passed until a choir of flames danced beneath the mantelpiece.
‘I will not stay here,’ she breathed. ‘I will not stay with spies and sadness and sleeping drafts.’
Cinderfell’s skies offered no reprieve from Steiner’s absence. The sea continued its ebb and swell, miles of mindless waves throwing themselves against the shingle without enthusiasm. Kjellrunn closed her eyes, aware of the water’s motion and mood, even at this distance. Somehow she could feel the wake of the ship’s departure, as if this event were cut into the Spøkelsea like a scar.
‘Kjell?’ Verner stood a half-dozen feet away with a wary look in his eye. How long had she been standing there, lost to the hushed rapture of the sea?
‘I …’ No explanation would suffice, no reason a supposedly sane girl was standing in the street on a winter’s day with her eyes closed. ‘I was just thinking about Steiner, is all.’
‘You should be behind doors,’ said Verner. ‘If anyone sees you like this—’
‘What will they do, Verner? Accuse me of witchsign? As if such things haven’t been thrown in my face my entire life. And now Steiner’s paying the price, paying my price, for whatever it is I am.’
‘Don’t speak of such things in the street!’ said Verner, mouth twisting at the corners. ‘He won’t be killed.’
‘If he lives or dies is beside the point,’ said Kjellrunn. ‘This is all wrong, and don’t think I didn’t realize your trick with the milk.’
‘Kjell, I’m sorry. We were worried the Vigilants would take you too, or you’d do something rash—’
‘Like tell them the truth?’
‘It’s for the best, Kjell. If they take you then there’s no telling what they’ll do to you. The arcane demands a high price from those who use it.’
‘For the best? This is the best of things, is it? I’m left here with the shadow of the man who used to be my father and an uncle who fancies himself an assassin.’
Verner’s face became dark, and he stepped closer, shooting wary glances over his shoulder. The street remained empty. ‘Why don’t you tell the whole town? Perhaps you could perform it in song.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ said Kjellrunn.
‘Your father wanted to tell you things when the time was right.’
‘My father is a stranger to me. And so are you. The only person I really knew is Steiner, and he’s gone.’ She clutched her shawl tighter, bending against the cold wind that swept down from the north and gusted through Cinderfell’s lonely streets. ‘The Verner I grew up knowing would never have hurt anyone, much less killed them.’
‘Kjell, I didn’t …’ He shook his head and looked away. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked after a harsh gust of wind buffeted them.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Anywhere.’ She gestured at the cottage before them. ‘Anywhere but here with all its sadness.’
She had no desire to wend her way through Cinderfell’s streets. Steiner had always loved the town, drawn comfort from the squat cottages and thatched roofs. He was never happier than when he had cobbles beneath his feet and a few coins to spend at the tavern. Kjellrunn blinked away tears.
‘Why didn’t I go? Why didn’t I speak up? Why did I let them take him?’ The questions were mangy hounds following at her heels, thick with fleas and rabid in their intensity. ‘I’m a coward,’ she muttered. The words, louder than she intended, carried on the breeze, raising a look from a fisherman on his way to work. His was a wary expression and Kjellrunn frowned in return.
‘I’m not going to turn you into a toad, you fool.’ She regretted the words the moment they left her lips. The fisherman looked away, hurrying in to town. No doubt there’d been a good deal of talk about the blacksmith’s son, and hadn’t everyone always assumed it would be his daughter that would fail the Invigilation? Hadn’t she always been the strange one? Not Steiner, so strong and dutiful. Not Steiner, who dreamed of hammered metal in his sleep. Not Steiner, though he struggled to read and had no head for numbers.
Her strides became longer, quicker. Dark clouds hung low in the sky, and Kjellrunn felt them keenly, as if they meant to suffocate her. The cobbles gave way to a road of hard-packed earth, the cottages replaced by hedgerows and sickly evergreens. She hadn’t intended to head north and the wind admonished her with every step. Each breeze and gust was light but the chill it carried was bitter. Kjellrunn shivered and clutched her shawl tighter, glad when she reached the edge of the woods.
‘Hello, my friends,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve much need of you today.’
The trees did not whisper back. The stark bare branches of the oaks had no welcome for her, while the pines stood dark and silent. Gone was the ecstatic susurrus of summer, trees whispering in a joyous hush. Gone were the many sounds of life, bird song and the commotion of woodpeckers. The ground was a sea of fallen leaves, consumed with the gentle business of decay. The ferns, so abundant in summer, so vibrant and green, were now an unlovely brown signalling their intent to rot. They would return to the very earth that had nurtured them.
‘How nice it would be to simply slip to the floor and do nothing but dream of spring, speak to no one, see no one, be spared Cinderfell and Nordvlast and the Empire.’ She brushed fingers against an oak tree’s rough bark. The tree was a marker, the tiny clearing a spot she retreated to, an enclave away from the town. ‘But not today,’ she whispered, pressing deeper in to the woods. Marek had warned her it was unwise to wander so far from home, but she refused to turn back. Chilled fingers gathered the odd stick of wood; the idea of going home empty-handed was not a welcome one. Her father may not notice, lost to grief as he was, but they’d need firewood soon enough.
She journeyed deeper into the forest, lost to her thoughts and picking out sticks of firewood when she remembered. The chalet was as unexpected as it was unremarkable. A single storey with the thatched roof and short chimney so common to Cinderfell. Moss grew in a rich blanket across one wall, finding purchase on the slope of old thatch above. Windows remained shuttered against the day, yet the door was ajar, though only to the keenest eyes.
‘It can’t hurt to take a look,’ she reassured herself.
A wide stump of wood emerged from the earth between Kjellrunn and the chalet door, marked with cuts now dark from rain and moss. A woodcutter’s chalet then. Her father had mentioned it before, but she’d never given much thought to where it was.
She drew closer, curiosity making her bold. No light flickered from the gap in the door. No golden glow escaped the shutters’ edges. A trio of sensations gave her pause: unease at being alone in such a secluded place, cold at the dictates of the wind that found a way to her, even here deep in the woodland. And of being watched, yet that was the work of a foolish mind, she chided herself.
‘I’m not scared,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I’ll not jump at shadows,’ she said, keen to reassure herself.
The snap of a branch beneath her foot made her flinch so hard she slipped and fell amid the dead leaves. The firewood she had gathered lay all around her. No sooner had she recovered herself than two crows called out, strident at first then settling into a brooding silence.
‘You might have warned me about the branch.’
