A Play of Shadow (41 page)

“What’s wrong with Weed?”

“I don’t know, Semyn,” Bannan said, wishing with all his heart he did. He laid his hand on Werfol’s forehead. Dark eyelashes swept colorless cheeks and the boy might have been asleep, but the skin beneath the truthseer’s palm was fever hot. “Jenn’s gone for Covie.” She’d be there now, he knew, using her magic to shorten the road.

Magic.

He’d left the pendant around Werfol’s neck. Put the boy on the bed before throwing a blanket over the cursed mirror. Though sorely tempted to smash it, he hadn’t. Couldn’t.

Because he was afraid he knew what magic had shown them. Channen.

Through Lila’s eyes.

And her son’s. Bannan lifted his hand. “Has he fainted like this before?”

“No, Uncle.” Semyn sat on the bed beside his brother, almost as pale. “Weed gets angry. So angry he shakes sometimes. But that’s mostly when people—” He swallowed and fingered the blanket over Werfol’s legs, then went on very softly, “—when people lie to him. Nothing like this. I wish he’d wake up. I’m very sorry. I don’t care about the flute. I don’t!”

“This isn’t your fault.” Bannan ruffled Semyn’s hair. “Trust me.”

Tir didn’t look around from the window. “Just say’n, sir. This place.”

He wasn’t wrong. Marrowdell changed everything. Bannan glanced up. To his deeper sight, silver glinted in the shadows above. The dragon perched there, presumably due to the lack of room on the bed. Wisp had been suspiciously silent.

Having included itself in the rush to the loft, the house toad sat where it had leapt, on the mirror, the blanket cover clenched in its claws as if holding something inside.

Something with eyes. And wasn’t that another sort of nightmare?

Swords on a bridge. Ancestors Fearful and Fraught. What had Lila gotten herself into?

“They’re here,” Tir announced, leaving his watch. “I’ll see them in.”

Within minutes, Covie was up the ladder into the loft, Jenn right behind. “Stay,” the healer said, when Bannan went to move out of her way. “You know the boys.”

“I’ll fill the kettle,” Tir offered, backing down the ladder.

Jenn went to the side of the bed by Semyn. The boy reached for her hand and she took it in both of hers, sitting on the edge. Her eyes were blue again, like the morning sky, and the look she gave Bannan was both determined and worried.

While Covie leaned over Werfol, gently examining his head, then his neck. “He fell?”

“I don’t think so.” Bannan decided on the truth, such as he knew it. “I found him lying on the floor, atop that mirror. There.” He pointed. She eyed the toad, which eyed her back. “There’s some—some magic to the thing. I kept it under the bed, and wrapped. Not that I blame Werfol,” he added hastily.

No, he blamed himself. And Lila. While he was at it, some blame belonged to the fat prince who’d started all this, and the train being built through Lower Rhoth to reach the mines of Ansnor, Ansnans likely deserving their share—

“Bannan.” Jenn’s voice found him, wherever he’d gone.

“My apologies, Covie. The mirror was where you see it. Werfol saw something in it that made him scream, then faint.”

“‘Something,’” the healer echoed.

“I—” saw it too, Bannan was about to say, then hesitated. What had he seen? Eyes, the once. This time? Had he truly seen Channen?

Covie held up her hand. “I don’t need to know. He’s had a shock, that’s my thinking, and needs time to recover. Keep him warm, stay by him.” She put a finger on Werfol’s forehead, then gently drew it down to the tip of his nose. Had he seen a glow, where she’d touched? The boy let out a peaceful sigh, then rolled on his side.

“A bit of proper sleep,” she said with reassuring firmness, “and he should be fine. Fetch me again if he isn’t.” She rose to her feet.

“Ancestors Blessed.” Bannan bowed. “We’re Beholden for your care and kindness.”

Semyn slipped off the bed to bow. “That we are, Lady Covie.”

The healer smiled at him. “I’ve not been that for a long time.” Her smile faded as she looked down at the wrapped mirror. “Whatever Werfol saw, Bannan, it wasn’t fit for a child. I’d keep that away from him.”

“I will.”

“Then I’ll be off. There’s dishes to wash—and port—left at the Treffs’. Stay with them, Good Heart,” to Jenn. “I don’t mind a longer walk with the sun so bright.”

Jenn blushed, warming Bannan’s heart.

He glanced back at Werfol, and felt cold again.

A sliver of paper, touched by ink and fingertip . . . a drop of sleep, under the tongue . . .

And the dream unfolds . . .

The eyes watch and the eyes see and nothing’s safe or hidden. A dream unfolds within a dream’s unfolding, seeming real—

How can it be? Stones and dark water. Or is it quilts and black glass?
Distrust.

Who sees whom?

The dream falters . . . rebuilds . . .

Through tears, light shatters.

There were possible things and there were unlikely things. This—this seemed impossible. Yet Bannan sat across from her, his eyes earnest, and Jenn had to believe. “You saw what Lila could see. Are you sure this wasn’t your gift?” she asked with care.

“The image was in the mirror already. Lila,” he corrected himself grimly, “was already there. I can’t explain it. I just know what I saw.” He sat back. “As for how? A truthseer too young for his gift. A pendant spelled with his mother’s voice. Marrowdell!” with an encompassing gesture as much helpless as it was angry. “Let’s not forget the fool who brought a mirror into the edge.”

