Rose & Thorn

  I ducked around a corner, my shoulder slamming into the wall, then pushed myself forward. Story’s brambles raced along the walls, then spread to the ceiling, trying to get ahead of me. The floors trembled under my feet; dust sifted down.

  At last I reached the door that led to the kitchens. The brambles washed up against it; I thrust my hands past their thorns and gripped the latch, then pushed open the door. Like a wave, the brambles washed into the passageway beyond. The satin skirt of my dress shredded as the thorns stretched after me.

  I fought my way through them and, at last, I stumbled through the kitchen and into the dark courtyard. Another quick glance behind showed vines twining from the castle windows and around its towers; more brambles snaked toward the walls. Sobbing for breath, I ran for the arched gateway. Its darkness closed in around me and for a moment I felt overwhelmed with fear, and then I burst out of the other side. A few brambles spilled from the gate, groping blindly after me, and I staggered away, into the night.

  I FLED ALONG the narrow trail through the long grass until I reached the river that Griff and Timothy and I had crossed, with Quirk carried on Griff’s back. There I crouched, shuddering, gasping for breath.

  As my breathing steadied, I heard the rustling of the river over rounded stones. The air was cold; I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. On the other side of the river, the Forest was a distant black wall. Still crouching, I turned and looked back at the castle. The lights from its windows were gone; it was a looming darkness against the darker night.

  Shaking, I lowered my head and squeezed my eyes shut.

  Griff . . .

  Come with me, I had said to him, but he had shaken his head as if he couldn’t hear me. Go, he’d said. I knew what he had done—he’d taken my curse on himself, freeing me. My head whirled with exhaustion. I couldn’t make sense of anything.

  I couldn’t go into the Forest on the other side of the river. I couldn’t go back toward the castle. My skirts were in rags; my arms were bare. A chilly breeze washed over me. Completely weary, I settled to the ground and curled into the long grass, which was like a nest around me. My eyes fell shut and, free of my curse at last, I slept.

  WHEN I WOKE up, the sky was the gray of late afternoon; a rough woolen blanket was tucked around my shoulders. I sat up, blinking. A pin fell out of my head and landed in my lap, and a lock of braided hair slithered onto my neck. With cold fingers I picked up the pin. The diamond at its end glinted in the fading light. The necklace and bracelets still weighed heavily on my neck and wrists.

  Standing with his back to me, hands on his hips, was Quirk. “Awake, lass?” he asked, without turning around.

  “Yes,” I croaked in surprise. I looked past him. In the distance, across the grass-covered plain under lowering gray clouds, was the castle. Or, what had been the castle. I could vaguely make out the shape of it, but it was completely enwrapped in thick, heavy ropes of bramble, the wall around it covered with the same thorny vines.

  Slowly I got to my feet and went to stand beside Quirk. He glanced up at me, his face grimmer than I’d ever seen it. “Are you all right?”

  I wasn’t. I glanced down; the blanket had slipped from one shoulder. The tattered lace and the silk of my dress was stained there with dried blood. “It’s not mine,” I said. “It’s Griff’s blood.”

  “Where is he?” Quirk asked urgently. He cast a keen look around us. He was on guard. Against Griff, I realized.

  I looked toward the castle. “He’s in there.”

  “Inside the castle?” Quirk shook his head, confused.

  “Yes. He lifted the curse from me and took it on himself.”

  Quirk turned to face me. “Was he wearing the thimble?”

  I remembered that heavy, long moment when the curse had taken me, its darkness, the weight of it on my shoulders, and then seeing Griff. His face had been pale and determined; he’d gone to his knees as the curse had slammed into him.

  And yes. The Godmother’s thimble had been an icy glow at the tip of his finger. I felt utterly lost. “Yes. He used the thimble.”

  Quirk said something under his breath and kicked at a clump of grass. “You know what this means, lass.”

  I crumpled to the ground again. I couldn’t bear to hear him say it. Wordlessly, I shook my head.

