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The hour was late. The lanterns were burning low. The scent of candle smoke mingled with fried food and spices, sweat and perfume, heady even in the cool night air. The fair was done, the crowds gone home or off to their tents. Merchants packed their wares and readied carts for a long journey home. It had been a successful step into civilization, taken late in the last day of the fair, when the crowd was thin and fewer children ran through the street. Fewer people to gawk at Laudna, fewer minds to press against Imogen’s. They spent a month together since Imogen left her home in Gelvaan, and Laudna suspected the young woman hated crowds worse than she did.
Imogen leaned into her. Into her and held her hand. Those scarred fingers, warm and thrumming with beautiful life, entwined with Laudna’s knobby knuckles, uncaring that the cold of her palm sapped heat from hers. One month of small quarters, sharing every meal, and this sense of touch was still a miracle. She had been alone for so long, Laudna forgot what a tremendous joy a bit of living company could be.
Laudna swished her new cloak around, night black and thick wool. Her old one was a pieced together thing she’d made of ill-matched and moldering upholstery. And it had served her well; kept the cold from frosting her fingertips and a good amount of rain from soaking into her bones. But it wasn’t a respectable cloak like this one, and Imogen deserved a respectable companion. One who didn’t inspire whispers of witchcraft when she dared show her face in town.
“Thank you for purchasing it for me,” said Laudna, then remembered that she’d already said it before. An hour ago. And the hour before that. The long years of isolation made it difficult to remember what she said out loud and what she kept in her head. Well, it warranted saying again.
Imogen held a little tighter to her hand and apologized softly when the bones popped under her fingers. “It was your money, Laudna. I just did the talking.”
True, it was her work carving buttons from old bones that got them a bit of coin. But Imogen sold those buttons to the tailor; her lovely face and kind smile fetching more for the little carved flower buttons than Laudna had ever made on her own. And it was Imogen who purchased the cloak, insisting that no it wasn’t too long, and yes, the narrow shoulders were perfect. She got the cloak for little more than what she’d made in buttons. Usually, Laudna had to spend her last copper just to keep a shopkeeper from running her out.
“The money lasts longer when you spend it, darling. I think at least half of it is yours.”
Imogen scowled at that and leaned a little closer in. “It shouldn’t make a difference who’s spending it.”
Laudna shrugged. Coin came to her from under rotting floorboards, scrounged from ditches and discovered in the backs of long abandoned pantries. It went just as swiftly, never weighing her pockets for long. But Imogen needed more than a dry spot to sleep and the occasional reminder to eat. The living had demands that could not go unmet. And her living, Imogen’s living, deserved far more than the meager existence Laudna had managed to perfect through decades of living alone. She deserved fairs and fun and books and shopping! Laudna was pleased the cloak hadn’t cut far into her savings. She’d even managed to find some good bones behind a butcher’s shop that could be made into needles and fishhooks and buttons to sell at the next town.
Imogen clung a little closer on her arm and Laudna leaned her long frame against the girl.
“How are you managing, dear?”
Imogen put on a brave smile. “I probably overdid it. Got a headache brewing. But you were right about people willing to spend. I’d never drop five gold on a jewelry box.”
It was a fine piece they drudged up from the last little shack Laudna had found. The lacquer was cracked and the inlay peeling, but Laudna shined it up and lined its interior in a lovely woven fabric cut from a chair that was far beyond repair. The way she’d sewn it in, you’d never even know the moths had found it first.
“You’re a good saleswoman, Imogen. Which is why we split the profits.”
“The man who bought it was more impressed with those lines you were feeding me,” said Imogen, modestly. “Tal’dorei ceder?”
“Well I might have made that one up,” admitted Laudna with a devilish grin. “He seemed like a man who might pay more for imports.”
