Rose & Thorn

He was interested, despite himself. “What are those?” He pointed.

  “Ferns,” she said promptly. She parted the greenery, pointing to a cluster of pale, round things growing from the leaf-covered ground underneath. “And those are mushrooms.” She grimaced. “But not ones you’d want to eat.”

  Mushrooms? And people ate them? It occurred to him that there might have been mushrooms in the strange soup he’d eaten earlier.

  She started walking again, and he fell into step beside her.

  “Quirk feels terrible about what’s happened,” she ventured after a while.

  “I don’t want to talk about Quirk,” he said abruptly.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  He stayed quiet for a few steps, but he had to warn her. “Rose—”

  “I like it when you call me by my name,” she interrupted. “Quirk calls me lass mostly, and Bouchet and Timothy don’t talk to me at all. Shoe called me Rosie.”

  He forged on. “Rose, about Quirk . . . ,” he began, speaking in a low voice.

  She shrugged. “I like Quirk.”

  “Yes, he’s very likeable,” Griff said bitterly.

  She frowned down at the mossy path. “He’s the first friend I’ve ever had, apart from Shoe.”

  Griff refrained from pointing out that Quirk had been his only friend. “Just . . . be careful.” He’d been watching Quirk very closely. For now Quirk was working with the Breakers, it seemed, but he wasn’t one of them, Griff suspected. Knowing Quirk—and Griff did know him, despite everything—he was up to something. Something that would make sense to Quirk, but to no one else.

  CHAPTER

  14

  WE WALKED FOR THE REST OF THE DAY THROUGH THE sun-dappled Forest, our path winding lazily around the base of hills. Sometimes the sun was on our left, and sometimes it was on our right. The Forest, it seemed, was in no hurry to let us pass through.

  Or maybe Story didn’t want to let me go.

  As the shadows lengthened toward evening, the path ended abruptly in a grove of tall pine trees. Bouchet slung his heavy pack on the ground, which was thickly carpeted with pine needles, and started scraping out a place for a campfire. “Go collect wood,” he ordered. He jerked his chin at Quirk, who held one of the pots we’d use for cooking. “Find some water.”

  The pine trees had straight trunks, with needly branches high above, and spiky, broken-off branches below. I edged around them, looking for firewood. Timothy was searching for wood, too, but ignored me. I caught glimpses of her between the trees. She was dressed more practically than I was, in her trousers and long leather jacket; her short, dark hair was covered by a brightly patterned scarf. I was curious about her. She didn’t know me, but she disliked me intensely, and I wanted to know why.

  As she bent to pick up a pine branch, I stepped up to her and smiled. “Hello.”

  She straightened and gave me a baleful stare. Then, without speaking, she turned her back on me and started for the campsite.

  I hurried after her. “I’ve been wondering. Quirk said that you had a fight with Griff in an alley?”

  She stopped and whirled to face me. “Yes, your boyfriend and I have met before.”

  I felt a blush creeping up my cheeks. “What? But he’s not—”

  “Oh, stop,” she interrupted. “I saw the pair of you drooling at each other.”

  “We weren’t—” I shook my head. Since our conversation, when I’d felt so awkward, I’d tried to keep my distance from Griff, and yet I seemed to always be aware of where he was, and what he was doing. It made me feel unsettled. There was no point in explaining all of this to her. “What happened?”

  Timothy’s smile was not friendly. It had an edge that would cut through steel. “The Watcher and I had a disagreement.” Her smile grew even sharper. “I gave him a little memory of our fight, too. A cut over his ribs. I wish I’d struck a little harder. He is the son of the Lord Protector, after all. I should have spilled his guts in the street.”

  She really hated him. “I don’t think you could have,” I reasoned. “He’s a very good fighter.”

  “Yeah, well.” She smirked, and seemed to be about to say something else, then shrugged, and turned away.

  I followed her to the campsite, where Bouchet was on his knees by the cleared area he’d made for the fire. Quietly I piled my collection of wood next to him, then went to help Quirk make our dinner.

