A Play of Shadow (46 page)

And didn’t that strike him in the heart? Tir coughed and Bannan took the boys in his arms. He kissed their heads and, though he didn’t dare promise aloud, by every Ancestor he could claim, he vowed he wouldn’t face these children again without their parents.

“Time to be off.”

Bannan swallowed. Composing his face into a cheerful smile, he straightened and ruffled their hair as he always did. “Then I’m off. Mind yourselves and keep an eye on Tir for me.”

“Couldn’t we come with you a short way?” Werfol pleaded. “I like to watch the turn, Uncle.”

His brother ruffled his hair. “Tonight let’s watch from here, Weed.”

They’d stick together. “Good,” Bannan told them. “Tir?”

Tir snapped to attention. “Sir!”

Heart’s Blood. Would the man never let it go? Bannan regarded his friend, then shook his head. “Still with that?”

A grin showed at the side of the mask. “Always, sir.”

They clasped hands, then shoulders. Tir gave him a hard slap on one after letting go. “Watch your back.”

“That I can promise.” Bannan looked to the boys.

Semyn wore Lila’s pendant. Werfol had found one of Bannan’s scarves and had wrapped it around his neck. Seeing his attention, the pair bowed in unison, fingertips sweeping the floor with impeccable grace. “Uncle.”

He wanted to tell them what to do if he didn’t come back. To reassure Werfol his gift wouldn’t stay all-consuming and tell Semyn that he’d make a fine baron.

Instead, he circled his fingers over his heart. “Hearts of our Ancestors, However far we are apart, Keep Us Close.”

“‘Keep Us Close.’”

With their high voices in his ears, and Tir’s low rumble, Bannan turned and left his house. He didn’t look around or back.

He’d see it again when he brought Lila and Emon home.

“You should keep your hair like that, Dear Heart.” Peggs tucked a stray lock back into Jenn’s complex braid, her fingers lingering. Before they’d left the village, she’d checked everything Jenn wore, then produced a sachet filled with petals from Melusine’s rose, the delicate bag newly sewn from a fine linen handkerchief embroidered with Jenn’s name and hers, insisting that be tucked deep into a pocket.

She’d then made it clear there was no chance in either world of her family letting Jenn cross this time without them present. Kydd and Radd walked with them, and Peggs kept her arm linked with her sister’s as if afraid to let go.

Truth be told, Jenn was glad of the arm and the company. The efflet had seen fit to clear the road. They’d not used the snow for more sculptures, either because they were satisfied or for some reason of their own. As for Wisp? She’d not heard or felt her dragon since he’d suggested she take Bannan into the Verge. Hopefully, that meant he’d be waiting for them at the crossing, smug they’d taken his advice and ready to be their guide.

If not? The turn was coming and she carried eyes in her bag. He’d be there, Jenn told herself.

“I’m sorry we weren’t more help,” Kydd said, not for the first time.

Radd marched alongside. “You were more than I was.”

Jenn put her free arm through her father’s and squeezed. “We’ll have help, Poppa. Don’t forget.” When he glanced at Scourge, who walked alongside, she shook her head. “He’s to stay with the boys.” This earned her the glint of a red eye, then the kruar snorted and plunged ahead, his flagged tail the last thing they saw as he rounded the bend. “It’s a sensitive topic,” she said apologetically.

As they passed the path to the Spine, a figure stepped out to join them. “Wainn!” Kydd greeted, clapping his nephew on the shoulder. “Good of you to come.”

Wainn smiled, but the look he gave Jenn was full of foreboding.

She tightened her grip on her family and didn’t ask.

Be it Wainn’s arrival or Scourge’s leave-taking, they walked in silence to the opening to Bannan’s farm. There, Jenn turned. “I know I said you could come all the way, but—”

“But this is far enough.” Peggs smiled, though her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Go, Dearest Heart. We’ll visit with Tir and the boys.” She held up her basket. “I brought pie.”

Then there were hugs and kisses and Jenn grew quite flustered and might have wept, but just in time Bannan appeared. There was nothing for it then but he be hugged and kissed and fussed over too.

Until Wainn looked to the Bone Hills and said quietly, “The turn’s coming.”

Jenn nodded. “However far—”

“No need for all that,” Peggs stated in her do-not-argue-with-me voice. “You’ll be home in no time. Come along, everyone. The pie’s still hot.” And because it was Peggs, and Peggs had thought to bring pie, she swept her family with her to the waiting house.

Not without casting a look back at Wainn, who hadn’t budged, that threatened to lift him by his bootlaces. “I’m coming,” he replied, then looked to Jenn. “Wen said to trust your heart.”

Which didn’t sound at all unreasonable and she would, of course. Jenn took Bannan’s hand and smiled. “Thank—”

Her smile vanished as she met Wainn’s eyes, for Marrowdell looked back. “He doesn’t belong here,” the words slow and heavy. “You mustn’t bring him back.”

“‘Him?’ Emon?” Bannan asked sharply. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s not Emon,” she replied. “Wainn—”

But the moment passed and Wainn smiled, himself again and without care in the world. “Peggs brought pie!”

“Jenn,” Bannan pressed. “Emon?”

“Come,” she told him. “I’ll explain on the way.”

What she could.

The turn was coming. They’d have been late, but the efflet had clawed a path through Night’s Edge and into the old trees beyond.

