Brightly Woven(29)

“Who else?” North dragged a hand through his matted hair. “I knew he had been too quiet; I knew he would bait me—but not Arcadia, never Arcadia.”

“What’s in Arcadia?” I asked again.

“A lot of innocent kids,” he said.

I asked, “What if we don’t take the bait?”

North shook his head. “If you think for one moment that Dorwan wouldn’t hesitate to kill a child, then you’ve clearly overestimated his humanity. He’s not bound by anything—by wizard law, by the ways of the hedges. He does what amuses him, and we’ve become his latest game.”

“Why waste the days of travel?” I said. “If we don’t go to him, won’t he have to come to us?”

“I won’t let him hurt one of the kids,” he said. “If I don’t help them, no one will.”

Within minutes, Owain disappeared before I could even give him a proper good-bye. We twisted as far as we could from Mrs. Pemberly’s, but when the black cloak fell around us, I immediately knew something was wrong.

“You took us east!” I said, pulling out the map to make sure. “I said north!”

“I took you north!” he snapped. The wizard stepped away from me, but the moment I held up the map, his anger deflated with a harsh breath.

“You took us east,” I said. “Twist us back and try again.”

“I told you,” he said, his hair hiding his face, “it’s not something I can do on a whim—you have to give me a moment!”

“Then we’ll walk,” I said. “It seems a more efficient method of travel than to rely on your complete and utter lack of direction. How in the world did you make it all the way out of Cliffton?”

“I had a guide,” North said, storming past me. “Does that make you feel important?”

“No,” I said bitterly. “But it does make me feel useful.”

North bit the side of his thumb, slowing so I could catch up to him. I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but pulled it back at the last moment. Something about him reminded me of Henry, and that made me wonder what my friend would say if he knew I cared about the wizard.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Arcadia means a great deal to me. Oliver and I spent a lot of time there while we were training with our magister. I thought it was the only safe place left in the world.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, but he only looked away.

Many miles and muddy roads later, a grimace on North’s face and a new limp told me it was time to stop for the night.

“Lift up your pant leg,” I said, watching his features twist in pain as he sat.

“I’m fine.”

“You can hardly walk, and your cloaks are a mess,” I said. “I’ll bet that dragon did a number on you.”

North grunted, looking away. An ugly burn revealed itself inch by inch as he rolled up his pant leg. I took one look at the angry, puckered red burn and shook my head. The bandage he had tied around it was loose and dirty.

“All I have is an elixir for the pain,” I said. “If we pass by a market, I’ll see if I can find what I need to help heal the burn.”

As North drank the remnants of an elixir I had made at Mrs. Pemberly’s, the look of relief on his face changed to one of surprise.

“You made this?” he asked, smelling the empty bottle. “It’s a wizard elixir, one of the strongest I’ve had. Where did you learn how to mix it?”

I traded Proper Instruction for Young Wizards for his ripped cloaks and sat down to mend.

“I haven’t seen one of these in years!” He thumbed through a few pages. “And you’re even reading it—great gods, why would you punish yourself like that?”

“I’m trying to learn, you know,” I mumbled. “You never tell me anything. I have to find the information out somehow.”

“Ask me a question about magic, then,” he said. “Any question.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “Why did you choose me?”

“I believe I said a question about magic, not my sanity.”

“What do the colors on your cloaks mean? You have five of them, but Dorwan only had blue on his knife.”

“I could have chosen one color for my talisman, but I wanted to be able to use all magic, not one,” he said. “Dorwan stole that talisman from someone, by the way.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

North pulled his green cloak free and held it up. “Each color corresponds to a type of magic. It’s something the wizards invented for themselves, and it has little to do with the actual magic. The colors began as a courtesy in duels, so a wizard would know what world of pain he was about to visit. Now a wizard generally announces his specialty with the prevalence of any color.”

“So why do you have black as your outer cloak, then?” I asked. “I thought that color was used just for traveling?”

North smiled mysteriously, rolling over on the ground. “Black is my color.”

“Then why have all of the colors? Is that even allowed?”

“I use all of them equally,” he said. “And of course it’s allowed. Most just choose not to do it because it’s difficult to have to carry so many talismans. Besides, my father used all the colors. I guess it felt right to honor him like this.”