Wrexham and I both turned with the swift, unspoken instinct of long practice until our backs nearly touched and we could survey the entire landscapetogether.
Snow flurried past my bubble of protection. A rock rolled slowly past my feet, tumblingdownhill.
Wrexham said, his voice deceptively casual, “Neither of us knows this territory. So how did you happen to choose yourpath?”
I grimaced, glad that he couldn’t see my face as I made my confession. “Without any finesse whatsoever, I’m afraid. All I have is a plain magnetic compass, so I’ve followedit.”
And I had, even as my wayward memories had wandered elsewhere. My booted feet had walked north across snow-covered fields and even up this rugged hillside, following the compass’s magneticlead…
…But the rest of me hadn’t paid nearly enough attention to where I wasgoing.
Thiswas the problem with memories—and with useless, distracting emotions in general. This was why I should have known better than to come to this house party in the first place! I might already have lost my magical abilities, but there was no excuse for giving up my mental capacities aswell.
My gaze swept across the barren, rocky hillside that we stood on, identical to every other hill ranging in the distance…until itmoved.
Again.
The ground shivered beneath myfeet.
Another rock rolled pastus.
I took a deep breath and gripped the lantern’s handle to hold it steady as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “It seems,” I said to my ex-fiancé in as calm a tone as I could muster, “you may have a chance to discuss non-human methods of weather prediction after all...because I’m reasonably certain that we are standing on atroll.”
3
Giant boulders flexedat the edges of what I’d taken to be the hillside as the crouching troll rolled out its massive, grass-covered shoulders, sending the ground shivering and rolling beneath myfeet.
It was clearly preparing itself to stand…at which point we would be tossed willy-nilly off itsback.
Frustration rose like acid through my throat as I planted my boots more firmly on the swaying, rocky slope and sought for any viable alternatives. Amy would never forgive me if my carelessness got me killed today after all the work she’d put into keeping me alive and sane over the last fourmonths.
I’d been jesting, of course, about the prospect of conversation with the creature. I hadneverheard of a troll speaking to a human—not even when scooping up untaxed carriages from the road. They communicated with their elven masters, one presumed, but with no one else as far as I knew. The humans who shared these dales with them simply relied on the rules of our ancient treaty for their good behavior…and on magicians if ever that wentwrong.
Of all the timesnotto be able to cast anyspells…
“We’re too high up to reach the ground in time.” I spoke through myteeth.
“It must have been asleep till now—for years, even, to settle so firmly into the ground.” Behind me, Wrexham’s voice sounded more speculative than worried. “Who knows how long it’s been restinghere?”
“Until we woke it.” I drew a deep breath, trying to force myself into the same analytical mode, as if this were only one of the more challenging magical puzzles that we’d been set at the Library. “It’s so much larger than the ones that guard the tollroads.”
“Perhaps it’s older than they are, too. Or…” Wrexham broke off as the ground shifted again beneath our feet. This time, even more unsettlingly, it began to rise through the air, lifting us higher and higher above the ground as the troll’s massive, bent legs slowly began to straighten beneath us. I staggered, and Wrexham’s voice sharpened as he dropped down to a wary crouch. “Take my hand, Harwood. It’s time for us toleave.”
“No.” I glowered through the falling snow as I fell to my knees and grabbed hold of a nearby rocky outcropping for balance. I clung onto it, breathing hard, as the ground slanted beneath me. “You cast a travel spell for yourself scarcely ten minutes ago. You can’t carry a passenger with you on a second journey now. Not this soon. You’d risk injuring yourself forever.”As Ihad.
I wouldnotbe the means of breaking him,too.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see many other options. By law, we were only allowed to attack the elves’ creatures in cases of clear self-defense, not mereanticipationof accidental injury. Any magic that Wrexham worked against the troll before it deliberately tried to hurt us—even a simple binding spell to cast it back to sleep—would break those ancient treaty rules in the most disastrousmanner.
The Boudiccate would never forgive him for it. Nor would the rest of the nation if the elves were to set the rest of their pet trolls rampaging inrevenge.
“Go,” I said tightly, my fingers clenched around my rocky anchor as we rose higher and higher into the air. “Get yourself to safety, now. I’m the one who made the foolish mistake of walking up here in the first place. I’ll find my own way down.”Somehow.
I couldn’t whisk myself to the ground with any spell of my own, nor protect myself from the troll if it chose to lash out at me in its dozy, half-asleepstate.
But there had to be something I could still do. Therehadto be. If I didn’t believe it wasimpossible…
What didimpossiblereally mean,anyway?
