Archer was watching her, a safe distance between them. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but my curses only ever hurt people.” She looked him in the eye. “I was eleven the first time I killed someone.”
Archer winced, though he didn’t pull any farther away. “Who was it?”
“A nobleman, Lord Darien.” Briar knotted her hands around the strap of her paint satchel as if it were a mooring line. “He insulted Queen Valerie at her birthday feast, so King Cullum hired my parents to see that he met with an accident. I cursed a bridge as Lord Darien was crossing with his wife. My parents planned it so the incident would make another lord—one of their other clients—a hero. Lord Darien couldn’t swim, and my parents’ client jumped in to save the wife from drowning.”
“That sounds complicated,” Archer said.
“The more intricate the task, the more interested my parents were in the job. It worked too. Everyone talked more about the dramatic rescue than the deceased husband, and no one suggested foul play.” Briar grimaced, remembering the cracking timber, the flailing nobleman, the greedy pull of the current. “My parents were proud of how quickly I brought down the bridge and eliminated my subject. They saw everything as a challenge—and they’d taught me well.”
Briar was ashamed at how much she’d needed her parents’ approval, how much she’d valued every word of praise. Even after she’d realized she didn’t like hurting people, she’d continued trying to impress them with her skill.
“Isn’t that kind of curse painting illegal?” Archer asked.
“Not if your clients are rich enough,” Briar said bitterly. “That’s who hired us—nobles, royals, wealthy men who wanted to get wealthier. The king himself allowed us to remain unlicensed so we wouldn’t be accountable to the Hall of Cloaks.”
Archer’s brow furrowed. “Did your parents work for the king often?”
“Often enough. This is all strictly secret. No one wants to think their rulers use such dirty tactics. Most of the catastrophic disasters of the past twenty-five years were created by one couple, a respectable pair of artists who lived near the sea in High Lure—where they trained their daughter to follow in their footsteps.”
A breeze picked up, carrying the strange dead scent of New Chester.
Briar nodded toward the cursed town. “My father did that. He specializes in paintings that affect people’s minds. Illusions. Nightmares. My mother would have helped him plan it. She has a great mind for invention, for pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible, but she excels at destruction.”
Briar remembered the feeling of her mother wrapping the emerald-green scarf around her hair, which was as lush and frizzy as her mother’s. They shared their passion for destruction too. She felt an itch between her shoulder blades, as if her mother was about to reach out from the village and touch the back of her neck.
“Maybe we should walk,” she said. “The others will be waiting.”
Archer gestured to the tree line with something short of his usual flourish. “After you.”
The moon glared down at them like a malevolent eye as they walked back into the woods. Pine needles crunched under their feet, the darkness wrapping closer around them.
“Why did they make you kill people?” Archer asked when the pitch-dark forest sheltered them once more. “Couldn’t they have handled that part?”
Briar’s mouth twisted. “I am a very good painter. My potential excited my parents, and it pushed them to plan worse curses, trying to stretch what my magic could do even as I objected more frequently. They became so bold that King Cullum grew uncomfortable associating with them. They had no shortage of clients, though, and the king couldn’t stop them.”
Archer shook his head. “I should have heard about this.”
“Why?”
“Because I—never mind.” He rolled his shoulders. “That’s a story for another time.”
Briar frowned. Archer wasn’t sharing his full story either. She wondered if he, like Esteban, had history at King Cullum’s court.
They reached a break in the trees where moonlight filtered down on a patch of bare earth, and they stopped in unspoken agreement. It was a conversation they needed to finish before rejoining the others. The pine trees rustled eerily, the area still devoid of birdsong and animal noises.
“Eventually, King Cullum ordered my parents to get licensing tattoos. They refused outright. He tried to send the Hall of Cloaks after them, to finally keep them in check, but they protected themselves.”
“With curses?”
“Curses, subterfuge, blackmail—they used it all to safeguard their home and business. Even when they were still working for king and kingdom, their magic was steeped in destruction. They crossed too many lines and became something evil, something separate from the people who used to celebrate my stick figures and take me to paint by the sea.”
Briar wrapped her arms around herself, and Archer raised a hand, as if reaching out to comfort her. He trusted too easily.
“I add evil to the world, just like they do,” she said sharply, stopping him in his tracks. “I try to use my power to balance out worse evils. That’s the closest I can get to goodness, but the scales are already tipped too far after everything I’ve done.”
“You left them, didn’t you?” Archer asked. “You made a choice to take another path. That ought to count for something.”
Briar sighed. “Maybe if I had simply walked away, but that’s not how it happened. My parents were the most powerful people in High Lure behind
