Rose & Thorn

  I held the ax, a comforting weight.

  Next to me was Quirk. Timothy had brought him a hat knitted from green wool with an incongruous yellow bobble on top, which he wore pulled down over his ears. It suited him, odd as it was. Timothy had her sword sheathed on its belt around her waist.

  The castle was enwrapped with vines and shadows, a looming, dark shape against a sky turning pink as the sun rose over distant hills. Cold seemed to radiate from it; shadows seethed behind the thorns that covered it.

  “So what’s the plan here?” Timothy asked. Without seeming to realize she was doing it, she moved closer to Quirk and, almost protectively, rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “I left Griff in the ballroom,” I said. “We’ll have to go straight across the courtyard to get inside.”

  “If we can get inside,” Timothy muttered.

  “We won’t fall under the curse, will we?” I asked.

  As an answer, Quirk held up his hand. He wore the Witch’s thimble on a finger. “This should keep us safe.”

  “From the curse, at least,” Timothy added.

  Feeling grimly determined, I hefted the ax and nodded to Quirk. “Let’s go.”

  Thorns and vines clogged the gateway; as we stepped closer, they shifted; a single vine tipped with a razor-sharp thorn quested toward us.

  With a hiss, Timothy drew her sword and hacked off the end of the probing vine.

  The other vines surged toward us; as Quirk raised the thimble and led us forward, they recoiled, leaving us a dark, heaving tunnel to walk through. A single whip of vine lashed toward us, and I lopped it off with the ax.

  My heart was pounding. We moved forward; the vines closed in behind us, and the dark encroached. Quirk whispered a word, and his thimble started to glow. By its warm light I could see that we were in a bubble of light edged with writhing, snakelike green, studded with thorns. The air grew heavier and colder as we went farther into the tunnel through the castle wall. A sound grated at the very edge of my hearing, a faint, ominous thunder.

  “I don’t like this,” Timothy murmured, slashing at a stray vine.

  I didn’t either.

  At last the tunnel lightened, and we stepped through to a more open area. The shrouded castle loomed before us; thorny vines slithered toward us across the courtyard. Quirk raised the thimble higher, and some of the vines were pushed back, but a few hissed and struck past him at me. The ax was a clean arc of silver as I brought it down on one vine, and then another. Holding the thimble, Quirk looked almost heroic, except for the bobble hat.

  “There, lass!” he shouted.

  I whirled, ax at the ready.

  He pointed. Then I saw him. Griff. Wrapped in thorns, just ten paces away.

  “We’ll hold them off,” Quirk shouted, as Timothy swatted a questing vine out of the air and held it down with her foot as she hacked it to pieces.

  I eluded a vine that was trying to loop itself around my ankle, and raced across the paving stones to Griff.

  He was held in the grip of the thorns, his feet several inches off the ground. Blood stained his shirt and his tattered coat; a daggerlike thorn lay across his throat. His eyes were closed. His face was so pale. One of his hands was clenched into a fist; the other held his long knife.

  He hadn’t been lost under the curse. He’d been fighting.

  “Oh, Griff,” I whispered, and my heart ached for him.

  Setting the ax on the paving stones, I stepped onto a loop of vine, stretching to reach him. I set a shaking hand against his cheek. Cold. So cold and still. But not dead. He was breathing. My relief was so intense, it made me dizzy for a moment.

  Carefully I pulled the thorn away from his throat. It left a line of blood behind it, just a scratch. But the other thorns had cut deeper.

  Story. I could feel it, a heavy dread in the air, the faint rumble of thunder, a pressure against my ears. It had done this, trying to force him into its service.

  From behind me, I heard Quirk and Timothy fighting the vines. “Get on with it, Rose!” Timothy shouted.

  I reached up and put my arms around Griff’s neck, pulling him closer. It was time to use my most powerful weapon against Story.

  When I was learning to fight—when I’d been falling in love with Griff—he had taught me that anything could be a weapon. A sword, an ax, a pitchfork, an oat scoop.

  A kiss.

