Mary rose Morris's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Mary Rose walked down the library steps with the recipe still wet on her wrist. The thing wearing her brother's face waited at the bottom, hand out, smile ready. She took the hand. It was warm. That was the worst part. She let the dragon carry them both home under a thinning sky. At the cottage door, he shrugged off the black coat and hung it on the peg. His shaved head caught the lamplight. The tattoos on his neck crawled when he swallowed. He watched her the way her brother never had, tracking every move of her hands. "You're up late," he said. "Making something?" "Tea," she said. "For my headache." She could not brew it in front of him. The iron shavings alone would tell him what she was. He would bolt, or he would put a knife in her back before the kettle sang. She needed him out of the cottage, or she needed a wall he could not see through. She thought of the root cellar. Thick door. Stone walls. And bolted to the inside of that door, the old iron panel her father had hammered up against faerie mischief years ago. Iron on iron. No glamour could listen through it. "I left my basket at the ridge," she said. "Black roses. I need them for the tea. Would you fetch them? My legs are done." He hesitated. His eyes flicked to her wrist. She pulled her sleeve down. "Please," she said. "Before dawn. They wilt." He nodded once and took the coat back off the peg. The blue door shut behind him. She moved fast. She grabbed the black petal roses already hidden in the flour bin, the twist of iron shavings from the arrowsmith's pouch, and the small iron cauldron from the hearth. She carried it all down into the cellar and dropped the bar across the door. The iron panel hummed cold against her palm. She struck flint. The cauldron caught. Water, petals, shavings. The brew went black as a wet crow. It smelled of rust and rot. She counted to sixty, then poured a cup and drank. Her eyes burned. The cellar sharpened. She could see the grain in the wood, the veins in her own hand. Footsteps crossed the floor above her. The blue door had opened. He was back too soon. He had not gone to the ridge at all. "Sister?" he called. His voice came down through the boards, close to the trapdoor. "Where'd you go?" She held the empty cup. The tea sat hot in her chest. She had it. She had one night of true sight, and the shapeshifter was already standing over her head, sniffing for the smell of iron. She picked up the arrow.