  After we ate, we sat around the campfire while the pine forest grew dark. Owls hooted, one to another, and a nearly full moon rose. Bouchet and Timothy had their heads together, whispering, every now and then glancing at me, as if I was the subject of their conversation. Quirk seemed deep in thought, and a little sad; Griff was leaning against a tree, staring off into the darkness. I wanted to go talk to him, but I felt oddly shy. Ever since he’d tried lifting my curse, I’d felt a connection to him, and now something between us was changing. I just didn’t know what, exactly.

  I sat and watched the crimson and gold of the fire as it ate the wood I’d collected, and felt hollow with loneliness, missing Shoe. I turned over my wrist, thinking of him, and noticed that my burned rose barely ached at all. I closed my eyes and saw Griff kneeling before me in my citadel room, gently bandaging the burn. Yes, he was keen—a knife. But he was surprisingly kind, too, and so quiet and so serious. So . . . alone.

  When I opened my eyes, he was sitting beside me.

  “Oh,” I said, startled. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” he answered, his voice rough.

  That was probably the first word he’d said to anyone since we’d spoken that morning. I smiled, thinking of it.

  “You’re happy,” he observed.

  “I suppose I am,” I said, after considering it for a moment. Then I gave half a laugh. “I really shouldn’t be, should I? Given the situation? But I can’t help it. It’s just how I’m made.” I glanced aside at him. With his fingers he was breaking a twig into pieces that he was tossing into the fire. “You’re not happy.”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  I thought about our conversation in the citadel room, when he’d said some fairly awful things to me. “You told me that my stories were false. You said that I was dangerous. Do you still think that?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  Neither did I. We sat quietly, watching the flames. Across the fire, Quirk spread out his blanket and lay down.

  “You were a weapon,” I said at last.

  He nodded.

  “And now you’re not, are you?”

  He gazed at me, but didn’t speak.

  “If you really were a weapon,” I said, reasoning it out, “you would have killed me already. You’ve had plenty of chances. So if you’re not a weapon, what are you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said in a voice so low I could barely hear him. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  What a thing for him to admit. He, who’d had such absolute certainty in his life. Away from the City, and his father’s rules, he was completely adrift. I reached out a hand, just to lay it on his arm to comfort him, but he stood abruptly and retreated from the fire, back to the shadows beyond.

  With a sigh, I prepared my bedroll and went to sleep.

  The next day was much the same. We trudged through the Forest and I thought about Griff, but barely spoke to him.

  We walked. Quirk watched Griff carefully; Griff kept a wary distance from both of us.

  By the following day, we should have come to the end of the Forest. Our supplies were running low, Bouchet was snappish, and Timothy had started wearing the thimble on her finger, hoping it would point the way more clearly.

  Quirk and I were walking together, talking quietly, when Bouchet, ahead of us, cursed loudly and whirled to face us. Beside him, Timothy took the thimble from her finger, glared at it, and shoved it into her coat pocket.

  “What’s the matter?” Quirk asked.

  “Look at it,” Bouchet said, hurling his knapsack onto the ground.

&nbs
p; The path had led us to a clearing. Around us clustered pine trees with straight trunks, and in the middle of the clearing was . . . the blackened remains of a campfire in a pit that had been scraped out of the pine-needly ground. No wonder the path had seemed familiar.

  “We camped here on the first night,” Timothy said disgustedly.

  “The Forest has been leading us in circles,” Bouchet confirmed. “Even with the thimble, it won’t let us through.”

  “It’s because of her,” Timothy snarled, and pointed sharply at me.

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  “If the Forest won’t let her out into the world,” she said, “it must have a good reason,”

  Bouchet nodded. “Or Story is trying to draw her back to the City.”

  “It’s because of what she is,” Timothy added.

  I heard a quiet step and knew that Griff was standing at my back.

  “And what . . . what is that?” I asked. “What am I?”

  Timothy’s answer was a sneer. Bouchet folded his burly arms and looked away.

  “Tell her what you think,” Quirk said beside me.

  “She’s marked, and cursed, and there’s the”—Timothy’s lip did its usual curl—“the way she looks. That kind of beauty is unnatural. It’s perfectly obvious what she is. She’s a construct of Story.”

