To Bear an Iron Key (18 page)

She lifted her chin and waited for the worst.

“ … wow.”

Hesitantly, she asked, “Is that a good wow, or a bad wow?”

“Good,” he said, his voice cracking. After clearing his throat, he said again, “Good. Definitely good.”

Bromwyn was thankful for the shadows cast by the suspended street lamps; otherwise, Rusty would have seen her blushing ferociously.

“But Winnie, what’s with all … all this?” he asked, motioning to her from head to foot. “Look at that, Lady Witch is in shoes. I think I may have just died. Quick, pinch me.”

“My grandmother’s suggestion,” she said, blowing out a sigh. At least the shoes were open-toed. Not barefoot, but close. And given the heat and the unseasonable dryness to the air this very early morning, last night’s mud was now more akin to packed dirt, so Bromwyn’s toes, while rather dusty, were not covered in muck. “Fire and Air,” she muttered, looking at her toes, “that woman is going to be the death of me.”

“I’m glad your granny didn’t kill you.”

“Yet,” Bromwyn said. “What happens after dawn remains to be seen.”

“There you go, getting all dour again.” Rusty laughed, and Bromwyn couldn’t help but watch how his eyes sparkled beneath his broad-brimmed hat and how his narrow shoulders bobbed in time to his mirth. “You’d think it was the end of the world.”

She sniffed to show how serious she was. “It very well could be.”

“To quote my favorite Lady Witch, ‘what happens after dawn remains to be seen.’ Say … I should change into my best outfit, to be a better match for you. Otherwise they might mistake me for your footman.”

“There is no time,” she said. “We have barely a half hour before twilight.”

“What, do you think I’m a
girl?
I can change my clothing in half a turn. Watch me.”

“Rusty … ”

But he had already dashed back inside the bakery.

She growled, deep in her throat, then stomped her sandaled foot. Forget Niove Whitehair;
Rusty
was going to be the death of her. If she didn’t kill him first.

* * *

As it turned out, Rusty had been quite correct: It had taken him almost no time to change into his one suit. So, not even fifteen minutes later, Bromwyn and Rusty were already walking through the Allenswood, their path lit by the ball of light emanating from Bromwyn’s hand.

Yawning, she led the way through the woods. As in the village, here the fey left them alone, choosing instead to flit through the trees and play tag in the deep grasses. Perhaps they had more interesting things to do in the last minutes before the blue hour than bother two humans making their way through the dark forest. Bromwyn thought briefly about gift horses and mouths, and walked on, turning over and over in her mind what the upcoming challenge could be and how Rusty could best it.

Rusty, who was whistling as he strode along with her. Rusty, who was smiling like he was on his way to yet another fine adventure. Rusty, who had all the brains of a milkmaid’s stool. You’d think he’d be somewhat serious, considering how they were marching toward what could very well be the last day of their lives.

Witches ponder,
Bromwyn decided,
and fools whistle.

So she pondered. Too often, though, she caught herself stealing glances at her friend, who walked to her right. His dark brown wool coat and pants must have been horribly warm, but he didn’t complain. She had to admit, silently, that the suit outlined his form quite nicely, even if the cut wasn’t the finest. Bakers weren’t butchers, after all, and though Rusty’s family wasn’t starving (which was hard to do when you baked for a living) Bromwyn knew they weren’t able to afford the finer things. Thus, Rusty stole. Or tried to.

It was enough to make Bromwyn want to scream. Rusty could do anything he wanted to, anything at all. Why, he could even be a mayor or a manor lord, if he put his mind to it. She could picture him in his estate, a full-grown man with an entire village to look after. He would wear authority well. Much better than that floppy brown hat he so adored.

She frowned at him, not that he noticed; he was too busy whistling and prancing about, playing the part of the storybook rogue. Instead of planning for his future, he insisted on risking himself by following this idiotic fancy of being a thief prince. She had half a mind to scold him about it. At the very least, that would get him to stop whistling.

