Stepsister(36)

Tanaquill smirked. “Redemption? Would that be for the girl? Or for you?”

Her words cut Chance. He flinched, but his gaze did not falter. His smile was no longer golden, but naked and vulnerable. “Both, if I’m lucky,” he said.

Tanaquill’s eyes held his. Her gaze was piercing. Then she said, “Nero, a horse. Felix, a boy. Ella, a stepsister.”

As soon as the words had left the fairy queen’s lips, Chance shot the magician a look. She nodded, then melted away into the woods.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Chance said fervently. He took her cool, pale hand in his, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it.

Tanaquill growled, but there was little threat in it. “What happens next is up to the girl. Not you. Not Fate,” she warned as Chance released her.

As if on cue, Fate walked into the clearing. “Ah, Tanaquill! Well met by moonlight!” she said. She gave Chance a smug smile. “Taking the night air, Marquis? A bit stuffy in the chateau?”

Chance’s stomach sank to his boots. How much of our conversation has she overheard? he wondered anxiously.

Fate had a basket on her arm and a raven on her shoulder. “Are you hunting mushrooms, too?” she asked the fairy queen.

“I know why you’ve come,” the fairy queen said, ignoring her question. “But I’m afraid your adversary here”—she nodded at Chance—“has beaten you to the draw.”

Fate’s smile soured. Chance let out a shallow breath of relief. Perhaps she had not overheard them.

“Leave the girl alone, Tanaquill,” Fate said. “This is not your fight, and she is not worth your efforts. Stick to the woods. Go hunting.”

The fairy queen whirled on her, snarling with fury. Fate stumbled back. Her raven squawked.

“Do not patronize me, crone. I have been summoned by a human heart and am not so easily put back in my box,” Tanaquill warned. “You could no more contain me than you could contain a hurricane. I am older than you. Older than Chance. Older than time itself.”

She waved her hand. There was a high-pitched shriek, a blur in the air. The raven never saw the yellow-eyed hunter coming. The owl tore the bird off Fate’s shoulder and drove it to the ground. Then it lifted its wings over its prey and screeched at Fate, daring her to take it.

Fate did not. She stood still; her body was tense. Her eyes—back on Tanaquill—were calculating, like those of a lioness who wishes to attack a rival but is not certain of a win.

Tanaquill saw her wish. “I would not if I were you. Have you forgotten what I am? I am the heart’s first beat and its last. I am the newborn lamb and the wolf that rips out its throat. I am the bloodsong, crone.” She tossed a glance at the struggling raven and smiled. “So much for your box.”

And then she was gone, vanished into the darkness, and her owl with her. And where the raven had been a girl sat, her chest hitching, her trembling fingers hovering over the gouges on her neck.

“Up, Losca,” Fate ordered. “Go back to my room. Wait for me there.”

Losca stood. She stumbled out of the clearing on unsteady legs.

“That owl could’ve killed the poor girl. Why don’t you pack up, before someone else gets hurt?” Chance said gloatingly. “I’ve as good as won this wager.”

Fate regarded him coolly. “Go back to your chateau, Marquis. Get some rest. You’ll need it. I believe you have a horse to find. A boy. And a stepsister, no?” she said, walking away.

Chance swore, furious. The crone had overheard his conversation with Tanaquill.

Fate stopped at the edge of the clearing, turned back to him, and, with a poisonous smile, added, “Unless I find them first.”





Forty


Tavi stood by the kitchen door, cradling a bowl of fresh-picked plums, her white apron and the skirts of her blue dress fluttering in the morning breeze. She cast a skeptical eye over the contents of the large basket Isabelle had placed in the back of their wooden cart.

“But what if the orphans don’t want eggs?” she asked.

“Of course they will,” Isabelle said, adjusting a buckle on Martin’s harness. “Orphans don’t have much. They’ll be happy to get them.”

Tavi raised an eyebrow. “Do you even know where the orphanage is?”

Isabelle shot Tavi a look. She didn’t reply.

“Do you have your sword with you?”

“I don’t need it,” Isabelle said.

The truth was that she didn’t have it. She’d woken up this morning, two days since she’d used the sword to fight off the deserter, and had discovered that it had turned back into a bone, as if it had sensed that the danger has passed. She’d put it back in her pocket with Tanaquill’s other gifts.

“And exactly why are you giving away our much-needed eggs?” Tavi pressed.

“Because it’s a nice thing to do. A good deed.”

“Still trying to find the pieces of your heart?”

“Yes,” Isabelle said as she climbed into the cart and settled herself on the seat.

“Have you figured out what they are?”

Isabelle nodded. She’d been thinking about it nonstop. “Goodness, kindness, and charitableness,” she replied confidently. “I’m working on the charitableness piece today.”