  The maid Sally had given me the key. Only the kiss of true love can stop the curse.

  So I kissed him.

  At first it was cold. I shivered. Then, faintly, his lips warmed to mine. My love for him whirled up in me, making me feel elated and terrified at the same time. I had missed him so much. I wanted to feel the length of his body pressed against mine, and feel the pounding of his heart as he kissed me. I was his, completely. And he was mine. I deepened the kiss, pouring all my love into it—into him. Story hadn’t expected this weapon, and it capitulated at once, and like sand running out of an hourglass, the curse drained from the castle. All around us, the light grew brighter as the vines around the castle withered and shed their leaves. The brambles fell away from us in limp coils, leaving us standing on the paving stones.

  I trembled in Griff’s arms, clinging to the front of his coat, and he leaned in to me, as if he was exhausted. My heart felt as if it was about to overflow with joy; I thought I must be glowing with it, like the sun on a glorious day. We’d done it. We’d broken the curse. We were free.

  A shudder passed through Griff, into me. His eyes blinked open. Just for a moment, as he gazed down at me, his eyes almost silver in the morning light, I was sure that I’d been right, and he loved me just as much as I loved him.

  Then slowly, horribly, his face turned bleak and he raised the knife and held its sharpened edge against my throat.

  “No,” I whispered.

  I felt the chill of the blade against the thin skin of my neck, and then he flinched away from me, stumbling back and taking up a defensive stance. I drew a steadying breath. “Griff?”

  He stared at me for a long moment, as if he didn’t recognize me. Dead, wrinkled leaves that had fallen from the vines drifted through the air and settled onto the paving stones around us.

  There were noises coming from the castle, the rustle of the vines withering away.

  “Rose!” Quirk shouted. The burning glow of his thimble had faded. “We have to go!”

  “Something’s wrong,” I told him.

  He looked past me, to Griff. “You all right?”

  No answer. Griff stood clinging to his knife with a bloodstained hand. Blood oozed from other cuts on his arms and chest, soaking into the tatters of his shirt and coat. His other hand was still clenched into a fist, as if he was holding tightly to something.

  The Godmother’s thimble. I knew it. “No, he’s not all right,” I answered for him.

  “No time to see to him,” Timothy said. She was watching the castle, every line of her body tense, her sword drawn. “The curse is broken, right? So what’s going on in there?”

  “What?” Quirk spun to face her.

  She nodded toward the castle. “Somebody’s issuing orders.” There was more shouting. “The Godmother’s servants are going to come after us,” Timothy went on. “Can’t you feel it? Story’s not defeated here.”

  I pointed at Griff. “But he’s with us now,” I protested. “We broke the curse. We’re free of it now, aren’t we?”

  When Quirk spoke, his voice was sharp and low. “You should be.”

  Timothy sheathed her blade. “We can’t stay and fight. There’s too many of them. Let’s get a move on before they get organized.”

  “Horses,” I remembered. “We can take the horses from the stable.”

  “Good thinking,” Quirk approved. “Let’s go.”

  WE FLED FROM the castle, Timothy holding Quirk on the saddle before her, me on a horse I had no idea how to ride, and then Griff on a horse that had tried to bite me when I’d approached it. I clung to the reins and the m
ane and bounced in the saddle. Looking back, I saw blue-coated servants issuing from the castle gate; there was a glint of light on metal—they were well armed. The horses seemed to sense our urgency, so our flight was swift, and we’d loosed the other horses from the stable so the servants couldn’t ride. But they would pursue on foot.

  Unto death, I knew.

  “We’ll have to try for the Forest,” Timothy shouted over her shoulder.

  We rode hard, and the Forest grew closer, a wall of trees with leaves turning the yellow and brown of autumn. I had to focus on staying in the saddle, but I kept a worried eye on Griff, who rode beside me. He still hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t looked at me again. The knife was sheathed at his back, and he wasn’t clenching the thimble in his fist anymore, but I was certain that he had it in the pocket of his tattered coat.

