A band of young males swaggered past. They bellowed in perfect four-part harmony a song about the misadventures of an “ass” who was not a donkey but the prince of Tarrant. We reached an open area where five roads met. A line of carts and wagons loaded with casks, sacks, and open crates of unfinished hats had locked to a complete halt. The singing youths blocked the intersection. Arms linked defiantly, they began singing a familiar melody. Its usual lyrics, about a lass abandoned by a worthless lover, had been replaced by the challenging political phrases of the Northgate poet: A rising light marks the dawn of a new world.
I grabbed the sleeve of a passing costermonger. “Maester! Where’s Old Cross Gate?”
“Why, this is it! Trouble brewing. You don’t want to be caught in this.” He shoved on, using his cart to part the crowd.
I stepped in front of a pair of women with baskets on their heads. “Where can I find the Fiddler’s Stone?” I cried.
“An ill-starred day to be looking in the stone for the image of your future husband, lass,” said the elder. “But it’s past the arch and then in the little court to the right.”
It took us a moment to spot an arch in an unimposing old wall to our left. The opening was barely high and wide enough for a wagon. We fought through the crowd and slipped through it onto a side street lined with dilapidated old houses ripe for the transforming dreams of architects. A tiny lane pitted with ruts and filthy with crusty and yellowed snow took us to a little crossing where three alleys met. The Fiddler’s Stone was a squat granite monolith listing over like a drunk. The surrounding buildings were dank. Excrement had frozen in mounds alongside broken steps that led to ramshackle doors. All the windows were boarded up. But a wreath of frozen flowers draped the stone’s peak like a flaking crown.
Rory licked his lips. “I smell summer.”
“Give me the knife, Bee.” I pulled off my right glove, set the blade to my little finger, and sliced. The skin creased and reddened, but no blood appeared.
Bee snickered. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No! You’ll hack off the whole finger just to be sure.”
“Give me that.” She pulled off her own glove, took the knife, and neatly opened a delicate cut on her palm.
“Let your blood fall on the stone,” I said.
Warmth stung on my own hand as a bead of blood oozed red down my finger. All at once, I tasted summer on the wind.
“Like this?” Bee held her hand above the stone. Her blood dripped onto the grimy surface.
“Cross now! Hurry, Bee.”
Bee slammed into the stone.
“Ouch!” said Rory.
Bee took three steps back and tried again, as if sheer force of will could force rock to open. She thudded into stone, then cursed with pain.
My drop of blood slipped. A stain appeared on the stone and was absorbed. A roll of distant thunder whispered. A crow fluttered down to land atop the stone. The earth sank beneath my feet as stone and soil melted away.
“Cat’s going through,” said Rory.
“Not unless I go with her!” Bee dragged me stumbling back as Rory snarled and that cursed crow cawed like a captain alerting its troops.
“This won’t work,” said Bee. “That hurt.”
“Bee can’t cross,” said Rory, “but you will, Cat. Your blood opened the gate.”
Heaving, I dropped to my knees into a crackling carpet of snow. Nothing came up. My finger smarted. My tongue burned, and I swallowed blood.
“Someone is peeking at us through the boarded-up door,” said Bee. “I don’t like this place. And that crow looks like it’s hoping to peck out our eyes.”
Recovering from the wash of weakness, I groped along the wall with Bee in the lead and Rory behind. Unearthly voices rushed and mumbled in my ears as if I stood with one foot in the spirit world. A magnificent stallion cantered out of the wall, muscles rippling along a coat more brown than bay, and then it was gone. A saber-toothed cat lolled in our path, huge jaws widening in a startled yawn as she saw me, and then she was gone. A winged woman emerged from the coal haze that smeared the sky, her skin as black as pitch and yet glowing as with hidden embers, and then she was gone. A leaf trailed across my cheek with a glistening line of dew.
A shining face, masked and unkindly, filled the alley like a towering cliff of ice ready to calve and bury me. Chill fingers closed on my heart until I couldn’t think or breathe.
“Cat?” Bee’s fingers closed over my hand.
Then it was gone, and the voices fell silent. I sagged against Bee, and she held me up.
“There’s blood on your lip,” she said hoarsely.