Mae nodded. “What if they don’t?”
Briar hesitated. What if they were all dead? Nat and Jemma and Lew, even Esteban. They had begun to show her what a family could be like. She couldn’t accept that they might all be gone, but Mae was right. If they were dead, she would be helpless out there, no matter how fiercely she wanted to protect her child.
Briar cast about for another idea. “Do you remember a village called New Chester?”
“Yes, it’s a day or two south of here.” Mae scowled. “He took me through there.” She looked as if she was ready to crack heads with a water pitcher again. She apparently didn’t have any lingering affection for her erstwhile lover.
“You can hide there, and none of the people will bother you,” Briar said. “Stay until you’re well enough to travel. The place is under an enchantment, but you’ll be safe enough.”
“What about Ivan?”
“I’ll go back for him after you’re safe,” Briar said. “I promise.”
Mae gave her a considering look then nodded. “Do you have enough paint?”
Briar patted the satchel weighing down her shoulder. “With all this, I could bring down the mountain.”
Mae flashed a quicksilver grin. “Good.”
They gathered their precious burdens and listened at the door. When the corridor was clear, they slipped out of the room full of paints and began their final sprint. In a few minutes, they would cross the threshold of Narrowmar’s only door.
Chapter 29
The old captain stood before the great stone door, running a hand over his sword hilt. The burgundy leather wrapped around the grip had begun to crack.
The captain had never shirked his responsibilities. Even in the dark days after his wife left, when he’d questioned his commitment to the forgotten mountain and a liege lord he rarely saw, he had kept his watch. When vile sorcerers had come to the mountain with their talk of art and pain, he’d stayed, ignoring his aching bones and his seething conscience in the name of duty. He was the stronghold of Narrowmar, and he refused to forsake his guard.
Until a frightened girl dashed toward him with a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. Lady Mae looked desperate and terrified and determined, as she had when she pushed out that tiny little girl in a rush of blood and water. She had been valiant despite her captivity, despite the cruelty of the Larkes and the malevolence of the curse painters. Now, with her damp curls plastered to her face and a bundle in her arms, she ran as if there was still hope of escape, as if she might one day walk beneath the sun with wildflowers in her hair. At the sight of her wide-eyed determination, the captain’s resolve wavered.
He realized that he didn’t care if he was stripped of his honors and exiled for the rest of his days. Mae and her child were innocents. They didn’t deserve to be kept beneath the mountain, subject to the machinations of mages and lords. The captain had always followed orders, but he saw at last that keeping his duty wasn’t worth the cost.
He ordered the two soldiers with him to go inside the guard station to the right of the main door. They looked at him questioningly but obeyed. As soon as they were gone, the captain stepped into Mae’s path. A wild-haired girl skidded to a halt at her side.
“Stop!” he said. “There is a curse on the door.”
“Who are you?” asked the wild-haired girl.
The captain waved off the question. “If Lady Mae walks across that threshold, she will die instantly.”
The strange girl scanned the doorway, her large, luminous eyes taking in the pattern of stars and moons. There was something familiar about those eyes.
“He’s right,” she said, turning to Mae. “This is a powerful barrier curse.”
“Then we’re trapped?”
“Not if I can help it.” The girl reached into a satchel at her side and pulled out a jar of purple paint. The glass glinted in the torchlight.
Mae’s arms tightened around her baby. “Are you going to tunnel through the walls again?”
The captain grunted. “Tunnel?”
The other girl shook her head. “There’s no time for that, but if I can unravel this—”
Quick footsteps sounded behind them. A group of soldiers advanced up the corridor toward them. The old captain recognized the broad-shouldered young man leading them and grimaced. All this was his doing.
Mae’s face had gone milk white. “What do we do?”
The other girl had the jar of paint open in her hand, and she was scrutinizing the curse on the door. “This is complicated,” she muttered. “It’ll take ages to—”
“We don’t have ages!” Mae said. The soldiers were getting closer, their broad-shouldered leader shouting commands.
The wild-haired girl touched the stone doorpost where the names of everyone in Narrowmar had been scrawled among the celestial lights. Some had flourishes beside them. Mae’s didn’t.
“Names,” the girl whispered. “The curse painters demanded everyone’s names for this curse, didn’t they?”
The captain nodded, keeping his attention on the approaching soldiers, unsure what they would do when they closed the distance. He had always imagined he would die defending the door from enemies on the other side. “No one can leave without their permission.”
The girl wiped a smear of sweat and dust from her forehead. “Have they done the baby?”
“The baby?”
“After she was born, did they scribe her name on the wall?”
“She doesn’t have a name yet,” Mae said.
“Okay. Give her to me, then.”
Mae’s eyes flashed. “What?”
“There are two curses here—one to keep people out and one to keep specific people in.” The girl screwed the lid back on the jar of purple paint and dropped it in her satchel with a clink. “I
