Chapter nine

I woke to the smell of onions and the sound of someone arguing with a goat.

"No Not the sage Absolutely not the sage do you want to be soup?" A pause, then a rattle of hooves on boards. "Fine be that way." I opened my eyes. A low ceiling of dark beams hung above me, strung with bundles of drying herbs. A quilt covered me up to the chin, patched in a dozen faded colors, and a small iron stove ticked in the corner, throwing warm orange light across a room that was mostly shelves. Jars, baskets, bottles, and bundles crowded every wall somewhere in all that, a kettle was beginning to sing. My hand went to my stomach before I had finished waking up. The ache was gone I breathed out so hard that it turned into a sob.

"There she is." A stool scraped and Orla appeared at the side of the bed, wiping her hands on an apron she looked smaller than I remembered in daylight , wiry and weathered, with her braid, pale eyes that missed nothing. "Don't sit up don’t even think about it you’ve been out for nearly two days, and I'm not mopping up a fainting girl on top of everything else."

"The baby."

"Fine, better than fine honestly heartbeat strong as a drum." She poured something dark into a cup and pressed it into my hands. "Drink that It tastes like a swamp, but it's red raspberry and nettle, and it'll settle the cramping."

"Raspberry leaf is for the third trimester." Orla stopped.

"I know that," I said weakly. "I'm sorry. I'm a herbalist. I just"

"A herbalist." She settled onto her stool and studied me. "That explains the pharmacy in your duffel Careful kit Properly labeled." I sipped the tea. It tasted exactly like a swamp.

"You're right," I said, grimacing. "It's awful."

"Medicine usually is." The kettle shrieked Orla ignored it. "Now. We'll do this the easy way, because you're in no condition for the hard way. You're pregnant, about seven weeks not to a long way from anywhere. You walked through a Blackthorn patrol zone in the dead of winter, alone, in boots that wouldn't keep a child's feet dry. And you've got the posture of a woman who spent a long time being very quiet in a very large house." I said nothing.

"I'm not asking for the story," Orla said. "I'm asking for a name."

"Adele."

"Try again."

"What?"

"Adele what?" Her pale eyes didn't move. "Because I've lived in this valley seventy years, girl, and I know how this goes. Men come across the border looking for a woman sometimes she's a thief and sometimes she's a runaway wife, and sometimes she's something much worse, and it doesn't matter, because by the time they arrive, it's already a story. Names travel. Faces travel. Whatever you were, you'd better be someone else here." My stomach tightened. *Someone else.*

"Ada," I said slowly. "Ada Marsh."

"Marsh." She tested it on her tongue. "Marsh. Plainand forgettable that’s good" She nodded, as though she'd settled a small business deal. "And what is Ada Marsh doing in Ashford?"

"Looking for work."

"Doing what?"

"Healing."

Orla's mouth twitched. "Now we're getting somewhere." She rose, dragged the kettle off the stove, and poured it into a chipped teapot. The air filled with the smell of mint. "Ashford hasn't had a proper healer since old Pell died in the autumn. It's me and a goat who has opinions. The nearest clinic is two days south, and nobody here can afford the f*e." She set the teapot down. "I don't take in strays, lass. I don't take in anyone. But I'm seventy-three, and my knees are going, and I've got forty-odd people in this town who'd rather suffer than ride to the city."

"You want me to work for you."

"I want you to rest for a week. And *then* I want you to work for me." She grinned, quick and crooked. "I'll pay in room and board and the occasional chicken."

For a long moment, I looked at her. She looked back, plain and unbothered, and absolutely certain of what she was offering. *Safe,* my wolf said quietly. *I think she is safe.*

"All right," I said.

"All right," Orla agreed, as if she had never doubted it. "Now drink your swamp."

The door banged. Cold air rushed in with a gust of snow, and a small, stout man in a patched coat stamped across the threshold, whisking his hat against his knee.

"Orla! You've got trouble coming up the road, a half-dozen black jackets and a wagon. They're at the baker's already, asking questions."

Orla's face didn't change. "Thank you, Tam."

"They're looking for a young woman out of moonlight pack They've got a pictures too."

My blood turned to ice.

"Haven't seen anyone," Orla said calmly. "Go home, Tam bolt the door."

Tam nodded and was gone Orla stood very still She turned back to me, and the old woman's face was entirely different now. Hard and calm and thoughtful.

"Can you stand?"

"Yes."

"Good." She pulled the quilt aside. "Because I don't think we've got a week."

Orla hauled a braided rug aside and knelt on the boards beneath it. A square trapdoor, cold air breathing up from below. "A root cellar Potatoes, turnips, a few jars of last year's plum wine go and Don't make a sound."

"They'll search the house."

"They'll search it, find an old woman and a goat, and leave. I've done this before." She pressed the quilt into my arms. "Go on." I climbed down a ladder into cold, earthy dark. The trapdoor closed. Orla's rug dragged back into place above me, and a moment later, I heard the scrape of her stool being dragged over it. Then the creak of a rocking chair, and, impossibly, humming. I pressed myself into the corner among the turnips with the quilt wrapped around my shoulders and one hand over my stomach. My wolf curled so tight inside me that I could barely feel her. Boots arrived within the quarter hour. The door slammed back. I counted three sets of footsteps, heavy and unhurried.

"Morning, Mother."

"It's afternoon, you great ox. Wipe your feet."

"We're looking for someone A woman in her early twenties, from Moonlight pack."

"Everyone's looking for someone." The rocking chair creaked. "I'm looking for my left knee."

"We've got a picture."

Paper rustled. A long silence followed, and I could picture Orla taking her time, lifting her spectacles, squinting, frowning. "Pretty girl Who's she supposed to be?"

"Doesn't matter. There's a reward."

"Have you seen her?"

"Do I look like I get out much?" Just then Something small and hard hit the floor above my head. A goat bleated indignantly, and one of the men swore. "Get that animal off the table!"

"Mind her," Orla said. "She bites."

"Mother, we need to search the house."

"Then search it but Mind the jars, they're all labeled, and if you break one I'll have your hide. That one there is wolfsbane tincture. If you spill it on your hands, you'll be dead by Thursday." The footsteps stopped then a tense pause followed, and I heard someone take a careful step backward.

"We'll be quick," the voice muttered.

They were drawers opened and shut a cupboard door banged A boot nudged the rug aside, and I stopped breathing then the goat shrieked, and something heavy crashed into the stove, and a man yelped and cursed, and the rocking chair stopped

"Out," Orla said, in a voice like iron. "All of you out of my house, you clumsy, brainless bullies You'll pay for that kettle."

The door slammed and I could hear boots clattered away I stayed where I was until my heart stopped trying to climb out of my throat a long time later, the trapdoor lifted, and Orla's weathered face appeared above me.

"They’re gone," she said. "You can come up now."

My legs shook lightly as I climbed the cottage was a wreck of overturned jars and trampled herbs, and the goat stood

proudly on the table, chewing something green Orla handed me a handkerchief, and I realized I was crying.

"They left this." She tapped the table.

A picture of me my face, my hair, even the faint line between my eyebrows that appeared when I was

I stared at it. Something cold and slow crept up my spine, and it had nothing to do with the cellar. Lyra had always been the artist in the family.