Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [39]
“No!” My voice came out too loud. I didn’t want to even look at Katrin again.
“Haley. I’m angry with them, too, and believe me, I know all about doing stupid things because you’re angry. But this—”
“You were right to tell me about my dad and your mom. That wasn’t stupid.”
“Oh yeah, because if I hadn’t told you, you might never have run and climbed the rocks and fallen. I was so right to make that happen. To get us into this mess.”
“You didn’t make this mess. She did.” Not Katrin. Hallgerd. Ari’s mom and my dad had made it worse, though.
Ari kicked the damp sand. “I’d just like to see us both get out of it alive. Call me selfish, but I’d rather not have to explain to your father that Hallgerd’s spell consumed you, too.”
“About time this spell hurt someone besides me.”
“Haley!” Ari’s jaw fell open. It was several heartbeats before he spoke. “You don’t mean that.”
My stomach clenched. Why did I still care how Dad felt?
“Your dad was a wreck when your mom disappeared. You know that, don’t you?”
The awful thing was, I did know. I’d seen how lost Dad looked when he came off that plane last summer—how lost he’d looked all this past year. “Why’d he mess around, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why the hell did he talk about getting a divorce?”
“I don’t know. Maybe your dad and my mom both just screwed up. Maybe that’s how people are.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“I know.” Ari reached for my hand. I drew mine away. He muttered something that might have been “sorry”—about Dad or about holding my hand, I couldn’t tell. “Svan’s part of the same saga as Hallgerd, you know. We study Njal’s Saga next year in school, but of course Mom made me read it early. The sorcerer caused all sorts of trouble. It’s not like he can be trusted.”
As if I didn’t know that. Ari wasn’t the one Svan had tried to claim as a gift. The sun touched the hills behind us, turning the mosses to gold. Ari drew his arms around himself—was the air getting colder? In the distance, I saw Svan heading toward us along the beach, his staff in one hand, a second, smaller leather bag slung over his shoulder atop the first one. He whistled as he walked.
“Well. You two took your time waking up,” the sorcerer said as he drew near. The smaller sack was wriggling. What on earth?
“For the spell,” Svan said at my puzzled look.
“What do you mean, for the spell?” From inside the bag I heard a squeal.
Svan stared at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. “Does my kinswoman truly know so little of sorcery? We must go through all the steps of Hallgerd’s spell if we wish to break it, only differently. And if Hallgerd used the spell that I believe she did, it required the blood of a white fox.”
“You have a fox in there?” I felt sick and angry at once. Freki, I thought, but of course it wouldn’t be him. We’d left Freki back in the mountain. Some other fox, then. That wasn’t any better.
Nothing’s as important as hurting Hallgerd, I thought. “How much blood?” I asked.
Svan seemed startled by the question. “All of it.”
“Wait—you’re going to kill it?”
“Of course not,” Svan said. “You are.”
“No,” I said. Ari moved closer to my side, nodding his agreement.
“I don’t think you understand,” Svan said. “This is no small spell Hallgerd cast. If I’m reading the runes on that coin right, my niece intended to send her spirit—and yours—through time. She offered gifts to the fire realm to do so. So great a spell cannot be broken by a few drops of blood or a handful of pretty words. The breaking requires as much power as the casting. That power will be strongest if the spell is cast by Hallgerd’s target. By you.”
I shook my head. “There has to be another way.”
“Of course. Human blood works as well. Would you prefer that?” Svan’s face turned unreadable. I couldn’t tell whether he meant it or not. A nose tried to push through the bag.
My stomach churned. I wanted to work with animals one day. How could I kill one?
“Mom,” I whispered. Hallgerd killed her. Hallgerd has to pay.
The fox squealed once more. “You’re hurting it,” I said.