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Rain sluiced from my hair, falling down my nose, over the curve of my mouth, then dropping onto his. I looked down at his lips, and he up at mine, the distance between us eclipsing like a celestial movement, staggering and inevitable. I could feel the plane of his body—and the moment it hardened. Rory flushed. Slowly, his left hand rose to my face. He hooked my chin with his thumb and pressed, parting my lips directly over his. Then he was pushing up, his mouth ghosting over mine—
“You two still sparring?” someone called over the rain. “Or have we shifted tactics?”
I jerked back. Benji and Maude stood paces away. The gargoyle was there, too, poking raindrops out of the air. “I say, Bartholomew,” he said distractedly. “Are you quite well?”
I peeled myself off Rory faster than I’d run my warm-ups. “I’m fine.”
“I meant that Bartholomew.” The gargoyle flicked a stone finger at Rory. “The knave looks undone.”
Rory was still lying on the ground, breathing hard, eyes unfocused. I watched his chest rise and fall, and then he was scraping a hand over his face, rising to his feet, and coming to stand next to Maude and the king.
I noticed then how rigid Maude stood. How low her brows were over her green eyes. “Three days isn’t much time.”
Benji was red around the nose and wearing an extra cloak, like he hadn’t yet warmed from being in the water during the ceremony. “We’ll get her ready.” From his pocket, he withdrew the Harried Scribe’s inkwell. Smiled at me. “By any means.”
Maude’s features twisted in a knot. “That’s her weapon? Scalding ink against an oar?”
I could hear the doubt in her voice. It felt like a sign—a portent. A terrible omen.
“I’ve a better idea.” Rory held out his hand under her nose, the Artful Brigand’s coin waiting in his palm.
He turned his gaze to me. There was still a hint of red in his cheeks. “Do you know how to skip a stone, Diviner? Throw it flat?”
“Yes.”
He beckoned me forward. When I reached into his palm and took the coin, I was surprised by how heavy it was.
Rory rounded my body. “There are two rules to that coin. Rule one: Throw it with the smooth side up, and the coin will transport you to any place you toss it. You won’t touch anything—walls, doors, even your opponent. You’ll be like a ghost.”
“And the other side?”
“More aggressive than a ghost,” Maude deadpa
Satisfaction stole over Rory’s face. “Rule two: Throw the coin the rough side up, it will break through anything it encounters until it loses momentum. But you’ll have to chase after it—so make the throw count.”
I turned the coin over in my palm. “So if I were to throw it rough side up, let’s say, at your head—”
“You’d be picking the pieces of my brain off Benji’s cloak.”
“Not much of a mess, then.”
Maude went to stand opposite me across the yard. “Toss it toward me, Six. Not through me, mind. Smooth side up—toss it so you’re standing on my left.”
I looked down at the coin.
“Don’t worry, Bartholomew,” the gargoyle called. “If you accidentally kill her, I will not be upset.”
“I will!” Benji’s blue eyes widened. “Just… be careful.”
“Everyone shut up.” Rory’s eyes were on me, a challenge toying within them. “Let it fly.”
I hauled in a breath. Swung my arm, my wrist. Let loose the coin—
And disappeared.
It was just like at Aisling when Rory and I had slipped through the cottage door. Speed and nothingness. I disappeared, my body eclipsed by rain and wind in an exhilaration akin to dancing—and then my hand was out, catching the coin.
I rematerialized at Maude’s side.
I’d hoped to impress her. But there was still doubt in Maude’s voice. “Again.”
I was already away, the coin soaring once more. This time when I caught it, it was directly in front of Rory’s nose.
“Your turn, Myndacious,” I said, breathless. “Hit me as hard as you can.” I flickered away. “If you can.”
The chase began. Maude, Rory, Benji, even the gargoyle—though he hid his eyes behind his hand half the time—tried to tag me before I could flicker away with the coin. Sometimes I did not catch the coin and they caught me. Benji managed a few swipes at my back, my hair, but he was slow—easy to dodge. Not like Maude.
And certainly not like Rory.
The yard was a game board, and he was always a move ahead. Even when I threw the coin in a direction I supposed out of reach, he was already ru
And his feet fast.
By the tenth, maybe the twentieth time he’d caught me, I was seething, and Rory looking dangerously close to having a good time. “Good. You’re mad.” He turned the coin over in my palm. “Time to break things.”
Maude and the gargoyle and Rory hauled stones, discarded wood—anything that wouldn’t be missed—onto the upland.
This time, I threw the coin rough side up.
And shattered them.
The gargoyle clapped.
They made a square of sticks, mimicking the pool in the Ardent Oarsman’s hall. I practiced around it, never getting too close. “Draw him away from his pool,” Rory instructed. “Deny his oar its magic, its advantage. Stay away from water, and he will be but a man with a stone oar.”
