Dom rose from his crouch as the woman scrambled to her feet. “You know her?”
“She was on the ship to the capital,” Sorasa said, putting her body between Corayne and the Jydi. “She boarded when we put in at Corranport and then got off in Ascal with the rest.” Her eyes roved over the old woman. She looked the same as she had on the galley, swaddled in a mismatched shawl and filthy dress. Her feet were bare and black with dirt. “You followed us.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible, Sorasa,” Corayne breathed. From the docks, to the palace, chased out of the city. It doesn’t make sense. She would have to know where we were going before we did. Her hand twitched at her side. Cold prickled in her fingers.
The old woman shook her head, laughing.
“You followed me,” she crowed, patting down her manic hair. “Or your horses did, good beasts they be.” She shuffled toward the pot in the hearth. Her hands were like bird wings, fragile and flapping.
Sorasa pushed Corayne away, backing them both out of the woman’s path.
She paid them no attention and upended the pot, spilling bones across the floor. Rib bones, leg bones, vertebrae, and skulls. Rats, rabbits, birds. All picked clean, white as clouds. She let them fall, observing a pattern the rest couldn’t see.
“You’re a witch,” Andry said, sounding dazed.
She didn’t answer, inspecting her mess. The Jydi was lithe for her age, turning and twisting, even dropping to the floor to inspect the spread of bones from every possible angle.
“A witch,” Corayne murmured. In her pocket, her fingers closed around a twist of wood. She pulled it loose, the sharp ends black with dried blood.
The Jydi shrugged. “I’m what I am, and that should be.” Then she tutted to herself, a liver-spotted hand on her chin as she searched the bones. “I should have done this under a tree.”
The charm trembled in Corayne’s hand. “Why did you give me this?” she asked, the bone beads dangling from her fingers.
The old Jydi didn’t reply, too busy with the floor.
Dom stepped around her, keeping his distance. He was twice her size, if not more. “I think the better question is, who are you?”
“Or, perhaps, why are we bothering with this at all?” Sorasa said, her eyes flashing in frustration. She gestured to their horses, tied up across the lane. “We need to keep moving.”
“I gave you something?” the woman murmured to Corayne distantly. She finally looked at her, and at the charm still in her hand. Confusion clouded her brilliant eyes.
Corayne clenched her teeth. “Yes, on the ship, Gaeda.” Grandmother. “Do you remember?” She stretched out her arm, holding the charm within reach.
The old woman swooped, snatching it away. The touch of her fingers was like ice, and Corayne flinched.
“It’s only branch and string,” the Jydi said, inspecting the twigs. “Something and nothing.” She ran the beads over in her palms, then licked the bloody ends. The rest of the room grimaced as she tucked it into her dress.
“Sarn is right—we can’t stay,” Dom huffed. Desperate enough to agree with Sorasa. “Erida’s soldiers will be searching for us, and for the Spindleblade. We have to keep ahead of them.”
Andry picked his way through his neat piles, careful to avoid the bones. “Galland keeps a standing army in Canterweld, half a day’s ride north. They’ll be out ranging for us by the end of the day, if they aren’t already. Ten thousand combing the countryside.” He shook his head, despairing of their chances already. He stuffed a sack with cloth for bandages, a ball of string, and, to Corayne’s surprise, a dented teakettle. “If the Queen calls a muster . . .”
He stopped mid-sentence when the witch touched his shoulder, her knobbled hand like a white talon.
“Keep him near, gaera, he’s a good one,” she said, patting idly at his back, then his face. Andry made a small noise, his eyes wide. The witch ignored him, pointing two fingers at Dom and Sorasa. “I haven’t decided on these two, but better than none.”
Sorasa braced bloody hands on her hips. “She’s seen our faces and she won’t stop rhyming. We need to kill her.”
“I don’t think that can be the solution to every obstacle,” Andry said weakly.
The Amhara was not amused. “It’s served us fine this far.”
Corayne sorely wished for her charts, or at least a map. “What we need is a plan of action. A direction, a heading.”