“I know where Sorrow is,” she whispered. “I saw him on the way here. I know where he’s hiding.”
“Tell us while we’re walking,” I said. “Are you all right?
Can you manage to take us there right away?”
As we headed down the steep track under a stand of old oaks, Paula told us what had happened. Ivan had come to the 384
door near dusk to fetch Petru. The villagers had assembled farther down the hill and were heading up past Piscul Dracului to the northeast, where a farmer bringing his pigs out of the forest had spotted the pale young man in the black coat. Petru had refused to go—he was too old, he said. Iulia and Paula had been in the kitchen and had overheard.
“And Sorrow? How did you find him?”
“He called out to me.” Paula was doing her best to keep up with us; in the lantern light her face was wan and exhausted.
We could not run. The moon had not yet risen, and to try for haste in the growing darkness would be to risk broken limbs.
“He’s in a little cave not far from here. He asked me for help.”
“Why didn’t he wait near the castle? Tati’s much too weak to come out into the forest.”
“He went down to Piscul Dracului to try to find Tati, and Petru saw him. So Sorrow ran. He’d heard those others crashing about in the woods.”
“What about the quest?” I asked. “Has he—?”
“He had the things with him. But he won’t go back to the Other Kingdom without Tati. He’s hurt his leg and he seemed . . . desperate. As if he might do something foolish.
We have to help them, Jena.”
I looked at Costi, and he returned my look with a question in his eyes. I didn’t want Tati to go. I loved her. If I helped this to happen, I’d probably never see her again. Father would be distraught. And how would we explain Tati’s disappearance to Aunt Bogdana, and to Florica and Petru, and to all the folk of the valley? Besides, I still didn’t really know what Sorrow was, 385
or what he might do. But this argument hardly seemed to matter anymore.
“Of course we’ll help them,” I said as we followed Paula down a little branching track to the east. Scared as I was for Sorrow and for Tati, a deep joy still warmed me. I had Costi by my side and my world was back to rights again. How could I deny my sister the same chance of happiness? If I really loved her, I was going to have to let her go. In my heart, I recognized that I had been making this decision, gradually, ever since our visit to Tadeusz’s realm at Dark of the Moon. On that night, I had begun to see that Sorrow wanted only good for those he loved: for his sister, and for mine. “How much farther, Paula?”
“I’m here.” A white-faced figure stepped out of the bushes, making me gasp with fright. His eyes were wild. He had a bundle slung over one shoulder, and in his right hand he balanced a dark metal cup, so full of water the surface seemed to curve upward. There were scratches on his pale skin, and here and there the fabric of the black coat was rent, as if by great thorns or the claws of savage animals. “We must go quickly.”
“Where?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper. Distantly, I thought I could hear the hysterical barking of dogs and the voices of men driven on by fear and anger. “I think our portal is closed now. Anyway, I can’t get you into the house past Florica and Petru.”
“There is another way,” Sorrow said. “Bring Tatiana to me at a certain place in the forest, and I can take her across. But we must hurry—I’m afraid I cannot run much farther.” He moved forward and I saw that he was limping. “My leg is damaged. I have traveled a long way thus injured—I am paying the cost 386
now.” He struggled to keep the cup level, and I remembered Marin’s words:
“Tati’s very weak,” I said. “She’s been seriously ill.”
Sorrow went still whiter. The cup shook. I regretted telling him.
“She won’t be able to walk; she shouldn’t even be moved,”
I went on. “Where should we meet you?”
“I will show you.”
We went back the way we had come, then along the valley toward Piscul Dracului. I began to wonder, as Sorrow put one flagging foot before the other, whether midnight would come and go before we got as far as our own courtyard. Then there was a rustling in the bushes. A little voice hissed,
“Cover up the lanterns,” whispered Paula, and we did. A moment later we heard the voices of the hunting party not far up the hill. As they came into view between the trees, the light of their flaring torches glinted on well-honed scythe and deadly pitchfork, on crossbow and cudgel and long serrated knife. One man was armed with a sharpened stake. A dog barked, and someone shouted.
A flock of high-voiced, creaking things passed over, making Costi duck.
“It looks as if we’ve got help,” I murmured. “We’ll have to keep going in the dark.”
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“I will walk first,” Sorrow said. “I need no lamp.”
So we followed him, and I thought his ability to find his way in the dark was yet another indication that over the years in the Other Kingdom, he had steadily become more fey and less human. Farther up the hill there was a clamor of hounds and an outcry of excited voices, and the hunt took off in a different direction, following what I was sure was Dr?agu?ta on her little white creature. It was a night of surprises, a night of magic. My mind shied away from what might happen to the witch if they caught her.