  With every thud of my horse’s hooves on the ground, my heart gave an answering thump. Something was so wrong here. I had broken the curse with my kiss, but the fight wasn’t over yet. Story still had a hold on him.

  We reached the shallow river and the horses slowed, splashing through the water, their hooves crunching on the sandy gravel on the other side. There, Timothy pulled her horse to a stop, and my horse and Griff’s staggered to a halt, sweating and blowing hard through their noses.

  “We can’t bring the horses into the Forest,” Timothy said, swinging down from the saddle. “Without a path, they’ll never get through. And they’re too tired, anyway.” She reached up to help Quirk from the saddle.

  I climbed gingerly down from my own horse, and Griff got off his, then wrapped his arms around himself as if he was cold.

  I longed to move closer to him.

  But he kept his face turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me.

  Timothy was having trouble with Quirk. “Get your foot out of the stirrup, curse it,” she growled.

  At the word curse, Griff’s head jerked up. He stared at me intently.

  Quirk and Timothy were still talking, but I ignored them, taking three quick steps, the long grass brushing at my knees, closing the distance between me and Griff. “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  He didn’t move, didn’t answer.

  I glanced back in the direction of the castle. I could see nothing but the rolling waves of the plains.

  Quirk, off the horse at last, came over to me, wading through grass that came nearly up to his chin. “I’m hoping the Forest won’t let Story’s servants in.” He pointed at Griff. “But listen, lass. It might not let him in, either.”

  I felt as if I’d been slapped. “What? Griff grew up in the City. Why wouldn’t the Forest let him return to it?”

  “Rosie. Look at him.”

  I did. Griff stood silent, watching us. He was so pale; I wondered if my kiss back in the castle had warmed him at all. With trembling fingers, I reached toward his face—and he flinched away, pulling his clenched hand out of his pocket. He was holding the Godmother’s thimble.

  I wanted to tell him that it was all right—but it wasn’t. He wasn’t.

  Looking closer, I could see that, in addition to the blood that had seeped through slashes in his coat, his eyes were deeply shadowed with weariness, and his face was lined with pain. Story had done that to him.

  “I shouldn’t have left you,” I whispered.

  He didn’t answer. His usual silence was deeper, colder.

  “He is the son of a Godmother,” Quirk said from behind me. “He possesses a thimble just as powerful as mine. Story had over a day to work on him. He is Story’s weapon.”

  “No,” I breathed.

  “All this time, lass, Story has been in the City,” Quirk said. “It was quiet, and subtle, but it was there, watching, waiting, keeping Griff in reserve for when it needed him. The Lord Protector’s methods against Story were never completely effective. All he and his Watchers could do was hold it at bay. Not even the Breakers could eradicate it. Now that Story has been thwarted at Castle Clair, it will almost certainly try to rise again in the City.” He held up his own thimble. “I’ve revealed myself to it—it knows that I am the Witch and the City’s true Protector, and it knows that I am coming. I can’t bring . . .” His voice faltered. “Rosie, I can’t bring Story’s weapon into the City. Not now.”

  But we couldn’t leave Griff behind. I stepped closer to Quirk and knelt so I could look right into his eyes. His face was so serious under his ridiculous green cap. “I love him.”

  “Ah, lass,” Quirk sighed.

  “And he loves me,” I insisted. “I won’t leave him. We have to come with you.” I felt a knot of desperation tighten in my chest. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

  There was a long silence as Quirk considered it.

  Timothy had finished unsaddling and setting free the horses; she swished over to us through the long grass. “Less talking, more running away,” she said brusquely, with a wave toward the Forest. Almost as an answer, we heard a distant howl—the castle’s servants, in pursuit.

  “Hurry,” I told Quirk. “You must decide.” The howls and shrieks of the servants grew even closer.

  “It might be enough,” Quirk said.

  I knew what he meant. Love was one of the most powerful weapons for fighting Story. “It will have to be,” I said.

  “It’s a risk.” Quirk released a weary sigh. “But we don’t have any other choice. That’s how Story works, Rosie. It narrows our choices until we have no options left except to serve Story, whether we will it or not.”

