Danica Hicks's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Danica moved through the market with her hood low. Everywhere she heard the same word. Thief. A fishmonger told it to a weaver. The weaver told it to her children. The herb-woman had done her work well, and the woman was still hidden somewhere, feeding the story hour by hour. Danica had to find her and silence her before the whole village turned. But the stalls hid nothing. She needed someone who tracked people who did not want to be found. She found that someone crouched on a barrel near the tavern door. The small girl in the bark-and-moss cloak pressed something bright to her mouth. It was the raven's feather, the very feather Danica had traded for her disguise. The girl's silver eyes lifted. She was the one who dealt in hidden things, the one who took the brightest thing you carried and gave you what you needed. "You," Danica said. "The old herb-woman hides in this village. I need to know where. Name your price." The girl tilted her head. "A thing for a thing, as always it goes. Give me the brightest thing that still glows." Danica's hand went to the stone beneath her rags. The pendant. The only proof she had. No. She searched her cloak and found nothing else bright. The girl waited, silver eyes fixed on Danica's hidden hand. "Everything bright, I gave to you," Danica said. "The feather. You hold it now." "A feather spent is a feather gone. The debt stays open, the night grows long." The girl hopped down. Her bare feet made no sound. "But watch my hand and watch it well. The brooding house has tales to tell." She pointed one small finger at the tavern. The sign above the door read The Queen. Through the thick windows Danica saw villagers packed shoulder to shoulder. Angry faces. Raised cups. And at the center, standing on a bench, an old woman in a gray shawl spoke to them all. The herb-woman. She had not hidden at all. She had gathered them. "She hides in plain sight," Danica breathed. "In front of a crowd." "No one looks for the loud," the girl said. "Only the quiet stay in the shroud." She slipped the feather back against her chest and melted into the press of bodies. Danica stepped to the tavern window. Inside, the herb-woman lifted a hand for silence. "The pendant was stolen," the old woman said. "Whoever carries it is no queen." The crowd roared agreement. Danica's search was over. She had found her enemy. But finding her changed nothing for the better. The woman was no longer one voice to catch on a road. She was a voice before forty voices, and every ear inside that room already believed her. Danica pulled her hood lower and watched through the glass. To win them now, she would have to walk inside.