Chapter Seven

The look on Tremie's face when I'd told her about my trip to Azareba led me to believe she thought this was a honeymoon. She'd hesitated at the thought of giving me vacation only a day after hiring me, but agreed to make it a business trip by bringing Lefeli along to buy materials from out of town.

When the rain lightened that afternoon, I found myself with a large satchel strung from my shoulder and the hood of my traveling cloak pulled over my unruly hair. Lefeli joined me in front of the shop with a small bag of her own, and together we started for the forest skirting the flower field from the day before. More than once during our walk, one of us had to pull the other's boot from the deep, thick mud on the road.

Finally, we came upon the edge of the forest where a cart waited. When we approached, I recognized Atlas as he jogged up to us.

"So glad you came!" His formality disgusted me. "Let me introduce you to my traveling partners."

A head of pin-straight black hair popped up from behind the cart and made me jump. A girl maybe a bit older than me walked around the obstacle between us and gave me a scrutinizing eye, then gave Atlas a look that portrayed a message I couldn't understand. Atlas met the girl's gaze and raised his eyebrows, shrugging, then motioned to Lefeli and said, "This is Lefeli, who works at that dress shop you were eyeing yesterday, and"—his hand moved over to me—"this is Veia. She knows chemistry."

The girls dark eyes narrowed at each of us, then she cast Atlas a suspicious look and finally thrust her hand out toward me, leaning on one hip with her eyes still narrowed. "I'm Evyne Jeims, unfortunately related to a certain no good blight patch named Atlas. I run this sideshow circus we've got here, so don't get any ideas about you knowing the better way."

Aside from her slightly awkward accent, her voice was callous in a feminine way and her hand felt much the same when I took it. She knew the road, it looked like, but she was also nearly a head shorter than I was with perfect skin and a perfect eye for clothing colors, though she fashioned a pair of dark green traveler's pants and seemed to like clothing with a fair amount of mud on it.

She shook hands with Lefeli, who sprung off into a long explanation of how she came here but got cut short by the kick and snort of the horse by the cart.

"This"—Atlas pressed forward and brushed the horse's neck—"is the fair Lady Alberta, but we just call her Birdy. She likes it better that way, too."

Evyne came up beside the animal and grinned, leaning against it and scruffing its hair, then she looked back at us with darkened eyes, the smile still on her face suddenly a deadly dare. "No funny business on or anywhere near my cart, you hear? Just try it and see what happens."

We understood perfectly what she meant—she was comfortable with getting down with us—but Atlas shook off the tense silence with a chuckle and motioned for us to climb into the cart.

The bench creaked beneath us, the sturdy wood worn where the seats were, and I peered into the back. A large beige tarp was roped down over its contents, which I had only to assume were none of my business, and I smacked my lips, sitting down and putting my bag on my lap.

It was a tight squeeze with Lefeli, Atlas, and Evyne after me on a single bench, but no one offered to sit in the back, so with that, Evyne yipped to Birdy and we were off into the woods with a splash on the muddy road.

I figured out about fifteen minutes into the trip that I didn't like bumping hips with Lefeli on every hitch in the road, and it wasn't very long after that that it became apparent Atlas felt the same. Evyne showed no crack in her shell, though. She shot us beady eyes every time we made a move to shift positions.

"So," Lefeli finally said with a pained smile after a particularly large jostle, "you wanted to take this trip because of that book, right? Tremie told me you needed help with it."

I was tired of hiding the stupid book. I leaned back and sighed. "Yeah, that's about right."

I could feel Evyne's eyes on us.

"Can I see it?" Lefeli asked.

I pulled my bag open and handed it to her. She took it comfortably, then ran her finger across the scar on the cover. "This word means 'cursed.'"

I shouldn't have been surprised that she would know something like that. She was weird, as she'd continuously proven to me, and yet I still sat up straighter, sucking in a slow breath.