  “It means he’s let Story in. It will break him, if it hasn’t already, and use him again. It will send him after us.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  Quirk crouched beside me. With gentle hands, he pulled the blanket to cover my shoulders. “Rosie, Griff was born to a Godmother for one purpose. To serve Story. To be its weapon.”

  I felt an icy wash of desolation. Tears welled up in my eyes. Angry with myself for crying, I dashed them away.

  Quirk sighed and stood, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Even though you were born for Story, lass, Shoe raised you, and that’s why you are not a clockwork girl sleeping in that castle right now. All Griff has ever known in his life is grimness and grayness, and silence, and obedience to the Lord Protector’s rules.” He shook his head. “There’s irony for you. It was his strict training to fight Story that made him most vulnerable to it.”

  I got to my feet, standing next to Quirk. A low wind gusted around us, making the grass bow down in waves.

  I had to see for myself that there was truly no way into the castle. Clutching the blanket around my shoulders, I started back, marching along the path that led through the long grass. Ten paces away from where the main gate had been, I stopped. Quirk stood just behind me. The castle was completely wrapped in vines. I blinked. They were moving. The thick ropes of bramble were twisting, crawling over one another, growing upward, making the wall taller, thicker, insurmountable. A tendril of vine detached itself from the wall and groped toward where Quirk and I were standing. We edged back, and the vine wove itself back among the other vines.

  Quirk was right. It was impenetrable.

  “Come on,” he said softly. “There’s nothing we can do here. We’d better go.”

  “Go where?” I asked, still watching the castle.

  “This is not over,” Quirk answered. “The castle is still a threat, and so is Griff. We can wait a bit to see if Timothy shows up. Then we’ll have to contact the other Breakers. And we’ll have to decide what we’re going to do with you.”

  My heart quivered in my chest. Were we really going to leave Griff behind?

  I heard quiet footsteps receding down the path as Quirk started away.

  The wind gusted around me, blowing through the tatters of my dress. I shivered. There was nothing I could do here. It was hopeless.

  “I WANT TO show you something,” Quirk said. We were following the merest sketch of a path that ran along the river. The castle was hidden behind a fold of the hills, behind us. The Forest had curved away on the other side of the river and was a dark blot in the distance.

  With every step I took I felt as if I was making a huge mistake. I kept glancing back to see if something had changed, but it was the same long grass, the same gray sky.

  Quirk stopped and surveyed the river that rushed below the bank where we stood. “This is the place,” he murmured. A depression in the bank led down to the water’s edge. It was shallower here, rustling over pebbles. On the other side, the path appeared again. Quirk led me down to the river. “Somebody made this path,” Quirk said, and pointed back the way we’d come. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said wearily. I used the diamond hairpin to secure the blanket around my shoulders, like a cape, and its ends fluttered in the breeze.

  “Come and see.” Quirk stepped into the river and, raising my tattered skirts, I followed him across, the water no deeper than my ankles. On the other side, the path picked up again, leading away. All around us, the long grasses were tawny gray and brown, and the sky was gray. The air was damp and growing colder. The breeze smelled faintly of burned wood.

  “Not much farther,” Quirk said over his shoulder. “T
his was the place I was searching for when I left you at the castle.”

  The path led us around a low hill and down into a bowl-shaped dell. At its bottom were the charred remains of a little cottage.

  “Somebody lived there,” Quirk said. His face seemed oddly sad. “She wore a path between here and the castle. Keeping an eye on it.”

  “Oh.” I finally understood. “The Penwitch.”

  He nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t know.” His face was grim. “I poked around a little. She wasn’t in there when it burned.”

  “So you found what you were looking for,” I noted.

  “Not quite.” A silence stretched between us. All I could do was stand there, my shoulders slumped. The charred wood of the cottage was sodden. Everything around me seemed gray and dead and sad. Night was falling. A quick look at Quirk, and I saw that his face was gray, too, and haggard. He had to be grieving for his mother and father.