  “A construct?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  “They think that you weren’t just chosen to serve Story, you were created by it,” Quirk said steadily. “A construct is a thing, and not a person.”

  “What?” I gasped, staring at Bouchet and Timothy, my heart pounding. “You think I’m a thing?” Neither answered, but oh, it explained why Timothy hated me so much. I turned to Quirk. “Before, you said I was a catalyst, Quirk. Not . . . not this. Is this what you really think?”

  He gazed up at me, his lopsided face sad. “Listen, lass . . . ,” he began.

  “You do?” I whispered.

  And Griff. He had to believe it; he’d been trained all his life to fight Story. Shivering, I backed away, bumping into Griff’s shoulder, then felt his hand on my arm, steadying me. I shook him off. “What—what are you going to do?” I asked, my voice shaking.

  “We’ve made a good effort to do what Precious asked of us,” Bouchet said, speaking to the others, not to me. “But the thimble has failed, and Story is drawing the construct back to the City. We should abandon her here and get out of the Forest.”

  “No,” Quirk said, in the same way he’d given Precious the order.

  “If we don’t,” Timothy replied, “the Forest will just lead all of us in circles until we run out of supplies.”

  My heart trembled. “Why don’t you just say what you mean?” I demanded. “You’re going to leave me out here to die.”

  “We wouldn’t really be killing her,” Timothy reasoned, speaking to Quirk. Her hand went to the pommel of her sword.

  At that, Griff’s head jerked up, and he reached for something at his back. His knife—but he didn’t have it, Quirk did.

  Quirk raised his hands. “All right, that’s enough,” he said with uncharacteristic sternness. “It’s getting late. We’re all hungry and tired. We’ll decide what we’re going to do in the morning.” He pointed toward the other end of the piney glade. “You two set up your camp over there,” he ordered Bouchet and Timothy.

  “Oh, I see how it is,” Timothy spat. “The construct has fluttered her long eyelashes at you, Quirk, and at the Watcher, and now you’re both willing to do her bidding.”

  To my surprise, Quirk grinned at her. “Jealous?”

  Timothy’s face went red. “No,” she protested.

  Quirk nodded toward their camping spot. “Now, go on, sweetheart.”

  Scowling, the two Breakers collected their nearly empty packs and made their way through the clusters of pines.

  Quirk kept his eyes on them. “Don’t worry, Rose,” he said quietly to me. “I’ll make sure they don’t bother you tonight. But we’ll have to work it out in the morning. Timothy has the thimble. We can’t get out of the Forest without it.”

  I felt tremblingly full of tears, but I was not going to cry. Did Quirk really think I was a construct? He didn’t speak as if he did. “I am not a thing, Quirk,” I insisted.

  He looked up at me and gave me his lopsided smile. “Ah, well,” he said obliquely.

  He had told me that it would be all right, and maybe it was stupid of me, but I still believed him.

  With a nod he turned and went to his pack, which he’d dropped on the ground near the fire pit, and started rummaging in it. “Shall we have a fire, lass, and see what we can scrape up for dinner?”

  “In a moment,” I answered, turning to face Griff. He was frowning, his gaze fixed on Timothy and Bouchet as they made their way through the pine trees to a new campsite. “And what about you?” I pointed. “Should you go over there with them?”

  He shook his head.

  “I never fluttered my eyelashes at anyone,” I grumbled.

  For just a moment, his face lightened. Not a smile, but almost.

  Well, that was something. I found myself smiling back. I turned away to help Quirk start the fire.

  “Rose?” came Griff’s voice behind me.

  I stopped, but didn’t turn to face him. “Yes?”

  “I don’t—” He paused, and I heard him take a deep, shaking breath. “I never believed it,” he went on quietly. “I never thought of you as a . . .” He paused again. “A thing.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  And this time I knew that he heard me.

  LATER, AS WE sat around our campfire, keeping an eye on Bouchet and Timothy’s fire, and eating the thin soup we’d made from some shelf mushrooms and fern tips I’d found, and chewing on our last heel of bread, I thought about what the Breakers had said.

