shut away.
Solmir stared at the spot on the floor where the Seamstress’s body should be. Then he turned and strode out the door.
With a ragged swallow, Neve followed.
The cold air of the Shadowlands seemed almost fresh after the close quarters of the cottage. The three-eyed goat bleated in the yard, this time with a sound like shattering glass.
Solmir didn’t face her, but when she approached, he held out the bone. “You take this.” His voice was flat, inflectionless. “Only the bone of a god can kill another, and they must be gods that were made in the same way.”
It was smooth and heavy in her hand, but weighed less than Neve thought it should. “So it could kill you?”
“Don’t sound too excited.” Solmir started forward. “I’m not a god anymore.”
The goat bleated again, the sound of two blades meeting, and Neve turned to look at it, balancing the bone in her hand.
She thought of power, of need.
Solmir’s eyes tracked from her to the goat, to the bone twisting in her grip. “Not much power,” he said softly, the answer to a question she hadn’t the stomach to ask. “But some.”
“She said we would need it,” Neve whispered.
A nod.
“Will this thing kill it?”
“Lesser beasts aren’t gods; they can be vanquished by any god-bone, not just one from a creature made in the same way,” Solmir said. “It’s only gods themselves that get particular.”
She nodded, the pad of her finger absently rubbing at the smooth ivory. “Can you take more?”
His lips skinned back from his teeth. “I can always take more.”
Cautiously, Neve stepped toward the goatlike lesser beast. It bleated when she slammed the bone into its throat, and it sounded like a woman’s scream.
Chapter Six
Neve
Neither of them spoke as they pushed through the inverted trees again, growing so close together Neve could use them like handholds as she picked her way over the uneven ground. Walking was much easier in boots.
Up ahead, Solmir didn’t move with the predator-like grace she’d grown to expect. He seemed shaky, almost, like someone fighting off the first throes of a fever. His veins flickered sporadic darkness, fingers flexing out and then in again, as if something was trying to work out of them.
She eyed him warily. He’d said he could always take more magic, but it looked like it wasn’t as easy as he’d made it sound.
Something almost like concern rose in her chest. Neve hated that. Solmir didn’t deserve her concern.
Still, he was the only thing that seemed even marginally safe in the entire Shadowlands. And her only source of magic, if she didn’t want to twist into something monstrous.
Another quake moved through the ground, making her cling to the trunk of an inverted tree to keep from falling. Ahead, Solmir did the same, steadying himself with one black-flickering hand against pale bark. When the earth settled, he spared her a glance to make sure she was in one piece before heading off again.
But then he stumbled, just slightly, disrupting his precise speed. He stopped, turned to face her, jaw drawn tight and hand pressed against his middle. His eyes were cast downward, but when Neve advanced a step, they flickered up to hers. She froze.
The whites of Solmir’s eyes had gone completely dark.
Neve wanted to back away, to hold up her hands between them as a paltry shield. Instead, she frowned, hoping it covered her fear. “Are you going to pass out?”