Imogen laughed. “And I thought I was the mind reader! Sorry I spent the lot on my book.” She was hugging the thing tight against her stomach and hadn’t let go of it since they left the bookseller’s booth. Priory Lune’s was the last booth they found, and the bookseller stopped packing their wares away to help Imogen find what she needed. They spent an hour thumbing through half remembered pages, excitedly searching for the perfect little volume they’d picked up in Ank’Harel, and even wished them both safe travels when Laudna rejoined her.
“It’s what we came here for, Imogen. If we’d left without your book, there’d have been no reason to come to this place.”
She smiled and rubbed the leather cover fondly. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one. Priory really wanted to help me find answers, they weren’t just trying to upsell some country bumpkin on a book of false spells.” The last bookseller they found in a minor city further south pressed something vaguely sorcerous and pushed them out the door as quickly as money found his palm. They sold the useless thing for a few nights in an inn when the weather turned foul.
Laudna grinned widely and applauded Imogen’s skill. It was helpful to have a mind reader at fairs like this. She was impervious to hucksters.
They neared the gate at the end of town, the dying revelry of the fair far behind them, and a guard stepped forward, her hand aloft. Laudna froze, her instincts on alert. The cold drip of ichor started in her veins and neared her fingertips, building pressure in the nailbeds. Her stomach tightened and she forced it back. Not now, not with Imogen at her side. The girl liked her enough to get away from a home that no longer held place for her, but Laudna had not been entirely forthwith.
Imogen knew she was called a witch. She knew Laudna was strange and had not aged in many years. She accepted that about her new friend. But she had never seen the monster.
The guard looked past Laudna, all her interest on Imogen. “Did you get that book at the stand operated by Priory Lune?”
“Yeah? Yeah, I did.”
The guard held her hand out expectantly. “Priory’s being held in custody for selling contraband within the city, and I just need to check your book to ensure it’s not one of the ones we brought them in for.”
Imogen shook her head. Her hands were tight around the book as she hugged it to her chest. “It’s nothing, just a…”
The guard turned suspicious, and her hand went to her sword. “Priory was selling books on necromancy.” Her eyes swept up to Laudna, gray skin stretched tight around the bone, long fingers crooked around Imogen’s shoulder. The guard’s suspicion turned grim. “Just hand over the book, miss, and be on your way.”
Another guard stepped behind the first, his spear held at the ready. He was nervous, sweating in his little tin helmet. Laudna survived many years making men like him piss himself. Run skittering back to his home to hide beneath his bedsheets from the creeping horror of her. It would be so easy. But Imogen would and she might run and Laudna would be alone again.
The guard drew her sword. “I won’t ask again.”
“No,” said Imogen, and she ran. The guard slashed. A yelp, a bright stripe of blood on sky-blue silk, then a blinding crack of lightning as Imogen pushed her sparking hand onto the guard’s breastplate. The guard shouted as she fell, but Imogen was already at the gate.
The other guard closed toward her and Laudna shook out of her stupor. She let the ichor gather in her fingertips, a crackle of black energy wound through the sickening ooze, then flung it at the guard. It sizzled past his nose and he dropped his spear in terror. Laudna was running past him as he shouted for aid.
Imogen was frantic as she ran for the woods, her footing unsure, and Laudna overtook her once they were well into the trees. She caught Imogen’s shoulder, pulled her to a slow, then collapsed against a tree to rest. Imogen hugged her tight and Laudna felt the girl’s heart pounding so quickly she worried it might burst. It didn’t seem that hearts should beat that quickly, although it had been some time since she felt a living one so close.
“Are they chasing us?” asked Imogen, panting.
Laudna looked back, but the forest was still.
“There’s a lot of work for them in town cleaning up from the fair. They won’t bother chasing a couple stray witches into the woods.”
Imogen laughed at that, then winced and held her arm where the guard had grazed her.
“You’re hurt.” Laudna went immediately for her pockets to find some way to help, a strip of fabric, maybe some collected dew to clean the wound.
Imogen waved her off. “I been hurt worse falling off a horse. Don’t you worry about me.”
