Errant, p.34
Errant, page 34
Charm laughed with abandon and gestured in response to some story the man told. Wine sloshed out of her glass, some of it splattering on the man’s lapel.
Charm shrieked, apologized, and stepped forward, ready to wipe up the mess with her elbow-length white silk gloves.
But Aspen was too far behind her, and that one step took her beyond the limit of their tether. She stumbled. Another shriek split the air as her skirts flew. Aspen moved to catch her, or at least to give her the freedom to catch herself, but it was too late. Charm had fallen into the man’s arms. One hand splayed against his chest.
Aspen’s cheeks heated. She’d caused Charm to make a scene. She’d been standing far away to avoid humiliating herself, but she’d forgotten the tether. Now she’d transferred her awkwardness to Charm.
And then Charm dipped one hand into the man’s pocket.
It was quick and sure, a darting movement of such brazen confidence that it took Aspen’s breath away. How had Charm managed to do that without getting caught? She was wearing white gloves. The man’s breeches were black. Her skirts were dark blue. It should have been obvious where her hand was at every instant.
“Darling,” Charm said, and Aspen took a long time to realize this address was for her, “our gracious host says the powder room is off to the right. Please escort me there so I don’t fall again. I don’t know what’s gotten into me—too much wine!”
She laughed, and the other guests laughed with her. She offered a tiny curtsey, somehow both graceful and self-deprecating. Everyone, even the man she’d splashed, glowed with warm amusement.
Aspen put a hand on the small of her back and tried not to think about the heat of Charm’s body or how brilliant she was. As she ushered Charm from the ballroom, her heart pounded with triumph and relief and pride. It felt like winning a fight. Better—nobody was bleeding.
The hallway’s thick rugs and brocade wallpaper absorbed the sounds of their footprints. Only a few scattered wall sconces made it possible to see. The privacy felt like freedom.
“Push me against the wall and kiss me,” Charm murmured.
Aspen did it. Or at least, she put her hands on Charm just below where her corset ended and her hips flared, a soft, solid curve she could feel even through layers and layers of petticoats, and she steered Charm backward until her shoulders were flat against the wall and there was no space between them. She slid down, feeling the sweet give of Charm’s body pressed against her own, and nosed in so close she could almost taste Charm’s neck. Even in illusions, Charm smelled like fresh, bright citrus perfume, and underneath that, warm and alive and perfect.
Aspen parted her lips, and that was when she remembered that last time Charm said something about making out, she hadn’t meant it. It had been a ruse.
“Mists, don’t stop,” Charm said.
“Is this for show or is it real?”
“Can’t it be both?” Charm said lightly. “I thought this would be a convenient position for an intimate chat, but now I want to see what you had in mind.”
Aspen forced herself to let go of her plan to kiss her way down Charm’s neck and chest. She breathed. What had gotten into her? It was just that high after a narrow escape—a false high. They were still in the middle of some kind of cruel magical game. Still in danger.
“What did you want to say?” Aspen said, trying to sound like a person whose jaw wasn’t tight with repressed feelings.
“I think it was ‘yes, please’ and ‘don’t stop.’”
“Before that.”
Charm sighed. “I got the key to the gallery door. If you’re not going to continue, there’s no reason to stay.”
“Let’s go, then.” Aspen removed her hands from Charm and straightened herself.
“You know, the next thing might be a pit of wild animals. You should probably kiss me just in case we’re about to die.”
“We won’t die if we keep our focus,” Aspen said, willing her pulse to slow down and resolutely telling herself that nothing of note was happening between her thighs.
“I’d rather keep this dress, if that’s how it makes you act,” Charm said. She traced the shape of her figure in a gesture that Aspen pretended not to see.
7
Charm did not get to keep the dress. As soon as they’d stepped outside the palace, the terrace, gardens, and entire building vanished. The artificial night lightened into afternoon, and they found themselves back on the road in their dusty clothes.
