She came back to consciousness staring at a sky that was too dark and was bumping strangely. Wait, no. She was bumping. The ground was bumping? That wasn’t good. The Thornwaste didn’t bump.

  Except when it did, like when…

  Memories bubbled to the surface, the way that godsdamned tomb fortress had. She wasn’t in the Thornwaste.

  Where was she?

  Runa lifted her head. She was on the mule cart. Hadn’t the donkey run away? Wait, what mule? Was she still heading down the mountain with Errant?

  Slowly, feeling as though she was dragging her thoughts one by one out of a tar pit, Runa pieced together where she was and what she’d been doing.

  Morrie.

  The traveling traders.

  The cursed crown.

  “You’re awake!”

  A face appeared above her. Rovnen looked worried. Not good. What was he worried about?

  “What happened?” she croaked.

  “We’re taking you back to Dawdledale. It’s going to be fine!”

  That never meant good news. “What’s going to be fine?”

  “They’ll have a healer there, I’m sure.”

  Ah, shit.

  She looked down. At the hand that hurt the least worst, first, which was neither smart nor brave.

  She was still holding the lightstick. Quickly, she let go of it, and the threatening pulse of light at its tip faded. Something clinked. “Whazzat?” she asked muzzily. Something was strung onto the lightstick, like a hoop on a stick. It was… it looked like…

  “That’s what’s left of the crown,” Rovnen said helpfully.

  “Huh.”

  The crown wasn’t thundercloud-grey anymore. It was… white? Runa frowned as colours seemed to shift under the glossy white, like opals under pearl.

  Then what she was looking at hammered home and she jerked away.

  Dragonbone.

  She swore, and if she hadn’t already dropped the lightstick she would have dropped it then. The crown wasn’t flying towards the Cauldron anymore, which meant the cursed bit of it had been the steel around the bone, and not the bone circlet itself, but…

  Runa shivered, and carefully pulled the lightstick free of the dragonbone circlet. She pushed herself up with her other hand and swung her feet over the side of the cart.

  “Hey, careful! You want to take it easy with that?”

  “With what?” she grouched, and followed Rovnen’s horrified gaze down to the hand she was gripping the side of the cart with.

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  She’d seen magical backlash injuries before. Didn’t matter. She still passed out.

  When Runa woke again, they were in the stables at Morrie’s wayhouse. The dwarf was yelling at someone, or possibly everyone, but when they saw Runa was awake, they shut their mouth and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Runa set her jaw. “Morrie, if you’re trying to reassure me, that isn’t the way to do it.”

  Pain shot in lightning flashes up her arm. She clenched where she hoped her fingers still were, and that hurt, too, which she felt like was good news, because it meant her fingers must still be there to hurt.

  “Reassurances are all I’ve got, big girl. Take it or leave it.”

  She lifted the arm that hurt first, this time, and the dwarf hissed with sympathy. “You’ll want to get that looked at.”

  Runa bit her tongue before she could say Someone else looking at it sounds great, because I’d prefer not to.

  Her skin was naturally blue-grey. Skyish if she’d washed recently. And some bits of her arm were still that color. In between the gashes like fissures in the night sky, filled with crackling diamonds.

  She flexed her hand, opening and closing it carefully. The magic was trapped inside her body, but that wasn’t what it looked like. It looked like her arm was frozen just as it had started to explode. As though any minute, it would remember it was disintegrating, and get on with that.

  She winced and looked away. Pain radiated in knocks and strange pings from the part of her body that was injured. And, which was more disquieting, from places she didn’t think were injured.

  Bloody wizards, she thought savagely. “Is there a doctor in town?”

  The dwarf sucked on their lips. “Horse doctor, here at the stables.”

  “Get a lot of cursed horses through here, do you?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, love, she’s better with teaching them not be afraid of their own tails and digging prickles out than she is anything magical.”

  Runa swallowed down a groan. “This is a bit more than a prickle,” she growled.

  “I can see that.” Another pause to click their tongue, and Morrie said, “Bellwether along the way is who you want to see if it’s your joints or lungs ail you, he does a good line in salves and ointments. Ah, and there’s the pub…”

  “The pub?”

  “Barrel of Wincy’s finest might keep you going until the traveling doctor comes around again.”

  Gods and liches. They were going to start listing midwives next. “Anyone good with magical remedies?”

  “Ah, well, for that you’ll be wanting to go back up the mountain. No one better for magical remedies than the young lad who’s the apothecary up there, even if he does have a face on him like a cat’s backside. Oh, and the Miller boy will give you a ride up, I’m sure.”

  Runa’s gaze travelled the long road back up the mountain, to the scatter of houses balanced on the edge of the Cauldron.

  Back to Pothollow.

  Why wasn’t she surprised?

  “Oh.”

  Corvin stood in the apothecary doorway, looking Runa up and down as though the universe had personally delivered his least favourite person to his door. She would take it personally, except she’d seen the same expression on his face no matter who he was talking to.

  Face like a cat’s backside was about right.

  Runa lifted her arm. He stared at it and sighed.

  “You’d better come in.”

  She ducked her head and followed him inside.

  The apothecary was on the opposite side of the village to the bakery. She’d had time to think about that, as she and Errant made the long, slow journey back up the side of the Cauldron. It made sense. Bakeries might catch fire, so you didn’t want them bang in the middle of town.

  Apothecaries might catch fire worse, so you didn’t want them right next door, either. Also they stank the place up, so you didn’t want them around where bread was being prepared, all squishy and ready to absorb whatever stink was going.

  She hadn’t been inside before. The front room was the store. Shelves lined the walls, full of glass bottles and vials of liquid in different colors. Some of them glowed. All were labelled, in small, terse handwriting.

  There was a long counter, like the one in Runa’s own—like the one in the bakery. And an uncomfortable looking chair, to prevent customers from staying too long.

  The air smelled of contained magic, and there was the occasional tinkle of glass, as though the shelves weren’t entirely secure and her footsteps were making them shake.

  No cauldrons. No fireplace or stove. His workshop must be out the back.

  Corvin beckoned her over to a chair near the window. “Sit here.”

  She sat.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  “Uh. A curse.”

  “What sort? Put your arm here.”

  “The sort that tried to drag itself back into the Cauldron.”

  He paused, and for the first time since he’d beckoned her inside, met her eyes. “Try to narrow it down,” he said coolly, and something shimmered behind the black of his eyes.

  Not opal-under-pearl, like the bones the circlet had been made of, but something deeper and darker.