66. Seamstress and her loom

Armestrong refused to take Ada to Min right away, continuing instead to heap serving after serving of porridge into her bowl. When the oats had begun to turn cold, and Armstrong had mentioned for the hundredth time how unusually pale Ada looked that morning, she finally admitted to her midnight meeting with Raeph in Wysthaven.

"Oh, I just know he's not eating well," Armestrong said. "He's never in proper health when he keeps all to himself."

The bandits were making their way through the Stone Circle, taking a longer route back to Hester's infirmary so that their hushed conversation would go otherwise unheard.

"Raeph can do just fine on his own," replied Lark impatiently. "What else did he say about the banquet?"

"Not much more," said Ada, counting off the details Raeph had told her. "It will be in the Barracks on the night of the Harvest Moon. He and the Hounds will be there, as well as their families and other supporters. But they'll all be at the banquet, so maybe we can just sneak into prisoner's quarters somehow, find Solen, then get out. Raeph would help keep everyone distracted."

Lark was oddly silent as they rounded the last corner of the passageway, a buoyant sage-light smoking out into the air at the door of Hester's infirmary. Inside was the old woman, hunched on a stool and smearing poultice between her arthritic hands. Beside her stood Min. The girl was brighter than Ada had seen in days, not quite happy, but busy and eager. Baskets of flowers and bundles of herbs were piled on the table in front of her, flowers frothing out around her head and sap sticking the curls of her hair. Her hands worked quickly, plucking stalks of lavender and rubbing them until fragrant, then tearing petals from chamomile to mix with a paste of turmeric.

When she caught sight of Ada, she gasped, and dandelion seeds puffed up into the air.

"Ada! You're back!"

"I didn't go far," Ada assured her, avoiding Hester's eye. "What are you making?"

"A sleep salve," said Min. "Hester let me use her plants, although they're a little dry."

"Be grateful I'm letting you use anything." Hester swept aside a pile of garlic, and her cat went streaking after a rolling root. "You're too learned for such a young thing, some ignorance would do you good."

In spite of Hester's sharp words, Ada saw an array of pots lined neatly along the edge of the table, each with a labelled name and ingredients list that the old woman must have helped Min spell out.

Armestrong's eyes were shining, and her voice came softly. "You've worked hard, Min."

Ada remembered the Fair Powder that had been used to suppress Min's magic, its grey filings burning the child from the inside, which Armestrong had supplied. It had been given to protect Min, but Ada wondered how Armestrong felt now, seeing her magic celebrated by the Stone Circle.

"I don't suppose you'd have anything to make us invisible?" Lark asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," replied Hester, narrowing her eyes. "Why? What use would that be down here?"

"Not here," said Ada. "Lark and I are going to the Barracks during the Hounds' banquet the night after next."

Hester began to wheeze, which Ada realised after a moment was her attempt at a laugh. "At least nobody in the Circle can say you haven't got nerve. You'll not get six inches near the Barracks looking as you do now, though."

"We know that," said Lark. "Ideally, no one would look at us at all."

As he spoke, Ada's memories leapt from a handful of Fair Powder to a bustling marketplace, with falling fruits and Armestrong's suspicious stare.

"What about a Veil?" she said.

Min's eyes went wide and she stuck her hands into her pockets. But Hester was shaking her head.

"Veils take a lot of magic out of a person. It's metal-casting, changing the very movements of the air so that people perceive what you wish them to. A Veil does not make you invisible, only less noticeable for perhaps a minute at most, and that's if you're standing still..."

Hester's voice trailed off and her eyes glazed over, drifting from Ada to Lark with a faint frown on her face. Min swayed, almost knocking a glass jar from the table, and Armestrong called her name just as Hester's eyes snapped back onto Ada's face.

"How did..." Hester's gaze travelled down to Min, now straightening up with Armestrong's hands around her thin shoulders. "By the graces of old."

Min opened her hand to reveal a silver coin, its edges tarnished green. Lark laughed aloud in surprise, looking from the coin to Ada, but Min wore a frustrated scowl.

"I couldn't keep the Veil going any longer than that," she huffed.

'Well, of course not," Hester said, her shock quickly concealed. "You've been Casting all morning with the plants. Child's play, by the looks of it."

"Quite literally," said Lark, peering down at Min with a grin.

Ada held her hands out before her, not feeling nor looking any different after the Veil. They were still comparatively short and plump to all others in the room. Human hands.

"What if you didn't have to Veil my whole body?" she asked. "What if Lark and I don't avoid the banquet, but use it to get down beneath the Barracks? It's got to be easier to walk straight down, rather than find a way to steal ourselves inside. But everyone would see in an instant I wasn't fae by my face, right? Would you be able to Veil little bits of it to make me look less noticeable?"

Hester looked sceptical, and Armestrong was already opening her mouth as if to complain.

"I can try!" said Min, some energy regained as she began to toss flowers back into their bunches. "I won't do any plant-castings all day, I swear!"

Lark looked pale, and although he didn't disagree with Ada's idea, he said, "But changing your looks would be useless if we turn up dressed like this."

He toed the hem of Ada's cloak, which was still caked in damp mud. She was gathering it up protectively when a loud moan came echoing from outside, followed by shouts that thundered through the rock passage. A group of fae stormed into the infirmary, supporting between them a young man whose trouser cuffs had been smouldered off to his shins. Scarlet smoke trailed after him, seeping out in acrid wisps.

"All of you, away," commanded Hester as she herded the fae to the bunk beds.

"What happened to him?" Ada gasped as she saw the burnt flesh ringed around the man's ankle. Even in the dim light of the infirmary, she watched as his charred flesh began to peel up his leg. The man screamed. Ada had seen the brutality of the Hounds before, but it had never looked anything like this.

"Get out, now," said Hester, pushing Ada away before turning to Min. "Go and look for Spindlewen, in the nord passages."

Min nodded weakly, though the blood had drained from her face, and she let Armestrong tug her from the room. The screams of the injured fae were smothered by stone as they walked, footsteps the only sound in their silence. For all the time Min had spent inside Hester's infirmary, Ada was surprised to see she now knew the Stone Circle's passageways well enough to guide the group. What else Min had learned, Ada could only begin to guess. They passed through a room with bubbling baths, their waters sending spiralling vapours up into the air. Soon after appeared a long tunnel with walls of glimmering mica, like clustered constellations charted into the earth.

They had walked at least a mile when Min stopped before a plank of wood which had been propped up like a door. The girl reached up and knocked three times, and a thin voice called out for them to enter. Inside the room was warm and humid, with strips of dripping fabric hung up from ceiling beams, all the colour of autumnal berries and roots. Bolts of once fine velvet stood within a corner, and sheets of muslin and linen were draped across the walls like tapestries. Small animals were woven along the edges of one, and in the soft candlelight, they seemed to come jumping to life amidst a brocade of golden daisy chains. On another danced a circle of men, though tears were on their embroidered cheeks, gleaming as if freshly fallen.

In the middle of the room was a single loom, old and dark and creaking. It was spun by the hands of a woman, whose pale hair fell in shrouds around her narrow face. Spindlewen had the longest, thinnest limbs of any fae Ada had seen before, but her fingers worked swiftly, like a spider weaving a silken web.