Then there was Will. Kate wasn’t sure what there was with Will, not yet. She’d never had a chance to see boys as anything except bullies and threats, yet now here one was and she liked him. She liked him a lot.
“Then it sounds as though you should go,” Thomas said. “Before your distraction means that you hurt yourself.”
“But—” Kate began. She’d been intending to finish the work for the day, at least.
Thomas shook his head. “I’ll get by without an apprentice for another day. Or two, if you need it. Go on with you. I’ll try to salvage these horseshoes.”
Kate didn’t need a second invitation. She hurried out to the horse she’d stolen, looking around until she found the tack for it and then starting to fasten it all in place. She was halfway through it when she saw Will coming out of the house.
“Kate? You’re not going, are you?”
He sounded worried that she might be, maybe worried that she would want to leave after what had happened with his regiment.
“I’m not leaving forever,” Kate said, and smiled at the thought that it was the kind of thing a boy might say when he was going off to war. “It’s just… there are things I need to do. I need to get stronger.”
“Why?” Will asked. “You’re safe here. I could protect you.”
Kate shook her head. That wasn’t good enough. She didn’t just want to be safe when Will was around to protect her. She didn’t want to have to rely on someone else to stay safe, even him. She wanted to be strong in her own right, and now there was a way.
“I could come with you,” Will suggested.
“I think I need to do this alone,” Kate said, because anything else would have meant explaining exactly what she intended. Even after everything Geoffrey had said, she still had a hard time believing that there might be a magic fountain that could make her unbeatable. Trying to explain that to Will would be even worse.
“At least try to be safe?” Will said, moving to stand close to her. Close enough that for a moment, Kate thought that he was going to kiss her. He didn’t, though, and Kate found herself feeling a hint of disappointment at that.
Maybe when she got back.
“I will,” Kate said. “And I’ll be back soon, you’ll see.”
She would be. With the strength she got from the fountain, she would be able to do all the things she’d wanted.
***
The ride to the forest took longer than Kate expected. Her horse was strong and fast, but Kate wasn’t enough of a rider to send it to the south at a full gallop. Instead, she rode at a steady pace, sticking to the broad, paved roads at the start, then pulling off onto dirt tracks as the trees came into view.
She tried to remember the map from the book. The spot marked on it had been specific, but she hadn’t seen the map for long. There had been something about way markers, and a staircase. Kate just hoped that they would be obvious.
They were. She found the first of them before she reached the forest. It was a block of stone, designs on it worn almost smooth by time and weather. Kate’s fingers traced a design that could have been a fountain, or could have been the maw of some great beast. There was an arrow cut into the stone, pointing to a smaller track. Kate took it.
Slowly, the foliage started to surround Kate, pressing in until she had to dismount and lead the horse. She didn’t want to leave it, but the trail was getting narrow enough that she might have to if things kept going like this.
She caught a flash of worked stone by the trail, and it was such a contrast to the tangled branches that pulled at her that she stopped, looking at it more closely. Kate brushed away a tangle of ivy with her foot, and saw that beneath it there was the stone block of a step. Another stood above it, and another, in a set of stone steps that had been all but lost to time and moss.
Kate tied her horse off now, taking a knife from her saddlebags and the wooden sword that she’d made as a way to practice designing blades. She used the wooden blade to clear away some of the tangled foliage ahead of her, cutting with the knife whenever she needed a sharp edge.
Her hacking revealed more stone in the form of another way marker, this one almost as tall as she was. It had carved symbols on it, in the lines and swirls of a language that had nothing to do with the kingdom’s. There was something else too: an image of a fountain.
Kate’s breath caught at that, and she hurried up the rest of the steps, daring to hope that this might all be real. She’d been sure that this was all some story, and then that she wouldn’t be able to find the fountain even if it did exist. Now, it seemed as though it might just be a short way away.
Kate’s feet slipped and stumbled as she climbed the stone steps, moss giving way underneath her, while brambles that seemed solid as she grasped them proved to be anything but. She ended up leaning on her practice blade the way someone else might have used a walking stick, using it to test the ground ahead of her while she clambered up the crumbling steps. Each one seemed designed to challenge her as she made her way forward.
“I hope the fountain is worth it,” Kate said as she climbed.
Although it wasn’t that far, the climb was difficult enough that it took her long minutes to reach the top. When she did, there was another short path through even denser trees, which seemed to block out the light, turning the world into something strange and unknown. They tangled together to form a kind of leafy arch, and Kate stepped through it, into an open space on the other side.
There were no trees here, just more of the ancient stone she’d clambered up to get here. It stood in the ruins of something that seemed far older, with fragments of wall there sticking out of the turf like teeth, and broken columns seeming like fingers reaching up through the grass. All of them were the dilapidated relics of some far earlier time, before the civil wars, maybe before even the kingdom.
The fountain stood at the heart of it, and one glance at it made Kate’s heart fall.