She opened the book to the first page, then the second, and her eyes squinted, one brow arching up. "Hey, do you know what this sentence means?" She tugged on my sleeve and I shook my head, an uncomfortable feeling settling in my gut. "It's Latin—like most magic things, I suppose. It means 'She who stands still yet shall move.'"

The conversation extinguished like a candle devoid of air, the whisper of the wind the only noise for miles, and Lefeli cleared her throat, confused. It dragged on, the crackle of the gravel below us and Birdy's clip-clop suddenly earsplitting, until Evyne moved forward in her seat a little bit.

"What does it mean?" She said quietly.

Lefeli hesitated for a moment, pursing her lips almost seriously, then a grin broke out across her face and she shrugged, giggling again. "How should I know? I can read Latin from my mother, but that's about it."

We all collectively sighed, and the ride continued on painful bump after the next. What was I expecting her to say? Something mystical that would just solve everything nice and clean? Everyone else seemed to think so.

I glanced over at Evyne, her black hair bouncing more and more around her face with every rock we hit on the road. Every minute or so, she would brush it out of her eyes and keep staring forward. How much had Atlas told her about the situation? With all the off glances when she'd greeted us, I had a feeling she and Atlas had a secret language of facial expressions. Did she know about the curse?

My stomach tightened and I gazed at the book in Lefeli's lap. She just smiled at it, thoroughly entertained, and flipped through the pages with her fingers.

Then the book shuddered and convulsed, and Lefeli slammed it shut, her eyes going wide. She shot glances to either side, giving us bewildered looks, but my eyes trained on the book still in her hands. That had to have been from a bump of the cart. The book had never visibly shaken... or maybe I just hadn't noticed it before.

"Oy, this is Fairlay's trade post up here a ways," said Evyne, pointing up the road and interrupting my thoughts. "We're gonna stop there for tonight and continue traveling tomorrow since there aren't any places between there and Azareba and I don't fancy sleeping on forest floors when I can help it."

"Sounds good." Atlas continued fiddling with something wooden on his lap and sighed, staring up the road blandly.

Lefeli handed me the book and scooted up in the seat to peer with childish anticipation at the horizon in hope of seeing the town of Fairlay.

Unlike Lefeli, though, the only reason I wanted to get off the cart was to get closer to breaking the curse. My fingers ran across the cover of the book and my stomach dropped further.

The forest thinned quickly and in what seemed like no time at all, the tips of stores and houses peeked over the hill. As we continued toward the entrance gate to the town, something struck me as odd. I didn't know what, though, and dismissed it.

Evyne stopped the cart for the guard near the gate, and I took the time to survey the town. The buildings were pale and green and blue and red, the paint peeling off in places, and the storefronts advertised their goods in fairly average ways. The houses and apartments in the area looked normal enough, the road was the same cobblestone as in my hometown of Esterwilde, and yet something was off. I rubbed my hands on my skirt. What was it?...

We scooted over as Evyne hopped back on the bench again and we began down the street. We rode for another few minutes to a stone plaza and my eyes caught on the colors of the sunset, showering the square in an orange haze and leaving deep shadows between the buildings.

The inn we were staying at was like any other. Its walls looked thin, but the lights from the windows were a welcome sign of warmth from inside. I curled my toes as the cart stopped and Evyne untied Birdy, then I glanced again at the streets as a breeze chilly with the evening brushed past my arms. I shuddered and tightened my cloak around myself, then my breath hitched in my throat as I realized what was wrong with this place.

After the rain had dried earlier today, it had warmed up and stayed that way, the sun peeking out regularly from its hiding place behind the clouds, the wind a welcome reminder of spring. In Esterwilde, the children always bounded through the streets in nice weather. The people chatted, traveled, shopped, worked. The town square was full of life, the shops were juggling customers between them, the workers heading to and from their jobs, smiling, laughing, arguing, playing, the smell of bread from the bakery wafting through the streets, the metal from the blacksmith's and the perfume in the old lady's knitting shop always choking the passers by.

But past the guard at the gate, I hadn't seen a single soul break the unsettling stillness of this town.