“Nothing. Nothing.” Fen scrambled to brush the bark away. “I went to sleep in dirty clothes.”

  “Well, don’t do that!” The admonishment came out immediately. It was something her mother would say on a normal day. “Perhaps we can dye your hair.”

  Fen had never seen Lin’s hands shake so much as when she brought the dye jar over to the bed. She dipped her fingers directly in and rubbed a dark jelly-like clump through Fen’s hair. The dye hissed and turned to smoke.

  “This is madness,” Lin said.

  Someone rapped three times on the window. “Fen,” a young voice whispered. “Fen-Fen! Are you up-up?”

  “Who’s that?” her mother whispered.

  “It’s Bay,” Fen said. “I told him I’d pick berries today.”

  “Send him away. Now!”

  Fen stumbled over to the closed wooden shutters. She peeked through the crack. Bay was standing with a basket in his hand, fish scales glinting on his clothing like chain mail. “Please, Bay, go away.”

  “The sun—the sun is just about to rise. It’s the best-best time to pick.”

  “I’m sick today!”

  “You don’t sound sick-sick.” He squinted at her window and Fen pulled back a few inches.

  “I am,” she said, making her voice hoarse. “Please go.”

  “Go? Go? But you know where all the best-best berries are.”

  “Climb the Grandfather’s Nose hill. There are plenty of good ones there. I’ll help you tomorrow. I need to sleep now.”

  “Yes-yes,” he said, but he slumped his shoulders. “I’ll go-go.” He trudged away.

  Fen stood beside her mother, but before she could speak, there was another knock on the window.

  “Bay!” she shouted. “I mean it . . . Go away!”

  A sniffing sound followed.

  “Bay?” Fen asked.

  Worm-thin fingers reached between the blinds and felt around for the hook. The fingers were far too pale and thin to belong to Bay.

  “No,” Lin whispered. “Not one of them.”

  Fen took a step toward the window. “Stay out. I’m not dressed.”

  The fingers discovered the latch and slowly lifted it. There was a squawk and then the shutters swung open with a bang.

  There, sitting on the windowsill, was one of the Queen’s corvuses. Fen had never seen the royal messenger birds up close. This one had massive black wings and sharp claws, which it dug into the window ledge. Two dark eyes stared out from a pudgy face—a face so much like a human child’s that it was disconcerting. Little arms with long, spindly fingers hung from its chest, its hands designed by the Red Artificers to hold messages.

  The corvus sniffed a snotty sniff and cocked that baby head like a bird. It eyed Fen from head to foot and opened its beak. “Crimson,” the corvus cackled. It pointed a long, thin finger. “Caw. Queen, hear this! Village Twenty-One, hut by river. Crimson.”

  Fen brushed past her mother to get to the closet. Reaching inside, she yanked out the crossbow, placed the end of it on the floor and, with her foot in the stirrup, struggled to pull back the string until it was locked in place. She grabbed a bolt.

  The corvus watched her without any fear. “Crimson. Wildmagic. Village Twenty-One. Summon the guards.”

  Fen’s hand trembled so much the bolt dropped to the floor. She snatched it up.

  “Caw!” the corvus said. “Caw! Crimson.”

  Fen lifted the crossbow, laid it across her right arm and pulled the trigger, but the corvus flapped its wings and took off. The bolt sailed out the window and uselessly toward the river.

  The corvus was a dot in the distance before she could load a second bolt.

  Chapter Three

  The Green Secret

  MOTHER AND DAUGHTER STARED OUT THE WINDOW IN shock. Then Lin grabbed Fen’s shoulder. “You must flee.”

  “Mama!” Fen said. “You need me here.”

  “You’ll be executed if you stay.” She clutched Fen’s hair in desperation, staring at the redness. “Do you have magic? Can you fly?” There was a crazed look in her mother’s eyes.

  “Fly? No! I have no magic at all.” Fen hid her stump behind her back. Those were just useless vines. They might even be her imagination. After all, how could they grow out of her arm? Ridiculous.

  “Well, your hair wouldn’t go crimson without some magic inside you. Maybe you just don’t know what it is yet.”

  Lin grabbed a leather knapsack that had belonged to Fen’s father and began stuffing clothes into it.

  “Where do I go?” Fen asked.

  “Helwood. Hide in the forest.”

  “That’s three days’ walk! The Queen’s Guard will catch me long before I get there.”

  “Follow the river. Stick to the tall grasses and bamboo forests and avoid the Queen’s Road. Don’t talk to anyone! Oh, be quick, my dear.”