In another time, it might have been impressive. It was broad and dark, cut from local stone so finely that it seemed to be a natural extrusion from the landscape rather than a man-made structure. It was a broad shell shape, curling up with a statue standing at the center that might have been a woman once, but was now so covered in moss that it was hard to tell.
The fountain wasn’t flowing anymore.
That fact, more that the rest of it, told Kate just how useless her journey now was. Crumbling stonework wasn’t promising, but ultimately, it meant nothing. She’d come for a fountain, though. She’d assumed that there might be something special about the water there, something magical. Now that there was no water, it felt as though she’d let herself get carried away by what Geoffrey had told her. It felt stupid, to spend her time here rather than at the forge, crafting the sword that was currently only wooden.
Kate sat back against the fountain, closing her eyes to push back tears. She’d been so stupid to come here. Stupid to think that she could ever be as strong as the boys from Will’s regiment. It had been an empty dream.
“Why would a fountain make someone strong?” Kate demanded of the forest around her.
“Fountains can’t,” a woman’s voice said. “But if people are looking for a fountain, it makes it easier for me to find them.”
Kate’s eyes snapped open, and she stood, holding her wooden practice sword out in front of her. A woman stood there, wearing a hooded robe of deep, forest green. She had dark hair that appeared to be tangled with ivy, and eyes of a leaf green that seemed to match the plants around her. She was older than Kate, perhaps thirty, but with a look to her that said she might be even older than that.
“I’ve been threatened with many things before,” the woman said. She pushed aside Kate’s practice blade gently. “Never with a stick.”
“I—” Kate lowered the weapon. “I’m sorry, you caught me by surprise.”
“But you came to this place,” she said. “You came looking for help, or you would not be here.”
“I just didn’
t expect…” Kate began. She realized that she must sound like an idiot. “Who are you?”
Instinctively, Kate reached out to read the other woman’s mind, but all that met her was something that felt as solid as a wall. Her attempt to get through just slid off it, and Kate stared at the other woman in shock.
“I am someone who is not so easily read by a gift such as yours,” she replied, although she didn’t seem angry at the intrusion. If anything, she seemed happy about it, which was the one reaction Kate hadn’t expected. “And now you are wondering if we are the same. We are not the same, girl. Mine is a much darker version of your powers. And much more twisted. One you should beware to pry too deeply into.”
Kate suddenly felt a flash of this woman’s mind, as if sent to her, and she involuntarily raised her hands to her ears and shrieked. It was so dark, so awful, a blur of horrific images, all moving too fast to make out, but leaving an impression of incredible horror.
Finally, it stopped.
Kate removed her hands from her ears, breathing hard, staring wide-eyed. Never in her life had someone invaded her mind like that. She had all this time assumed she was impervious. That no one else’s mind was more powerful than hers.
She looked this woman—if that’s what she was—up and down with a new fear, and a new respect. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come here after all.
The woman grinned in return, an ugly, invasive grin.
“Who are you?” Kate asked again.
The woman was silent for a long time. Finally, she spoke.
“Some call me Siobhan,” she said. “But names are merely labels for the weak. You have come here for a reason. Ask for what it is you want, and I will tell you the price.”
Kate blinked.
“I don’t understand,” Kate said.
The woman frowned, and Kate could guess at the disapproval there.
“Don’t waste my time, girl. You came here for a reason. You were looking for something. What is it?”
Kate swallowed, but refused to allow herself to be cowed by Siobhan’s tone. She would be strong.
“I want to be able to fight,” she said. “I want to have enough power that I’m never helpless again.”
The other woman stood there in silence for a few heartbeats. Kate could feel each one thudding against the inside of her chest. What would she do when the other woman said no? What would she do when Siobhan told her that it was impossible, and Kate was wasting her time?
“You have a talent, and I could teach you to build on it. I could teach you to fight in ways that have nothing to do with the crude strength of men. I could teach you to harness powers beyond anything you’ve seen.”
She made it sound so simple, when her whole life, Kate had been told that there were some things that were too evil even to talk about. There was a reason Kate and Sophia had hidden what they could do.
“You wouldn’t have to be afraid of what you are any longer,” Siobhan said. “You could be strong. You could be free. My kind can help yours, if you let us.”
A part of Kate wanted to say yes, but she knew better than to do that. People were rarely so generous.
“And what would you want?” Kate asked.
Siobhan seemed pleased. “In return, two things.”
“Two things?” Kate retorted.
“You ask a great deal of me,” the woman replied. “Two things does not seem unreasonable.”
She made it sound almost playful, as though the whole thing was a game. There was something about the laugh that followed that almost didn’t seem human. It seemed as though the forest itself was laughing.
“What things?” Kate asked, in spite of it.
“Apprentice to me and learn all I wish to teach you.”
That didn’t sound so different from the arrangement she had with Thomas. It didn’t sound so different, in a lot of ways, to the best kind of arrangement that might have resulted from her indenture.
“And the second thing?” Kate asked.
The other woman stepped into the fountain, and for a moment, shimmered. Kate saw an image of it bright and new, filled with water. The statue above shone, and it looked far too similar to the witch there for Kate’s taste.
