had gone mad and died anyway.
He let the feather go, but it remained suspended in the air. He blew on it. It refused to budge. Aruendiel’s mouth twitched, and the feather turned into a pebble and dropped to the tabletop. He tossed it toward the window, but the pebble bounced off something and came skittering back to land next to his boot.
“All right,” he said. “All right.” He
In the park around Ilissa’s house, a breeze picked up, moving quickly through the trees, tossing leaves and limbs with more vehemence than breezes ever did in Ilissa’s well-mannered domain. Ilissa, walking in the gardens with an uneasy entourage, was too busy scolding everyone within earshot to notice.
“—no appreciation of what I did for her,” Ilissa told Oon. “She’s a peasant, an animal! But you’re worse. You’re even stupider, and you don’t even have the excuse of being human. This would never have happened if you had kept your hands off Raclin, or at least had the sense to behave with some discretion.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Oon miserably. “But it was Raclin who—”
“Never mind what Raclin did. You should have known better. Oh, stop your crying, you despicable girl!”
A drop of water was trickling down Oon’s cheek, but she shook her head. “I’m not crying,” she said. “It’s raining.”
Ilissa looked up. The sky had blackened, and big drops were falling, leaving dark splotches on bright silks. What had been an energetic breeze was suddenly a gale, crashing through the trees like a wild animal, scattering leaves, breaking off branches. It swept past Ilissa and her companions, pawing at their hair and clothing, and then careened toward the house.
“Nora! Is anyone watching Nora?” Ilissa cried above the wind. “Moscelle? Vulpin? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you watching Nora?” Obediently Vulpin turned to run, but checked himself as a tree smashed down on the path in front of him.
Dully, Nora listened to the rising wind and the clatter of rain against glass. It’s been so long since I felt rain, she thought. Since I came here, nothing but sunshine. Her mouth felt as dry as paper. She wished that she could get out of bed and open the window and feel cool rain on her face, just once more.
The window frame creaked, first one corner, then another, almost as though the wind were deliberately testing it. Nora did not turn her head; it was too much effort.
There was a roar, then breaking glass. All at once the room was alive with rain and swiftly flowing air. Nora gasped and struggled to sit up, as the bed’s canopy ripped away. The wind found her. It nudged, pushed, shoved her, so forcefully it felt as though she could touch it. The bedsheet wrapped itself around her, firmly and methodically, as though she were a letter being sealed into an envelope.
Someone pounded at the door and shouted, but the door did not open.
The torrent of air moved restlessly around the room, breaking chairs and tables into kindling, then into matchsticks. With another roar, it exited through the window, and Nora, gasping, went with it.
At first she thought she was falling. The upturned faces in the garden below her were startlingly close— Ilissa’s among them, her mouth open and eyes brilliant with rage. Then they receded; Nora arced upward, higher and higher, skimming the treetops. So this is flying, she thought, strangely calm because this was too incredible to be real.
She had flown in dreams, but never so far or fast. Ilissa’s palace dwindled. In a few minutes, Nora had left the rain behind, and she was moving over pastures flecked with small white and brown dots that were no doubt sheep and cows, perhaps the same animals that Ilissa had once demanded as reparations for Nora’s capture. A village of huts with thatched roofs. A wide, shallow river, its bed full of round stones. More forest, then fields striped green with young crops. Fierce gusts of wind hurried her along, flinging her up and down like a ball. The fresh air made her feel better for a time, but the cramping and the other pains continued, and after a while she began to feel airsick. She closed her eyes wearily. Maybe flying was always unpleasant, even if you weren’t on an airplane.
An hour or more had passed when she felt herself dip suddenly. Startled, she opened her eyes. The current of air that carried her had slowed, as though it were casting about, looking for something. Please, please don’t drop me, she thought. There was another thatched-roof village below, surrounded by fields. A man driving a cart saw her and gave a cry. Farther ahead, she saw tree-covered hills out to the horizon.
The wind picked up speed again, shifting course toward a hilltop crowned with a stone structure. She had the confused impression of thick gray walls and towers; of smaller, gabled buildings inside the walls. A couple of dogs ran across the grass below, barking.
She swept toward the stone wall. She was going to hit it. No, she cleared the wall, then found herself dropping—too fast—into a dusty courtyard. Someone was waiting for her in the middle of it, a dark-clothed figure with a pale, dour, upturned face. The wizard.
He reached up and yanked her out of the air. The ground felt blessedly still and quiet after her flight, but when she tried to put weight on her injured leg, she screamed.
With a grunt, he hoisted her in his arms and carried her across the courtyard and through an open doorway, into a large room that was pitch-black after the sunshine outside. Even if he was trying to be gentle— which was not at all certain, Nora felt—she couldn’t help groaning; it was fiercely painful to feel any pressure against her torn body.
“Mrs. Toristel,” he called out, “I shall need you upstairs.”
Nora felt herself jolted through the shadows, upward. Then she was lying in a bed again. “Drink this,” someone said, and she drank thirstily, something milky, warm, and sweet.
There were two voices in the room, rising and falling, a man’s and a woman’s. Vulpin and Moscelle, debating what to do with her. Feebly, Nora rolled her head on the pillow, trying to get their attention. “Don’t leave me,” she tried to say. She had no idea whether they heard her.
Nora opened her eyes grudgingly. It seemed unfair to be wakened by her own cries, but there seemed to be no help for it. Her throat was sore. There were candles burning nearby.
By their light she made out the wizard stooping near the foot of the bed. His hands were glistening red. She heard a frail, high-pitched cry.
“What is it?” she asked, with a mad surge of hope: Ilissa had been wrong, her baby was alive. Struggling to sit up, she stretched out her right hand. “Oh, give it to me!”
The wizard glanced at her. She felt herself being pushed backward against her will. It was as though a large, powerful, invisible animal were sitting on her chest, keeping her pinned to the bed. She could still breathe, though, and she could scream.
She was tired, very tired of screaming and pain. None of it did any good.
The two voices were discussing her again. This time she could tell that they did not belong to Vulpin and Moscelle.
A gray-haired woman leaned over the bed, holding an earthenware cup. Nora could see every wrinkle in her face. It must be day now. Tasting the sweet liquid on her lips again, Nora swallowed.
A candle flared, and she saw the wizard standing beside the bed.
“Where’s the baby?” she asked.
Without responding, he lifted her arm and felt her pulse. She shifted slightly in the bed, and realized that what was binding her body was only a series of bandages, on her leg, her torso, her hand, even her face. “Mind the wrappings,” he said. “You were badly clawed.”
She understood that by not answering her question, he had answered it. “The baby is gone, isn’t it?”
The wizard’s countenance was stony. “Count yourself fortunate.”
She closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see his hateful face, so that she could be alone to cradle
