“I’ve finished material preparations for the coat,” he said gruffly. “But before I begin the cloth, I’ll need to take one final measurement.”
“What?” Josef said. “Did the girl miss an inch last night?”
“This measurement can’t be taken with tape,” Slorn said. “This coat doesn’t just hide Nico’s body; it hides the nature of her soul, and what lives inside it. For that, I need to take Nico up into the mountains.” His dark eyes flicked to Josef. “Alone.”
“Why?” Josef said, hand drifting to the Heart’s hilt. “What do you need that you can’t do here?”
“Those are the terms,” Slorn said. “If you don’t like them, you can leave.”
Josef looked supremely uncomfortable, and Eli was about to say something to deflect the tension when Nico stepped forward, her cracked-leather boots soundless on the packed sand. “I’ll go.”
Eli blinked in surprise. “Are you sure?”
Nico just gave him a scathing “of course” look over her shoulder before going to stand at Slorn’s side. The bear-headed man nodded and turned to Pele. “Bring these”—he pointed to the pile of materials at his feet—“to my workroom. Eli, you and your swordsman can put the rest back into storage.”
Eli gaped at him. “What part of our deal says we’re your grunt labor?”
But Slorn had already turned and started walking toward the woods, Nico following close behind him. Pele just grinned and started gathering the chosen materials. A moment later, Josef started picking things up as well. When it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one, Eli sighed and started lugging bolts of cloth into his arms, muttering under his breath about Shaper wizards and the dreadful decline in service. Josef, however, was ignoring him. The swordsman picked up the balls of yarn and yards of cloth with only half an eye to what he was grabbing. His real attention was on the trees, where Nico and Slorn had vanished into the forest’s shadow, and nothing Eli said could draw him away from them.
Nico and Slorn moved silently through the forest. They followed no path, but they did not need one. The trees parted for them, the young hardwoods creaking softly as they lifted their branches. Slorn nodded his thanks as he passed. The trees rustled in return but then grew still as Nico walked by.
They walked without speaking until they reached the foot of a steep, leaf-strewn slope. There, Slorn began to climb, his heavy boots moving surely over the slick leaves. Nico followed more cautiously, digging her hands into the wet leaf litter to keep from slipping. They climbed for a long time, and as they got higher, the trees began to change. Slender oaks and birches gave way to heavier, darker trees Nico couldn’t name. They clung to the slope in great knots of root and stone, looming enormous and dark, their black leaves blotting out the sunlight until the ground was a dim patchwork of shadows.
As they climbed in the dark, the need to flit ahead through the shadows was overwhelming. Why, something inside Nico whispered, should she crawl like an animal? She could have been at the top ten times over by now. But Nico forced the feeling down. Such thinking was dangerous. Shadows were the demon’s highway, and moving through them, even for a short jump like this, always made her feel like a shadow herself. Without her coat, it was easy to lose focus, to forget to come out of the dark. Easier for the thing inside her to go places it shouldn’t, the places in her mind where she hoarded her humanity. A cold, clammy feeling began to wrap around her, and Nico shook her head, focusing her attention to a dagger point on Slorn’s back as they trudged on. To stay with Josef, to stay human, she needed to keep her mind clear, sharp. It was only a little longer. She would see what Slorn wanted her to see, and then go back. Easy, simple. She repeated those words again, and deep in the dark behind her eyes, something began to snicker.
Finally Slorn stopped. They were high now, the air cold and heavy with the smell of snow. The strange trees were shorter here, thinner, and Nico caught glimpses of blue sky through the branches. Yet the sun seemed to shy away from them, leaving the thin woods at the top of the slope darker than ever. Everything was quiet. Despite their height, no wind rustled the trees, and no animals moved in their branches. The slope was still, a heavy, unnatural stillness that pressed down on Nico like deep water, and she had the strong feeling she should not be here.
“What you are feeling is the will of the valley,” Slorn said softly, turning to face her, his gruff voice grating against the silence. “We woke it years ago and tasked it with keeping things away.”