Elsa Crane's Arc

Chapter 15 of 66

The morning after Elsa named Jasper regent, she did not feel relief. She felt the clock start ticking. Bodhi still lied like a grown liar, and a regent's shadow would not fix that. A crown eventually would land on his head, and if his mouth stayed sharp the village would strike it off. She needed him to learn what lying cost, from someone the lesson had already broken. She went to the edge of the pines and knocked on a low door until Dahlia Krenn opened it. Dahlia was the woman the village had cast out four winters back — pale, thin, dirt under every fingernail, coat drawn up to her jaw. She lived alone because she'd lied her way toward Elsa's seat once and been caught. Elsa had voted with the rest to send her out. Dahlia looked at her now without surprise. "I need you for an hour," Elsa said. "For a boy." Dahlia's jaw tightened. Somewhere behind the house, a root cracked inside stone. She heard it too. She breathed out and the sound stopped. "For a boy," she repeated. Then she pulled her hood up and followed. Elsa took them to the cottage grown into the trunk of an old tree, past the pines, with the teal crystal door and the strawberry vines. She had asked Bodhi to meet her there. He was already on the step, chalk in his fist, drawing a spiral on the wood. The pale wolf lay beside him with its blue eyes half shut. "Bodhi," Elsa said. "This is Dahlia. She used to sit where I sit. Listen to her." Bodhi looked up. He smiled the easy smile Elsa had taught herself to fear on his face. Dahlia crouched so her eyes were level with his. "I told stories to get what you're being groomed for," she said. "Small ones first. Then bigger. I told the miller his neighbor stole from him. I told the midwife the elder was sick. Every lie moved me one step closer. Then someone checked. One person. That was all it took." Bodhi's smile thinned. "What happened." "They put me out." She held up her hands, black under the nails. "No one brings me broth. No one sits at my table. I dig my own food out of the dirt. That's what the lie bought me." Bodhi looked at the door of the cottage, at the berries hanging red and heavy above them. His mouth opened, then closed. He said nothing clever. That was new. Dahlia stood. "The old woman sent me broth once. After. She was the only one." She looked at Elsa, and Elsa looked back, and a root under the step gave a small, tired crack. Dahlia walked away without saying goodbye. Bodhi watched her go. Then he wiped the spiral off the door with his sleeve. "I don't want to end up in the pines," he said. "Then stop practicing on people who feed you," Elsa said. He nodded. It was not a promise. It was the first honest thing he'd said to her in a month. She would take it.