“A duskwyrm.”
Cole muttered a curse and shook his head, as if angry with the world.
Willow saw the duskwyrms from her vision, their jewel-toned bodies coiled like ribbons, their eyes far too sad for such small and lovely creatures. Doubt stirred in her chest. She pressed it down. No price was too high if it got her a step closerto Serrin. And Amira said she’d only have to bring a duskwyrm if she chose to return from Eryth. Who said she would?
“Fine,” she said.
“You must swear to it.” Amira set the map aside. From beneath the counter, she drew forth a slender dagger wrapped in silk. The blade, when revealed, gleamed with an oily sheen. “A blood oath.”
“Hold up,” Cole said, stepping slightly in front of Willow as if to keep Amira from getting to her. “Blood oaths are not to be undertaken lightly.”
Amira tilted her head. “I agree.”
“What if we don’t find the Box? What if it’s gone or guarded or doesn’t work?”
“Cole,” Willow said, stepping out from behind him.
“Everything will unfold as planned,” Amira replied simply.
“That’s no answer,” Cole snapped. “What if the Box doesn’t take her to Eryth? What if it does—and refuses to let her come back?”
“The Box will take her. The Box will return her. That is its purpose.”
“You say that,” Cole said, “but you don’t actually know, do you?”
Amira’s expression turned furious and cold. “I know far too well what the Box can and cannot do.” She took a moment. Her chest rose and fell.
Then, her emotions once more under control, she turned to Willow. “Well?”
“Do it,” Willow said.
Amira drew the edge of the blade first across her own finger. A drop of blood bloomed on her skin. Then she reached for Willow’s hand. The dagger’s tip was delicate against the pad of Willow’s finger. There was a brief resistance, then the pointbroke the skin, giving passage to a bead of crimson that welled on her fingertip, bright and vivid as a pomegranate seed.
Amira brought their hands together, fingertip to fingertip. The flame in the nearest candle guttered, then flared steady again.
“The oath is sealed,” Amira said. She gave Willow the map. “Now go. And don’t come back empty-handed.”
~
Cole hitched the strap of a canvas bag stuffed with wool blankets and a few cans of spaghetti higher on his shoulder. He’d gotten the meager supplies from the goat girl’s mother when they’d first started off. It seemed that word had spread about the boy with the crew cut who’d bought his little sister a doll with strawberry-scented hair because the woman had talked Cole up from twenty-five dollars to a hundred, payable upon Cole’s return.
“Take it or leave it, rich boy,” the woman had said.
Willow had enjoyed seeing the flush that had risen up Cole’s neck, but she’d smiled innocently and said nothing.
They’d been hiking for a good two hours now, and Willow’s bright amusement had faded to black.
“You look miserable,” Cole said.
“I am,” Willow complained.
“Try to see it as a gift. Suffering builds character, you know.”
“I’ve got plenty of character. I want the Box.”
“Ah, yes,” Cole said. “To reach your precious Serrin.”
Willow rolled her eyes. He had stopped needling her about Serrin for the most part, but she still caught him watching her sometimes, his eyes full of something sad. Whatever it was, it vanished the moment he caught her looking.