Charm was just as alluring to Aspen in a travel-stained cloak with her hair coming loose from braid, but now was not the time to say so. They might not yet be free of the test—Mouse and Ruby were nowhere in sight. There was only the long stretch of road and the pine forest on either side.
Aspen tried to step off the road and couldn’t. She couldn’t move more than six paces from Charm, either.
“What do you think comes next?”
“We relied on your skills and then we relied on mine,” Charm said, echoing Aspen’s own thoughts. “Maybe this will be a combination?”
“What combines our skills?” Aspen asked.
Charm furrowed her brow. “Something sneaky and violent?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Aspen said, or at least, the words were in her head, and she felt them on her tongue, but they never left her mouth. She coughed and clutched her throat. What in all the twisted roots of the forest was this?
“Aspen?” Charm touched the hand Aspen had placed on her throat. “What’s wrong?”
Aspen dropped the hand at her throat, took a deep breath, and found she was able to speak again. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Something caught in your throat?”
“I don’t think so.” Aspen tried again to tell Charm that everything would be alright. No sound. Shit. “Charm, tell me that pine is blue.”
Charm followed Aspen’s index finger, squinted in puzzlement at a tree that was very much evergreen, and opened her mouth. No words came out. Aspen recognized the panic on Charm’s face and would have comforted her with a touch if they hadn’t almost kissed mere moments ago.
“I don’t think we can lie,” Aspen said.
“That’s not like the other tests,” Charm said. “There’s a distinct lack of death-defying bridges and armed guards. How do you win at not lying? Staying quiet the whole time?”
“Telling the truth, I imagine.”
As soon as Aspen answered Charm’s question, a flowered arch appeared ten paces in front of them. Aspen eyed it warily. The last time they’d walked through one of those, they’d gotten in trouble.
“Do you think that was the challenge?” Charm asked.
“I don’t know,” Aspen said. “I’m not sure we have any other choice but to walk through and see.”
Charm was the brave one this time. She gripped Aspen’s hand and then walked under the arch. As Aspen accompanied her, she felt a faint buzzing—but maybe she’d imagined it. None of the other trials had caused that kind of sensation, and they’d all been magic. She was only getting lost in her own head.
She’d hoped to find Mouse and Ruby waiting for them on the other side. Instead, the road continued to roll out before them, unending. Behind them was the arch they walked through, but other than that, there was nothing to break up the landscape.
“Forward, I guess,” Charm said. She continued to lead, but they were joined by magic and their clasped hands, so Aspen wasn’t far behind. It was only a stride or two, but it was enough to save Aspen when Charm stopped abruptly and then groaned.
“What happened? Are you all right?” Aspen reached out her free hand and encountered a barrier, invisible but solid. If Charm had walked into it unknowingly… Aspen stopped inspecting the wall to inspect Charm instead.
More annoyed than hurt, Charm gingerly touched her nose. “I’m embarrassed, mostly. And mad. Do you hear that?” Charm turned to shout at the air around them. “This is stupid!”
An arch appeared before them.
“Hmm,” Aspen said. She stepped up to the arch. Her hand passed through where there had once been a wall. “So our new challenge is to make it to the end of this path, but there are invisible walls that will block us until we summon an arch. When did the first arch appear?”
“You talked about the magic. And then I mentioned it too. Give us another doorway!” When another arch didn’t appear, Charm huffed. “Fine. What else happened? I asked you a question, and you answered, and the first one appeared.”
“I asked you a question, and you answered, and then the second one appeared.” It was Aspen’s turn to frown. “But we asked a lot of questions in between. Do you really think it’s that simple?”
“I don’t know,” Charm answered. She looked down the path as if hoping to see another arch.
Nothing.
Aspen sighed. “So if it isn’t questions and it isn’t acknowledging the magic, what could it be?”