Laudna withdrew and nodded sadly. “Of course.” She looked out toward the place they set camp, still a half hour hike away. They’d make it there just before sunrise.
“You don’t think I hurt anyone, do you?”
The guard fell quickly at Imogen’s touch, more surprised than truly hurt. And Laudna’s bolt missed the nervous one with the spear. “You were quite merciful, Imogen. I doubt they’ll feel it in the morning.”
“You were amazing with that black…what was that?”
Laudna rubbed her hands together, massaging the fingertips where the ichor had stained them. “I’m just glad you got away.”
Imogen held up the book triumphantly. “All that fuss over this little thing, it must have something useful in it!”
Laudna nodded solemnly, looking at the cut through Imogen’s sleeve. “You’ve paid twice now; once with coin, once with blood. That must be a good omen.”
Imogen looked peculiar at that, squinting up at Laudna before deciding to laugh. “Yeah, Laudna.” She stood and dusted off her skirts, held out her hand to offer Laudna an assist to standing. “You feelin’ alright?”
Laudna set her usual smile on her face, but the expression felt odd. She thought of buttons and fish-hooks, things to make and sell. Anything to avoid thoughts of her jaw growing long, ichor pooling in her eyes and dripping from her nailbeds. Not while she traveled with Imogen. Never next to Imogen. She couldn’t lose her only friend.
“I’m feeling lovely, darling, but it’s been a long day. Let’s just get back to camp.”
-
Imogen filled their walk to camp with glimpses of other minds she’d picked up at the fair. Little thoughts she couldn’t avoid hearing as they walked through; Priory Lune thought of their wife and son, and Imogen hoped they weren’t detained long by those guards. The man selling lanterns told himself fairy tales when he wasn’t with customers, one Imogen had never heard before about a girl who spoke to a glowing skull. “And usually the whole thing would be so overwhelming, but with you next to me, I felt like I could endure it for hours.” She caught Laudna’s arm in a hug. “Thank you.”
Laudna smiled and moved Imogen’s lovely lavender hair behind her ear, savoring this moment of closeness. It would end soon. The next town or the next after, she’d need more than a bit of ichor in her hand. She would shift to protect herself, to protect Imogen.
Laudna pulled away as their little yellow tent came into view, set between birch trees, amidst a field of bluebells. They followed a stream into the woods, up from the wide river and main road, to this perfect little camp where they could be alone. And now, with just the two of them, there were no other minds for Imogen to wander through.
The girl never did it on purpose. She was always so apologetic for her powers, and she tried so hard to tune it out. But Laudna was abuzz with thoughts of the guards in town, the hurts she could have avoided, and she worried they’d spill over. Imogen might hear. She turned her thoughts again of the bones in her pocket, the chores she could do to keep herself away. “I found a few good femurs behind the butcher’s shop in town. They’ll make good buttons. Maybe some fishhooks. I think I’ll sit by the stream and carve for a little while before I’m ready for sleep.”
Imogen’s brow furrowed. “You want any company?”
“Why don’t you read your book. I’ve got good feelings about it.”
Imogen nodded, unconvinced, but she was kind not to pry. She pressed the corners of her eyes, then climbed into the tent. “I’m pretty tired. Maybe I’ll just rest up and try to read it later. You won’t go far, right?”
Laudna had been her only protection through the long exposed nights for a month now. She nodded with a smile. “I’ll never leave your sight.” She turned her thoughts back to the bone in her hand before she could think of how fragile the promise was and how easily it might break.
-
The stream was close enough for Laudna to watch the camp but far enough to let her mind wander without Imogen peering in. And as she whittled, her spindly fingers wrapped around her knife handle, white and cold as the bone they carved, she pictured those guards. The one with the spear was on the edge of fear and anger. She could have pushed him over. He’d panic, the woman with him would likely follow. Both would have fled before Imogen was hurt. But she didn’t want the girl to see her like that. A fearsome monster, the horror that waited in the woods. She’d lived through enough stories told to frighten children that the hurt had dulled. She knew her role, she could live with it.