The path he’d expected. Their slow pace along it was the surprise. After a moment, Bannan looked at Jenn. She gave him a determined little smile that didn’t fool him for an instant. So, when they came at last to the forest edge, he stooped to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“What was that for?” she asked, her smile eased into something more natural.

“Everything. This.” He waved an arm vaguely. “It’s not snowing.”

That won him a chuckle. “It doesn’t always snow, Bannan.”

“You could have fooled me,” he assured her. He began walking backward, to watch her face as she followed. “We’ll be free of it soon. No snow in Channen.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Ever?”

“Almost never.”

The eyebrows drew together. “I’m not sure I believe you, Bannan Larmensu.”

He clasped his hands over his heart. “You wound me, Jenn Nalynn.”

“I—oh my!” She burst into laughter as he fell backward, landing on his rump in snow up to his elbows, which he hadn’t planned. Still, the laugh was honest and contagious. He chuckled too, until he discovered to his chagrin he was stuck.

Smiling, Jenn offered her help. “Here. Wiggle yourself from the deepest part.” As she pulled him free, she joked, “For your sake, we’d best hope there’s no snow in Channen.”

For both their sakes, he needed to know what troubled her. Bannan stopped her brushing him off. “This can wait, Dearest Heart. What is it? What did Wainn mean?”

Jenn met his gaze, her lovely eyes open and honest—and more purple than blue. A reminder of the coming turn. And her magic. “I looked in the mirror. There was—there is—something that looks back from the Verge.”

The eyes. “It saw you.”

She nodded. Ancestors Anxious and Uncertain. Was that good news or dire? “Could you tell what it was?” he asked, though he didn’t know what to ask, was the truth. “What it—what it wants?”

“The efflet know. And the little cousins.” Her voice became troubled. “All they’ll tell me is that he—they call it ‘he’—was once here and harmed efflet before crossing into the Verge. Like Wainn, they fear this thing, this hunter, wants to return to Marrowdell. That it would use me, somehow, to do so.”

Dire didn’t come close. “We mustn’t go, then. We can’t!”

“We must, Dearest Heart.” Jenn’s chin firmed. “And we will. The Verge is full of dangers we don’t know,” she added, being reasonable when Bannan couldn’t imagine reason being part of this. “This one we do. He won’t—” her voice sharpened, “—come back here.”

There was no faulting her courage. “Where’s the mirror?”

“Gone.” With finality. “But the darkness—and the eyes—remain in a shard. I have it.” The shoulder supporting her bag lifted and fell. “I couldn’t leave it at the Emms’.”

“No,” he agreed numbly. “What should we do with it?”

“I don’t know. If the hunter can use the shard to spy on Marrowdell, on us, shouldn’t we take the shard into the Verge and leave it there?”

“And if that’s what he wants?” It came out more harshly than Bannan intended and he gentled his tone. “Forgive me, Jenn, but this is—Werfol and Semyn slept over that thing. I brought it here.”

“I’m not so sure you did,” she said, touching his hand. “I mean, you did, but—what if there was a wishing involved? Some magic to bring the mirror to Marrowdell?”

Was it possible? Could an object persuade those around it—Great Gran, himself? Bannan shuddered. “Then we can’t leave it here.”

And hoped he wouldn’t regret leaving the sword.

The turn touched the Bone Hills, sliding blue down their flanks. While Jenn, if she was like other turn-born, didn’t need the turn to cross unless moving a wagon or other large object, crossing at other times would catch the attention of the turn-born of the Verge. Like a shout, Mistress Sand had warned her, where a soft voice would be more agreeable.

Good manners were never wrong, in Jenn’s opinion.

What was? Wisp wasn’t here.

Not knowing what else to do, she bent to look inside Wisp’s home of crystal and wood. It was empty but for frozen moss. Straightening, she met Bannan’s gaze. “I was sure he’d be waiting for us.”

The truthseer shrugged. “We hadn’t told him,” he reminded her.

It shouldn’t have mattered, Jenn wanted to say, but didn’t. The bond between herself and Wisp was something she’d obviously taken too much for granted; she’d assumed he’d know and be here, ready to help. “I was counting on Wisp to guide us. I don’t know the way,” she admitted. “Not to the turn-born.” Certainly not to the crossing into Channen.

They had a plan, as much as one could plan for the Verge. Wisp would take them to Mistress Sand, where they’d obtain the mask Jenn needed. Oh, and ask directions to the crossing. It seemed simple.

Not so, lacking the dragon.

“It’s all right. We’ll come back tomorrow.” Bannan spoke lightly, but she could see it in his eyes. They’d said their farewells. Firmed their resolve and were ready, now.

Now it would be. “We’ll cross to Wisp’s sanctuary,” Jenn decided. “We can wait for him there as easily as here.”

“Or—” Bannan began to smile at something behind her. Jenn turned to see Scourge stepping from behind one of the old trees. “Ah! We’ve our guide!”

A lip curled. The breeze nipped Jenn’s ears. “I’m to stay with the truthseer,” the old kruar reminded them, sounding thoroughly offended and grumpy to boot. “I’m of no use in the Verge.” He prowled forward, head low. “You prefer the dragon.”

With a snap. Jenn winced but Bannan’s smile only grew. “Testy testy. You know you want to show him up. Here’s your chance. We need to reach the turn-born.” He shrugged his pack into place. “If you’re nervous, you can stay out of sight.”