  I straightened. “We’ll camp here, I think.” I surveyed the dell. A corner of the cottage was still standing, with a bit of roof that overhung a ragged edge of what looked like a stone wall. “Come on.” I reached down and gently took his hand and led him to the sheltered spot beside the remains of the cottage’s chimney and hearth.

  Wearily Quirk set down the pack he’d been carrying and settled onto the soot-covered hearthstone. After taking off the diamond necklace and bracelets and stowing them in a pocket of the pack, I dug around in the ruins, scavenging enough dry wood so we could have a fire.

  When I came back to the hearth, I was covered with soot, my hands were black, and my hair hung in ropes around my face. Quirk was asleep. I built the fire and dug in the pack for matches. I found a pot and a pan, too, a packet of cornmeal and a few sausages, and salt, so after fetching some water from the river, I crouched next to the fire and set about making us some dinner.

  The sausages hissed and bubbled in the pan, and smelled delicious. I hadn’t eaten for a long time. My stomach was absolutely hollow.

  Quirk stirred and opened his eyes.

  “I expect you’re hungry,” I said to him, adding some salt to the cornmeal mush that I had cooking in the pot. “I know I am. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since before the spindle.”

  Moving stiffly, Quirk sat up and edged closer to the fire. He held out his hands to warm them. I put a sausage and a scoop of mush onto a tin plate and handed it to him. We sat eating quietly. I felt sad and weary and chilled, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Griff, alone in the castle. I put down my plate and stared sadly into the flames.

  “Well, well,” came a hoarse voice out of the night. “If this isn’t the sorriest pair of travelers I’ve ever seen.”

  I leaped to my feet. My eyes were dazzled from the fire, and I couldn’t see anything but darkness. More deliberately, Quirk set down his plate and stood, picking up a length of burning wood from the fire and raising it like a torch.

  “Going to hit me with that stick, little man?” the voice asked, and Timothy stepped over a pile of charred, broken wood and into the light.

  “Huh,” Quirk said, and tossed the wood back onto the fire. “I’ve been half expecting you, sweetheart.”

  I stared at her, noting that she had on rough traveling clothes now, not her pink dress from the castle, and then I stepped forward and flung my arms around her. To my astonishment, she let me hug her for a moment before pushing me away.

  “That’s enough of that,” she said roughly.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” I choked out.

  “Yeah,” she said, and squatted by the fire. “And what about you?” She nodded at Quirk. “Glad to see me?”

  He gave her a tired smile. “Always.”

  To my astonishment, she blushed. Then, with a shake of her head, she asked, “Got any more of that dinner? I could smell it a mile away.”

  Quickly I spooned some mush onto a plate and added two sausages, passing it to her with a fork.

  “Ta.” She took a bite. “I’ve got some information,” she said through a mouthful of mush. “We’re not going anywhere until morning. So sit down and let me tell you a story.”

  CHAPTER

  29

  GRIFF STRUGGLED FOR A LONG TIME AGAINST THE FREEZing darkness of the curse that enwrapped him. He was so cold, and the air was so heavy, that just breathing was an effort.

  He was in the ballroom, he remembered. It was dim; the candles in the chandeliers burned only faintly. Thorny vines grew in the high windows of the room, twined about the ceiling and down the walls. Nearby stood the two ladies and the lord of Castle Clair, Rose’s father, eyes wide; her mother sat in one of the gilded chairs next to him with her mouth open in a silent shriek. At their feet, near where Rose had been standing, rested the spindle, dark wood with a metal tip that gleamed in the greenish light. On the needle end shone a single drop of blood.

  The thimble lay on the floor next to it. It shone with its own pale light, and the dark thorns etched around its base writhed.

  He felt absolutely no urge to pick it up again.

  Turning his head with a nearly audible creak, Griff checked the rest of the room. Two blue-coated, goat-horned servants were frozen with clawed hands reaching for him; three courtiers dressed in brocade coats had their swords drawn.