“Wait,” Charm said. “I think you were onto something. You asked a question and I answered. But for the first arch, I asked a question and you answered. What if that’s the pattern? We have to alternate questions and answers. If the magic is sophisticated enough to create canyons and palaces and compel us to tell the truth, I’m sure it knows which one of us is talking.”
“So we have to ask each other questions and answer them in order for the arches to appear? And because of the other spell, we have to answer the questions truthfully?”
Aspen’s stomach sank. She’d spent too much time wondering if Charm’s smiles and glances and little touches meant something, and this sick spell had read her mind. Aspen could receive all the answers she wanted now. She could ask if she was special, if Charm loved her, or if Charm just wanted to sleep with her once for the novelty of it and then wander off with her next admirer.
No matter how much Aspen wanted to know, she wanted the answers to be freely given. This was cheating. No, worse than that. It was a violation of trust.
Charm looked equally queasy, but she recovered first. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and drew on bravery and determination, layering one of her characters over herself.
“What’s your favorite color?” Charm asked.
“Uh…” Aspen tried to answer brown but the word wouldn’t come. It was a cliché answer and one she expected to be mocked for, but it was true. She felt comforted by the rich, deep browns of healthy soil, the slick bottoms of riverbeds, the mottled hues of bark and fallen leaves, the polished shades of wood. There was the warm brown of Ayzeh’s skin and the softer brown of his eyes, and—not that Aspen wanted to mention it—Charm herself, her dark eyes so often lit with mischief and her beautiful light brown skin smooth and tempting.
Until recently, brown had been Aspen’s favorite color. Steady, meaningful, part of everything.
“Yellow.”
Charm, perched on a tavern stool in a butter-yellow dress, bright as a songbird, dazzling and carefree and unlike anyone else, flipping Aspen’s entire world upside down.
You wouldn’t know a delicate plan if it wore its favorite dress and serenaded you in a crowded tavern, she’d said.
And Aspen had told her the dress was very pretty. There was no chance she’d forgotten that. Branch, leaf, and root, even this innocuous question was embarrassing.
Charm cleared her throat and motioned to the arch that had just appeared. “Shall we?”
Still holding hands, they crossed underneath. They moved forward slow step by slow step. Aspen kept her free hand stretched out in front of her. She wouldn’t ask Charm a question until she had to. Charm guarded her truths. She hadn’t told Aspen her real name or her birthplace until they’d known each other for weeks. Those were precious gifts. Anything Aspen acquired by force would be tainted.
“I hate this,” Aspen said quietly. Her fingers brushed the solid wall that meant they needed to exchange questions and answers again. “I feel like a tool for someone else. And they’re using me to hurt you.”
Charm’s expression softened, more forgiving than Aspen deserved. “I trust you. Ask me something easy.”
That was the challenge. What was an easy question? Favorite color should have been safe, but Aspen’s answer had still revealed too much. Choosing a question for Charm required an even more delicate maneuver.
Aspen decided to focus on surface things. Lighter things. More recent things. She could do this. “What was your favorite part of our stay in Asemnu Eyzo?”
There, that was a good question. Charm would say something about her rise to fame or the new plays she was able to learn. Or maybe she’d talk about the colorful clothes or the street dancing. She’d enjoyed so much about city life.
She wasn’t answering.
Charm clenched her jaw, a clear sign she was fighting the spell. Aspen had asked a bad question.
“You,” Charm finally answered. She gritted her teeth for a long moment, then relented and said, “My favorite part was knowing that each evening we’d return to our rooms, and you’d be safe. I know the kind of trouble you get into. When I’m with the Harstead Players and you’re somewhere else, every night when I climb into my wagon to sleep, I can’t help but worry. I didn’t have to worry in Asemnu Eyzo.”
“Oh,” Aspen said softly. It seemed inadequate. “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for making Charm worry or for making her answer.
