think that out of all of the absolutely impossible things to have happened to me in the past week, this is the strangest.
In the dream I’m dressed in armour, and part of me knows that it’s because of the promise I made to Dimia. I look down at myself, at the cuirass covering my chest, the vambraces on my arms. I know it should be heavy, but it’s not, and I swing my arms, raising them as though I’m holding a sword.
“What’s this?”
The man is standing behind me in the doorway, his mouth a pout, his eyes covered by his hood.
“I beat you here,” I say. “I’m with Dimia.”
“Dimia?” He smiles.
“She’s not the philtresmith. The girl you want isn’t here.”
“Really?” His tone is careful.
“Well, if she is, she’s hiding from us.”
“Clever girl. And now what will you do, with this Dimia?”
“Rescue my mother. Then we’re going to war.”
“With me?”
“With the Sleeping Prince. I’m going to help her.”
The smile falls from his face. “Are you?”
I nod.
“That changes things,” he says slowly. “That changes things a lot.”
It feels as though I’ve barely closed my eyes when she shakes me awake the next morning. She’s already dressed, her hair loose around her shoulders. I sit up blearily, moaning at the sharp pains in my thighs and lower back, and reach for the cup she holds out to me.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“An hour before dawn, by the light,” she says, picking up a bag and reaching for her cloak. “I have to go into the village before we leave.”
I watch her as I rise and tidy myself. She walks around the room, touching everything, stroking the back of the chair, tapping the tabletop lightly and running a finger over the spines of her few books. There’s a ritual to it. It’s as though she’s saying farewell, and it makes me shudder. We’ll be coming back here, she said so.
Unless she thinks she might not.
Finally she turns to me. “Let’s go.”
We make our way along the boggy cliff path towards the town using the old man’s lantern. As I scramble to keep up with her I feel ungainly and childlike. She’s smaller than me, but she carries herself as though she were much taller, her head held straight, her shoulders back, hair flowing over her shoulders, black as a raven’s wing.
When we get to town, every house is ablaze with light, the shop too, even though dawn is still an hour away. The fishermen are long gone and their women are up and about, fetching water, gossiping with neighbours, swapping food and stories in the tiny square. They all stop and turn when they see Dimia’s light, smiling and waving to her.
The small crowd parts as she approaches, as though she’s a ship on the ocean and they are the waves. Everyone greets her and she speaks to the carpenter, a seamstress, and the grocer, all of whom defer to her as though she’s a queen. I trail in her wake back to the blacksmith’s cottage to collect my horse, not surprised at all when he gives her a funny little bow. A few swift words and he’s soon leading a fat-bellied pony around for her, saddled and bridled.
“Not as fine as the horse,” he says, linking his hands to help her mount. She gives a delicate shrug, and, in a motion more graceful than I’d expected, puts a foot in the stirrup and swings into the saddle. She looks surprised, then pleased, arranging her skirts around her.
“You take care of her, miss,” he says to me. “She’s one of us now.”
“I can take care of myself, Javik.” She smiles, and he beams back, showing gappy teeth and red gums, bowing as he backs away.
“So, how far to Tressalyn?” Dimia says, adjusting her stirrups before turning to me.
“We have to follow the river road towards Tremayne, though we don’t have to go through it. If we go around it, we can take the King’s Road south.”
“How long will it take?”
“A day or two.”
“And where will we sleep? I can hardly arrive in Tressalyn and plead for your mother’s release if I look as though I can’t care for myself.”
“Do you have papers?” I ask.
She taps her pocket. “And coin for food and lodging.”
I don’t want to stay in Tremayne. “We’ll see how far we get and then make a plan. There are villages and roadside inns on the way. I have a map.”
For some reason, she almost smiles. “You’d better lead on, then.”