A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

“It did not work?”

I shook my head. “How can I disguise my scent?”

Her brows knitted. “Your scent?”

“Yes. He said that he could find me anywhere by my scent.”

“How . . . primitive.” She smiled mysteriously and went somewhere up in her head. After a moment of awkward silence, she walked around, searching for something on her shelves. She grabbed something small and white and slapped it in my hand.

I groaned. “No more soap.”

She grinned. “This won’t have men drooling or running; it was made for your very problem. Although I almost forgot I had it, because nobody has ever needed it before. I’ve never not had a potion work, so I can’t be sure this will work either.”

I looked at the soap with a frown. “I don’t have any other options.”

She looked me up and down. “Well, you don’t seem to be beaten. Is he really that bad to you?”

“We aren’t together like that. I’m his prisoner.”

“You look like a healthy prisoner.”

I sighed. I wouldn’t be healthy-looking when he tortured me to make me open the seal.

And then I came to a terrible conclusion: he didn’t need to torture me. He could compel me to do anything he wished.

I was in so much more trouble than I’d ever thought.

* * *

I walked back to the inn and almost ran into Weston in the doorway. He examined me, as though he wondered what I was up to, and I quickly cleared my mind. But I couldn’t clear my mind and walk.

For some reason, it felt like if I couldn’t think, then I couldn’t move either; so I stood awkwardly in front of him. I felt like an ant under his perusal, and he was deciding whether or not to squash me.

His lips tipped up, saying, “Not an ant, just a small human,” before he brushed past me as if he wasn’t going to waste his time trying to figure out my plans.

Ant? Human? I was sure those were close to the same things in his eyes.

I was later disturbed that he didn’t acknowledge whether or not he was going to squash me.

As we rode down a busy trail, I noticed that it felt a lot like Alger here. The temperature was the same—to the degree, I was sure. I had changed back into appropriate clothes, mostly because I didn’t want to ask Weston to help me tie the cloths back over my cuffs, and because the women wore more conservative clothes here.

I’d gotten strange looks from a lot of them on the trail, even fully clothed. I had braided the side of my hair back to keep it out of my face, and it was the most feminine thing about me—that, and my form. But dressed in men’s clothes had many people spending much time perusing me.

Caravan wheels squeaked and jostled as they went by. Horses whinnied, and people chatted to passing travelers about their destination. At one point, a large wooden cage rolled by, and my eyes met the large, amber ones of a tiger. It felt as though I were in slow-motion as we walked by the metal bars of the tiger’s cage, its gaze following me. Its hum involuntarily ran through me—it was soft, purring, warm, and I knew it had no desire to harm me. I watched it until it passed and felt the same way it did—caged.

I was a prisoner surrounded by all kinds of travelers. I was frustrated. I was claustrophobic. I wanted to scream and beg anyone of these people to help me.

“You’re not leaving,” Weston said dryly. “No matter how many humans you deign to tell.”

I grimaced. I hated when he used that word: human.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

His gaze said, Why ask a question you already know the answer to?

The seal. That disgusting thing that had already caused deaths and would cause much more if it were opened.

I wondered how he knew where it was. Grandmother had told me I was the only one who could find it. If she was wrong, then how did Weston think I could even open it? I didn’t think I could locate the seal if I tried. I felt