For Isolfr and me, each stop was largely the same: we would help unpack, and then Master Sedrick would stow us away in the servants’ quarters, and we’d take meals when called. Of course, each house itself was different. One was made of sprawling white stone that gleamed against the bright green grass. Another was built into the trunk and branches of the biggest tree I’d ever seen; the servants’ quarters were underground there, with a roof made of tree roots and a floor made of dirt, and we had to crawl up ladders fashioned out of thick, ropy vines to get to the main part of the house. After that, the next house we visited seemed ordinary by comparison, even though it was enormous, its rooms and hallways and gardens bigger than any in Kjora.
It was almost enough to make me forget that we were traveling to Jandanvar to stop Lord Foxfollow. Almost.
I never saw a shadow in the sky again, although this didn’t give me any comfort, because I also hadn’t been as inundated with magic as I had back at Tattersall Manor. Our journey took us closer and closer to Jandanvar. The landscape was changing like the houses, turning rocky and flat, grasslands giving way to a hard, frozen ground covered in tiny blue flowers. We’d be there soon. I teased myself with fantasies about Frida and Kolur defeating Lord Foxfollow before we arrived, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. Isolfr had sought us out because Kolur could help, not because Kolur could defeat Foxfollow on his own. No single human wizard was strong enough. Not against Mists magic.
I distracted myself by talking to Isolfr. I still couldn’t get him to tell me any details about his life beyond those I already knew, but he would listen when I talked about my own life in Kjora. I told him about Mama and her adventures as a pirate aboard the Nadir. I told him about all the best places to hide from chores in the forest near the village. He listened with a bright intensity, his eyes never leaving me as I spoke. I wondered how he could find my life so interesting, but at the same time, I was grateful for it, even though talking about my family, about Kjora, about the world beyond the Mists—it made me sad. And in a way, sadness was a relief from the fear of fighting Lord Foxfollow.
And then we arrived at Garrowglass Manor.
We arrived in late afternoon. By that point, Isolfr and I knew what was expected of us. The carriage wheezed to a stop and we made our way into the common room to stand at attention along the back wall with Miss Cordelia. Trystan was already there, dressed in a resplendent dark red coat I’d never seen him wear. He gave Isolfr a weary smile. I didn’t know what to make of it.
Once we were all assembled, Master Sedrick opened the carriage door. A heavy gray light spilled in, along with the scent of snow. I frowned. As far as I could tell, it was summer here in the Mists.
“Jandanvar,” Isolfr whispered beside me.
A rope constricted around my heart. “What?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“We aren’t there yet,” he said. “We’re on the boundary. I can feel it close by, though.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I can smell home.” But when he opened his eyes they sparkled with fear.
I felt sick to my stomach. The gray light seemed to wash out the color of the carriage, and I felt as if we were trapped in a world without life.
“So we’ve arrived,” Trystan said in a grim, hard-edged voice. I risked a glance over at him. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back. His hair was slicked back in a neat little ponytail. He looked as he had at every great house, save for his expression, which cut a line of fear straight through my heart. He was scared too.
“That we have, my lord.” Master Sedrick bowed. “I’ve sent a messenger to alert Lord and Lady Garrowglass that you will be joining them shortly, so they can prepare for the formal entrance.”
“Very good.” Trystan shook out the lace in his sleeves. We all stood in silence.
And then Trystan broke the careful protocol we’d been following the past several days. He looked straight at Isolfr. “I know you know where we are. Promise me you’ll wait before you go barreling across the border. It’s almost certain that Lord Foxfollow has guards stationed. We’ve been hidden by my protection spells for the journey, but I can’t make guarantees as to your safety once we’re through the boundaries. We’ll have to be very careful about taking you across.”
I’d known this already—suspected it, at least, but hearing him lay it out in such detail just amplified my fear. Off to my left, Miss Cordelia stared into space with her usual glowering stare, taking everything in and storing it away until she died. Master Sedrick stood by the door. He didn’t act any different, but I realized with a jolt he was guarding it.
“What exactly is the plan?” I said. “To get us across. You know that Kolur and Frida are waiting for us.”
“I want you across as quickly as possible, too.” Trystan’s eyes glittered. “I want to see that creature destroyed. I’m just saying we need to be smart.” He looked from me to Isolfr. “I’ll tell Lady Garrowglass that I wish to take an afternoon stroll through Jandanvar. It’s not an uncommon thing, and the Garrowglasses have always loved that they live at the edge of the world. They think it gives them a certain quality that the other great houses lack. I’ll insist on bringing my two devoted servants along—that’s the two of you—and we’ll get across under Garrowglass protection. It will be stronger and safer than any magic I could conjure—I’m not used to dealing with the magic of your world.”
I glanced over at Isolfr. He looked pale, but brave at the same time. Determined.
“We’ll get you back to the Sun Realms soon enough,” Trystan said.
The Sun Realms, I thought. Home.
It did not feel like going home.