A mirror presently leaning on the wall beside the fireplace, bundled in thick oiled canvas itself bound by ropes. Given Bannan’s house toad remained, without blinking, on duty before it? The little cousin shared his opinion.

It was the mirror itself Jenn didn’t understand. She’d helped Bannan unpack. Had spent more time, recently, in this house than the Emms’, truth be told. “I didn’t know you had a mirror,” she ventured.

To her surprise, he looked embarrassed. “I’d hidden it. I—the mirror was to be my gift for you, from Endshere.”

A breeze found her ear. “Fool.”

So Wisp paid attention. From Bannan’s shrug, he’d heard it too. “It wasn’t foolish,” Jenn countered. “It was thoughtful.” Not that she’d imagined having a mirror or needing one. Come to think of it, wherever could she put one? “But—you didn’t give it to me.”

The toad puffed itself. ~The hard water looks, elder sister. Others see.~

“The mirror reflects from the Verge as well as here,” her dragon clarified, the breeze unsettled and prone to snap. “The little cousin is wise. A mirror in Marrowdell is unsafe. It is dangerous. A fool’s folly!”

“Heart’s Blood. Will you give over? I know now.” Bannan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Dearest Heart, I wanted a mirror for you because I hoped, with all my heart, that if you could see yourself—and your turn-born self—you’d come to accept both. To see the Jenn Nalynn I see and be happy.”

“Then you were foolish,” Jenn said, making the words light, though under other circumstances—which weren’t the circumstances of now, with Tir and Semyn with Werfol, and Bannan having seen across the whole of Rhoth with a mirror—she’d have taken him in her arms and kissed away his worried frown. “Did you not know? I see myself in your eyes all the time. Where better?”

He came close to smiling, despite his worry. “Where better indeed.” Then shook his head. “I should destroy it.”

“Let me,” offered the dragon.

“How can we?” Jenn heard herself say, then knew why. The mirror sat there like a silenced bell, waiting to be rung again. “It showed you Lila once. It could again.”

“Ancestors Futile and Foolish. To what end?” Bannan got to his feet and began to pace. “The mirror’s shown us nothing we hadn’t guessed. If we saw the truth, Lila’s in Channen, doubtless hunting Emon. It’s dangerous. She knew that before she left.”

He argued with himself, not her.

Just then, Semyn’s head appeared in the opening to the loft. To Jenn’s relief, the boy was smiling. “Weed’s awake!”

Bannan lunged for the ladder, but Werfol wasn’t only awake but moving. His feet appeared in place of Semyn’s head and he climbed down, moving away at the bottom to let his brother and Tir follow.

“Ancestors Witness. Awake and starving, sir, to hear it,” the latter said happily once he joined them. “I’ll find something.”

An appetite had to be good, Jenn decided. She hung back, watching Bannan close his eyes tight as he hugged his nephew, content until a sly breeze found her ear. “Channen lies within the edge.”

Did Wisp think she’d forgotten? Mistress Sand had shown her a bracelet of amber, like tiny eyes, from the Naalish capital and hadn’t it been among her list of questions, when best to go, and what to trade?

Though admittedly well down her list, after birth, death, and peril. Yes, she could cross into Channen. Trade happened year-round there, though the turn-born hadn’t seemed encouraging. Wisp knew that.

Jenn went to Tir, slicing ham being safer than anything her dragon suggested.

“You could take the truthseer. Find his sister.”

“Hush!” Jenn whispered, now thoroughly flustered. Tir gave her a curious look that turned to amused comprehension at her muttered, “Dragons.”

Bannan brought his nephews to the table, sitting across from them. “Help yourselves,” he said, pushing forward a platter of biscuits. From the speed with which Werfol took one, he might not have done magic or fainted. Semyn followed suit.

Two biscuits floated into the air and vanished with a
Snapsnap.

The truthseer tossed up a third.
Snap!
“The rest for us, please.”

Tir scowled into the air as he put down a tray loaded with bowls, each filled to the brim and steaming. “Keep your—whatevers—out of my pudd’n!”

He’d set it cooking while Werfol slept, and it was a marvelous pudding indeed, the bread golden brown, speckled with dried summerberries, and topped with thick cream.

Semyn and Werfol’s eyes widened. Jenn brought the tea, dolloping honey into the boys’. At Bannan’s invitation, she sat, as did Tir.

The truthseer waited until everyone settled, then circled his fingers over his heart. Seeing this, the boys put down their spoons to do the same.

“Hearts of our Ancestors,” the truthseer said, “we are Beholden for this food and hope Tir’s pudding has improved over last time . . .”

This earned him a glare.

“We are Beholden for Covie’s care of Werfol and for his recovery. We would be Beholden above all else if Lila and Emon return safely and soon from their—adventure. However far we are apart, Keep Us Close.”

“‘Keep Us Close.’”

Werfol picked up his spoon, then hesitated. He looked up, the gold of his eyes muted. “I saw, Uncle. I saw what Momma saw. She’s in the Shadow District.” He pulled the chain and pendant from under his shirt. “That’s where this came from. Poppa said that’s where all the artisans work.”

“Because that’s where the magic is,” Semyn added matter-of-factly.

Bannan managed not to choke on his tea. Tir shook his head. While Jenn Nalynn? She’d gone very still, as if listening, and he didn’t need to guess to whom.

Though he’d dearly love to know what the dragon had to say.