Sightwitch (The Witchlands 0.5)

Were it not for the Rook pecking my cheek every few minutes, I probably would have given in to Sirmaya’s final sleep forever.

The quicksilver was halfway through the hourglass when I saw a platform perhaps forty paces ahead and wide as the observatory. I could stop there. I could build a fire and escape these grasping claws of drowsy death.

Moments blurred past. Drip, drip, drip.

I reached the platform.

Tears sprang to my eyes as I stumbled for the center. Fire. I just wanted a fire. The Rook took flight, winging toward a pile of rags against the ice wall. Only with him gone did I realize how much heat he’d been emitting.

My pack fell to the stone with a loud thwack. Dust puffed up, or perhaps frost. I didn’t bother to examine it closely because I could not have cared less.

Fire, fire, FIRE. Nothing mattered beyond getting warm.

I heaped out three Firewitched matches, each the length of my forearm. I’d never used them before, but I’d seen Sister Ute do it often enough in the kitchens, singing, “Smack the dough and pound the dough, hammer it and knead it,” the whole time.

“Ignite,” I whispered.

The magic answered in a flash of light, a crack of sound, and then heat. Blessed, beautiful heat to cascade over me.

Slowly, as the quicksilver gathered in my hourglass, I thawed, all while Sister Ute’s song tickled against my brain over and over.

Smack the dough and pound the dough,

Hammer it and knead it.

Pies and tarts and bread with jam,

Who wouldn’t want to eat it?



On the third sing-through I realized I was rasping the words aloud—and I also noticed the Rook making a fuss behind me.

He clicked and hissed, so with my hands still hovering above the fire’s warmth, I glanced back.

And straight into a pair of gray eyes.

A man’s eyes.

I screeched. Then almost tipped into the fire. Arms swinging, I stayed upright just long enough to lurch around … and then hit the floor with a painful thump.

Before me, the pile of rags had unfurled into a very tall, very pale man covered in black oil.

“A fire,” the man said in Nubrevnan. “How excellent.”



A man. Standing in front of me. Filthy skin, pale hair, speaking Nubrevnan.

I would not have been more surprised if Tanzi had suddenly appeared. In fact, that would have been a thousandfold less surprising than this.

My fingers moved for my knife. Poor defense against a man so large—and he was large, all shoulders and long limbs—but I would take what I could get.

His hands shot up defensively. Even his palms were dirty. “I won’t hurt you. I just want the warmth.” His voice was rough as an avalanche. He motioned to my fire. “May I?”

“No,” I said flatly. Then I unsheathed my knife and thrust it out.

He sighed. His hands fell, and for several long breaths, we stared each other down. The crack and pop of the Firewitched matches echoed around us. Even the Rook stayed absolutely still, absolutely silent.

The Rules were very clear about what to do with Accidental Guests of the male variety, and I had seen firsthand how that law was carried out. It had happened the year Tanzi arrived. A hunter had lost his way in a blizzard. He’d managed to pass through the glamour, and he’d ended up at the Convent’s front gate.

Sister Rose had wielded the knife. No questions asked, no hesitation, no remorse.

“It is the will of Sirmaya,” Hilga explained to Tanzi and me later. “And Rule 37 leaves no room for misunderstanding.”

But today—right now—I wasn’t actually in the Convent. I was inside the mountain, and there was plenty of room for misunderstanding.

Drip, drip, drip went the quicksilver. A reminder I did not have time for distractions. For men.

I broke our standstill first. “How did you get in here?”

“A good question. One for which I have no good answer.”

“Meaning you don’t know.”

“No clue.”

I rubbed at my throat with my free hand. Either my Nubrevnan was bad, or he had a roundabout way of speaking.

Likely both.

“Stop that,” I snapped.

“Stop what?” His hands lifted higher.

“Whatever you’re doing with your face.”

“This is my attempt at a smile. To calm you.” He smiled even wider, and I shuddered. The stretching of his lips and crinkling of his eyes made him look like he wanted to eat me.

He sighed. His face and shoulders drooped. “I suppose I’ve forgotten how to smile along with everything else …” He trailed off. Then he flung up a hand, eyes widening. “Um, there’s something behind you.”

“I’m not stupid.”

He gulped. “No doubt that’s true, but I’m not lying. A shadow is rising behind you. Very snake-like in shape—and very large.”

At that moment, the Rook erupted in a warning of feathers and howling.

So I turned.

I saw.

Ink spilled across the ice. Darkness slithering in two distinct columns, each with a thousand feathery legs on either side.

“Shadow wyrms,” I said at the same moment the man said, “Hagfishes.”

I flinched. He was right beside me, and this close, there was no ignoring how much he stank.

Of course, my awareness of his stench was a cursory, background thing compared to the approaching wyrms.

I had seen pictures of shadow wyrms in Tüll’s Compendium of Creatures. Though nothing in that tome had prepared me for their size—easily as long as the Convent—nor for the sound they made.

If it could even be called a sound. It was more a punch of surprise in my chest. Of hunger in my belly.

It was, in all ways, the opposite of the spirit swifts’ gentle call. This was visceral. This was hard. This was deadly.

“I think maybe we should run!” the man shouted, voice distorted by the shadow wyrms’ cry.

“I agree!” I shouted back, pivoting for the fire. “But not together!” I grabbed for the Firewitched matches. I couldn’t leave them behind. They were all I had for warmth. “Douse,” I commanded, and the flames snuffed out.

A half breath later, the wyrms stopped screaming. Somehow, the silence was worse. An echo to jitter down my spine and knock inside my organs.

The beasts were coming this way. Crossing over the glacier ceiling, they would soon reach the path behind us.

“I know you specifically said ‘not together,’” the man said, “but I don’t have a choice. You’re running this way, I’m running this way, and if we don’t do it at the same time, then one of us is going to die—”

“Enough!” I shrieked. “Come on!”

Another scream knifed over us, but we were running now. No time to dwell, no time to look back.

For the second time that day, I ran for my life.

The wyrms didn’t like it. They let loose another cry that hardened in my belly and tangled in my limbs.

I stumbled. My pack listed sharply forward—had it always been this heavy? But the man steadied me with a grip.

“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, an instinctive reaction. Even with the shared enemy of the shadow wyrms, I still did not know who this man was or what he wanted.