  They thought I was a construct. While I didn’t think it could be true, there was still so much I didn’t know of my own story. Only what Shoe had told me. I knew that the Penwitch had brought a baby to Shoe. Where did I come from? I had asked him once. Out in the world somewhere, he’d said. Now that I’d been out in the world, I realized how vague an answer that was. What had the Penwitch taken me away from? Did I have a mother and father somewhere? Or did I just belong to Story—was I its creation, as they all seemed to think?

  No. I couldn’t be. Shoe hadn’t loved a thing, he had loved me. Me.

  I had never expected my story to take such an awful turn. I wasn’t sure what to do. All I could do was go on, and try to figure out what kind of person I really was.

  And figure out what sort of people I’d ended up with.

  I eyed Quirk, who sat across the campfire from me. He’d taken a little sewing kit from his knapsack and was busy stitching up a tear in my cloak. Griff was on his feet, leaning against a tree, but alert, as if on guard.

  “How much of Quirk’s story do you know?” I asked Griff.

  He straightened, glanced at Quirk, then away. “Very little.”

  Quirk bit off a thread. “He hasn’t been trained to think in terms of stories,” he said to me.

  “He’s up to something, I know that much,” Griff added.

  Quirk gave an approving nod. “So you’ve figured that out, have you?”

  Griff gave a one-shouldered shrug. But somehow, even though he was silent, he didn’t seem quite so remote as he had before.

  “Clever lad, our Griff,” Quirk said, and winked at me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Do you feel like strangling him, too?” I asked Griff.

  “Usually,” Griff said with a straight face.

  “Now, children,” Quirk chided, but betrayed himself with a happy smile.

  So things were better now, between him and Griff. But not, I thought, all better.

  As our fire burned down to embers, and the night grew darker, we decided that we’d take turns keeping watch.

  “I don’t really think we’ll have any trouble,” Quirk said. “But it’s best if
we’re careful.”

  I curled up with my blanket, using my pack for a pillow.

  Griff had the first watch; I could hear his quiet footsteps as he circled our camp. I knew he was keenly alert. It made me feel safe, secure.

  Hours later, Quirk woke me with a shake of my shoulder. “Your turn, lass,” he whispered. I sat up and wrapped the blanket around myself and sat by our fire to keep my watch.

  Toward morning, a wind picked up, and the high pine branches rustled, and the shadows between the tree trunks seemed to shift. Our fire was a glow of red and orange embers. Through the trees, I caught glimpses of the answering glow of the Breakers’ campfire. It winked at me, a red eye opening and closing. At last, the sky lightened, but it was heavy with clouds. A fine mist rose from the ground, twining around the trees. All seemed quiet. Too quiet.

  Stiffly, I got to my feet and peered through the mist, looking for the Breakers. Their fire had gone out.

  I took a few steps toward their camp. “Hello?” I ventured, and my voice was swallowed up by the fog that swirled around me.

  Then a shadow loomed out of the whiteness—another step, and I saw that it was Timothy. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide and frightened. Seeing me, she put her hand to her sword. “Where is he?” she hissed.

  “Who?” I stepped back and raised my hands.

  “Bouchet,” she snarled, and pulled the sword from its scabbard.

  From behind me I heard swift footsteps; a rush and Griff was past me, putting himself between me and Timothy. “I’m unarmed,” I heard him say.

  She gritted her teeth, but didn’t lower her blade. “He’s gone. Bouchet.”

  “All right,” said Quirk, who had come up beside me. His feet were bare and his straw-yellow hair was tousled from sleep. When he spoke, he kept his voice calm. “You two were preparing to abandon the three of us, weren’t you, Timothy? And the Forest took Bouchet, it seems. He’ll end up back in the City.”

  “Curse it.” Timothy glared at the fog and the trees, as if she wanted to challenge the Forest to a duel.

  “But you, apparently, have been left with us,” Quirk said carefully.

  “Which means we’re still stuck.” With a shake of her head, Timothy straightened and thrust her sword back into its scabbard. “Obviously the thimble isn’t working for me, Quirk. Either we throw it away so we can go back to the City, or the three of us and the construct are going to keep wandering around out here until we die.”