‘It is only because of this Traveller that you are alive. I would gladly cut you down,’ she said. ‘In fact, perhaps I shall do so. Lil?’
I knew it was an act, but I appreciated it anyway. ‘Leave him,’ I said. ‘Tell us where the children are kept.’
Tamás shuddered. ‘In the dungeons. Just through the corridor where you found me. He let most of them go, though, after – your sister arrived.’
I frowned. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘No idea. We took them to the forest. We’re used to doing that, but usually at night, so the strigoi can hunt.’ He at least had the decency to look ashamed as he spoke this. ‘But this was in the morning, so they had time to get past the boundary. They had a good chance.’
I clenched my jaw, thinking. What had Kizzy’s arrival done to warrant their release? And had Kem been among them? Mira tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.
‘What do you want to do, dragă?’
It was a restless night. Only Tamás slept, waking himself up occasionally with his snores. I half-admired him being able to close his eyes, when from outside, all night long, came unnatural swooping sounds, like massive birds taking flight. Shadows chased along the walls, and none of us turned to look at the windows.
My thoughts chased each other through the dark as Fen and Mira whispered ideas and plans. It must have been past midnight when the candles burnt down, and they spoke on in the blackness. But my thoughts kept circling back to the Iele mushroom in my pocket. The first vision had guided us this far – it was time. Perhaps it could tell me more of Kizzy’s fate, and Kem’s whereabouts.
‘The mushroom,’ I murmured. Though my voice was soft, I heard both Mira and Fen jump. They had grown used to my silence, and I spoke the words again.
‘Are you sure?’ said Fen, and I heard a spark of hope in his voice.
‘I don’t want you to,’ said Mira, groping for my hand and finding it. ‘It can’t be safe.’
‘Mamă left them,’ I said. ‘All will be well.’
She squeezed my hand in assent, and I felt for the purple mushroom. I put it in my mouth, chewed, swallowed. The same surging filled my body, and I remained only long enough to feel Mira catch me as I fell.
I rose through the church roof. There were bodies knitted into the thatch, scattered to bones even as their fingers grasped for sanctuary. Up I flew, and when Mamă took my hand, she was not the only one beside me.
The air was full of dark shapes, swirling and moving as one, like starlings home after winter. But these were no birds. They were not even human. Their skin glittered like frost, their eyes red as holly berries, glowing like hot coals in the black. I wanted to scream, but I had no voice, and Mamă pulled me higher, above the clouds, so the swooping strigoi were obscured from view.
The next moment we were plunging, plunging so fast I swear my heart stopped. Past the strigoi, through the church roof, through the floor of bones, to a passage in the earth. My mouth felt full of dirt as we followed it, so fast it was a smudged blur, and when we rose again, this time we were not in a hall, with Kizzy and Albu.
We were bellying through the corridor we had taken Tamás from. More strigoi wafted through the stone channels, and I turned my eyes away. We passed through them like mist.
We slid down a set of stairs, unguarded now the strigoi roamed, and found a long row of doors. One pulsed with heat. I had time to count one, two, three doors along, and then Mamă took me away again, this time to the hall once more, where a girl was dancing—
I leaned forward, willing us faster. Now I would know. Now I would see what was done, and if it could be undone. But just as we drew close enough for me to make out Kizzy’s face, I was being pulled back, as though jerked on a hook. Even as Mamă tried to grip me, I felt myself slipping from her.
No, I thought. It is not over.
But now there was pain at my scalp, and I snapped back into my body, into a dark church full of bones, and the sound of shouting all about me.
I tried to sit up, but my hair was caught fast beneath something. I could hear Mira crying, ‘No!’ and Fen swearing, and then my hair was loosened as Tamás’s boot crashed down beside my head, stumbling away in the gloom. From the glint in his hand, I could see he had his sword back. He must have wrested it from Fen whilst they watched me as I flew. I felt for my axe, and the stake for good measure.
‘Tamás,’ I said, my voice steady. ‘What are you doing?’
‘That’s Traveller magick,’ he hissed, and the fear in his voice told me he was beyond reason. ‘You’re dangerous.’
‘Not to you,’ I said. ‘If you only calm down.’
But there was a scrabbling sound, and then a loud scrape. Fen started forwards, and I heard the slice of the sword through still air.
‘Back, Fen. Leave him. Tamás,’ I said again. ‘If you go out there, they’ll kill you.’
‘I’m Calazan’s man,’ said Tamás, his voice shaking with poorly suppressed nerves. ‘There’s a pact.’
‘They won’t give a damn about the pact when they scent you,’ said Mira. ‘We’ve seen a girl try to murder her own father.’
‘We have his word,’ he said, seeming to warm to his idea of safety. ‘I will not be harmed.’
‘You will be murdered!’ cried Mira.
But her words were lost to him. He wrenched the barricade clear and pulled open the door. The three of us ran forwards, rushing to replace it. Fen and Mira hurried to right the wooden table, but I paused a moment after I replaced the metal bar, peering through the hewn slices of the door.
Moonlight cast everything in silver. The bare head of Tamás, running for the castle. The soles of his boots, slapping the slick cobbles. Even his cry sounded metallic as he tried to raise the alarm. And then there was the glitter of the strigoi’s skin, as they swooped down, and smothered him. Their teeth glinted and flashed, working like blades, until he stopped screaming.
We found the location of the hidden route from the church to the castle with little trouble, but unearthing it was another matter. It was barricaded better than the door, piles of stones and furniture placed over a great slab of rock.
Daylight began to grow as Fen searched the church for rope, knotting curtain sashes together, and we devised a hoist slung over a low beam to remove the heavier stones. We worked as fast as we could, but the rope kept snapping and had to be reinforced.
After our third try, Fen went out into the sunny village to scavenge for something to help us. Mira and I didn’t speak, only sat with our arms around each other, breathing one another in. It was almost lovely, even here.
Fen returned with a long length of rope, a canvas that might have been a sail, and Tamás’s sword and tunic. Both were spattered with blood.
‘What did you bring those for?’ Mira asked, wrinkling her nose. This time we had not sprang apart when he arrived, and it felt good to hold her hand, and have him see it.
‘I thought it could be useful,’ he said, placing everything down, and pulling on the tunic. Something clinked, and his eyes widened.
‘What?’
Wordlessly, he pulled out a set of keys, linked on a small metal ring. He threw them to me, and I caught them.