“What do you want us to be, then?”
“Honest with each other.” He closed his eyes, and even as sleep tried to pull him back under, he fought it.
“Loom?” She hesitated. “I’m sorry for what’s happening to your kingdom. The explosion, the war—all of it.” Her voice was soft. “You can’t know how sorry I am.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he murmured, and his fingers wove between hers. “I’ve never hated the North the way much of my kingdom does. I don’t blame the Nearsh people for this.”
Wil knew the words he didn’t say: that he blamed the Northern royals. He blamed the king and queen and all their children.
Was it true? She tried to imagine what it would be like for her in the castle now. Baren as heir, manipulating the guards to enforce his bidding. Gerdie sweating over his cauldron. And her, the one whose features betrayed no royal beauty at all, sneaking into the underground market of the Port Capital to play spy and gather tools that could be fashioned into weapons.
Maybe not, she tried to reason. Maybe she and Gerdie would have fled by now, and the queen as well, if she could be persuaded to leave her husband.
None of this mattered to Loom. If he knew who she really was, if he knew whose blood went through her veins, he’d have thrown her overboard by now.
Soon, footsteps filled the hallway, and men appeared in the doorway holding a gurney fashioned from wooden posts and burlap.
There were three of them. Two held the gurney while a third rolled Loom’s prone body onto it. He groaned but didn’t open his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Wil said. “Where are you taking him?”
“To Pahn, where did you think?” Zay was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. “I had to convince him that a banished prince who tested his limits was still worth saving, and he sent his apprentices to collect him.”
The men moved up the stairs, hoisting the gurney between them. Wil followed, Zay a step beside her carrying Ada. It was after dark now, and the carriage was the only thing to see. Its windows were illuminated by the electric white glow therein.
Several months back, Owen returned from a sojourn and described the electric carriages that were beginning to appear like crops in technologically advanced cities. Their own father was still resistant to them, and unwilling to dig into the coffers to pave the roads to accommodate them besides.
The machine before her was still unlike anything Wil had been able to imagine from her brother’s stories. It was tall, with slender wheels that came nearly to her shoulders. She could feel its loud thrum in her legs and in her teeth, as though she were an appliance to be charged as well.
She couldn’t help admiring the thing, even as the men hoisted Loom unceremoniously onto the backseat and folded the gurney. Zay followed after him, and then came Wil at a cautious distance. The inside of the carriage was spacious, the seat upholstered with tufted black velvet. Wil ran her palm against the fabric wonderingly.
If Loom were awake, he’d be all too eager to explain how the carriage worked. He loved explaining things, as though the world itself were a gift he was presenting to her.
Wil reached for his wrist to feel his pulse. Steady, if faint. One of his fingers twitched at the touch of her steel glove. A thick blue vein in his wrist sat at the center of a slender tattoo of a steerwolf’s head, canted and howling; its scruff receded into thorny vines.
His body was a collection of little stories, inky vignettes all connected by one long vine that ran through each of them. What did they mean? Had he wanted them, or were they obligations? Did he wear them the way she wore her own illusions? Had they hurt?
She traced a crease in his palm. She wanted to know these stories. She wanted to know all his stories.
The ride was silent. Zay held Loom’s head in her lap and wound his hair around her fingers as she stared on. A flash of light darting past the window revealed the worry on Zay’s face. Wil was taken aback by how vulnerable she looked.
The electric thrum of the carriage was loud in the night.
They drove into a city that was hardwired with burning blue bulbs of light along the streets. Wires dripped down the sides of buildings like rain. Lights and life poured from windows and open doors. Bright signs advertised gambling huts and all-night dining. In the distance, peppered throughout the city Wil could see slender stars spinning, their metal faces gleaming on the electric lights; she wondered at what they were. She was in awe of all of it, but she couldn’t focus on the surroundings. Loom’s breathing had taken on a slow rattle with frighteningly long pauses in between.
They drove beyond the lights of the city and down a hilly dirt road, and Wil thought of Zay walking all this way with Ada in tow.
