Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 8 of 29

Beth stepped out of the cathedral onto the doorstep. The obsidian shell went dark behind her. The cat slid between her boots and vanished into the ferns. Elijah moved to her left, dagger low. The footsteps stopped at the tree line. The merchant walked out from between two trunks, coat black as wet slate, ledger open in one hand. He smiled when he saw her. "There you are," he said. "I felt the seam close." Beth's knees shook. She had no star magic. She had no shard on her body. She had a broken frame in her pocket and forty-two coins that would not stop a knife. Her wings dragged. Even lifting them felt like lifting wet cloth. "Walk toward me," the merchant said. "Or your hunter bleeds first." Elijah stepped forward. Beth caught his sleeve. "Wait." She felt it then. A thin place opening at her back. Not the cathedral. Something new. The air near the doorstep went dry and warm, like a stove door cracking open. Beth turned her head. A woman walked out of the trees behind them. White dress splashed with pink and yellow. Black ringlets. Hands charred to the wrist. She did not look at Beth. She looked at the merchant. "You," Wanda said. "Coat. Ledger. You bought a fire off a man three nights back." The merchant's smile thinned. "I buy many things." "Pale white flame. In a tin." Wanda kept walking. Behind her, a small red-berried tree pushed up through the moss, leaves already curling brown at the edges. She did not look at it. "That's mine." "Then bid for it," the merchant said, and reached inside his coat. Wanda opened her hand. The berries on the little tree burst. Fire ran up the trunk and jumped. It hit the merchant's coat and took. He shouted and beat at his sleeve. The ledger dropped. Pages caught. A tall faceted vase tumbled from inside his coat, rolled, and stopped at Beth's boot. Star magic swam inside it, slow and bright. Beth stared. Her shard was in the tower. This was more. This was a piece he had never shown her. The merchant ran. He crashed through the ferns burning, and the fire followed him into the dark until the trees swallowed the light. Wanda walked past Beth without slowing. "He'll circle back. He always does." "Why help me?" "Didn't." Wanda crouched by the burning ledger, picked a page out with black fingers, and read it. "He wrote your name here. Under a price." She let the page burn. "Take the vase. You earned nothing. Just take it." Beth picked up the vase. It was warm. Heavy. Full. Wanda was already moving into the trees after the smoke. Beth held the vase against her chest. The merchant knew her name, her price, and now her face without a wall between them. But she had star magic again. Enough to start.