• • •
Garrowglass Manor was ordinary compared to the other houses. I didn’t reel back from its magic, and I didn’t have to crawl through the branches of a tree to get into my bedroom. It was simply a sprawling stone house surrounded by gray trees. Snow was falling by the time we disembarked from the carriage, a faint dusting that clung to Isolfr’s eyelashes. Trystan rode ahead in a horse and carriage provided by the Garrowglass family. The rest of us had to walk through the snow, our breath forming in white puffs on the air.
In many ways, Garrowglass Manor felt more like home than the rest of the Mists. The gardens were filled with scraggly plants that looked as if they could belong to a house in the capital, and when we went inside, the air was damp and cold and lit not by glowing flowers or streaks of magic, but by torches, burning small and steady in intervals along the soot-blackened walls. Maybe the Mists became more like my world when they met at the boundaries, just as my world became more like the Mists.
Isolfr and I were deposited in our quarters—a single room this time, located on the very top floor. It was small and cramped, the two narrow beds crammed up against each other, but there was a window that looked down over the estate. It was covered with a thick pane of glass, and when I crawled onto the bed to look through it, the magic in my veins buzzed: it wasn’t ordinary glass. It rattled around inside me, and I thought it might be something that had been transformed through magic-sickness. Sand, perhaps, blasted by wave after wave of enchantment. I hoped it hadn’t been something more sinister than that.
“I wish we weren’t here,” Isolfr said.
I pulled away from the window, my skin tingling. “Don’t go close to that window,” I said. Then I sat down beside him on the bed. “And where do you wish we were?”
“Anywhere,” Isolfr said. “Back onboard the Shira. In Tulja.” He closed his eyes. “I’m not ready for this yet. Trystan thought we’d go running across the boundary but I’m not sure I even want to cross at all.”
He drew his knees up to his chest as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible. His Pjetur disguise flickered, and for a moment I saw the true Isolfr. My heart clenched. I hadn’t seen him like that for a long time.
“I don’t want to go either,” I said. “But we have to do it. You convinced me to come with you, remember? You said we were g
oing to save the world.” He’d gone back to his disguise, bland features and dull hair. “I’m not doing this without you. You want to give up, I’m giving up too.”
“I don’t want to give up.” Isolfr sighed. “I just wish it didn’t have to be me. My siblings—they’re all so much braver than I am. But they’d been weakened, their magic broken.” He didn’t finish the rest of it, and I knew he was probably talking about what Frida and Kolur had done. I felt a surge of warmth for him. He really was brave. He just didn’t show it the usual way.
“At least we don’t have to cross the border right away,” I said. “We can—prepare. Decide what we’re going to do.”
Isolfr laughed. “We should have been doing that all along, shouldn’t we? But I couldn’t stand to think about it.”
“I couldn’t either.”
He looked at me, his eyes bright. “Really?”
“Of course. I’m terrified.”
He watched me for a few seconds, neither of us speaking. His gaze made my skin burn, but I didn’t turn away. I couldn’t. It was like an embrace.
“You seem so brave to me,” he finally said, and he leaned forward a little, and I didn’t pull away.
Something like magic flowed between us. His lips were very close to mine. My head spun, and I thought, Can spirits even kiss?
And then we did.
Isolfr jerked his head back. I was so stunned I couldn’t move, although I felt the blood rushing inside of me like the ocean.
“I’m sorry,” Isolfr said, and he looked down, his hair falling across his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid—there’s a chance we might die, and—well, I guess I just wanted you to know.”
And you say you’re not brave.
“It’s all right.” It took me a moment to find my words. “I rather—I rather liked it.”
Isolfr lifted his face and his eyes met mine. That magic arced between us, sparking and bright. It reminded me of the magic of the west wind, in a way, it was so huge and encompassing and bigger than myself. But I knew it wasn’t magic I’d ever known before. It was something special.
“I did too,” Isolfr said shyly. He smiled. It was not a Pjetur smile, but an Isolfr smile, a spirit’s smile, and for a moment the room spun and I tried to grasp onto the idea that this beautiful creature had kissed me, that he had liked it.
And then a loud, insistent banging erupted through the room.
Isolfr and I jumped apart.
“Open up!” shouted a harsh, unfamiliar voice.
We both scrambled backward over the bed. More banging. The door wasn’t even locked—I could see the latch hanging open.
“What’s happening?” I whispered. Isolfr just shook his head in silence.
The door swung open. Two guards charged in with swords drawn. They stopped when they saw us.
“The hell?” one of the guards said. “They’re just a couple of kids.”
The other one grunted. “He said not to let that fool you.”
He said.
I looked over at Isolfr in horror. He was pale and shaking, staring up at the guards. He said.
“Who said?” I demanded. “What’s going on? We’re just servants of Lord Trystan—”
“Lord Trystan has been taken under arrest by order of Lord Garrowglass. As are you. Please come with me.”
“Under arrest!” I said. My whole body trembled, but I was not going to let the guards know. I lifted my chin, forced myself to speak. “On what charges?”
“Conspiracy.”
Dizziness swept over me. Conspiracy?
“I have permission to use force if you don’t comply. Please come along.” The guard nodded at Isolfr. “Both of you.”
This time, when I looked over at Isolfr, he looked back at me. His eyes shimmered with tears. I knew we shared the same thought.
Lord Foxfollow.
