The door has deposited us into a lavish hallway, a little quieter than the main castle. The windows are high up so we must be on one of the lower levels, right above the caverns.
Mads pulls me into a shadowy alcove, behind a statue, right as a coughing fit strikes me. I barely manage to stifle it as a patrol of guards passes us. It feels like hours go by before they disappear around a corner.
“On my mark,” Mads mouths. “Now.”
The end of the hallway leads to a large marble staircase spiraling up into the castle. The walls are hung with banners emblazoned with the High House sigil and the golden thread catches the light from intricate circular windows that ascend with the steps. Even the thought of climbing them feels like a death sentence.
We duck beneath the stairs, hunched over each other as deep into the shadows as possible. The patrol from before has doubled back, but their unhurried pace suggests that my disappearance has not yet been discovered. I struggle to contain my coughs until their footsteps fade up the stairs.
Mads rubs my back when another violent one escapes me. I can feel the veins lacing deeper into my body, burning and strangling every part of me from the inside.
This is what happened to Kieran. The thought rises unbidden. He never let on how painful it really was. He was so brave, and I never truly understood until this very moment.
The coughing quiets, replaced by a shiver from the fever. Mads’s strong arms come around me and I collapse against him.
“Mads, if I don’t make it out of here—”
“Don’t.” His voice is gentle, but tinged with fear. He tightens his hold on me. “You’re going to be fine, Freckles.”
“You’re not afraid of getting sick?” I ask.
“My pa always says no one arrives safely at their grave,” Mads replies. “I’ll take my chances.”
I smile into his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. “Thanks, Mads.”
“It’s the least I can do,” he says. “If I were a Bard, I’d use a Telling to heal you.”
“That’s not…”
That’s not entirely how it works. A spoken Telling has no permanence, not like the symbols in the Book of Days or in my sewing. Or writing, I’d wager.
My mind takes me back to the repository when Cathal pushed me aside. His rough grip on my collar. The cold emptiness in his eyes when he sneered at me. The moment his mask of kindness was discarded. The image appears unbidden in my mind, but clear as crystal.
I do my best to banish the hurt from my heart. The broken trust. The lie that he cared about me. The look on his face when he was no longer pretending I mattered; the darkness in his voice as he threw me in a cell. This is worse than the pain of the Blot. This is a pain I will never be rid of, not fully at least, not for a long time.
If I live that long.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he had given me the Blot.
“Mads…” I whisper. My eyes widen. The truth was there the whole time.
I push back from him, raising my hands. They are even darker than before. Moving my fingers sends shock waves up my arms. I let out a low moan of pain.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” Mads looks near panicking.
“Touching the pages of ink didn’t give me the Blot. Cathal wrote it into me.” I shiver, only partly from the fever, remembering the notebook Cathal would write in as he sat by my bedside in the sanitarium. “I saw him do it.”
Mads’s eyes flick between my hands and my face. I can see him warring with disbelief—and I don’t blame him. If Cathal has the power to give someone the Blot, who else has he done it to?
I look back at my hands. Cathal’s Telling is strong and locked into reality with ink. But it’s still only a Telling … and I’m a Bard.
“Heal.”
My Telling is spoken in a whisper, but carries every ounce of focus and strength I can muster.
“Heal,” I repeat fiercely.
Slowly, the veins begin to withdraw, the pain subsiding to a dull throb. I’m not cured. I’ll need to continue countering Cathal’s written Telling, perhaps forever. And I don’t even know how long my Counter-Tellings will last. But I’ll live, which is more than I had ten minutes ago.
Mads is staring at me with wide eyes. I grab his hand, pulling him out from under the stairs.
“Hurry,” I say, “we don’t have much time.”
* * *
No one on the upper floors bats an eye at seeing a Bard and guard emerging from the lower level. Even if the Bard is somewhat disheveled and sweating nervously. At my side, Mads looks remarkably composed. But his nose is crinkled. Only I could recognize his way of hiding his worry.
“Should we make a run for it?” he whispers.
“Too obvious,” I say. “We need to slip out unnoticed, and we’re running out of time.”
“Shae, we don’t have a choice.”
The panic has spread to my throat, but mercifully, the courtyard at the entrance to High House appears deserted. Mads grips my hand tightly at my side as we rush to the gate.
“Going somewhere?” a familiar, steady voice asks, stopping us in our tracks.
My breath hitches when Niall steps casually in front of us, blocking the path to the gate. Mads starts to step in front of me, but I hold him back.
“Let me pass,” I say. “I promise, I’ll leave High House and never return.”
Niall raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”
With a nearly imperceptible Telling, he’s suddenly standing right in front of me, his gloved hand closing around my neck.
“I thought you looked familiar,” he says. “The rogue Bard in Aster. You’re the missing daughter.”
“Don’t touch her!” Mads growls, making to push Niall away.
“Away.” Niall waves his hand dismissively. His Telling pushes Mads several feet back, knocking him to the ground. It gives Niall enough time to pull a blade from his boot and hold it to my neck. He shoots Mads a warning look as he scrambles up. Mads’s mouth is pressed to a thin line, his hands held up defensively.
“Kennan didn’t kill my mother, did she?” I ask quietly.
He lets out a harsh laugh. “Kennan didn’t have the courage to do her duty. She couldn’t handle the responsibility of our position.” Niall sneers. “Why do you think she was sent to the sanitarium? She got cold feet. She was ready to join your mother’s failed cause.” He pauses with a dangerous smile. “I don’t share those reservations. I am a Bard of High House, and I will lay down my life for Cathal.”
The fury I had directed at Kennan returns a hundredfold, my entire body wanting to attack.
The blade inches closer to my throat.
Before I can think better of it, I jerk my knee up to his stomach as hard as I can. Niall doubles over and stumbles. It gives Mads enough of a window to grab his arm and wrench the knife from his grasp.
As they grapple, I step back, anxiously looking for a weapon. The only things in my pockets are the Book of Days fragment and Kieran’s ox.
I hold the page in front of me, frustrated at being incapable of helping. A drop of blood falls from my neck with a soft splat on the page, followed by another. Two more. Niall must have cut me with the knife, and I didn’t notice. The drops of blood make a thin line where it drips. It almost looks like the beginnings of a stick figure.