As soon as Owl saw it, her excitement over the story shriveled away. She dug in her heels. “Bad.” She bared her teeth, hugged her swollen wrist to her chest, and when the weasel snarled at her to move, Owl snarled right back.
“No,” Iseult said, panic creeping into her voice. The Threads were closing in, and now was not the time for Owl to be difficult. “Look, Owl. It’s just water.” Iseult rushed toward the fog. Its edges roiled and moved like foam on the lip of a tide. She thrust in her hand.
And two breaths later came the pain. Harsh, insistent, fiery. Iseult stumbled backward.
“Bad,” Owl cried at her. “I told you, bad, bad, bad.”
Iseult’s hand felt like she’d dumped it into boiling water, and already, blisters puckered. Acid, she realized. Then fast on that thought’s heels came another: the lake must be inside this fog, and it was no ordinary lake.
It was the Solfatarra, famed across Cartorra for its waters filled with heat and acid. At one end was a hot spring, where the waters were pure enough to enter. At the other was a sulfur mine. Both had been marked upon the map, but Iseult had been too dense to put it all together. What a fool she was. Always a stupid, stupid fool.
Worse, more Threads now sped into her awareness, corrupted by avian shadows and headed this way.
Aeduan would reach Iseult and Owl even faster than the silver Threads.
An image burst into Iseult’s mind from the weasel. A small gap in the fog. A wishbone-shaped stick shoved into the mud.
Iseult gasped. A Nomatsi trail was right here, and for once Iseult knew exactly what to do. Even better, Aeduan would not. The old Aeduan hadn’t been able to read such trails; this new one should fare no better.
He wouldn’t understand this innocently placed vine Iseult now saw meant a trail waited ahead. He wouldn’t recognize that stick ahead pointed toward a near-invisible gap in the fog. He would have to rely entirely on his Bloodwitchery to follow instead of whatever other tracking tools he’d used to get here—and with Owl completely covered in salamander fibers, surely Iseult and Owl could gain ground.
The weasel cut left to where a small slip of clear air was winding into the fog. Easily mistaken for a trick of the wind.
Iseult quickly covered Owl’s face with the salamander hood’s fire-flap and to made sure all the girl’s limbs were covered too. Then she wrapped her own face in the remaining strip of salamander fibers, and together, she and Owl dove into the world of the Solfatarra.
Fog rushed around them, tendrils reaching and gusts rolling. Several times, acid blew into Iseult’s face, forcing her to shut her eyes. Forcing her to wait and pray and suck in breaths. But the moments always passed; their forward progress always resumed.
Unfortunately, although Aeduan’s Threads had slowed, the silver Threads still hunted too—always, always.
“Hurry,” Iseult said, voice muffled by cloth and fog. “We must go faster.” She freed her right hand—it was already scalded anyway—and grabbed Owl’s shoulder.
Then she pulled and pushed and prayed to whatever god might listen.
And once again, her prayers were somehow answered. Forty paces later, they reached a craggy, yellow shore with two narrow canoes thrust upon it. Rickety vessels, but still intact despite the acid in the air, the acid in the waters.
Iseult hurried Owl to the stronger of the two vessels, and after bodily lifting the girl and dropping her inside, she raced to the other boat.
With a grunt and bolts of pain—acid in her eyes, acid on her hands—Iseult thrust the boat into the water. It bobbed away from shore, slower than she would have liked, but she could hardly splash out to help it now.
Right as she returned to the other boat, footsteps crunched on damp stones. She did not look back. Aeduan must have found a gap in the fog. Too quickly, too easily. Iseult grunted and heaved at the second boat, even kicking out two paces into the water. Acid splashed her bare hands and ate into her boots. Then she was far enough from shore to vault.
The weasel squeaked and tried to avoid acid; Owl huddled inside her cloak; and Iseult scooped a lone oar off the boat’s bottom. She rowed and rowed and rowed. Acid sprayed with each swinging of the oar, but she could not slow. Could not worry if she hit Owl or the weasel or herself. Acid billowed against her face. Her eyes streamed, and she feared she’d lost the Nomatsi road. That she’d be stuck rowing this canoe forever.
Then the canoe scraped bottom, and it was time to run again. With no concern for Owl’s injury, Iseult hefted the girl into her arms and staggered out of the canoe. She could see nothing in the fog, and her eyes scorched so badly she could hardly keep them open.
Owl began to cry.
But then the image of another branch in the earth filled Iseult’s mind. She snapped her eyes wide, ignoring the pain, ignoring the fog—and there it was. Right beside her foot. A kinked piece of wood that pointed to another clear trail through the Solfatarra.
She set down Owl and pushed the child forward. This time, though, she did not run. This part of the trail required patience and respect. One wrong move, and they would spring claw-toothed bear traps. Or perhaps hidden crossbows.
Behind her, Threads closed in. Aeduan had found the other boat, and now he rowed with Bloodwitch-fueled speed.
The beach ended at a wall of yellow-and-white stone. Owl cried out, dismay swallowing her Threads.
“No,” Iseult said, pushing the girl forward. “Now we climb.” The ladder was almost invisible in the fog, its white-and-yellow rungs blending into the stone.
Iseult dropped to a crouch beside the child. “Get on my back,” she ordered, stoutly ignoring how close Aeduan was. He had reached the shore. Thwang! A crossbow released, mere paces to Iseult’s left. Pain flowered up Aeduan’s Threads; he slowed but did not stop. Even as more traps fired, he still shambled on.
Owl wrapped her arms around Iseult’s neck and her legs around Iseult’s waist. Then the weasel crawled straight up Iseult’s body and coiled onto Owl’s shoulder. For once, thank the goddess, Owl did not protest.
And like that—with so much life to weigh her down—Iseult climbed the ladder. She lost all sense of location, all sense of height. Rough wood bit into her scalded hands. Her eyes streamed and raged. And her breath, already muffled by salamander and acid, was constricted even more by Owl’s desperate grip around her neck.
A shout ripped out, followed by Threads of shock and pain—and shadows too. Aeduan must have hit a claw-toothed bear trap. He was near enough, though, for Iseult to see the birds in his Threads, winging past Iseult’s eyes, mottling her vision. Spurring her faster despite her muscles’ shrieking. Her throat felt crushed. Her back ready to break. Then, when she truly did not know how she could climb another rung, the fog ended.
It was like the edge from before—one moment, pain and clouds and death in all directions. Then suddenly, a clear sky and the cliff’s end only fifteen rungs away.
A sob left Iseult’s throat, and even Owl seemed to take heart. Her Threads briefly flashed with blue relief.
However, Wicked Cousin and Trickster were not done yet with Iseult. As she pushed herself even faster, straining to reach the ladder’s end, a face appeared over the cliff’s edge. A young woman with a fringe of black hair and moon-pale skin. In her hand was a bow, aimed directly at Iseult. “No closer!” she barked in Nomatsi. “Or we will shoot.”