Hummingbird feathers gleamed as the dust wife slipped a tiny bird skin into her pocket. “No idea,” she said. “Most of it probably won’t do us any good at all. But I agreed to help and that means you get the best I can do.” She licked her fingers and placed three small black beads into a wax paper envelope, then paused. “Show me your hands.”
“Eh?”
“Your hands. You’re favoring them.”
Marra held out her hands. The joints were stiff and the red puffiness where she had gouged herself with wires had gotten worse.
“Saints and devils,” said the dust-wife. “Open wounds in the blistered land. Hold still.” She got down a jar from the shelf.
“Is it bad?” asked Marra.
“It would probably kill you in a week or so,” said the dust-wife, bending over her hands. “You’d get a taste for human flesh first, though, which would be exciting for everyone … Oh, don’t look so stricken.” She unstoppered the jar. Marra smelled honey, but the liquid that the dust-wife dabbed onto her wounds was red as fire.
“What is it?”
“Rust honey. Made by clockwork bees.” The dust-wife rubbed it into the joints of Marra’s fingers, muttering words that Marra couldn’t quite make out. Eventually she sat back. “That should do it. Tell me if you get the urge to take a bite out of someone, though.”
“There’s a long list of people I’d like to bite,” said Marra, a bit dryly.
The dust-wife snorted. “Fair enough. Just tell me if you get the urge to chew afterward, then.”
Marra cradled her hands together, flexing her fingers. Already her knuckles seemed less stiff. She wondered if the words that the dust-wife had said had been magic, or if it was all the work of the honey.
She drifted to sleep in the corner, still wondering, soothed by the sound of the dust-wife moving around the room, the jars rattling, as the old woman packed away bits of magic inside the folds of her coat.
* * *
The brown hen rode on top of the dust-wife’s staff, on the bone crosspiece. Her body moved as the staff moved, but her head stayed level in that peculiar way of chickens. Marra was first incredulous, then amused.
“You’re bringing the hen?”
“She’s got a demon in her,” said the dust-wife. “It’d be rude to leave her for the neighbors to deal with.”
The hen rode until midmorning, whereupon she would stretch, walk down the dust-wife’s outstretched arm, and climb into her pack. The top flap was left open for just this reason. The hen would sit there for about a quarter of an hour, give a single pleased cluck, and then saunter back down the arm and onto the staff again. The dust-wife would pause, retrieve a single large brown egg from her pack, and tuck it into a safe pocket. In the morning, she would cook the egg, divide it in exact halves, and share it with Marra.
Half an egg did not make a terribly satisfying breakfast, but it was a great deal better than nothing. Sometimes Bonedog would flush a rabbit and kill it and they would stop and roast the rabbit. Sometimes a farmer would sell them eggs or a loaf of bread, although the dust-wife had to go alone to ask, because if the farmer saw Bonedog, there would be questions.
For the same reason, they could not take coaches, or even beg rides on farm wagons. They could not ask to sleep in barns where it might be warmer. There was no way to disguise Bonedog. Their progress back to the northwest slowed to a crawl.
“This won’t do,” said the dust-wife, the third or fourth day. “Your sister will have died of old age before we reach her, and I’ll be so bent over from sleeping on the ground that I’ll be cursing your prince’s kneecaps.”
“What do we do?” asked Marra. They had put a collar on Bonedog, although it was more like a knot with a loop tied around his neck bones. She slid a hand through the loop protectively. She could not leave him. She’d brought him back to life and that felt like a bargain to her, even stronger than the bargain that humans made with living dogs who loved them.
But I cannot let Kania down, either.
“No need to look so downcast,” said the dust-wife. “The moon is full and the goblin market’s still in season.”
“Eh?”
“The goblin market,” repeated the dust-wife. “Lords of Earth! What do they teach you in a convent, anyway?”
“Not much about goblins,” said Marra. “I could tell you a great deal about knitting bandages and drying herbs and the feast days of lesser saints.”