The Flame in the Mist (25 page)

“Saw ’im from the alley when Lok and Zeb brought ’im in, then saw you lurkin’. I din’t know who you was, though, or that you was tryin’ to save ’im. Thought you was jus’ lookin’ to thieve what you could from their swag, same as I was. Then I ’eard what Lok said ’bout the stonin’. Typical of ’im. Look.” She stopped, and yanked up one sleeve, revealing a large bruise on her upper arm.

Jemma gasped. “Lok
hit
you?”

“Hits. Whenever ’e can.” Talon wiped a sodden strand of hair from her face. “In’t that what a pa does to his daughter? Bein’ the Chief Inquisitor’s kid has some uses, though.” She grinned and jangled her keys, then marched into the jail. Jemma stood for a second, horrified by what Talon had just revealed, then ran inside. Talon unlocked the cage, and the door swung open. Digby was slumped on the floor, looking worn out.

“Dig! Digby—wake up!” Jemma ran over to him.

“Mmmm?” His eyes shot open. “Mmmm mmm mmm!”

Jemma grabbed her knife from the table and slashed through his gag, while Noodle and Pie started chewing through the ropes binding his ankles, and Talon untied his wrists.

“Ag-ro-mond! Ag-ro-mond!” The cry rose into the night.

“Jem! How … Where … Who’s this?”

“Digby, meet Talon. Talon, Digby. Dig, we’ve got to hurry. Nox is here. That’s him they’re cheering.” She stood, and shoved the book and sandwiches into the saddlebags, heart-sore at the loss of her crystals.

“Where’s Pepper?” Digby said, leaping to his feet and rubbing his wrists.

“An’ who in Mord’s name is Pepper?” asked Talon.

“Digby’s horse. Dig, I’m sorry, I had to leave her in an alley.”

“Oh, no!” Digby hoisted the saddlebags over his shoulder. “Fat chance we have of findin’ her in a place like this!”

“Yer prob’ly right,” said Talon, “but let’s go an’ see. Show us where, Jemma.”

With Noodle and Pie in her pockets, Jemma wove through
the muddy alleys, retracing the way she had come. Her mind burned with Pepper’s image, calling to her—
Be there, girl!
But when they reached the corridor, the mare was nowhere to be seen.

“Mother of Majem!” Jemma said. “We’ve got to find her!”

“Got to leave ’er, more like,” Talon said. “Can’t waste time lookin’.”

“But she’s my family’s livelihood!” Digby said. “Pa will never forgive me—”

“Dig,” Jemma said, “it’ll be worse for them if they stone you to death!”

A distant roar rose above the rooves.

“Listen,” Talon said, “any minute, they’ll be startin’ to look for yer. You got to go—”

“But where?” Jemma said. “There’s already spies and Inquisitors out there—you heard what Nox said!”

Talon frowned, then broke into a grin. “I know—come to my house! It’s the last place anyone’ll think of lookin’. Pa’s never home, an’ it’d never occur to ’im you’d be hidin’ under our roof. Don’t worry, Ma can’t stand ’im any more’n I can. We both felt ’is fist a bit too often. ’Sides, she’d be dead chuffed to meet yer. So come on, let’s be off!”

It was their best chance, Jemma and Digby agreed. Jemma pulled up her hood against the gathering rain, wiping more dribbles of purple from her face as they followed Talon back to the smaller square by the town gates. It was eerily deserted, all evidence of the earlier mayhem reduced to garbage and half-eaten skewers of burned meat strewn in the mud. Only the cages remained, stuffed with birds and rodents that sat like statues, awaiting their inevitable fate.

“We must free them!” Jemma ran to a pile of cages and
lifted the latches. A few animals darted out, but most sat gazing at the open doors as if restrained by some invisible chain.

“Come on, Jem.” Digby pulled her away. “There’s no time for that. You done what you could.”

Talon was waiting by the gates. Her face fell as Jemma and Digby approached, and she pointed wildly at the main street. Jemma turned. A darkly cloaked rider was emerging through the Mist and galloping full tilt into the square, straight toward them. Digby and Talon grabbed her, hauled her through the gateway and pushed her into a watery ditch, throwing themselves and the saddlebags beside her. Her hood fell back, and she stayed still, praying that the rapidly approaching rider wouldn’t glance to the side and see the girl with purple rain streaming down her face, and two golden rats on her shoulders.…

The hooves galloped closer, and closer, then passed by, and faded. Jemma looked up and saw Mephisto speeding away into the night, the black cloak of his master streaming behind like the tail of a dark comet.

