“It’s the only way she can completely avoid the side effects of her curse,” I explained.
“No,” Nalini snapped. “The only way to avoid—ahhh!” Gasping in pain, she pressed the palms of her hands into her eye sockets, but blood streamed down under her fingers, while more leaked from her nose and her ears.
“Amans?” Wicket rushed to her side in concern and gathered her into his arms.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured him, even as she rested her cheek on his shoulder and let him comfort her. “I said too much. That’s all.”
“What were you saying?” Melaina asked, stepping curiously forward. “Do you know how to break the curse? Was that it?”
“I cannot answer,” Nalini said regally, straightening away from Wicket and squaring her shoulders as she lifted her chin. “And you two…” She pointed between me and Quilla. “Aren’t permanently leaving the Outer Realms. End of discussion.”
“The fuck if it is,” Quilla sputtered. “I’ll be doing exactly as I please.”
“Which will be staying here and making a child with this man.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I said, gaping at her. “I know the curse came along after you, so you’re not afflicted by it, but you know what her having children will do, don’t you?”
She stared at me steadily. “I know exactly what it will do.”
I sniffed. “Then you’re not here to help us.”
Eyes narrowing and jaw hardening, she snarled, “If you’d just trust me—” Pausing suddenly when the child Bewler began to tug at her hoop pants, she blinked at him when he started to motion with his hands, communicating with her.
“What?” she said slowly. “Fecunditate careant?” Shaking her head, she gaped incredulously as the boy kept signing to her. Then, clutching her chest, she moaned, “Magicae utero clausa. No! No, no, no, no, no.” Piercing Quilla with a deadly glare, she snarled, “You used magic to close your womb?”
Quilla gave a single nod. “I did.”
“How could you?” Jerking as if she’d been struck through the heart with a deadly arrow, Nalini backed away from us slowly. “You can’t reverse that. Not in this world. You’ll never have children now.”
“I know,” Quilla said. “I did it to protect the Outer Realms.”
“But—” Moaning as if in pain, Nalini pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and slashed her head violently back and forth, shaking it in denial. “Then you’re not the pair,” she announced suddenly, dropping her hand and stiffening her shoulders. “You can’t be.” Narrowing her eyes, she muttered, “I can’t believe I wasted all this time, placing my hopes on you two. Neque frustrabor!” she hissed.
And then, just like that, she popped out of existence, her soothsayer and bloodhound disappearing with her.
Before Quilla, Melaina, and I could even process what had just happened, the ferry gave a mighty, jarring lurch as it bumped against the opposite bank of the river, landing us safely on the other side.
Chapter 21
Quilla
“Well, she was no help,” Melaina muttered. “And I didn’t even get in on a threesome with her and her hot, young lover before she left again. Rude.”
Ignoring her, Indigo glanced my way. “Please tell me I wasn’t the only one who thought that was really strange.”
I didn’t answer, not sure what to say. But I was left rattled. My great ancestor thought it imperative that I have a child. With Indigo. But she was forbidden to say why.
It had to have something to do with the Graykey family curse, didn’t it?
Could a child who was the product of Indigo’s love mark and my Graykey mark somehow cancel the curse out and break it?
Except no. That couldn’t be true. Grandma Circe had been a High Clifter with a love mark on her face. If that were the case, her firstborn—my own father—would’ve broken the curse when he’d come into the world.
But he hadn’t.
So what would make me and Indigo coming together so special to Corandra Graykey?
Maybe it wasn’t even something that would break the curse and save us. Maybe it was something to make it worse. Just because she was my ancestor did not mean Corandra, or Mydera, or Nalini, or Bridget, or whoever she was calling herself these days, had my best interest at heart. Enflaming the curse hotter and making it more severe might help her in some way.
The reapings were a way to gain more power, and she seemed to have a lot of power—many magical abilities, in fact—maybe she grew stronger with each reaping. And learning that we couldn’t provide her with a new generation that would ensure more reapings hadn’t settled well with her.
“Quilla,” Indigo said softly, making me realize I hadn’t answered his question. I looked over to find him smiling gently. “I can feel your mind spinning from here. You have a theory, don’t you?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but the ferry master called to us, interrupting the moment.
“Alright, you three,” he said, turning to us and not at all surprised that Nalini and the other two were gone—because she’d made him forget about their very existence.
“Thanks for your business. I hope you choose to ride the Malcolm Ferry Service again. Hey!” He blinked and pointed at Holly, who was in the form of the brown mare again, as she whinnied and reared up on her back hooves, greeting us from the bank. “How’d that horse disembark already?”
“She’s a sneaky one,” Indigo answered, giving the man a tight smile as he hurried toward where his unicorn was waiting so he could check Holly over and make sure she was okay.
I watched as he leaped onto the dock and hurried down the ramp to meet her, petting her nose and laughing when she urgently sniffed him over, probably making sure he was okay. Or looking for a sweet treat. The man definitely had a way with charming animals.
Shaking my head, I turned my attention toward my own horse, and I slowly made my way ashore.
The next half hour kept us busy with sorting out supplies, preparing for travel, and getting back on the road to head toward the canyon pass. The brief visit from my ancestor who had looked younger than me was put aside and forgotten, especially when Indigo decided to renew his objections about taking the toll road through the pass.
“We’re traveling through the pass, and that’s final,” Melaina told him.
“Oh, I’ve stopped arguing that point,” Indigo shot back. “Now I’m just saying, if I’m already going to be wearing manacles, I should be the prisoner with a glamoured Graykey mark on my arm. I want Quilla’s arms free to use in defense if things go awry. And besides, if the guards decide to get rough with the prisoner, it’ll be me they go after, not her. You two should pose as the guards.”
Melaina shot Quilla a grin. “See. Didn’t I tell you he’d come in handy?”
I grunted in non-response. I wasn’t a huge fan of the canyon-pass route either, but I wasn’t going to be a coward and avoid it just because it was too risky either.
All life was a risk. I could quarantine myself in my home all my days to avoid the horrors of the outside world, only for someone else to come along and burn it down around me, killing me inside. The only assurance we had was the inevitability of death. And when death came, it came. I’d fight against it accordingly, no matter how scared I was.