The town square was surprisingly bustling for a gloomy afternoon. A small group of villagers watched as fifty-some strangers moved about it, drinking from the fountain, bartering with one another for bread and nuts. Wooden carts were loaded with armchairs, barrels of water, and even beds. Women corralled children, shouting instructions to the newcomers, their sharp consonants catching on the wind. Their clothes were covered in dust and dirt, their faces sunbaked, their eyes weary.
Tamsin examined their goods, richly colored and gilded, things fine enough to have come from Farn, the queen’s city. It would account for the group’s weariness. Farn was the final city in the Queendom of Carrow before the Wood that led Within. The caravan had come from the place where Tamsin and Wren were set to go. The Queen’s Road would bring them to the city of Farn, but first they had to journey through the mazelike caverns below the mountains that divided the country. Some travelers hated the dark dampness of the caves, but Tamsin much preferred the ease of an existing path over the idea of actually climbing a mountain.
They watched the procession in silence, gloom settling in Tamsin’s gut as she took in the tired faces of the endless parade of people. She caught snippets of their conversations as they passed. The word “witch” was always accompanied by a scowl.
“What happened to their horses?” Wren’s eyes were stuck on the carts, which, though harnessed for the giant animals, were each drawn by several men instead.
“Spiders,” said a voice to their left. Wren jumped, and Tamsin adjusted her cloak so as not to give away her own surprise. It was a wizened old woman, hunched over nearly double, draped in a worn brown cloak.
“What’s that, Mother?” Wren’s tone was unflinchingly polite, despite the fact that the woman was more of a crone than a kindly grandmother.
“Spiders,” the woman repeated. Her voice was brittle, but a sparkle behind her eyes betrayed the joy of spreading gossip. “Came from the great caverns beneath the mountain two days past. Took the horses in the night.”
Tamsin tensed with understanding, but Wren frowned. “That doesn’t seem right,” she said, eyeing the woman suspiciously. “It would take millions of spiders to carry away a horse. There’s no such way. They were likely just frightened off.”
“Oh, they were mighty scared.” The woman gave Wren a pitying grin. “But no, dear. It only takes one spider if that spider is big enough.”
Wren let out a laugh that tipped toward the hysterical. “You can’t mean…” She waved her hands around, gesturing wildly. “That’s not…” She looked to Tamsin, her eyes widening with horror. “They couldn’t be…”
But of course they could. That was the trouble with dark magic. People always assumed that the stories were exaggerated, that the truth was not nearly so terrible, when in fact the opposite was true.
Even five years prior, twelve years old and filled to the brim with anxious dreams and an impossible imagination, Tamsin had not been able to fathom the consequences of the spell she had cast in hopes of saving her sister’s life. It had swept the world Within with a vengeance unimaginable in even her most paralyzing nightmares. The earth, drained of its magic, rocked like a ship at sea. Trees crashed to the ground like hammers to anvils. Lightning lit up the sky, turning it an eerie, deathly purple. Water flooded the streets, slipped through the cracks in windows, and filled the dormitories to the brim. Most girls got out.
One girl didn’t.
Now another witch had unleashed dark magic. The longer it remained at work, the more aggressively the world would rebel, which meant that spiders large enough to eat horses would be the least of Wren’s worries.
Tamsin, though, was worried enough for both of them.
Wren shot her a wary look. “Are we…” Tamsin shook her head sharply, trying to get the stupid girl to be quiet, but Wren didn’t seem to notice. “Will we pass through those caverns on our way?”
The old woman peered at Tamsin suspiciously. “What are two nice girls like you doing headed north? Nothing there but destruction.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless, of course, one of you’s a witch.”
Tamsin tried to laugh lightheartedly, but it came out sounding more like a bark. “Of course not. We are going nowhere.” She shot Wren a sharp look before turning back to the woman. “Truth be told, I fear my cousin has started to show symptoms of the plague. Best be off, old woman, lest you catch the sickness too.”
The woman’s eyes widened warily, and she hurried away to rejoin the caravan, her cloak held tightly against her nose and mouth.
“Oh, now, that was awful,” Wren said mournfully. “She was so frightened.”
Tamsin elbowed the girl sharply. “You can’t go around hollering about heading north when people are moving south in droves. The only ones going north will be witches. Calling that sort of attention to us will only make the journey more difficult.” Tamsin rubbed her left forearm absentmindedly.
She was taking a gigantic risk, the sort of risk that Wren could not possibly appreciate. But Tamsin was on edge, alone in a sea of judgment, a flurry of uncertainty and fear. She did not know if the place where she was born would welcome her back. She did not know if she still had a home at all.
Wren’s mouth was set. “You seem to quite like attention,” she said sourly, sounding for all the world like she was reading from Marlena’s diary.
Tamsin bristled. For the past five years she had done her best to serve the people of Ladaugh and keep her head down. To stay out of the limelight. To be nothing more than a common witch.
“Let’s go.” She tugged on Wren’s wrist, pulling her off balance as they moved away from the square. The road was still filled with people following the caravan. Tamsin wanted to walk in peace, so she led them to the cornfields. It took a