The carriage stopped in a field with nothing but trees. No—Wil could make out the faint outline of a staircase lit by lanterns with artificial flames. Also electrical, she presumed.
The men got out of the carriage and unfolded the gurney.
When Wil stepped outside, the chill in the air struck her all at once. In her earlier frenzied state she had not bothered to notice that they were no longer in the land of eternal summer, and that this was November in the North.
Zay moved beside her, hugging her arms, shaking but not entirely from the cold.
“Why haven’t they said anything to us?” Wil whispered.
“They aren’t allowed to speak until they’ve completed their apprenticeship and become marvelers. They’ve vowed to do all he asks of them without question.”
“How long will that be?”
“Years, usually.”
Hoisting the gurney between them, the men began their trek up the stairs, and Wil and Zay followed. Ada had fallen asleep, and Zay carried him to her chest like he was no burden to bear.
Wil stopped counting after the fiftieth step. She strained her ears to listen for Loom’s breathing instead. As long as he was breathing, he could be saved, she told herself.
Honest with each other. Had he meant that?
They had moved beyond the treetops, and the city lights were like radioactive stars in the distance.
At the top step, there was a small wooden cottage, its windows glowing faintly in the dark. One of the men waved them inside.
The warmth of the fireplace melted the cold from Wil’s skin.
The men laid the gurney by the fire, not stopping to savor a moment of the warmth for themselves before they disappeared down a dark corridor.
Wil’s heart lurched, too wary for hope. “Do you trust Pahn?”
“You’d do well to never trust marvelers,” Zay said. “But they’ll do anything for a price.”
“Price?” Wil asked.
“Ah, she returns as promised!” A man emerged from the corridor, his arms outstretched. “The rebel Zaylin, ripe from the sea but still lovely as ever.” His dark eyes darted to Loom and back to her. “And I see you’ve brought the patient.”
Something about his voice made Wil’s skin itch. He was a small man, a hairsbreadth taller than she was, and frail, with leathery, tawny skin and a long white braid trailing down his bony back. Here he was: her only hope of being rid of this curse. And now, of saving Loom.
He advanced on Loom, staring at his limp form as though he was a tattered rug in need of repair. “It’s bad,” Pahn said, “but the fact that he survived the journey is impressive.”
Maybe she had once again warded away death, Wil began to think.
“You can heal him,” Zay insisted. “You said you could heal him if his heart was still beating.” The way that Zay spoke Nearsh was beautiful, heavily accented and confident, to go with her proud stance and defiant incline of her chin. It was the first time Wil heard a hint of pleading in her voice.
“I can heal him and risk incurring the wrath of the Southern king. I’m not a street magician; my services aren’t free.”
“As I’ve said, I can pay you.” Zay spoke through gritted teeth.
“I believe you promised something I’ve neve
r seen before. Forgive my skepticism, Zaylin, you hardly have a reputation for being honest, and at my age I have seen it all.”
Zay set Ada by the fire, and he curled up contentedly in his sleep. She turned to Wil. “Take off your gloves.”
Wil understood at once. She was the price.
The marveler laughed. “I’m nothing like those letches from your palace; I have no interest in young girls.”
“I don’t want you to have sex with her, you deviant.” Zay paced forward and yanked the glove from Wil’s right hand. She plucked a leaf from the weeds growing through the wall and dropped it in Wil’s palm.
It hardened to emerald immediately, and at that the marveler’s brows rose. “Well then,” he said to Wil. “Where did you come from?”
Wil steeled herself against his stare. “Can you heal him? I thought curses couldn’t be undone.”
“Anything can be undone,” the marveler said. “But I will not be undoing his curse; that would be breaking a vow with King Zinil, which I intend to honor. I would simply be healing him.”
“Then heal him.” Zay’s vocie was tight, but it was out of fear, not anger. Wil had spent enough time around her now to know the difference.
“Follow me,” Pahn said, and opened the door, letting in the cold air.
