“What of your own life?”
A beatific smile. “I cannot be killed.”
“Everything can be killed. I plan on killing Amal. I’d like to return her wolf before I do it, though. Break the same magic cycle that condemns innocents.”
“Your morality is charming.”
“You wouldn’t like my true morality.” The effigy pulsed in my pocket, but I was afraid to move my fingers, release my hold.
Pelonie tipped her head. “You are threatening me?”
“Not at all.”
“The queens got what they deserved. They were jealous, hostile women, exacting revenge on the nymphs, the witches, the kings. Anyone who would not honor them. Who displeased them. Even the flowers in the field were not safe if they did not bloom with the desired color that day.”
The young Pelonie narrowed her gaze on Effa as she said that, and the meadow nymph stilled her restless movements. Raised her chin. Satisfied, the witch smiled at me.
“What I did was necessary. I preserved what was good.”
“You didn’t preserve. You destroyed. The wolves you wanted to protect are dead, and others never came into existence. Gather all the bones you want. Be La Loba, or the Wolf Woman. The Collector. Sing over their remains. But you’ll never make it right. Never restore what you broke into a million pieces.”
“That is a lie,” she hissed.
“That is your curse,” I hissed back while electric jolts bounced around the cave, disjointed like the bone creatures. The power wasn’t mine. It was hers, and moisture dewed at the small of my back. “Your ritual made the loss permanent for the daughters of the queens. And their daughter’s daughters. They call it a king’s curse.”
Pelonie smiled. “How… fitting.”
“Thousands of females carry a curse because you failed to honor the magic. You weren’t worthy. That’s why you are here.”
“Should I care?”
Her bone creatures scrabbled over the botched efforts—thin wing bones connected to jointed toe bones and fragile talons, bones that tried to walk but couldn’t. I syphoned energy from the effigy, let it float like a ribbon in a breeze.
Strands of Pelonie’s pale hair lifted, her only reaction.
“The sin isn’t only in your weakness, the selfish decision you made,” I said. “It’s in denying anyone else the chance to put it right. To realign the magic you released. Close the circle, so evil no longer flows into the world.”
Power sparked, both hers and mine, crisscrossing the cave, leaving glowing trails through the air.
“Do you like your prison, Pelonie?” I asked. “Can you collect enough bones to save yourself? Or would you rather others did it for you and basked in the glory?”
The sorceress was changing; her face shifted from girl to woman to crone faster than her clothes changed until, in one bizarre moment, the crone wore the white gown with the webbed crown hanging over her wrinkled forehead.
“I am your one chance,” I told her. “Give me the rune. Let me close the circle. Only then will you be free.”
The deceit in that statement didn’t matter. The kings had lied to the queens, and the queens lied in return, while Pelonie was nothing but lies. Even Aine lied to me, to herself. To Metis. Now I was lying. I wanted the rune to end Amal. And if my request for the stone held out false hope to Pelonie, hinted at freedom—well, her hopes were her own. Like the queens. That was how the magic worked, wasn’t it? A mutual desire?
Pelonie’s smile sharpened. “You’ll need the chant to sing the wolf into being.”
“What will that cost me, Pelonie?”
“The nymphs.”
CHAPTER 30
Noa
Ivory bird bones tumbled in tiny avalanches, pouring from every corner with the dry clacking of dice. Echoes from a thousand dice games. From old women tossing dried bones in a thousand desert camps.