There came a long silence. Then:
“A favor.”
Kate cocked her head to one side. “What favor?”
Siobhan laughed that worrying laugh again. She seemed to be enjoying this whole thing far too much. “I haven’t decided. But you would do it, whatever it was.”
That was a much bigger thing to ask. Kate wasn’t sure that she could stomach that.
She shook her head. It was too much. It was far too much. She sensed this woman’s darkness, and she sensed that, whatever favor it was, it would be horrific. It would be like selling her soul.
She backed away from the fountain, one step at a time.
“No,” she said, surprised to hear her own words, surprised to hear herself turn down the only thing she’d ever wanted.
The woman merely grinned in return, as if knowing Kate had no choice.
Kate backed away, and as soon as she reached the steps, she ran, stumbling as she went. Siobhan’s mad laughter followed her.
“I’ll be here when you change your mind.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Sophia still couldn’t believe that Sebastian had proposed to her. She’d barely been able to get used to the fact that she’d found a place in the palace as his lover, and now, suddenly, his ring sat on her finger. She couldn’t believe that things had swept forward so quickly, and that she was now getting married. It felt like being carried along by a stream, so fast that there was no way to know what was happening half the time.
Sophia hadn’t known that planning a wedding could involve so much. She had known that it wouldn’t just be a question of finding a priest, when it came to royalty, but there were complexities that she had never considered. There were feasts to be organized, announcements to be made. There were even permissions to be sought, because the dowager and the Assembly of Nobles would have to give their blessing before a prince’s marriage could go ahead. The latter, according to those officials she asked, would be a formality. This was one matter where the nobles would go along with whatever their ruler said.
Getting Sebastian’s mother to agree sounded like anything but a formality. She had been kind enough during the dinner where Sophia had met her, but Sophia wasn’t stupid enough to believe that a ruler would be happy about one of her sons marrying someone who couldn’t cement an alliance or bring in new lands. Currently, Sophia found herself surrounded by a small coterie of helpers, with a clerk going through all the etiquette of asking permission, a dressmaker working on designs for a wedding gown, and the palace cook talking about whether they should have swan or goose.
“Obviously, it’s the tradition here, but I thought that perhaps I could do a selection of delicacies from your home.”
Their names flickered through the cook’s mind, so Sophia picked a couple, then waved the issue away.
“I’m sure you’ll make it wonderful, whichever you choose,” Sophia said. She wished that Cora were there to help her navigate a route through it all.
She wished that Sebastian were there, rather than caught up in preparations for the army and the role he would have within it. Sophia felt as though there was only so much she could do alone and being with him… well, that was kind of the point of all this, wasn’t it? What was the point of getting married if her husband-to-be wasn’t even there?
If she were just doing this to have a good life, that might not have mattered. She could have designed the dream wedding, without the almost unnecessary presence of a husband. Sophia could imagine Angelica sitting quite happily in one of Sebastian’s rooms, ordering around servants as she planned for her position as his wife.
Sophia wanted Sebastian. More than that, she loved him. She felt the ache of need whenever he wasn’t there, and the world seemed to brighten whenever he was. Now, it seemed that she
was trapped in the middle of preparations for a wedding, without the chance to actually see her husband-to-be.
Then he was there, and Sophia stood to throw her arms around him. She was shocked when he took a step back.
“Sebastian?”
“Come with me, Sophia,” he said.
“What is this about?” Sophia asked. She tried to pick the answer from Sebastian’s thoughts, but right then, those were a tangled mess, filled with hurt and confusion. There was too much in there at once to focus on any one strand. “Did something happen? Sebastian, what’s going on?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that,” Sebastian said, in a tone that made Sophia’s blood seem to turn to ice. Something had gone wrong. The girls in the castle had invented a rumor about her, or his mother had refused the marriage. Maybe the shop to which she had sold the dress had come to tell Sebastian about his new bride. There were so many things that could have gone wrong with her plan that it always seemed as though it was held together only through gossamer strands.
Sophia didn’t know which thing had gone wrong, so she followed Sebastian through the palace, moving from the main quarters to the guest rooms, going to one where everything seemed ordinary, except that a guard stood outside the door.
“Thank you,” Sebastian said to the man. “You can go now.”
“Yes, your highness,” the man said. He walked off, but just his presence made Sophia wonder what was going on there.
When Sebastian pushed open the door, she had an answer of sorts. The room had been repurposed as an artist’s studio, most of the furniture stripped away to make way for canvasses stretched out, ready for work. Sophia didn’t have to ask whose quarters these were: they were obviously for Laurette van Klet, the artist Sebastian had brought in to create a portrait of Sophia. The sketches of Sophia said as much. Even the beginnings of a painting sat at the heart of it all, worked in oil. It wasn’t anywhere near complete yet, and Sophia suspected that it was itself a preparatory piece for a bigger work, but it was still further along than she’d thought, showing her as she’d been in the garden, informal and more beautiful than she suspected she was in real life.