Until Imogen. All those little passing touches from her warm and lovely hands, gone in a moment if she knew what she touched.
Laudna set down her tools and pulled out her string to wake Pâté and ask his opinion.
“If you really cared about Imogen, you’d ‘av kept her safe no matter wot.”
For a dead rat with a dried and shriveled bird brain, Pâté was always so perceptive.
“I am keeping her safe. She’s never left home before. If she goes running from me in terror who knows what sort of trouble she’ll run into.”
“If she goes runnin’ it weren’t meant to be.”
“Runnin’ from what?” Imogen’s easy drawl asked from just over Laudna’s shoulders, and Laudna froze. Her boots crunched down, grinding bluebells into the rocky shore of the little stream, then she stopped and sat beside her. “I’m sorry, Laudna I could tell something was bothering you...”
Laudna watched her with eyes wide, unable to utter a word.
Imogen gave her a gentle smile. “Come on, don’t make me pry.” She chuckled at the playful threat, then apologized when Laudna seemed to shrink away. “I wouldn’t. Not without askin’.” Her eyes went down to Pâté standing amidst Laudna’s skirts, dangling at the end of her fingers. “Pâté, what’s got Laudna worried?”
“You, miss,” Laudna answered in Pâté’s cockney voice, his dead little paws gesturing wildly at the end of their strings. “She could ‘av saved you back there, and she didn’t. It’s eatin’ her up inside.”
“Laudna, you didn’t need to save me, I can manage just fine on my own.” She scratched at the scars beneath her gloves.
“Oh sure,” the puppet’s skull flopped forward, leaning out from Laudna’s knobby knee to speak in a staged hush. “This time. But it’ll ‘appen soon enough. It always does. And then you’ll leave her.”
Imogen looked up from the puppet to her frightful companion. Laudna hid her face behind her hair. “What’ll happen, Laudna?”
“It’s absolutely dreadful.” Pâté chuckled. Laudna’s eyes flicked to Imogen’s, made brief contact, and broke away. “I change,” answered Laudna. Her usual easy charm was missing, it left her voice ragged. On the bitter edge of tears.
“Like…” Imogen frowned, trying to process the confession. “Like a werewolf?”
Pâté barked a laugh at that and Laudna sadly shook her head.
Imogen scooted a little closer. Her hand hovered near Laudna’s. “Do you want to show me? Maybe a memory of it?”
A memory of all those times she had to put on the face, to scare people off so they only ran her out instead of ran her through with spears. The delight she took in their fear, the sheer joy to send her tormenters fleeing for their homes. Or a memory of the first time it happened; her begging someone in Whitestone to help her, to help her understand why they drew weapons against her and called her zombie, corpse, wight. The terror she felt as her own body began to leach black tar and the bones in her fingers sharpened to claws.
No. She could not give Imogen a memory. Better to do it fresh, while the sun was just about to crest over the horizon, next to a pretty stream, their cheerful yellow tent amidst a field of bluebells. And if Imogen looked scared, Laudna would run first. Leave the girl their tent and their food, their little purse of money made at the fair. She’d take nothing but her cloak and Pâté and run back to the wilds. A new cloak and the memory of one beautiful month in Imogen’s presence. It would sustain her a little while longer.
Laudna stood, walked a little way back from Imogen, and let herself change. Her joints snapped as the bones grew long, a clattering chorus like stones thrown down a well. Shadow gathered around her, the unnatural dark immune to the soft sunlight breaking through the trees. It draped her lengthened, stooping form in a black veil. Ichor pooled in her eyes, eliminating the whites, and poured sticky black that ran rivulets around a mouth with far too many teeth. It leaked as well from her claws, dripped into the bright polished rock underfoot and sizzled there.