Wil went after him, casting a pointed glare at Zay. “If you were going to barter with my curse, you could have clued me in.”
“I wasn’t sure that you would do it.”
“Of course I”—Loom muttered something in his troubled dreams—“Of course I would have.” She stepped out into the night air, pulling the door shut behind her.
Pahn’s lantern did little to light the way. They walked between the trees and away from the tiny cottage, Wil cursing Zay in her thoughts the entire time. If this strange man tried to kill her, her revenge would be swift and fierce.
“This tree,” he said, coming to a stop, “is over one thousand years old. It’s been here longer than this city. Longer than there have been humans in this country to build this city. The roots snake all the way down this hill and under the streets. They jut out of sidewalks and in the grass.”
He held the lantern up, illuminating the bony angles of his aged face. And then he brought the light to the tree. It was thick as a room of a house, wrapped in its own branches and vines.
“Most of the leaves have fallen off for the winter,” Wil said. “I can’t change anything that’s already dead.”
“I don’t want you to change the leaves, girl. I want you to turn this tree into stone.”
“The entire tree?” Wil said, bewildered. “You want me to ruin something that’s a thousand years old?”
“If you can.” The marveler took a step back, waving his arm in invitation. “Please.”
“And you’ll heal Loom?”
“I will give him medicine, that is the agreement,” he said. “And I always honor my agreements.”
Her heart was already beating fast, and she stepped forward and laid her hand against the trunk.
She closed her eyes and thought of her mother when she was calm and her hair and face were full of light. Of the singed air after a cauldron explosion, the determination of Gerdie’s brilliance palpable as a breath.
She thought of home, and the tree turned to stone.
The release was greater than she cared to admit. All week on the ship, she’d plucked leaves from Loom’s many plants, creating bits of emerald or ruby. But it hadn’t been enough. And now she felt as though her body had been filled with broken bones that were fitting back into place and smoothing over, stronger than ever.
She let out a shuddering breath and opened her eyes.
The tree was gleaming in the moonlight—red and green and diamond, all braided into each other. She could see more clearly through the night’s darkness. She could smell the dying days of autumn in the air, could taste the snow waiting to fall like dancers waiting in the wings of their stage.
Pahn looked on in silence for a while, and then he said, “I must ask the name of the girl who could do such a thing.”
“I’m Wil,” she said.
For the first time since her arrival, he smiled genuinely. “I am called Pahn.”
She knew this, but she didn’t let on. Didn’t let him know how desperately she needed his help with things beyond Loom’s health. She suspected seeming too eager would only raise the price.
Pahn pressed his palm to the crystallized trunk. His brows drew together with concentration, and then, like a rapidly spreading moss, the tree was covered over with bark.
Wil worked to contain her shock. “You can undo it?” Her mind spun with the possibilities. The tree was whole again, alive again. So perhaps this curse could be undone after all. Living things could be brought back.
“Nothing as grand as that,” Pahn said. “It’s merely an illusion.”
Wil hated herself for hoping.
They returned to the cottage. The silent men carried Loom’s limp body to a room with a cot and a flickering chandelier and little else. His lips were pale. Even his tattoos seemed to be fading with him, as though he were a figure being erased from a painting.
Pahn knelt beside him and pressed down on Loom’s forehead so hard that his head canted back and his mouth opened.
“What have you gotten yourself into, you foolish child?” Pahn said.
Wil stood in the corner, her fingers flexing anxiously in their gloves. The smell of death was overwhelming now that crystallizing the tree had awoken her senses. She could hear Loom’s rasped breaths like a sheet of paper being crinkled by her ear. She could hear, also, Zay’s incoherent whispers, pleas with the gods burning in the stars. Wil could taste Zay’s fear on her tongue.
After Zay’s attempted execution, she had spent days at sea, caring for Ada and trying to keep Loom alive. She held on to hope and to perseverance, and to her sanity. But no one held on to her.