He had found us.
“Don’t drag it out,” the guard said, sighing. He pointed his sword at me. “Move along.”
I didn’t know what to do, so I did as he said. I shoved myself forward on the bed until my feet touched the floor. Hesitated. Stood up. The room tilted. The guard grabbed me by my upper arm and dragged me forward.
“You too,” said the other one, jabbing his finger in Isolfr’s direction. “Orders are for both of you.”
Isolfr didn’t move. There had to be some kind of magic I could do—I felt for it on the air, for something, anything, that I could convert into power. Energy surged up inside of me.
And then there was a sharp pain in my side. “We were warned about that too,” the guard said in a low, scratchy voice. “You try magic, and I’ll cut you and feed your blood to the house.”
I choked back a scream. Isolfr stared at me with wide, mournful eyes. I looked down at the root of the pain. The guard held a slim, gleaming knife at my waist.
“You wouldn’t want that,” the guard whispered.
I whimpered, my terror turning to sound. Isolfr stood up. I was trying not to cry but when I looked at him I couldn’t help it. We were right on the border of Jandanvar. We had come so close.
I thought of the shadow I’d seen in the sky at Tattersall Manor. And then I thought of home, of my parents, of Henrik, and I knew I would never see them again.
The other guard grabbed Isolfr and jerked him forward. Isolfr’s limbs went limp, like an animal playing dead in the presence of a hunter. His head rolled back on his neck.
“This way,” my guard said, and he pulled me out into the hallway. The knife was still stuck at my side, a burning pinprick sting. I stumbled over my own feet as the guard led me through the hallways, his boots clomping on the heavy stone floor. I could hear Isolfr and his guard behind us, footsteps and the occasional gasp of fear, but I was too afraid to look back, too afraid that doing so would make the guard spill my blood.
The guards didn’t take us through the servants’ corridors, but into the main hallways. The ceiling soared above us. There were faces carved into the stone. In the oozing torchlight they roiled around, glaring at me, mocking me. The hallway was empty save for us, and our footsteps bounced against the walls and sounded like the footsteps of an army.
The guards took us to a set of stairs leading down into the earth. “Move,” my guard said, shoving me in the back. “Don’t try anything.”
I couldn’t speak. I could barely see through my tears. I didn’t understand why the guard thought I would try anything—I had done as he asked, hadn’t I? I walked; I didn’t turn around to see Isolfr.
The bottom of the stairs was so shrouded in darkness that it was like descending into the deep of the sea. A cold wind blew up, ruffling through my hair and sending ripples over my skin. The guard shoved at me again, and I stumbled down the stairs, aware of the knife in my side. The cold wind blew harder, whistling a low, tuneless sound. I didn’t dare reach out for the magic in it; I didn’t know what would happen if I did, and besides, I didn’t want the guard’s knife to dig deeper into my side.
The guard muttered beneath his breath, a stream of syllables that could only be a language. Immediately, fires erupted at the base of the stairs. Torches. They flickered and sent up spirals of black smoke that crept into my lungs and made me cough. The guard pressed the knife harder against my skin.
“Don’t try anything,” he said.
I coughed again, shaking my head. My footsteps slammed heavy against stone. We were at the bottom of the stairs, in a dungeon, row after row of empty cells.
“Which one?” asked Isolfr’s guard.
“Don’t matter, as long as they’re locked up.” My guard heaved a cell open and shoved me inside. I felt at the place where he’d been holding the knife. A few drops of blood smeared over the tips of my fingers.
The door slammed shut. Metal clanged and reverberated around the dungeon. The guard turned a key in the lock, then tossed the keys over to the other guard, who was dragging Isolfr through the murk. He opened a cell across from mine and shoved in Isolfr.
 
; “What’s going on?” I said, feeling braver now that the knife was gone from my side. “You can’t do this to us—Lord Trystan is important—”
The guards turned and marched up the stairs, leaving us in the sooty glow of the torches.
I shrieked in frustration and grabbed my bars and shook them. They didn’t move, although the lock jangled up against them with a hollow, ringing sound. I screeched and pushed away, my heart pounding. Isolfr leaned up against the far wall of his own cell, head turned down, eyes closed like he was lost in thought.
“Do something!” I shouted at him.
He lifted his face. “I can’t,” he said.
“You’re not even human. You can do something.”
“Not here,” he said. “Not in this house. Not in the Mists.”
“Fine.” I stalked back and forth through my cell, treading over damp green moss and bits of charred wood. “I’ll do something.”
“Hanna, no—”
I ran back up to the bars and tried to shake them again. “No!” I said. “No! How can you say that? At least let me try.”
“No!” Isolfr darted forward until his hands were wrapped around the bars too. “There are protection spells woven in here—Mists ones. You might not have sensed them. They’ll only make your spell backfire. Please, Hanna, it’s not worth it.”
Protection spells? I tightened my grip on the bars and closed my eyes and concentrated, feeling for waves of magic. At first I felt nothing, only the cold unfamiliar wind, the underground dampness. And then, something whispered at the edge of my perception. A strain of magic. I’d felt it before. When Lord Foxfollow sent his monsters after the Annika.