But for every hour we trained, for every time the coin grazed stone or wood but did not shatter it, the lines in Maude’s face deepened.
By night, I was a shell of a human. I wobbled to the i
When I woke, the moon was still a visitor in my window. The gargoyle was snoring next to my bed, a blanket thrown over himself.
Maude’s bed was empty.
That’s when I heard the voices. Just outside the door.
“What, Maude?” It was Rory, snapping. “Just spit it out.”
I tiptoed to the door. On the other side, someone let out a low sigh.
“I already told you. Three days is not enough time to prepare.” Maude’s voice was hard. Steadfast. “It should be you or I facing the Oarsman.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Rory’s voice became perilously soft. “You think I want a single scratch upon her?”
“If the Oarsman challenged her, then we should honor that,” another voice said, softer than the others. Benji. “We should do things the proper way.”
“The Artful Brigand was cruel, but idle,” Maude bit back. “And the Harried Scribe was too enamored with his own wit to put up much of a fight. The Ardent Oarsman is the Omen of strength. He will be ruthless. Six has been stuck behind a wall for years. If we do things the proper way, this Omen could kill her.”
My throat tightened.
“Surely she knows that,” Benji said. “Dying, after all, is the risk of killing.”
“You say that, Benji, and you said it easily, because you know Rory and I will do your killing for you. We swore to it, but Six did not. She’s never killed anything or anyone. And I fear—” Maude’s voice became uncharacteristically rough. “I fear she will die without ever having lived.”
I flinched, as if struck.
“Maude,” Benji said gently.
Another sigh sounded. Then—
Rory spoke, hard and sure. “She can beat the Oarsman. I don’t have a single doubt.”
Footsteps echoed, closer to my door. I withdrew, and the latch turned. When Maude stepped into the room, head low, her eyes widened over me, sitting upright on my bed. “You’re awake?”
I nodded.
I could see in her eyes that she knew I’d overheard them. She opened her mouth to say something, but words never came. Maude undressed, got in bed, and I pulled my blankets over my ears and faced the wall, thinking on dying and killing and living, and how I was unsuited for all three.
For two more days, dawn to dusk, the steps repeated. I woke. Moved my feet up the lookout staircase. Then back down to our makeshift training ground. Rory used the coin, appearing and disappearing—and Benji did the same with the Harried Scribe’s inkwell. I tried to anticipate them. To kick or hit or say something sharp to get them to hold still long enough for me to knock them over. Then it was my turn with the coin. I practiced smooth side up—disappearing and reappearing around the makeshift square while Rory, Benji, and the gargoyle tried to catch me, then rough side up, breaking things while visualizing the Ardent Oarsman’s legs, his arms, shoulders, or knees. Anything I might break to get him to yield. And I did. For the Diviners, I hit every. Single. Mark.
It was only when I thought of what Maude had said, though she kept silent now, that I erred. When my foot slipped on the stairs, when I dropped the coin or missed its target. Maude, and the words she’d dealt.
She will die without ever having lived.
And then it was nightfall of the third day, and there was no more time to train, no more time to prepare—
And hardly any to live.
I couldn’t sleep.
The gargoyle was snoring, and so was Maude. She’d come into the room an hour ago, undressed, turned to me, opened her mouth, shut it, and turned to the wall to sleep.
I sat upon the windowsill and looked out. Gentle, the night. Gone was the storm, the torrid rain and hail that had ripped through the Peaks the last two days. The clouds were vanquished, and the sky was that romantic shade between violet and black and sapphire, the wind a susurrant noise. I could hear owls, and farther, the lull of the Tenor.
I wondered if the Ardent Oarsman had something to do with it. The magic stone objects were all transportive and destructive. Maybe he had caused the storm somehow, and had now taken it away, lulling me into a false sense of ease.
“Mouse in my ear,” the gargoyle murmured, twitching in his sleep. “Bartholomew, water the tulips before they bite.”
I caught myself smiling at him. Oh, to be a gargoyle.
A shy knock sounded on the door.
I opened it a crack. “Lost, Myndacious?”
“You’re awake.” Rory stood in the dim light of the corridor wearing a loose tunic and leathers, dark hair strewn over his brow. He seemed surprised to see me. “I thought Diviners were good at sleeping.”
“If you’re looking for Maude, she’s long abed.”
“I’m looking for you.”
He was getting better at finding my gaze through my shroud. “I didn’t—if you were sleeping, I didn’t—” He rolled his eyes. For once, the gesture seemed directed at himself. “I wasn’t trying to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” I stepped into the corridor and shut the door behind me. “Can’t, actually.”