back, hugging her hand to her chest as Madrigal sets the tree alight. It ignites in bright yellow flames, and reeks of burning blood.
Arsinoe falls over, and the world goes dark.
That night, in a bed she has no recollection of returning to, Arsinoe dreams of a bear. A great brown bear, with long, curved claws and pink-and-purple gums. She dreams of it roaring before a scalded, bent-over tree.
It is barely dawn when Arsinoe shakes Jules gently awake, evoking growls from both the girl and the cougar who shares her pillow.
“Arsinoe?” Jules asks. “What is it? Are you all right?”
“I’m better than all right.”
Jules squints at her in the pale blue light. “Then why are you waking me so early?”
“For something grand,” Arsinoe says, and grins. “Now, get up and get dressed. I want to fetch Joseph and Billy, too.”
It does not take long for Jules to get dressed and washed, and to gather her unruly waves with a thick piece of ribbon at the nape of her neck. They are out of the house and on the road into town long before anyone else begins to stir. Even Grandma Cait.
Jules did not object when Arsinoe wanted to bring Joseph. But when they reach his house, she will not go up to knock.
Arsinoe finds that she does not want to either. Eager as she is to reach the bent-over tree, she feels guilty, and oddly shy, disturbing the Sandrins so early. But just as she is about to gather pebbles to shoot at Joseph’s window, Matthew comes through the door.
He startles when he sees them. Then he smiles. “What are you two about, at this hour?”
“Nothing,” Arsinoe says. “We’re looking for Joseph. Is he awake?”
“Only just,” says Matthew. “I’ll get him moving for you.”
“And the mainlander too,” Arsinoe calls after him as he goes back inside.
“When they come out,” Jules says, leaning against her mountain cat, “will you tell me what we are doing here?”
“Perhaps it is a surprise,” Arsinoe says. She paces around Jules. Arsinoe’s blood is up, and not even the loosely wrapped hole in her hand causes her any pain. But she is still hesitant to say what she has seen. She is afraid Jules will tell her it was only a dream. And she is afraid that Jules would be right.
It seems like forever passes before the boys come out, looking confused and bedraggled. Joseph brightens when he sees Jules. Billy smoothes his hair when he sees Arsinoe, and Arsinoe coughs to cover her smile. Billy has not seen her since he returned from meeting Katharine, and even though she would not admit it, she was worried that he would return devoted to the poisoners.
“This is a welcome sight,” Billy says. “Did you miss me so much that you had to see me the moment I arrived back in Wolf Spring?”
“I thought you had been back for days,” Arsinoe lies. “And I am not here for you, but for Joseph.”
“I heard you call for me. ‘The mainlander too.’ I’m not deaf.”
Arsinoe says nothing. She is too busy watching Joseph stare at Jules, and Jules stare at her cougar.
“Arsinoe, are you listening to me? I said, where are we going?”
“North,” she says distractedly. “Into the woods.”
“Then we’ll pass by the Lion’s Head. I’ll buy us some food.”
“I don’t really want to stop.”
“But stop you will,” says Billy, “if you want my company. You are dragging us out before breakfast.”
They drag the Lion’s Head’s kitchen boy out before his breakfast as well, and it takes longer than usual for fried eggs and rashers of bacon doused in beans. Arsinoe is antsy all through the meal, though she does manage to eat her entire plate and part of Jules’s besides.
Afterward, she leads them on a curving path through the alleys and streets of Wolf Spring, taking the most direct route to the tree. She bends her arm to elevate her wounded hand. It has begun to throb.
Perhaps that is a good omen. Or perhaps she should have brought Madrigal. It may have been only a dream, after all, and she is leading them through the melting snow for nothing.
When they are a good distance into the trees, Jules recognizes the direction they are heading in and stops.
“Tell me, Arsinoe,” she says. “Tell me now.”
“What?” Joseph asks her. “What’s wrong? Where is she taking us?”
“It’s more low magic,” Jules replies. She looks at Arsinoe’s freshly wounded hand. “Isn’t it?”
“I still don’t understand what’s so different about low magic,” Billy says, and