Meadow Faeoria's Arc

Chapter 4 of 12

The ash-girl stood in the yard beside the carriage. Meadow lifted the wand. The star at its tip still held heat from the pumpkin, and she felt the thinness in her wrist again, the place where the last spell had drawn from her own store. She had less to spend now. She had more to make. "Close your eyes," Meadow said. The girl closed them. Ash streaked her cheek and her collarbone. Her shift hung off one shoulder, gray with soot. Meadow set the star of the wand against the girl's sternum, over the place where a furnace-heart pulsed slow and warm under thin skin. She could feel it through the wand. It answered her magic the way iron answers a lodestone. Meadow thought of her mother's palace when spring first crossed the threshold. Black stone gone green at the seams. Gold walls flushed with new light. She pulled that memory down through her arm and out the star. The rags moved. Threads climbed off the girl's shoulders and spun in the air. Silk pulled itself from nothing — deep blue, storm-dark, the color of the sky above her father's hall. A bodice set itself against the girl's ribs. Silver embroidery ran across it in shapes Meadow had not chosen: old letters from a language spoken only below. Red stones bloomed at the seams like drops. Thorns of black iron laced the hem and did not prick. Layer over layer, the skirt filled the yard. The girl opened her eyes. She looked down at the gown. She did not smile. "It's heavy," she said. "It will hold." "There are marks on it." Meadow followed the girl's gaze. The runes along the hem glowed faintly, then dimmed. "They came with the cloth. My side of the family leaves fingerprints." The girl touched a red stone at her waist. Her fingertip left a small dark smear. The smear faded into the fabric and was gone. "Shoes," the girl said. Meadow knelt. Her wrist shook now. She pressed the star to the packed dirt at the girl's bare feet and pulled harder than she meant to. Something behind her eyes went cold. Glass rose. It came up in clean facets, mirrored, pointed at the toe, cut like a chessboard along the sole. Small pink stones set themselves at the arch. The slippers rocked once and stilled. The girl stepped into them without being told. Meadow tried to stand and could not, at first. She caught the carriage wheel with one hand and pulled herself up. The wand felt lighter than it should. The star had dimmed to a pale blue. The girl looked down at her feet. Then at Meadow. "You're gray," the girl said. "Around your mouth." "I know." "Can you still get me there?" Meadow wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Get in the carriage."