Selene Moonshadow's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Selene woke before dawn. The cottage was quiet, the hearth banked low. Marcus was already lacing his boots. The raccoon sat by the door in its battered fedora, watching. She checked her coat pocket. The two stone halves were still there. Half a name. Sel—. The shadow would be moving already. A small foot kicked the underside of the table. Selene jumped. A boy no taller than her knee crawled out from beneath it, brushing dust off a patched waistcoat. His feet were bare and caked with mud. He grinned at her like they had known each other for years. "Rowan Puck," he said. "I keep this place. Been under the floorboards since you got here." Marcus straightened slowly. "A brownie." "The brownie." Rowan hopped onto the bench. "You came in without paying. That's twice now. I let it go the first time because you were bleeding." He looked at Selene. "I don't let anyone in for gold. I take a favor. And I take a secret at the door — something true, and something no one else knows. That's the price to come back." Selene glanced at Marcus. He gave a small nod. She sat down across from the brownie. "The shadow wears my name," she said. "Every time I struck at it, I was striking myself. I never told anyone that. Marcus guessed. I never said it out loud." Rowan's grin faded. He got quieter. "That'll do." "Then guard this place while we're gone," Marcus said. "No one comes in. Not anyone wearing a face you know. The shadow can wear faces." "No one comes in," Rowan said. "I turned a man into a toad last spring for less." They left at first light. The path climbed hard. By midday the trees thinned and the pass opened above them, a bare saddle between two grey peaks. Selene stopped. She did not know this ground. The map showed one line through. The slopes on either side showed three. A wrong turn would put them on open rock with nowhere to hide when the shadow closed the distance behind them. She could already feel it, a drag at the back of her neck. A black shape dropped from the sky and landed on a stone ahead of them. A raven. Something small and dark hung at its throat on a cord — a bit of polished stone she could not quite look at straight. It cocked its head at her, then hopped once toward the left fork. "Marcus," she said. "I see it." The raven waited until they moved, then flew a short way and landed again. Left fork. Then a narrow cut she would have walked past. Then a goat track under an overhang, hidden from the sky and from anything coming up behind. By dusk they crossed the pass. On the far slope, smoke rose from a chimney tucked into the rocks. A door stood open. An old man stood in it, waiting.