But they were not even five minutes away from the Hill, and perhaps ten minutes out from the challenge. Once they arrived, there would be little time for whistling or laughing or reassuring each other with quick smiles. So she allowed him to whistle as she fumed quietly over her friend’s stupidity. He truly was a terrible thief. Assuming he survived the coming encounter with the fey, she had no doubt that one day Rusty would find himself in a very bad situation, one that Bromwyn wouldn’t be able to help him out of. It would be such a shame if he lost those nimble-fingered hands of his, or worse, all because he picked the wrong pocket.

As her grandmother had said in her note, there were those who were not as lenient as she.

After a time, Rusty stopped whistling. Soon after that, he said, “You’ve been awfully silent.”

Bromwyn, wrestling with the possibility of the fey challenging Rusty to leech himself without passing out from blood loss, or something equally barbaric, didn’t respond. The fey did so enjoy blood. One of her mother’s tomes that she had read included a handful of “human tales,” which were stories told by the fey about unlucky humans who wound up on the other side of the World Door and the events that happened there. All of those stories were bloody. Some of them, Bromwyn had been horrified to discover, had been recipes.

“Winnie?”

Bromwyn considered the possibility that the challenge would not involve blood, but water. Blood was thicker, but with the Loren River to the west of the village, water was far easier to come by. Unless, of course, the fey bled the villagers; they didn’t have to steal children or lure adults, not if they were clever and merely wanted their blood. She remembered her grandmother’s words, remembered Niove telling her that the King and Queen were arrogant. In their minds, they probably already saw themselves winning the challenge and returning to the Allenswood every night for a year—and what fun would that be if all of the humans were dead? They would have no playthings.

Rusty said, “What’s the matter? Fairy got your tongue?”

She slid him a glance. The matter at hand was the upcoming challenge. And Rusty didn’t seem to care one whit about it.

Just look at him,
Bromwyn thought crossly,
practically sauntering in his one good suit, as if he were off to go courting.

That made her think of the fey Queen’s throaty laugh, and how she had touched Rusty’s arm, and
that
made Bromwyn’s stomach turn to ice.

Pushing aside thoughts of how the Queen had been flirting like a tavern girl—or, as Rusty would say, a tavern wench—Bromwyn said, “You know that human tongues are considered a delicacy among the fey, yes?”

“Yuck.” Rusty twisted his face until it looked like he’d just sucked a lemon. “That’s rather nauseating. I’d say they have no sense of taste, but in this case, it’s more like they have too much.”

She rolled her eyes. No, clearly he wasn’t worried about the challenge. At least
she
was trying to think things through. She muffled another yawn with her hand.

Rusty let out a dramatic sigh. “Bad enough you don’t laugh at my jokes. Now they’re boring you. I’m wounded, Winnie.”

“I laugh when they are funny,” she said absently, wondering whether the fey would issue a challenge that was entertaining, or demanding, or both, or neither.

“Wounded, I tell you! To the soul!”

She ignored him. Something involving trickery, Bromwyn decided. Yes, it would have to be something along those lines. The fey enjoyed playing pranks even more than they enjoyed blood. Would they use their magic? Would that be unfair? Did the fey care about such trivial things as fair and unfair?

Rusty harrumphed. “I’m practically bleeding here from how you’ve cut me.”

Bromwyn’s head started to throb, and she rubbed her temple with her non-spelled hand. Fire and Air, the challenge could be
anything
.

“Ruthlessly cut me! Completely lacking in ruth!”

Sighing, she began to see the wisdom in her grandmother’s suggestion that she not waste time wondering what the challenge could be. She hated it when her grandmother was right.

All you can do is try to outthink them,
Niove had said.

Well and good, but how were a witch and a so-called thief supposed to outthink the King and Queen of the fey?

“See, now you look like you’ve swallowed a toad.”

She shot Rusty a filthy look.

“An ugly toad,” he said sweetly. “With warts.”

“We are about to meet the fey,” she said, her voice clipped and brimming with tension, “and they are going to challenge you for the right to walk the world for the next year. If we lose,” she said, louder now, “Loren will be overrun. Children will be taken. Grownups will be eaten.” And now she was shouting: “And to top it all off, if my grandmother does not literally kill me, I will surely lose my magic!”

“Oh, right,” Rusty said, slapping his forehead. “That would be why we’re walking in the Allenswood before dawn. And here I thought maybe we were stealing away to do something altogether inappropriate, like climbing trees while in our finest.”