Imogen’s curiosity faltered for a moment, fear plain on her face, and Laudna turned to go.
“Laudna?”
She couldn’t run from that sweet drawl calling her name. No matter how much the words following might hurt.
Imogen got up from the shore and took a single step toward her. “It’s funny.”
Funny. Laudna cocked her head. It sounded like her neck was breaking.
“It’s like you’ve got this shade of terror rolling off you, and I feel like… like I know I should be scared but I’m not. It’s like my lightning. All over. And I know I give people the jitters, but I’m not my lightning and…” She stepped closer and touched Laudna’s arm, her fingers light as feathers. “Does it hurt?”
It always felt like it should have hurt. Her paper thin skin barely bound the shadow and bone that made her, but it never felt wrong. Never anything but a different state of being. Like a tensing of the muscles rather than letting them relax. But this, Imogen’s scarred and calloused hand holding her too-long arm, the thin bone so close to the skin, her other hand touching gently at Laudna’s sluggish heart… “No, darling. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
Her voice through that veil was always what saved her. It scattered mobs as her warnings scuttled over them in spider leg whispers, in distant screams from someone dead before you’ll ever find them, the scrape of shattered bone against unforgiving rock. Her voice sounded so wretched as it washed over Imogen, but the woman stood steadfast. Her eyes shone with that spark of arcane light.
“We been together a whole month and you’re still underestimating me. I can handle spooky, Laudna.” She reached up through the veil, to the gash where Laudna had grown extra teeth, brought her face low, and hugged around her jagged shoulders. Imogen kissed the veil, pressing it to Laudna’s cheek. “It doesn’t matter what you look like.” She gripped Laudna’s head, behind the ear, and Imogen’s eyes lit up white as her thoughts sounded in Laudna’s brain. You sound the same in here.
“And you don’t mind it. Traveling with a monster.”
Imogen laughed and shook her head. “You’re not a monster, Laudna. I’ve seen you stick your tongue out while making little buttons that look like flowers.”
Laudna let the form go and shrunk back to herself in Imogen’s arms. She was still taller, but she had to stand on her toes to crook her chin over Imogen’s head. Tears fell, and she wiped the ichor away on the new cloak. It couldn’t stay new forever.
“I’m not really tired, but that tent is awful lonely. Are you sure you aren’t ready to come to bed?”
Laudna put away Pâté’s strings and tied him to her belt. “You really still want me,” she said softly in wonderment. She had been so ready to run, and now her feet felt frozen.
Imogen wiped a sludgy tear from Laudna’s face. “Is that really a question, Laudna? I was with you for Pâté, and he can’t get us out of a fight like that...” Imogen swept her hand up and down, unsure what to call Laudna’s shift, so she instead projected an image of that dreadful form into Laudna’s head.
It was lovely the way she saw her; regal and terrifying. Unnaturally beautiful, even through the horror. Laudna would have blushed if she still had the circulation. Her hands fluttered over her heart and in desperation she changed the subject. “What’s wrong with Pâté?” The little rat danced at her hip, his raven skull leered forward. “Oh. Oh, I see it now.” Those were some very long years without a friend.
Imogen leaned forward and stole a kiss while Laudna was distracted, then caught her hand and pulled her back to the tent. Her arm had stopped bleeding during their walk back to camp, but the sleeve was still slashed.
“I’m so lucky to have found you,” said Laudna softly as she coaxed the cut threads back together with a bit of magic. Imogen twisted out from her hands and pulled Laudna into a hug.
“You saved me from a miserable life in Gelvaan, Laudna. Everyone there thought so awful of me that I started to believe it, and then you came along… I’m lucky I found you.” She pushed the little book from Priory Lune’s out of her bag and into Laudna’s view. “We’re going to find answers, Laud.”
Laudna nodded, happy in Imogen’s warm embrace. It didn’t feel like stealing heat when it was given so freely. “Even if we don’t, we’re lucky.”