  This wasn’t the sleep spell. The courtiers, Rose’s parents, all of them—they were awake, but immobile under the spindle curse. The second curse, which would have sent everyone in the castle to sleep—he’d forced that one down. It was still with Rose, along with the third curse, the one that was most tightly bound to her. If he could have freed her from them, he would have, but they had been too strong. No, this was still the curse that had drawn Rose to the spindle and forced her to prick her finger, and it was Story, too, with the castle and all its people in its grip. It would hold them, immobile, until it had decided what to do next.

  Distantly Griff felt the wound on his arm, just below his elbow, where one of the courtiers had slashed him with the tip of his narrow blade. It was a shallow cut; as he watched, a few slow drops of blood soaked into the sleeve of his coat. He looked beyond the courtiers to the vine-choked door of the ballroom.

  Rose.

  She had fled the room, but had he held the curse long enough for her to escape the castle?

  Straining every muscle against the weight of the curse, he picked up his patrol knife from the floor and climbed to his feet. A blink, and he felt the curse wrap cold, dark fingers around his throat.

  “Fight it,” he told himself. His voice sounded dusty, muffled by the dead air.

  The thimble was on the floor at his feet. All he had to do was put it on his finger, and he could master the curse and escape the castle. But to do that, he knew, would be to give himself fully to Story. So he would have to fight with his will alone, and leave the thimble where it was.

  Slowly he pushed himself through the curse. It was like . . .

  What would Quirk or Rose say?

  It was like trudging through mud.

  Mud up to his neck.

  By the time he reached the ballroom door, he was exhausted. Hours, he guessed, had passed since Rose had fled. And for how long before that had he struggled against the curse’s immobilizing darkness? There was no way to tell. It could have been a day, or a year, or longer.

  The curse weighed on him as he pushed himself through the thorny vines in the doorway and down the hall. A few steps, and he had to stop to rest, leaning against the wall. His hand dropped into his coat pocket.

  And there, under his fingers, was the silver-cold touch of the thimble. Dismayed, he pulled it out. It gleamed with a cold light, and then winked at him. And there was something else. His fingers touched wood, and he pulled out the spindle.

  No. This time he gathered all his will and hurled them both away, hearing the muffled tinkle of metal and the clatter of wood against the stone floor as they rattled down the hall.

  He panted with the effort of it. The
curse was so heavy, so cold. It wanted him silent and still. He had to rest, just for a moment.

  The curse didn’t hesitate; its shadows wrapped around him again, and dragged him down into the frozen darkness.

  BEFORE STARTING HER story, Timothy dug in her pack, pulling out a little kettle, which she filled from a water bottle and set over the fire.

  “So when I left the castle, I went to see my grandmothers,” she began. “They don’t live too far from here.”

  Quirk gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Oh, let me guess the next part of your story. They are famous Breakers. Templeton and Zel?”

  “Exactly,” Timothy said, adding tea leaves to the kettle.

  “Oh,” I said, my eyes wide. “Shoe told me stories about them, how Templeton rescued Zel from a tower by using her long hair to climb to the ground, and then fought off a prince.” It had been one of my favorite stories, the true love between Templeton and Zel and their daring escape. Shoe hadn’t told me that it was one of Story’s broken plots.

  “Yep, that’s them,” Timothy confirmed. “They wanted to come with me, but they’re actually fairly ancient. I told them I could move faster without them. But they sent their greetings to you, Quirk. And something else.”

  “Ah,” was Quirk’s only comment.

  After casting him a sharp look, Timothy went on with her story. “They live a few days’ walk from here, guarding the castle from the other direction. I wasn’t with them when Story made its move—they’d already sent me to make contact with the Breakers in the City. They told me that a few weeks ago, men came from the castle and killed Pen, and burned this cottage.”

  Was it really only a few weeks ago that I’d still been living with Shoe in the valley, with no idea of who I was or my importance to Story? It seemed like years. “They sent men to find me, too,” I said.