  “And now our only option is to run,” Timothy said, with a worried glance toward the sounds of pursuit. “Go!”

  CHAPTER

  32

  GRIFF FOLLOWED THEM. AS HE WALKED, HE HEARD NOTHing but a low, grinding thunder, saw only shades of gray, as if all of the color had leached out of the world, and he felt nothing but pain from the thorns and the ice in his bones. His mind turned, gear-like, obedient.

  Story drew him onward. Story willed that he stay with the son of the Witch and with the girl, who remained under two curses. The castle had fallen, but she still had a role to play; she was still a thing it could use. Story had plans for her, and for him.

  He would go with them to the City, where Story had invested most of its power. It had once ruled there; it would rule again, though to ensure its rule it needed the son of a Godmother, with his thimble, and with the spindle that he carried in his coat pocket.

  All of the Godmothers who had ever served Story had, like him, carried ice in their bones. They had given up their will and their warmth, and in return they had received power.

  But . . .

  He hadn’t given up his will, not entirely. It was bound, but he still had it. His warmth had been ripped away from him, but he still had a bit of it left, too. Just a spark.

  And . . .

  Distantly, he remembered a kiss.

  Story’s construct. The girl. He had loved her. Hadn’t he?

  The thunder in his ears resolved into words.

  Mine.

  Mine.

  Unloved.

  Alone.

  Mine.

  Shards of ice lanced into his temples as punishment for his rebellion, no matter how momentary, and his vision went dark. He stumbled to a halt.

  Then he felt a faint warmth; peering through the darkness, he saw that the girl had taken his hand.

  Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  Before, when he’d been a Watcher, he’d been able to sense curses. Now that he could see with Story’s vision, he saw her two remaining curses, covering her like a shroud made of shadows.

  With numb fingers, he felt for the edge of the curses. It frayed at his touch, and dissolved like smoke.

  And then he felt the weight of Story, and the curses’ threads reknit themselves. More curses gathered in his hands, heavy as stones; if he tried again to lift her curse, he would burden her with them. He couldn’t risk it.

  The girl had started running again, hold
ing his hand, pulling him along with her.

  He was a danger to her. She should let him go; she should leave him.

  Yet he clung to her hand. He had a spark left of his own will; he focused all of it on her hand, because it was a point of life and hope.

  Their flight was a whirl of exhaustion and pain, and cold far deeper than the chill he’d felt when walking to the castle with the thimble on his finger. He’d been carrying Quirk on his back. And Rose had been with him.

  That was her name, he remembered.

  Rose.

  THE FOREST LOOMED closer. In the distance, we could hear the howls and shouts of the castle’s servants pursuing us. We’d wasted too much time talking.

  Quirk led the way, with Timothy, and I followed, pulling Griff along with me.

  “There,” Quirk panted, pointing.

  Ahead there was a scattering of trees and, farther into the Forest, the beginning of a path. Quirk picked up the pace, using his arms as if he was swimming through the grass. I took one quick look over my shoulder, past Griff, to see how close the servants were. I could make out their blue coats. Some of them were running on all fours.

  When I turned back, the path leading into the Forest had disappeared, and so had Quirk and Timothy.

  “Quirk!” I shouted.

  There was a snarl and a series of barks from the servants. They raced toward us, leaping through the long grass. They were close enough now that I could see foam spraying from their mouths as they panted, and blood running from their noses.

  I dodged a tree, pulling Griff along with me, and looked frantically for the path. “Quirk! Timothy!”

  “Here, lass,” he called, and stepped from the Forest’s shadows. He raised his arm, as if holding a door open, and there it was, the path. Griff and I stepped onto it, and Quirk followed, with Timothy, and the Forest closed in around us. Five steps later, and the sounds of pursuit were silenced.

  I caught my breath. The four of us stood in a clearing not much larger than we were. Tree trunks were like a wall at our backs. Branches arched overhead, blocking the daylight; dried leaves rustled underfoot.

  “You all right?” Quirk asked, peering up at me through the gloom.