  Fen pulled on fresh breeches and a grey shirt. “And once I reach the forest?”

  “I don’t know. Your father heard rumours of hermits and thieves living there.”

  “Rumours about thieves? That’s it?”

  “There isn’t time to argue, Fen. The Queen’s Guard will come and they’ll—”

  “I know what they’ll do.” Fen finished buttoning up her shirt with her left hand.

  Lin set the knapsack down. “Oh, Fen, I don’t want to lose you. You have been so strong. I’ve leaned on you so many times.”

  Fen bit her lip. The truth was clear: “We don’t have a choice.”

  “We never do.” The words sounded bitter and Fen knew her mother was referencing the Queen.

  Fen followed her mother into the main room. Lin wrapped up a steamed pork bun and some salted oxen meat and dried berries in rice leaves and placed them in the knapsack. Next came fresh carrots, snap peas and a turnip. That was followed by sewing needles, and a package of healing herbs and ointments. She tied a coiled rope to the back.

  “I need weapons, Mother.”

  Lin lifted the floorboard and gave her a sheathed knife. “Take your father’s knife for protection. Don’t forget your crossbow.”

  May wandered in, one fist balled up to rub sleep from her eyes. She stopped. “Fen. Your hair! It’s red!”

  “You shouldn’t see this!” Fen shouted.

  “Go!” Her mother swatted May, nearly knocking her down. “Get back to your room! Forget what you saw!”

  May held her head and glanced back at Fen, her eyes wide. She ran out of the room.

  Fen hid the crossbow in her knapsack and slid the small quiver of bolts into a special pouch. Then she attached the sheathed knife to her belt.

  Lin dropped three copper coins into her hand. As Fen was pocketing them, Lin took her by the face, caressing her cheeks. “Be strong, Fen. There must be others in the forest who hide from”—she looked over her shoulder—“from her. You can make a life there.”

  “With outlaws?” Fen said.

  “You’re an outlaw now.” Her mother pushed Fen’s hair back and deftly tied it with ribbon. “There have to be good people. Watch with your careful eyes, Fen. Then befriend them. You’ll be safe.”

  It sounded like her mother was trying to convince herself. “I’ll do my best, Mama.”

  “You always have. It’s one of the many things I love about you.” She gave her a quick hug. “When you’re gone, I’ll have May run into the street to proclaim you a wildmagic. We’ll—we’ll say you attacked us and fled. We must not be seen as harbouring you.”

  “I understand,” she said. It only made sense. She didn’t want her sister or mother to face one of the Queen’s inquisitors.

  Lin handed a grey hooded cloak to her daughter and helped her put it on. Then she suddenly pushed Fen aside, pried up another floorboard and retrieved four rectangles of vellum: each inscribed with a name in the forbidden language.

  “Take these,” her mother said, handing them to Fen.

  Fen looked down at the soft leather in her hand. “But . . . but this is your name too. And Father’s.” The characters made no sense to Fen.

  “The soldiers will search every corner of our hut. You guard our names.” She helped Fen put them in the knapsack, choosing the pocket that was so well oiled it was waterproof. “As long as you have them, we’ll always be with you.” She hugged Fen again, tightly. “Be brave.”

  “I will,” Fen said. “I promise.” Then she added, “I love you, Mama.”

  “You are more than Fen. And I love you. I always will.”

  Fen felt tears forming in her eyes, so she pulled her hood over her head, opened the window and looked out. No one was within sight. She swung over the sill using her left hand and dropped to the ground. She waved but her mother motioned her away, mouthing something Fen couldn’t hear. There was no turning back.

  Their hut was next to the Vilia River, so within a few steps she was hidden by tall grasses. Close by, the river burbled. She walked along the edge. If only she had a cutter . . . then she could ply the water. But she would be far too easy to spot. And the river flowed the wrong way if she wanted to get to Helwood.

  This turmoil was all happening far too quickly to comprehend. She had no magic.

  But even with that thought, she couldn’t help glancing at her stump. To see if some other green oddity had grown there. She rubbed and nothing felt different.

  She doubled her pace. If she stayed, she’d be dead. The whole family: dead. And she had to keep their names safe.

  Soon the sound of livestock and the tink tink of the blacksmith’s hammer faded. Each step weighed on her heart. She got a whiff of a putrid scent that she knew came from the Great Salt Mire. When the wind blew from that direction, the smell of poisonous gas would fill the village, burning eyes and nostrils. It was a toxic place. No one ever went there.

  She’d have to walk around that wasteland, cross the Queen’s Road without being spotted and then turn south toward Helwood. It would be almost impossible to do without being seen.

