Kizzy’s smile faltered. She swallowed hard, and I knew she was thinking of Fen.
‘Someone though. Someone – important. He will change you for ever.’
Kizzy snorted, regaining her composure. ‘You sound like the frauds in the market, Aunty.’ She put on a mystical voice. ‘A tall dark stranger—’
Cook threw her hand down. ‘I’ll not be talked to like that. I’m not your Aunty, child. We are not kin. I could tell Mistress Malovski what’s gone on here.’
‘And lose your other eye?’ Kizzy said smoothly. ‘We’re in this together now.’
Cook looked at me. ‘Doesn’t her boldness make you want to stuff up your ears?’ She turned back to Kizzy. ‘It’s not just you who will suffer if you don’t behave, girl. They know how to hit you where it hurts.’
Kizzy put her palm back on the table. ‘I’m sorry. Please, what else can you tell me?’
Cook sucked her teeth with a smacking sound. ‘It’s hard to tell, but I think there’s a journey ahead.’
‘A journey?’ I said, tensing at the word. ‘You think she’ll escape?’
‘Maybe. Maybe a journey against your will. But this will not be where you die.’
‘No,’ said Kizzy with certainty. ‘It will not. What about my death?’
‘Death’s the hardest thing of all to place.’
‘I know,’ said Kizzy, and I could tell she was thinking of Old Charani, who had not seen her own end.
Cook looked closer. ‘It is strange though – perhaps it’s only the burns, but …’
‘What is it?’
Cook studied her hand a moment longer and shook her head. ‘Can’t make sense of the lifeline. There’s another running beside it, but they both seem to … I can’t tell with all this scarring.’
‘But there’s no time to wait until it heals,’ said Kizzy. ‘It has to be today, our divining days are nearly done.’
‘That’s all I can tell you,’ said Cook. ‘Your sister needs time too.’
She reached out for my hand, but I held it to my chest. I was suddenly not sure I wanted to know. Before it was because I was sure my future held nothing special, but now I had a feeling of foreboding, like a circling shadow crossing the back of my neck.
‘Come on, Lil,’ said Kizzy. ‘You’ve got to do it. Mamă would want you to.’
I met my sister’s eyes, feeling tears well in my own. Kizzy reached out to me with her un-bandaged hands. ‘I’m going on a journey, Lil. And I know you’re coming with me. We won’t die here. Let her tell you.’
I could never refuse Kizzy. I gave Cook my hand. Her own was coarse as Old Charani’s and I closed my eyes, imagining the sounds of the dying embers of the fire came from one burning birch and larch, that my belly was full of mushroom stew and that Mamă’s hands were on my shoulders in place of Kizzy’s.
‘There’s something in you.’ Cook’s voice cut through my dreaming. ‘Something in you and shining – special.’ I opened my eyes. Cook was staring intently at me. She brought up one of her hands to my neck and touched me very gently upon the throat.
‘She sings,’ said Kizzy, almost vibrating with excitement. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? She’s a lăutari. Lil, I told you!’
‘There’s one way of truly telling,’ said Cook.
I frowned. ‘What?’ Cook looked hard at me. ‘I can’t sing. Not in front of—’ I broke off.
‘Then don’t sing for me. Sing for her. Sing,’ Cook said, leaning into me, her eye looking straight through my skin into my heart, ‘for your Mamă.’
Tears came in earnest now. Cook looked away, and Kizzy wrapped her arms around me. ‘Sing, Lil. It’s your fate.’
So I did. I hauled my breaking heart, my hurt, into my throat, and sang something low and sweet: a mourning song. A song for Mamă, and for Old Charani, and Dika, and all the other burnt and broken bodies that had once held the souls of those we loved.
I sang their spirits free and safe and unburdened with the knowledge of what had become of us, and sent them spinning up to the stars, or into the trees, or wherever they felt happiest. I sang them love and pushed it into every note of my song until it shone.
The silence rang like a bell afterwards. When Cook, tears running down her face, smiled, it was a real smile that lit her whole face like a lamp.
‘A lăutari, certainly. You didn’t need an old woman to tell you that.’
‘And the rest,’ sniffed Kizzy, wiping her face. ‘Read the rest.’
Cook took a deep breath, composing herself, and took up my hand again. ‘No children, nor husband for you either. But a love, a great love. I can feel it strongly.’
‘A love?’ said Kizzy. ‘Is it me?’
Cook shook her head. ‘A romantic love.’
‘Oh.’ Kizzy sounded a little put out. ‘Is she on the journey too?’
‘Hush, it is not your reading,’ said Cook, but gently. She seemed to have softened to Kizzy. Everyone did. ‘Yes, I can see the journey. Perhaps you are together after all.’
Kizzy leaned in. ‘And her death?’
Cook ran her finger across a line in my palm. She shook her hand slowly.
‘What?’ I said at last. The soothing effect of the song had worn off, and anxiety was breeding in my belly again. ‘What do you see?’
‘I can find no death for you.’
‘What?’
Cook looked up. Her jaw was tight beneath its dark, wrinkled skin. ‘I cannot find your life’s end.’
‘That’s good,’ laughed Kizzy. ‘Perhaps she will live for ever.’
Cook fixed her with a sharp gaze. ‘That would not be a blessing, child. We die because we are meant to, as do trees and birds and all things on this earth.’ She broke off abruptly, looking weary. ‘It’s all I can tell you. Midnight is past, and I must be up soon.’
Kizzy rose to leave, but I stayed sitting. I wanted to ask the question that had been burning inside me for days and days. ‘Cook, can I ask you something else? Not about our divining.’
Cook raised her eyebrows at me.
‘Who is the Dragon?’
The woman’s face drained so completely of colour it was as if she wore a layer of Malovski’s powder. She crossed her fingers as Szilvie had done against the mention of witchcraft. ‘Who told you, child?’
‘No one told me anything,’ I said, my heart beating faster. ‘Only the word.’
Cook ran a shaky hand through her greying hair. ‘It is best if he stays as a word.’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘I’ll never ask another thing.’
Cook closed her eye. I could see her eyeball working side to side beneath the dark, papery skin.
‘This place is worse than you know. This land is cursed, not only for us Travellers. For the Settled too.’ Her eye opened. Her sealed lid twitched. ‘We are not the only ones who have cause to be afraid.’
‘Tell us,’ said Kizzy, leaning into her. ‘It is surely better we know.’
Cook looked at the banked-up fire, the lit heart glowing redly through its crust. ‘This land is cursed, because its Voievod is a curse. They call him the Dragon, because he razes whole villages that disobey his command. He is an evil man, with a black heart. Some say he’s worse than a man, has no heart at all.’