77. Bridge under the water

The streets were aflame with chaos. Yue evidently hadn't been the only member of the Stone Circle to step out from hiding that morning, as the scent of sulphur was still choking even outside of the Barrack's courtyard. Broken vials rolled beneath Ada's thin slippers, glass catching on silk and shredding it to tatters. Her feet were cold and numb, but her mind was sharp despite her sleepless night.

She was grateful that Spindlewen had made her dress such a dark shade of navy, for it swirled around her as she ran as though she wore a cloak of smoke itself. She kept to Wysthaven's darkest passageways, her ears growing sensitive as her eyes struggled to pick out the cobblestones ahead. At each corner, she waited to hear the rattle of chains, and if they came close she would double back and find a new path to creep down. Once, a group of Circle members had assembled a street over and shattered an overhead window with a long, bloodsoaked chain. Ada had held her breath until they had disappeared into the smoke, her corset fighting against her lungs.

She came eventually to a ravaged square and looked out over the destruction. Stood amidst the rubble, Ada couldn't help but wonder how life in the city would change if the Stone Circle was to gain control. Yue had promised execution and exile, two concepts clearly not so different from the Lady's regime. Whilst it was true that the Hounds themselves would be gone, how many families would be ripped apart for the sake of it? Ada had seen the Hounds in the ballroom, large numbers of them only just breaching adulthood. If Diane hadn't chosen her life for herself, how many of the Hounds had ventured onto their path of their own accord?

A grating laugh shivered out from the smoke, and Ada heard the wet thud of a body hitting pavement. She slipped from the square through a narrow cloister, and was abruptly on the banks of the canal. The tower of Wysthaven had drawn a fury to it, with fae from the Circle fighting the Hounds quickly gathering. Amongst the rattle of chains came the shattering of glass, and more smoke poured from vials like a liquid, their silver flecks bursting into flames.

It seemed that the canal itself was alight, its waters reflected as red as the cobblestones, which lay slick with blood. Above the canal rose the tower, strangely stoic in its untouched magnitude, and ringed around with archways. They stood as stone sentinels, the smoke drifting through them like veils between realms. Ada squinted across the canal, holding back a cough even as her chest tightened. She could see no bridge across to the island.

A cry dissolved into a gurgle at her feet as a young fae stumbled and fell before her, their long arm torn at an obscene angle, fingers twitching then falling still. Ada ran without thinking, Hounds lumbering out from the smoke on all sides, only to be ripped back by disembodied hands on their chains. Sound was all but lost to the shriek of metal and the crushing of glass, and between it all whistled the wind. It tangled Ada's feet in her dress and ripped away her panted breaths.

Then a claw closed tightly around her elbow, jerking her through a doorway with such strength that she was sent tumbling onto a bag a grain. Too late she was grasping for the iron dagger strapped to her thigh, silk slipping under her fingers, the weight of a chain undoubtedly about to crack down upon her hands.

"Ada!" said a sweet voice, and an even greater terror descended upon her.

"Min," Ada gasped. "No, no. Min! What are you doing here? It's too dangerous!"

"It looked like you were the one in danger," Min replied pointedly, as though a barrage of Hounds weren't a wall away from them. "Not us."

At the doorway was Hester, her hands still outstretched as the wind calmed to a breeze within her palms. Her arms quivered under the strain of her Casting, and her wrinkled face was pale against the firelights outside. But despite it all, she stood upright and ferociously alive.

"You took Min here?" Ada asked her, aghast.

"Of course not," Hester snapped, turning her scarred face from the battle by the canal. Though she continued, not unkindly, "The foolish child insisted on leaving the Circle with the rest of the rebels just as soon as those bandits returned without you. I couldn't have stopped her, so my only crime would have been not to come along."

"This is madness," Ada said, unable to look at Min's cheerful grin. "And what about Lark and Solen? You just left them?"

"There are others there capable of healing them," Hester said, though Ada didn't miss the rustle of wind that danced within her fine, grey hair. Hester wanted to be here, out of the Circle and Casting in the daylight. It was a freedom like no other. One that her sister-seers could never experience again.

"And you didn't say goodbye," Min said quietly, her grin falling. "You said you wouldn't leave me alone again. You promised!"

"Oh, Min." Ada struggled upright and pulled Min into her arms. They clung together, the cries outside fading as if the air around them had grown solid and impenetrable.

When they parted, Ada realised that they were standing in a small storeroom, the walls around them shelved with barley beers and bundles of hops. There was little, though, that would be of any defensive use against Hounds, and only the single door that led out to the canal.

"I need to get into the tower," Ada said with grim determination. "But there's smoke and Hounds everywhere. I couldn't even see a way across the water."

Hester snorted. "Perhaps it would have benefited you to spend a little more time reading in the library. You want to get into the most powerful building in all of Wysthaven, but didn't even try to find a book on its history?"

"Well I haven't exactly had much free reading time," said Ada, affronted.

"Free enough to go nosing through the Gilded Book," replied Hester, but continued before Ada could retort. "There is a bridge across the canal, but it lies beneath the waters. The Hounds drag up its chains when they need to cross, though that is a rare occurrence, and I doubt you will find a willing volunteer out there."

As she spoke, something or someone collided against the storeroom with a smack. Loose hops drifted down from their shelves, getting caught in Min's curls.

"I've got to get into the tower," Ada pressed, knowing that their time was growing short.

"For the Wolf?" It wasn't quite an accusation from Hester, but Ada could feel the air stretch between them.

"For my friend," said Ada. "And for the name of the Saltsworn. Isn't that what your Circle wants? The Lady's name so fae like you and Min can finally Cast without all this violence and bloodshed? I just need a way across that canal, and then I can get her name within that tower, once and for all."

Or she could get herself killed, thought Ada. Though that, thankfully, remained unsaid.

At that moment, a vial shattered against the door, and half of it was blown cleanly away as black smoke churned into the storeroom. Ada dragged Min against her. The scent of sulphur made her eyes water, though she saw that Hester stood unflinching by the exposed doorway, as if still listening to Ada's words.

"Follow me when you hear the call of the wind," the old fae said. Splinters were falling around her feet, some spearing down into the hops, a thin puddle of blood seeping between them. Hester didn't appear to notice. Her blind eyes were cast upwards, not at the tower, Ada realised, but towards the distant hillside. "Stars be with you, Sisters."

Then Hester stepped alone towards the canal.

"No," gasped Ada, struggling to hold on to Min as Hester disappeared into the smoke.

In the darkness outside, the battle waged on, curls of smoke occasionally revealing a loop of chain or a flailing arm. In all their elegance, the fine bones of the fae seemed to snap all the keener. A scattering of fires around the canal shivered and died, the smoke wisping up from their ashes as a cold wind began to build. It seemed to rush from the cloisters and spill down the water bank, revealing fae figures in various wounded states. The wind whipped harder around them, causing some to fall to their knees whilst others pressed their hands against their ears.

In their centre stood Hester, her spine straight and her head snapped back. Her body was convulsing, mouth open in a soundless scream that the wind was whirling into. Beneath the gossamer skin of the old fae's throat, the air seethed and bubbled like a creature trying to escape from her chest. Even the Hounds looked up at her in horror, unable to move as the wind battered against them. The Circle's smoke was snatched away as the wind's wailing grew louder, shattering windows and quivering the canal. Then, suddenly, everything ceased, and it was as though all sound had been ripped from the world.

Hester's body shuddered, uninterrupted and terrible, until a storm burst from her throat.