My arms did a tremendous amount of lifting on the way up the wall, but on the other side they hadn’t the strength they thought they had, and I fell into a juniper bush.
I picked the needles from my skin and took off down the elm way.
The afternoon sunlight flickered over my feet, making it seem as though they were dancing rather than walking. I threw them into a half-skip, half-run, so perfectly in time with Nefer’s river shanty that I belted it out as I went along.
“That’s the wrong way, Reyna,” called Floy. I hadn’t noticed her back in the stable; she must have just flown up.
“Wrong?” I said, and danced around in a circle. “See? There in’t no wrong direction, I’m free as a bird.”
“There’re some birds who aren’t as free as you, and you must take their limitations into account.”
“What?” Was she saying what I thought she was saying?
“The night’s going to be moonless and they were going to smuggle you out. But now you’ve done it yourself we’d best get there early.”
Heat rushed into my breast and I stopped. “Leode went away to change.”
“And so he did, and together they decided they’d better not wait.” She landed on my shoulder. “So they came back here to do it, and told me to tell you they were going to––”
“Why?” I was angry for some reason. “It was dangerous.”
“So you might as well go the right direction.”
“How long’ve you been conspiring?”
“The right direction’s eastward,” she said. “The cliffs where the cormorants nest.”
***
It took the rest of the day to reach the cliffs. My feet had grown soft and I hobbled through the city, stubbornly refusing to believe I was tired.
The sun sank, and I followed Floy past the last great house and on to limestone crags that plummeted into the ocean. The cliffs were scattered sparsely with yew and slick with surf and the scat of seabirds, and I had to be careful not to slip.
I walked down through a water-worn, ferny crack, and the purple ring of sea disappeared. The chasm led to a pool sheltered in a cove.
Before the pool a beach of shingle stretched in a silver crescent. Floy became a girl, limbs flashing with starlight. I looked beyond her and saw four boys, one crouching at the pool’s edge. He exclaimed in Gralde, “The water’s fresh.”
“It’s from a freshet,” said a younger voice. “I saw it from above. Good thing the tide’s out, Arin. Can’t have you heaving brine all over the place on a lovely night like this.”
“You see everything from above.” Arin jumped to his feet. “Like some bloody, great ghost––” He had caught sight of me. “Look, Leode. Another ghost. Hey, don’t come any nearer me––”
I shot across the stones and knocked him over, and he wrestled me off, throwing me into the water.
I accepted the reprisal as it provided an excuse for a wet face. Tem fished me out. I clung to him, wondering at how tall he had grown.
“So, tell us––” said Mordan.
“She doesn’t have to,” said Tem. But I wanted to do just that so I broke free and told them everything from Fillegal and the bandorescroll to Natty and the dung. But I didn’t mention how Andrei had exploited my skills. Nor did I mention what Floy had done, in the beginning.
“Nilsa,” said Mordan. “Fancy it being old Nilsa. I always thought there was something funny about her.”
Arin gave a loud snort. “It was Hal. He was given the boot, after all.”
“Let’s be civil,” said Tem. “Could have been anyone.”
I stepped back to better look at them. Their shoes and sandals were gone and their hair had overtaken mine. Limbs were white as the shingle, and the tunics still clean, but they clung tightly, hanging higher than they used to, and the seams broke at Tem’s shoulders.
Mordan had climbed a couple of inches past Tem, but his clothes fit over him as well as ever. Arin had grown taller, too, and he carried himself more gracefully, giving his alternate form a shade of competition. He had so little freckles he seemed a different person. “Look at that thing she’s wearing,” he said. “Did you steal that off a troll?”
Tem touched the wool. “It has the rosette on it.”
“It would fit a human better than a troll, I think,” said Mordan. “It has no business being on you.”
“She has little else to wear. Turn it inside-out,” Tem told me in not so much a command as a suggestion.
“Speaking of tunics,” said Floy, tying back her hair with a string, “I’ve got to show you something. See, Reyna”––she held her skirts up and stepped into the water––“after all that whining you did last autumn––something about a million keys and wishing for wings––those birds took you seriously. But serious as they were, they needed a person’s brain, so I helped.”
I splashed after her. “You are a conspirator.” I turned to the boys. “What’s she talking about?”
“No idea.” Tem stepped in and Arin and Mordan followed. “But she told us very specifically this should be our meeting-place. Where are we going?”
“Around a corner and through a door,” Floy said.
“This place reminds me of a palace,” said Leode. “Like the ones in Omben after the oceans rose.”
“Stay in the starlight.” Tem hauled his little brother up to his side.
“Shh,” whispered Mordan behind me. “I hear saebeline.” Water lapped at our waists, casting shades across the walls, and I heard a humming through an arch at our left.
Floy sighed. “It’s not saebeline. Only wings.” She told me to go through first. “But you’re probably not going to like it. Just more work.”
I stumbled over to the door. The boys piled behind me and the current pushed us through, and I saw a spread of green before Mordan knocked me into the water. The rest tumbled after, and a wave swelled over my head.
“Oh,” said Leode, the only one on his feet. “Our Marione.” I lifted my head above the water. Mordan, lost for words, pulled me up.
A carpet of green and white stretched over a second pool enclosed again by cliff, except for a little niche where water cascaded over stone into the sea.
Bits of stuff fell from the air, where birds circled. “No wonder I was ill last month,” said Leode. “These are mine, mostly.”
Tem wiped his hair back from his eyes. “Floy, you never said a thing?”
“I wasn’t sure it would work.” Her cheeks darkened. I moved to her side, feeling for her hand beneath the water. “Anyway, it isn’t enough,” she said simply, holding onto my fingers.
“Not yet,” said Mordan.
Leaning over the flowers, Arin commenced, as usual, with pointing out the problems. “Saxifrage shouldn’t have thorns.” He grabbed a handful and screwed up his mouth at them.
Mordan lifted one from the water. His face blanched. Below the tiny white flowers the stems were thick with spines. “What happened?” he said.
“Maybe it’s part of growing up,” said Arin.
“Is it hate?” Mordan glanced at me.
“I don’t feel so good.” Leode doubled over and held his mouth.
“Put them down,” said Tem.
“Is it protection, maybe?” Mordan dipped his palm in the water and gently shed them. “Something they go through so beasts won’t dig them up and eat them?”
“Weaving these is going to be horrible.” Arin didn’t look at me.
“They’ll become softer by soaking,” said Tem. “But she’ll have to––I don’t know––break them some, to weave into tunics.”
I felt the old pain, the fist that crumpled my gut and squeezed the air from my lungs. I thought of Leode, ill with only a touch. “Break them?” I squeezed Floy’s hand, making her wince. “Over and over again?”
Arin backed away from the green and white.
“We’ll have to agree on a time. When we’re all on the ground, just in case,” said Tem.
The hour after sunrise, we decided. An hour a day, and with two years left I brooded on my time constraints.
The sun came up, pouring through holes in the cliffs, and the boys flew away. Tem insisted that Leode and Mordan be far out of my hearing during the weaving of their flowers. So with Floy for company I sat in the water and plotted out a design. Leode’s tunic was first on my list as most of the flowers were his, but the saxifrage could only provide a sort of framework, because the other Marione had to be added in their seasons.
The plants were small and I felt queasy as I knotted a first chain, and a second, and a third. I twisted them together. After I’d made enough of these I laid them over a rock to weave with. The tips of my fingers glowed and I collected tallies of scratches up my arms as I worked, but I scarcely noticed.
When I lifted my head, the sun had climbed a thumb’s height above the sea and Floy reminded me to stop.
The pool seemed safe enough, stowed away at the bottom of the eastern cliffs, and I left the work there.