She growled, “How can you be making jokes?”

He looked at her, and she saw something desperate shining in his eyes. “Because if I don’t joke, I’ll scream. And that would be completely unmanly. So I’ll joke about it, thank you very much.”

She relented, and offered him a smile by way of apology.

He tipped his hat in acknowledgment and returned the smile.

They walked the rest of the way with Rusty whistling a jaunty tune. This time, Bromwyn hummed along.

Even before they came to the break in the woods that announced the glade with the Hill, Bromwyn saw bursts of light from the World Door shining through the foliage. She and Rusty walked past the shrubs that marked the boundary of the clearing, and there stood the Hill, with its circle of flat stones and the open Door glowing with trapped stars. None of the fey had arrived yet, from what Bromwyn could see, and that was fine with her. They had perhaps five minutes before twilight would be upon them.

Bromwyn’s stomach lurched. Pressing her non-glowing hand to her belly, she commanded herself to remain calm.

All will be well,
she told herself.
Rusty will pass the challenge, I will pass my test, the fey will go home, and we will return to Loren untouched.

Closing her eyes, she slowly unraveled the spell of Sight, breaking down the magic that had made her right hand as bright as a lantern and then dispersing it into the air. Once that was done, she opened her eyes to find Rusty staring at his own hand.

Lying in his open palm, the Key winked with the lights of the World Door.

“All this trouble,” he said. “All this hassle. All this nightmare, because of this small thing.”

“I always thought the World Key should be bigger,” Bromwyn said, glancing about to see if the fey were coming. Overhead, the sky was hinting at purple, dreaming of pink, and blackness was giving way to blue. Twilight was fast approaching.

“I caused all of this.”

“Well, yes,” Bromwyn said, peering at the sky. “But my grandmother started it. She wanted this to happen.”

“Want.” He laughed then, a dark and bitter sound that made Bromwyn look at him. He was still staring at the Key, and his mouth was stretched into a parody of a grin. “Must be nice, wanting something to happen, and then getting it.”

She didn’t like what she heard in his voice. “Rusty … ”

“Want to know what
I
want, Winnie? I’ll tell you. I want to be more than the baker’s son. I want my life to mean more than punching dough and bartering over the price of grain. I want to run far away from Loren and never look back.” He closed his fist over the Key. “I want to tell the woman I love that I love her,” he said softly, “and I want her to run away with me so that we can spend our lives together.”

Her throat tight, she said, “You love Jalsa now? And here I thought it was just a passing fancy.”

“Not Jalsa.” He looked over at her, his eyes shining brightly. “You.”

All the air rushed out of her, and her heart pounded so hard that she thought it would break free from her body.

She squeaked, “Me?”

“I might die here,” he said, his voice low. “Or wind up horribly disfigured on a permanent basis, or magicked into a tree, or something else altogether unappealing. But if I don’t—if I survive this unscathed—run away with me.”

“I cannot,” she said miserably. “I have been promised to Brend.”

“To that ungrateful lummox of a blacksmith’s apprentice,” he growled, “to become a Wise One to a village that doesn’t appreciate you. Do you really long to be Mistress Smith?”

“You know that I don’t,” she whispered.

“So run away with me.”

“I cannot,” she repeated, feeling utterly wretched. “We have responsibilities. We cannot change that. I am bound to marry Brend, even as you are bound to the Key. We made our promises.”

“Or they were made for us.”

“It matters not; the results are the same.”

There was a pause, laced with unspoken rage. Then Rusty said, “Some promises are meant to be broken.” He pivoted and cocked back his arm, and then with a cry to shake the trees, he pitched the Key away.

“Rusty!” she shrieked, watching the Key arc up, then fall down to land just on the other side of the Hill. At least he hadn’t thrown it through the World Door. “Are you mad?”

“Not hardly. I’m thinking clearly for the first time. Run away with me.”

She whirled to face him. “You idiot, we have to get the Key back!”

“No we don’t.” He grabbed her hands, then dropped down to one knee. “Winnie, marry me.”

“What is the matter with you?” She yanked her hands away. “We need the Key to lock the World Door!”