Page 121 of Witchshadow
Snow fell all night. Soon, a thick dusting had replaced all melt from the day before and managed to wriggle into any exposed spots on Safi’s body. The tops of her boots, the edge of her collar, the tips of her sleeves. Until eventually, she was too cold to keep going.
“I need a fire,” she called to Leopold on the gelding. Her first words in hours.
“We’re almost there,” Leopold replied.
“Almost where?”
He twisted in his saddle to look at her—and to her shock, a smile played on his lips. Arealsmile with familiar mischief to sparkle in his eyes. “To the transportation that will get us over the Ohrins.” He bounced his eyebrows. “You did not think we would ride the entire way, did you?”
Safi hesitated. Leopold’s declaration—the flash of humor that accompanied it—made her uneasy, even if her Truth-lens did not buzz. Hours ago, he had hated her. Now, he was charm and boyish wiles.
“Continue on then,” she told him, and on the chestnut behind, Lev said, “Thank the gods. My ass hurts.”
Leopold led them up a winding, poorly tended path. When it grew toosteep for the horses, they dismounted, gathered their packs, and sent the noble steeds back to Praga. It was nearing dawn before they finally reached their destination on foot: a decrepit, half-collapsed barn.
“That,” Zander said dubiously, “will get us across the Ohrins?” He had insisted on carrying Safi’s pack, while Caden carried Leopold’s.
“Ah, but Hell-Bard.” Leopold twirled his arms like a maestro. “Wait until you see what’sinside.Though first…” His attention shot to Safi. His eyes thinned. “How do you feel?”
“Fine,” she lied. “Nothing’s changed.” Then she waited until he’d spun away to adjust her collar and quickly peek beneath her gloves.
The lines were worse. Ropier, darker.But you feel the same,she told herself.So there is no need to worry.
“The rest of you?” Leopold’s gaze slid over the Hell-Bards. “No tugs from the Emperor?”
Murmurs of no and headshakes, but it was clear no one considered this much comfort, and the words “not yet” floated with the snowflakes around them.
Leopold led Safi and the Hell-Bards around the back of the structure, where a door sagged on its hinges and boards hung over three windows. The hinges bore no rust.
“Someone has been here recently,” Caden observed as Leopold began tapping out a complicated rhythm on the door.
The prince didn’t answer. All his attention was on the beats and pauses, on the eventual softclick!that whispered out. Three more clicks sounded, as if bolts all the way around the door were sliding free. Then the lock-spell finished its work, the door swung wide, and snow-reflected moonlight spilled over a massive ship-like device.
Safi had no idea what it was. A white canvas spiraled around a single mast, like a sail that had been twisted and coiled into a nautilus. Rather than attach to a boat, though, the mast attached to a circular platform surrounded by a wooden railing. There was nowhere to sit, only a place to steer—or that was what Safiguessedthe central lever must be for.
“Behold,” Leopold declared, gazing at the wood and canvas with the adoration of a parent, “the flying machine that will get us across the Ohrins.”
“A… flying machine,” Caden repeated at the same moment Lev blurted, “A what now?”
“It is perfectly safe.” Leopold hurried into the barn’s shadow. “The sails are imbued with Windwitch power, and I have tested it myself several times. We can cross the entire mountain range in hours.”
While all three Hell-Bards followed Leopold inside, Safi lingered back, snow gathering on her shoulders. “Where did it come from, Polly?”
“I made it.”
Her eyebrows shot high. “And did you design it too?”
“Not entirely.” He circled away from his machine; impatience glinted in his eye. He didn’t like questions. He expected Safi and everyone else to board without argument.
And Safiwouldboard. Eventually. “Whose design was it then?”
“A friend,” he snipped. “This was her idea, but I expanded upon it.”
Thatfriend,Safi thought, was a lie. Her Truth-lens told her as much. And for the thousandth time, she wished she had her full magic back. Despite its failings, it at least let her see more deeply into a person’s heart. It let her sense both lies and truth—and in instances like these, truth was so much more important than lies. Who was Leopold the Fourth? Whowasthis person she’d always called Polly and considered a childhood friend?
She was trusting him with her life. She was trusting a machine she hadn’t known he was capable of building, and it wasn’t only her own neck on the line. It was the Hell-Bards’, it was her uncle’s, it was Iseult’s.
Then again, he had tricked her throughout their lives, playing a part she’d always believed and her magic had never questioned. Two months ago Safi had told Merik that her magic was not as powerful as people assumed. That she was easily confused by strong faith. So long as a speaker believed their words to be true, her magic could detect no falsehood.
