back to your horses and pray that the Goddesses accept the ones I’ve marked.”
“Marked…” My stomach lurched. “The red marks! She’s going to offer the people who have them as a sacrifice!”
Olivia’s face seemed to lose all its color and I knew what she was thinking. Rosa. She buckled for a moment as though she’d been punched. And when she looked at Mother Morevna again, her eyes blazed with a dark fire that would make the Devil quail.
“So killing your own people with Dust Sickness wasn’t enough?” Olivia spat. “How much blood have you got on your hands, Morevna?”
The old woman’s eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare judge me as though your own hands were clean. We do what we must to save what we love. And I love this town more than you can possibly imagine.” She turned to me. There was a glint of gold in her hand. “If you and that magician hadn’t ruined the Sacrifice, we could have gotten by! But this spell was laid long ago in preparation. And there isn’t an Old Goddess in the world who can resist blood.”
My stomach threatened to bottom out. I stared at the woman whom I had once seen as an idol, a mentor, and in her place all I saw was a monster.
She took a step away from her line of pebbles. I glanced at Olivia. She nodded almost imperceptibly. It was now or never.
“Entflammt!” I shouted. Streams of fire billowed out, enveloping Mother Morevna in a great, white-hot fireball. For a moment, I was blinded. But then I saw her moving in the center of the fire, tall and thin, a shadow at the center of the brightness. As she moved forward, the flames fell from her like sand. Not even her dress was singed.
“You leave me no choice, Sallie,” Mother Morevna said.
She raised a tattooed claw and threw a handful of black dust. It became hands, grabbing my legs, pulling me down. It dragged me across the hard, dusty shingles of the roof. I felt the hands connect around my throat, choking, choking.…
Olivia had Asa’s handkerchief in her fist, holding his blood against her palm, absorbing his magic. She shouted something I didn’t understand, voice harsh against the howling wind, and the magical, painful hands crumbled away like flakes of rust.
Mother Morevna reached into her pocket and hurled a handful of salt. The grains became needles as they flew toward us.
Olivia shouted again, something in an infernal language that made the marrow of my bones feel hot. A great spiky black shield rose in front of us, smelling of mercury and rain, and the needles glanced off it and away.
I pulled myself to my feet and reached into my pouches, fumbling for the crushed seashells and chicken feathers I’d planned to use on the Dust Soldiers. I raised my hand and shouted down a new spell, a fork of lightning. It came blazing down at her, but Mother Morevna caught it in one tattooed hand and threw it back at me, a ball of light I barely had time to dodge before it flew past me and blackened the wall at the other end of the city.
Olivia was moving forward, her hand extended, wind rising at her back. She shouted into the wind in what I knew now was the language of the world beyond ours. Shadows rocketed past her and pinned Mother Morevna to the steeple.
“Stop this now, Morevna,” Olivia growled, moving forward, the shadows still swarming.
But Mother Morevna closed her eyes. I felt an enormous surge of magic from her, and the shadows retreated. She rose to meet Olivia. She extended her hand and made a slapping motion. Ten feet away, Olivia was knocked to the ground as though by the slap of a massive hand. She crawled back to her feet, her lip bleeding.
An earthquake roared under us, so strong it nearly threw us from the roof. Beyond the walls, the battle raged on, showers of blood and black dust. More of the desert fell away into nothingness.
Mother Morevna bent, clutching her stomach. She winced, then hobbled to her line of stones—I could see them now: small golden stones all in a row.
“Goddesses!” she shouted, her voice magically magnified, booming out over the din of battle. “I speak as the leader of this settlement! Accept this sacrifice for my society, a good and responsible society of equals!” She raised a hand over them, and they began to glow. I felt a surge of