Nettle & Bone

by T. Kingfisher

People were remarkably willing to dismiss their own sight. Marra thought perhaps that the world was so strange and vision so flawed that you soon realized that anything and everything could be a trick of the light.

Marra carried the knowledge that her sister hated her snugged up under her ribs. It did not touch her heart, but it seemed to fill her lungs, and sometimes when she tried to take a deep breath, it caught on her sister’s words and left her breathless.

She could not remember ever feeling such a thing before. There was no call to nurture intellectual curiosity among princesses. She did not even quite know what to call it. It felt like a light shining in her chest and she could see just a little way ahead, and that was enough to keep her going forward. There was no one to tell her what she wanted to know or whether the information even existed. She had no one to share her excitement with, but she did not mind, because it did not occur to her that anyone else might care.

Then again, peasants and princesses all shit the same and have their courses the same, so I suppose it’s no surprise that babies all come out the same way, too. Having thus accidentally anticipated a few centuries’ worth of revolutionary political thought, Marra got down to the business of boiling water and making tea.

Did you approach people, or did they approach you, and how did you start a conversation that ended in money for sex? Was there an etiquette?

Tell me if you get the urge to take a bite out of someone, though.” “There’s a long list of people I’d like to bite,” said Marra, a bit dryly. The dust-wife snorted. “Fair enough. Just tell me if you get the urge to chew afterward, then.”

Maybe some of the saints were like that, too—cranky, old women with strange gifts.

“Doesn’t matter.” The dust-wife’s mouth crooked up at the corner. “If we can find a stream, it’s easier to get there. If not, we’ll go by fire.” Marra had to be content with that, because no further information was forthcoming. She added the goblin market to things that she had to worry about, and felt anxiety gnawing inside her rib cage.

Marra inched closer to it and saw velvet cloth laid out with dozens of small white objects. Jewels? Ivory? Shells? Teeth. Of course it would be teeth, her mind said, while her skin tried to crawl off her body and run away screaming. It was never not going to be horrible. Teeth. Yes.

“It’s a fool’s errand and we’ll probably all die,” said the dust-wife. “Oh, well then,” said Fenris. “I always enjoy those.”

“You are still wrong, Hardishman,” she said. “But you are wrong in an interesting way.”

You look as if you’re afraid the universe is ashamed of you.”

“Evil magic could flow through her like a river in full flood. Fortunately for the rest of us, there’s a lot of Agnes in the way.

Agnes tapped Finder’s beak. The young cockerel was growing in his adult feathers, though he was still half the size of the brown hen and had no wattles to speak of. “Finder, find me the safest place for me to be.” Finder cocked his head to one side, then turned and walked to the dust-wife’s feet, where he began scratching in the dirt after an interesting worm. “Ah,” said the dust-wife.