[Ow!] Little spots of ink sprinkled on Linh’s face. Unfortunately, being made of paper did not exclude her from pain.

“Are you stupid?!” Marie began to pace back and forth. “Learn her dark ways?! Her heresy?!”

Linh tried to jump in front of her, show the writing on her palms, but Marie kept sidestepping her. Eventually, Linh held on to Marie’s arm and forced her to look.

[I won’t ‘use’ her knowledge! Only what can help me! And I would never use anything that could harm others! You know it’s the only way! I can’t be a practitioner or a cleric!]

Unmentionables, the cursed, couldn’t enter into the church and serve the goddess as clerics. The clerics hoarded their knowledge in their underground stone cities. Only those ordained could access those texts. Eastern magic had been outlawed in the city since Linh was twelve. Other forms of foreign magic from the Islanders and the Southerners were also in the process of being banned. Unlike her brother, Linh hadn’t shown any talent for Eastern magic.

[Besides, even if the knowledge can’t be used, at least I’ll be working. The more money I earn, the more I can pay off to get my body back.]

Marie gritted her teeth. “That spoiled boy still holds that price above your head? The next time I see that brat, I’m gonna kill him. Fine! Go see your witch! But I’m having Seymour come with you.”

Immediately, Linh waved her arms around in protest. [I will be fine!]

“A young girl, an unmentionable girl at that, travelling alone? No! Your mother would rise from the grave and drag me down to hell. My son’s coming with you, girlie, and that’s that.”

::

Marie Galloway and Xuan Dao became friends when Xuan saved Marie’s life from terrible illness using Eastern magic. Since then, Xuan and Marie had become close enough to consider each other sisters. Linh was grateful that her mother Xuan wasn’t truly related to Marie, if only for the blessing of knowing she didn’t share any blood with Seymour.

“…This is your fault,” he told her as soon as she met him by horses.

Linh stared at Seymour’s bloodshot eyes, slouched posture, the stains on his clothes, and turned away. One of the few blessings about this curse was that she couldn’t smell anymore. No doubt the alcohol on his breath would be rancid.

She watched as Seymour stumbled around, nearly kicked by the Galloway family horse Sil about four times. When Seymour finally secured the saddle on Sid, he hissed at the hint of sunlight peeking from the clouds.

“I hate this.”

Linh did not bother to reply. Seymour didn’t often look at her palms for what she had to say. She let him complain about life in peace.

::

The journey to the Eve Woods took about two days. They were the longest two days of Linh’s life. Seymour did not take directions from Linh. In fact, he pretended she wasn’t there at all. Even when he lost sight of the roads over three times, he did not acknowledge her.

At night, when they found an inn, Seymour would leave her alone in her room and drink until he passed out. Linh spent the mornings poking at him and nursing his hangovers. At least Seymour thanked her for that, but his thank yous, like most of his dialogues, sounded like they were being pried out of his will.

Sometimes, Linh wondered if Seymour resented her for taking away Marie’s time. But then Linh would see how Seymour barely acknowledged anyone who spoke to him and she concluded that Seymour simply didn’t want to bother with the world. Why else would he still be cooped up in his room all day?

::

The trees in Eve Wood were whispering to each other. Linh could hear them, the faintest sounds, skittering along her skin. 

(This one wears our skin, mashed up inside), they seemed to whisper.

She shivered. She thought the absence of crowds would be unsettling, but Eve Wood trees were more than a mere crowd. They felt like goddesses, standing judgment down on her.

Even Seymour had lost his scowl. His frown grew slack as he took in how tall and wide each Eve tree was. Wider than the Eastern temples, than any cleric church. Massively tall. Maybe taller than mountains. They were not the woods that he had grown up imagining from his father’s stories, the woods with twisted limbs like corpse’s hands. No. These trees were older than anything Seymour or Linh could comprehend.

What kind of witch was Hecate like, to live among such ominous trees? Did Hecate eat human babes, like Selene the Salivating? Did she grow human heads from bloodied pumpkins like Therese the Thorny Hag? Or was she something more menacing?

Suddenly, Linh wanted very much to return to the city.

Yet before she could show Seymour her doubts, a loud roar boomed through the woods. Crows burst through the branches, Linh spotted a flash of reddish-orange light. A fire? Maybe…?

“Ruuunnnn!” Someone dashed across the path ahead of them, clutching a long pointed hat. She was a stunning woman, with dark brown skin and lovely curly hair. She held a giant fang, larger than a pig, in her arms, as she darted away. Her flowing purple robe fluttered wildly behind her like a flailing captive.

“Who…?”

Before Seymour or Linh could speak, a dragon tore itself through the tree beside them, and breathed out pure fire.