Charm shrugged. She kept a tight hold on Aspen’s hand as they walked through the new arch. They continued forward until they reached another barrier. It was Charm’s turn again. Would she ask a probing question to retaliate for Aspen’s? Did Aspen owe her an uncomfortable truth because Charm had given up one of her own?
“What was Integrity like?” Charm asked.
Aspen hadn’t expected that. Charm had avoided their shared history, so Aspen wouldn’t have to confess any further feelings. But in some ways, this topic might be worse. How could she describe Integrity? His loss ached like a still-healing bruise even after all these years. She wasn’t sure the pain would ever completely fade.
“He was passionate,” Aspen said. “He had a cause, and he believed in it entirely. Sometimes that dedication made him a strict taskmaster. Sometimes it made him short with our faults, but sometimes it made him generous and forgiving. He never pushed me for more than I could do, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. He shaped me into a better person.”
Aspen could say more. She could write an entire book about Integrity, if she was the kind of person to write down histories. Fortunately, the arch appeared in their path. The magic had accepted her answer as complete.
At this point, Aspen wasn’t surprised when they encountered another barrier. It was her turn. Once again, she found herself at a loss. Her question about Asemnu Eyzo had been more personal than she’d intended. And Charm’s questions about her favorite color and her past had shown a glimpse into Aspen. Charm would probably want to know more later.
Perhaps there were no safe questions—though their initial questions about the magic and its rules hadn’t been personal. Could Aspen get away with something like that again? “What color is the sky?” Aspen asked.
Charm’s relief felt like a tangible thing. “Today it’s grey.”
They both waited but no arch appeared.
Aspen sighed. “I suppose it couldn’t be that easy. I really dislike this magic. My only comfort is that the amount of collaboration required to achieve something like this is too great for it to be a common occurrence. But I don’t like that it happened at all.”
“You have to ask me a question,” Charm reminded her.
Right. Aspen formed and dismissed a dozen, before she settled on, “Would you like proper riding lessons once we’ve returned to Harstead?” Charm had come a long way since she’d first tumbled from Ruby’s back, even making the trip to Orcester by herself, but if anyone ever chased or attacked her—Aspen grimaced at how likely this was—or if she had to guide Ruby through more difficult terrain, she could be better prepared. There was also Ruby’s personality to contend with. Aspen could help Charm with that, too.
“Only if you’re the instructor,” Charm said. She blew out a breath as a new arch appeared. “Can we pretend I didn’t say that?”
“Whatever you like.”
Still holding hands, they walked through the new arch.
And then, at last, they were greeted by a new sight.
8
The sudden transformation of the landscape shocked Charm. She was more grateful than she’d admit when the endless road surrounded by trees gave way to a vibrant village. There were flower-adorned arches everywhere, but they could easily be avoided in the open space at the center of all the thatched-roof cottages. A crowd of villagers tossed petals in the air and cheered, and it took Charm longer than usual to understand that the applause was for her—and Aspen.
She gripped Aspen’s hand tighter on instinct, but before she could feel foolish for it, Aspen squeezed her hand in return.
“Oh good, they made it safely here,” Aspen said, having somehow picked Mouse and Ruby out from the joyful chaos.
Aspen took a step toward the horses and Charm took a step toward the long table laden with refreshments. There was a tug, and Charm bit back a nasty curse as she realized they were still bound together. First order of business, dissolving this magic. Second order of business, food.
“Uh, Charm?” Aspen sounded sheepish, and Charm turned back to her.
It wasn’t magic keeping them together anymore. They were still holding hands.
“Right.” Charm cleared her throat. In a moment, she would let go of Aspen’s hand, and they would each head in their own direction. That was fine. Not a big deal. It wasn’t as though Aspen would leave Charm behind. They often split up to see to their own interests, but they always ended up together again.
Before Charm could summon the resolve to part from Aspen, two people in long skirts and woven tops approached them. Charm could appreciate the amount of skin on display—collarbones, bellies, everything from shoulder to fingertip.
