Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf 1)

t in the open now. “Aurelia!” Lisette said again, frantic this time. “Look!”

The men were finished clearing the rubble, and the portcullis had begun to move, creaking as it slowly descended, with six men cranking the chains on either side of it.

“We have to run!” Lisette said.

I shook my head furiously as I continued my chant. I could feel my blood flow slowing, the spell pulling up at the edges as I healed and clotted. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold the spell over them if they jarred or broke the blood connecting our hands. I quickened my pace, hoping to reach the portcullis before my blood flow stopped completely and I lost the spell altogether. Sweat was standing out on my forehead now from the strain. I had to keep my grip. I couldn’t lose my control.

I had promised Conrad I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

We were getting close, but the iron teeth of the portcullis were coming down faster than we could cover ground. Tears were flowing freely out of my stinging eyes now, but I kept on. “Sunt invisibiles. We are unseen. Non est hic nos esse. We are not here. Sunt invisibiles. We are unseen . . .”

And then Lisette’s hand broke from mine. The part of the spell that had been blanketing her snapped back into place over Conrad and me alone. Now fully visible in the center of the road, she let out a piercing scream.

“My kidnappers! They’re getting away! Stop them! Stop them!”

She had betrayed us. She had convinced me of her innocence, conned me into bringing her into my plans, only to turn us over to the enemy. It was all for nothing.

But when I looked back over my shoulder and saw her, standing resolutely in the swarm of guards responding to her scream, she was not pointing to Conrad and me. She was pointing the other way. She had given up her own chance at freedom to draw them off, to allow Conrad and me to escape.

She mouthed Go! And we obeyed, surging forward—?making sure to keep our hands connected and the spell intact—?and ducking beneath the portcullis mere seconds before it fell the final feet and its teeth sank into the ground with a resonant clang.

32

Once we were a safe distance from the gate, I let the spell fall. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to cast it again. Anyone who saw us out here would be able to identify us to possible pursuers with ease. And the campsites were especially populous tonight, full to the brim with city dwellers who must have gotten out before the entry and exit were barred and, confronted with the long roads and the endless Ebonwilde, chose to shelter on the outside of the wall for a while before facing it.

Conrad had not let go of my hand, and I did not dare let go of his, even to clean off the blood that was now half-dry and uncomfortably sticky. I didn’t know quite what we would do; we couldn’t just wander into the forest with no map, no guide, no plan. I didn’t have Falada to carry me anymore, and the last time I’d seen Aren, she almost destroyed me.

Conrad was clinging to my skirt. “I’m hungry,” he said. “And it smells bad here. And I miss Lisette. Is she coming soon?”

I knelt beside him. “No, little brother. I don’t think she is coming with us anymore. She did a very brave thing back there, helping us get across the wall before it closed. Can you be brave, just like her?”

“I am brave, Aurelia,” he said a little crossly, but he hugged me anyway. I closed my eyes and squeezed him back, as tight as I could. “I have a friend out here somewhere. If we can find him, he can help keep us safe. But until then, we have to blend in. Keep your head covered and your eyes down, and follow my directions to the letter. Understand?”

In response, he pulled his hood down over his hair.

We made our path by skirting the edges of the travelers’ camps, close enough to the firelight to scan the faces of the people huddled around them, far enough to keep our own obscured by shadow. No one gave us a second glance; they were displaced and scared, victims of circumstances they could not have predicted, that they could not have controlled. But these were the fortunate ones; how many more were stuck inside the city, unprepared for what might come?

There were shouts in the distance behind us—?guards raiding the camps. From over my shoulder, I watched as one of them accosted a girl not far from my own age, forcing her to her knees and cuffing her when she cried. They ripped off her cloak and then spat on her when it was discerned that she was not the girl they were looking for. Me.

We hurried forward, but the awful smell intensified, and I looked up to see the spirit of Thackery’s old friend Gilroy still sitting glumly in his gibbet. Aha. I knew where we were, and I tugged Conrad with me toward Thackery’s old encampment, which was now occupied by a man with patchy whiskers and ruddy cheeks.

This time Darwyn didn’t see me coming. I had my knife pressed into his back before he could scramble up from the fire. “Take what you want, sir,” he mumbled, hurriedly emptying his pockets. A few copper coins, a half-eaten apple, a misshapen brass ring, and a hardened hunk of cheese scattered across the dirt as I forced him to his feet.

“I don’t want your scraps,” I said icily.

At the sound of my voice, he exclaimed, “Wait! I ain’t gonna be robbed by no girl—?”

“Quiet,” I snarled, moving the knife to his neck. He stiffened, hands up. “Listen carefully. My brother and I are going to hide in Thackery’s stable. If men come looking for us, you will do everything in your power to steer them away.”

“Or what?” he asked, a bit too surly for a man with a knife to his neck.

Whip-fast, I nicked a finger and let the blood drop fall in front of his eyes. “Uro,” I said. Burn. And the blood turned into a streak of fire that burst into three-foot flames the instant it hit the ground. I closed my hand and the fire went out.

Darwyn was trembling. “There was two men what came through here a couple weeks ago, chattering about some blood witch . . . Their faces . . . cracked . . . scarred . . . unrecognizable.”

“Do as I command,” I said, moving the knife away from his neck now that I’d made my point clear. “Or it won’t be your face that I burn into something unrecognizable.”

“But what would be worse than—?” Then it dawned on him. “Oh.”