There’s no need to worry before it’s time, the river said as it rocked her. Sleep. You will need your rest. I cannot give you much, but I can give you that.
I am hallucinating, she thought. My river doesn’t speak.
The Skidwrack merely burbled and laughed. The day was fading, and there were stars overhead. She watched them pass slowly as the river chuckled and murmured.
And then, without warning, two hands grabbed her shoulders and jerked her roughly out of the water and up onto dry land.
It was a sharp, harsh action, and it made the water splash and froth. Her head dropped beneath the surface for a moment, and for the first time since the stranger had lowered her into it, Nell tasted the river. She choked and sputtered and rocks scraped her back through her drowned sister’s coat as the unseen person hauled her up onto the bank. She fought free from the hands, rolled to her side, and coughed up more water than she had realized she’d swallowed. At last, Nell wiped her eyes clear and looked at the person who’d interrupted her journey.
The look of concern on his face was at odds with his gaze. At first she thought this was just a trick of the water she was still blinking away, or a function of the fact that one of his eyes was a delicate orb made of tin, with an iris enameled the same cold blue as his right.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I was until you grabbed me,” she snapped.
“Was I supposed to leave you in the water?” he asked, surprised. “I was passing on the road, and I saw a body in the river. You didn’t look dead. What should I have done?”
Something about his tone was wrong, just as something about his eyes was wrong. Here is a lie, Nell thought, though she couldn’t work out where in those words the lie crouched.
“Yes,” she said, “you should have. We have business, the river and I.”
The mask of concern fell away, and for a moment, the face that considered her was nothing but pure, cold calculation.
“Did he tell you that you had to do it?” the stranger asked. “The man who answered the summons?”
Nell, who had been about to stand and wade back into the river, faltered. “How could you know?”
“I know.” Like the man in the black coat, this fellow had terrible eyes. In his blue-and-tin gaze, however, there was no emotion to be read. “I also know he lied to you if he told you that sacrificing yourself was the only way to stop the water’s rising.”
“He didn’t say it was the only way,” Nell said cautiously. “I asked how I could stop it, and this was his answer.”
“Ah.” The stranger nodded. “That was your mistake. So much depends on phrasing, doesn’t it?”
The river lapped at Nell’s foot, and she scooted a little ways farther up the bank. Already the water had risen another couple of inches. Why had she bothered to move? She and the river had work to do. She’d only be returning to it. Unless, a tiny voice protested. What if this man really does know another way?
He nodded as if he knew her thoughts. “I do, you know. Have another way.” He crouched beside her and rested his elbows on his knees. “I, too, have been sundered. In a sense, I, too, am all that is left. And I have something you don’t: I know why the waters are rising. I know what crouches at the river’s source. The other way is: I go and you stay.”
Nell’s heart leaped. “You would do that?”
He smiled, and if only something of the smile had reached his eyes, it would have been like sun breaking through the clouds. “I will. I only need the bone.” And together they looked down at the slender pale thing Nell still held clenched in one hand.
“Orphan magic?” Nell said, opening her hand between them.
“Orphan magic,” the man confirmed. His fingers twitched as he held them over the bone. “May I?”
Nell hesitated. “You’ll really do it? You can? You will?”
“I can,” he said. “And I will,” he added. Something about it felt like an afterthought.
“And you’ll hurry?” Already the waters of the river were toying with her feet again.
“The only thing I’m waiting for is the bone.” His voice was kind, encouraging, patient. But his face was stiffening into irritation.
Nell took a breath. She lifted her palm in offering, and the stranger plucked the precious thing from it. “Thank you, Nell.” He tucked it in a pocket in his waistcoat and stood. “And now I go.” He strode into the water without another look at her.
Nell held her breath as he lay back in the Skidwrack, his coat spreading over the surface like a slick of oil. If he’s lying, I’ll know, she thought. The river won’t take him.If he’s lying, it’ll sweep him away in the other direction.
The stranger rotated once in the water in an eddy that spun him gently a full 360 degrees. Then, slowly but surely, he began to drift, just as she had, upriver against the current. Nell stood. She watched him disappear with his hand cupped protectively over the pocket with the bone in it. Then, with a very small frown of regret between her eyes, she took hold of a tree root and climbed the muddy bank.
When she reached the top, she discovered there was no road. The road was on the other side of the river; here there was nothing but forest. It was only the first lie she would catch him in. The much bigger lie was still to be uncovered. For what Nell didn’t know was that half a mile upriver, the blue-eyed stranger would climb from the