They walked past the shacks in silence. There was no point avoiding the main road, Talon had said: Who would expect fugitives to be in plain view? In any case, nobody would dare suspect the Chief Inquisitor’s daughter. She was right, it seemed. Several packs of youths rode by, laughing and yelling; then a few girls about Digby’s age rattled past in an old cart, chattering wildly. Nobody stopped to question Talon or her companions, but Jemma kept her hood up, just in case.

Soon, the rain let up, and Jemma told Digby about Nox’s speech, and how at nine the following morning—the last moment she could be Initiated by her true parents—the Agromonds would declare victory. He nodded, purse-lipped, looking strained under the weight of the saddlebags. She could tell he was still upset about Pepper, though he was trying not to show it, even pointing out that they’d have been more noticeable on horseback.

As they walked, the truth of her situation sank in. It was one thing to wonder whether her Powers would be gone if she wasn’t Initiated, but knowing for sure was far worse. It was all over. Anglavia would never be free of the Agromonds and their Mist now. Gloom gnawed into her bones. She wished
Digby would say something. Didn’t he realize how serious things were?

He knows
. Pie crawled to Jemma’s shoulder and nuzzled her ear.
Feels he let you down
.

Oh.

The shacks behind them, they came to the fork in the road, and trudged on. Another band of marauders rode by on ragged-looking ponies, jeering as they passed—at least ten or twelve of them, including two girls. A stench of stale beer trailed in their wake, turning Jemma’s stomach.

“Wicked lot,” Talon mumbled, wringing out her soaked skirt. “Good thing you’re with me, or they’d attack yer jus’ for the fun of it.”

Digby shifted the saddlebags to his other shoulder. “How much farther, Talon?”

“Just up ’ere, then left by the yew tree.” She sighed. “Home sweet bleedin’ home.”

“Why not leave?” Jemma asked, then immediately felt foolish.
It’s not so easy
, she thought.
I should know
.

“Leave?” Talon said. “Wish I could. But Ma’s sick. Nothin’ infectious, mind,” she added hurriedly, “jus’ … well, sick in her spirit, is what I think. It’s been years. She can’t hardly move any more. Married to my pa, an’ havin’ six other bairns, each one of ’em dead before a year old, it’s took its toll. I’m all she’s got. So I in’t goin’ nowhere without her.”

“Oh, Talon …” Jemma took Talon’s hand, her own problems seeming to shrink slightly. “And to think you have to deal with Lok, as well.”

Talon shrugged. “Don’t see that much of ’im these days. Keeps ’im away, Ma bein’ like she is. Somethin’ to be thankful for, I s’pose. Look, here’s the yew. This way.”

She turned along a narrow path, which led through a grassy marsh. The three of them walked in single file, their footsteps falling into a rhythm. Jemma’s cloak had already dried her, and she lent it to the others, who soon dried as well. Before long, the air began to stink of stagnant water, and tall reeds swayed in the breeze. Then, at the far edge of the marsh, a shack came into view. It was larger than most they’d seen—probably because of Lok’s status—but just as run down. Its walls pitched in every direction, and looked as though they were being devoured by the black mold and toadstools clinging to them. A cow was tethered to a fence nearby and looked up lazily as they approached. (“She’s called Horn,” Talon said. “Another of Pa’s stupid ideas, like my name, and Fang’s.”) The only other sign of anything faintly wholesome was the candlelight sputtering in one of the crooked windows.

“Won’t your mother be asleep?” Jemma said, putting her cloak on again.

“Nah. She hardly ever sleeps. Her dreams is too scary. She jus’ naps.” Talon opened the door gently. “Ma, I’m home. I brought some friends.…”

“Friends?” a thin voice wheezed. “Bring ’em in, love. Make ’em some nettle tea.”

Jemma and Digby followed Talon into the shack. The floors sloped, gaping with holes from which Jemma heard rustling and pattering footsteps. Mice and rats, probably.
Stay hidden
, she thought to Noodle and Pie.
They might not be very friendly around here
. Pie dropped from Jemma’s shoulder and burrowed into her pocket next to Noodle.

In the corner, a woman lay under a heap of blankets, looking barely more than skin and bone. Talon walked over to her and squatted down. “Ma,” she said, “you remember at
the castle, the baby they took? The One we figured was from that ol’ Prophecy?”

“Course I do,” came the weak reply. “ ’Ow could I forget a thing like that? Poor l’il mite.”

“Well, guess what? She’s here! Jemma—she’s here, Ma!” Talon beckoned to Jemma, who walked over and knelt beside her while Digby stoked the coals in the hob and poured some water into a pan.