“I’ll need the grindings,” Pahn said to one of his silent men. The man left and returned with a cup of something that looked like bark shavings, while another brought a mug that emitted steam and smelled of spices.
Wil found all of it nauseating—the fear, the smells, the presence of death waiting to pluck the soul from Loom’s pallid skin.
Pahn tore open Loom’s tunic with a jagged blade and peeled it from his body. The tattoos that snaked around Loom’s arms ended where his chest began, and in that smooth unmarred skin Wil could see the boy he might have been, if he hadn’t been marked a prince, if he hadn’t been ordered to kill as a child. She saw his vulnerabilities laid bare.
Pahn mixed the shavings with the herbal water, creating a paste so burning hot that it emitted steam even as he spread it across Loom’s chest. But if it was painful, Loom was beyond feeling it.
The marveler stood, bits of paste still clinging to his fingers. “That’s it. If the boy is meant to live, he’ll live.”
“That’s all you can do?” Zay said. “After everything? I could have done that.”
“Look at him,” Pahn said. “He is barely clinging to life. You should have brought him to me sooner.”
“There are no airships leaving the South.” Zay clenched her jaw. “All we had was our ship. I can’t control the length of the ocean.”
“Nor can I,” Pahn said. “I have fulfilled my end of the bargain.” He nodded to Wil. “You, I am greatly interested in. Follow me.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Wil said. No matter what had happened between them, he’d never left her side when she needed him to stay, his touch reminding her that she was still a part of the living.
“Very well,” Pahn said. He gestured to the floor. “Do sit. We’ll talk here.” He nodded to Zay. “I believe your child is waking up. Talk to one of my men about feeding him.”
Zay went, but not before stooping by Loom’s bedside and whispering something as she smoothed the hair from his face.
Once she was gone, Pahn sat before Wil and said, “I’d like you to tell me abou
t this power of yours.”
“I’d love to,” Wil said. “But the truth is that I don’t know. I assume it’s a curse of some sort.”
Pahn sat back, considering. “Curses cannot cause prosperity such as diamonds,” he said. “Wealth, immortality—all of that is impossible.”
“So then it isn’t a curse?”
“I didn’t say that. This would make more sense if you turned things to ordinary stone or toads or worms—things like that. But you create something beautiful and prosperous. Tell me, are there any exceptions to this power? Anything that isn’t affected? A particular plant, perhaps.”
“Loom,” Wil said.
Pahn looked to Loom and back to her. “There are two types of curses,” he said. “Loom’s curse was cast. It was a punishment for his own wrongdoing. This is the most ethical sort. But there is another. A curse can be inherited.”
“Inherited?” Wil said. “You mean that I was born with it? Why would someone want to curse me before I was born?”
“As I said, it’s less than ethical,” Pahn said. “It’s a dirty affair that most marvelers would have nothing to do with, birth curses. But there is a way to know for sure. Do you have any strange scars? Distinguishing marks?”
Wil’s blood was cold. “Yes,” she said. “But it’s just a birthmark.”
“Like an incision, and white in color, on your chest?”
Wil’s fist instinctively curled over her chest. “Yes.”
“There’s a mark on your heart,” Pahn said. “Someone wanted you to have a life of suffering. Someone wanted to punish you.”
“Punish me for what?” she cried. “What could I have done to anger anyone before I was born?”
Pahn shook his head slowly. “That, I do not know. Assuming the marveler is still alive, you would have to find the one who cast it and ask.”
“But you can undo it, can’t you?” Wil said. “I’ve already crystallized most of that tree. That alone could build a kingdom.”
“I have no interest in building kingdoms, girl. And even if I did, birth curses cannot be undone.”
“There has to be some way,” Wil said. “Please.”
“I could remove your heart, but I doubt you’d find that a preferable solution.” His brows rose. “But I can tell you why Loom isn’t affected. Though yours was inherited and his was cast, you both have cursed hearts. You are forgotten. Throwaways. Left to live your days in the outskirts of the world.”