Talon’s mother looked at Jemma. “This can’t be her, love. Her hair’s too dark.”

“She dyed it, to disguise herself, but look—there’s a few bits as bright as flame, see? It’s her, all right, Ma. Nox Agromond was in the square t’night, sayin’ as she had to be found, an’ now, folks is out huntin’ for her. I said she could stay here, with her friend.”

A wan smile spread over Talon’s mother’s face. “Any time,” she murmured.

“Thank you, Mrs.…” Mrs. Lok? Jemma couldn’t bring herself to call her that.

“Alyss. Call me Alyss.” Alyss lay a damp hand on Jemma’s, then closed her eyes. Instantly, Jemma sensed the blackness twining through the ailing woman. It resonated in her own body, sapping her strength, reminding her of the terrible Entity she’d experienced last Mord-day. It was as though threads of Scagavay’s evil were here, in Alyss. Jemma pulled her hand away, imagining light inside her to ward off the darkness. No wonder Alyss’s dreams kept her awake. Then a strange thought came to her, as if from somewhere outside her own head.

“Talon,” she whispered. “I think your mother has been cursed.”

“I
knew
it! This all started when Pa started workin’ for
that Nox. The wretch! Poor Ma.… Is she jus’ gonna keep fadin’?”

Not if I can help it
, Jemma thought. “If only I had the crystals,” she muttered. They had healed her, in Bryn’s cave, and somehow, she knew that they could have helped now.

“Crystals?” Talon said. “What crystals?”

“Your dear pa took ’em.” Digby said from over by the hob. “I watched him.”

Talon dug into her pockets. “You mean these?” Two clear quartz cylinders lay in her palms.

“Talon … Yes! But how?”

“Told you I was watchin’ the jail to see what I could thieve, din’t I?” Talon blushed slightly. “When Pa an’ Zeb rode away, I saw somethin’ drop from Pa’s pockets. Found these on the ground. Sort of smokin’, they was. Sorry. Din’t know they was yours.”

Jemma took the crystals. As soon as she held them, energy crackled between them and her Stone, then jolted through her.

“Alyss,” she said, “do you mind if I try something to help you? I can’t promise anything, but …” Alyss nodded, her eyes still closed, and Jemma settled herself cross-legged on the floor, wondering what on earth she was about to do. But if her Powers were going to drain as Nox said, then this might be her last chance to bring about some good, and at that moment, nothing felt more important. Especially if it could erase an act of Agromond evil. “Dig, would you pass me the book?”

Digby pulled the book from the saddlebags and handed it to her. She placed it on the floor between her and the mattress, took a deep breath, and improvised an invocation.

“Calling on Majem,” she said, “and all my healer ancestors, to come and help this woman.” Noodle and Pie crept from her pockets, and sat on the book. “Trust,” she whispered, imagining Drudge by her side, as well as Bryn, with his simple, earthy goodness. Then she thought of her parents.
You too
, she murmured, as she slipped the crystals into Alyss’s upturned palms.
If you can …
Alyss drew in a sharp breath and winced.

What happened next, Jemma couldn’t have anticipated. A pale stream of smoky light began curling up from the book, surrounding the rats, and enveloping her. Then a clear, airy force seemed to take her over, flowing through the top of her head and pulling her into a kind of trance, guiding her movements. Her hands danced above Alyss’s torso, fingers unwinding what appeared to be thick, tarry strands of blackness from Alyss’s bones and sinews. A story unwound with them, filling the room with a flow of images—or were they in Jemma’s head? Alyss at the castle, daring to defend five-year-old Feo from Nocturna’s cruel tongue after he’d wet his bed again … Lok’s rage about their ensuing banishment, and hers toward him, for taking it out on two-year-old Talon … Talon, bruised and crying … Lok swearing loyalty to Nox … A contract being signed in blood between the two men, followed by Lok being given his black Inquisitor’s coat … Then Alyss’s first collapse in the small garden she tended outside their Blackwater shack, and the six more babies she bore to Lok, every one sickly, buried before its first birthday. Each image burst like a bubble, scattering fragments that turned into gold light and drifted back into Alyss as though she were transparent, filling the spaces that the darkness had occupied. And all the while, the crystals
sparkled with luminous blue, like lightning across two miniature night skies, as Noodle and Pie sat stock-still, watching.

The smoky light shrank as if it were being sucked back into the book. It hovered for a moment around the rats, then disappeared. The images stopped, and Jemma’s mind snapped back into the room. She was exhausted. The crystals’ glow in Alyss’s palms began to fade.