  One step at a time! She pushed her way through the tall grass and bamboo trees into a clearing.

  “Who are you?” a voice asked from nearby.

  Fen spun. A young man was sitting on a large stone. It took her a moment to recognize Kang, one of the rice harvesters. He was tying a red ribbon to his tightly braided hair. He finished the knot and let the braid fall over his right shoulder. His thin arms were taut with corded muscle. His rice sickle rested at his feet.

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  “No one,” she said.

  “No one,” he echoed. “A No One who can talk, that’s a wonder. A No One who can walk. That’s magical.”

  Magical? Had her hair shown? Fen touched the side of her head. No, the hood was tight.

  Kang lifted his sickle and used it to clean under his fingernails. “Well, No One, I think you’re a thief sneaking out of our innocent village. Are you a thief?”

  “No!”

  “You hide behind a hood. You’re missing a hand. Your pack is bulging with goods. You must be a thief. The coin from turning you in would buy me a nice water-buffalo steak. And you would be handless.”

  “I’m not a thief!” She gripped the handle of her father’s knife.

  “Are you from some other village? Leaving with our rice. Our meat. Our trinkets.”

  “I’m Fen.”

  “Fen.” His smile displayed a missing front tooth. Fen knew he’d lost it in a fight in the fields. “Why are you skulking away?”

  “I’m going to pick berries.”

  “With a full knapsack? I could use a nice knapsack.”

  “It was my father’s.”

  Kang stood. “He shouted at me once. He said I was worthless.”

  “You deserved it!” She regretted the words the moment she spat them out. But the man was lazy. Instead of getting to the rice fields at dawn, he was hiding in this hollow fixing his hair.

  He slowly cut the air with the sickle. “Something odd is happening. Little girls don’t hide their faces. I want to see your eyes, Fen.”

  “I have a copper coin. I could give it to you. Let me pass.”

  He weighed her offer only for a moment. “Not enough. Show me your face—it’s pretty. Except for that smug look—your father had it, your sister, even your mother. Odd to see that sneer on a family so poor. Show me your face, Fen of the One Hand.”

  “No.”

  He crouched and then leapt across the space between them, swinging the sickle upward. It caught the edge of her hood, cutting the top and knocking it off.

  “Crimson!” He covered his mouth. Then he lowered his hand and smiled. “You’ve gone crimson. Leave the knapsack and the coin. Leave everything!”

  “No!”

  “Do it or I’ll kill you now.” He raised the sickle. “You’re dead anyway.”

  “No! The knapsack is mine.”

  “Then I’ll have to take it.” He swung the sickle and she ducked—it whistled over her head. He chuckled. Had he meant to miss? She dodged his second blow and thought of turning and running but he had blocked the path forward—her only escape was back to the village. Kang swung again and she stepped to the side, lost her balance and fell hard to the ground. He brought the sickle down and stopped a finger’s width from her forehead.

  “Take off the knapsack!”

  “No!”

  He took another swing at her. Fen raised her arms and with a flash of green, a blurring snake—a thick vine—shot out of the stump. In a heartbeat, it wrapped around his hand and over the sickle, stopping the blow in mid-arc. Another vine and another snaked along his arms, criss-crossing his chest. Kang’s eyes widened. The vines encircled his throat and when he tried to yell, they dove into his mouth. His face turned red.

  Fen felt as if there were something—a power—coming up from the ground into her body. That even the bamboo trees around her were lending her their strength.

  The vines spooled out of her stump and she could actually feel Kang’s face from where she was lying, feel the constriction around his throat. One vine had a hold on his tongue, a squished red chunk of flesh. The vines tightened and tightened.

  Kang was purple now. His eyes so wide and frightened it was almost comical. He made a strangled sound.

  “Stop it!” Fen shouted. “Stop growing! Halt!”

  The strangling sound continued, growing weaker, and his eyes went dull. He slumped toward the ground but the vines held him in the air like a puppet.

  “Stop!” Fen said. The vines slowly retreated back into her arm and Kang fell over. He didn’t move.

  She stood up, her chest tight, her breathing shallow. She had felt his face through the vines! As if the tendrils were a part of her. She looked at her stump and there, hanging out of it, were several finger-length vines.

  “Oh, dear Zaoshen!” she whispered. It really was wildmagic. Her stomach clenched.

  Kang looked too pale. And motionless. She didn’t want to step near him, but she did so, peering down. She kicked his shoulder and he didn’t react. His chest wasn’t rising.

  He was dead.

  She had killed him. She stared at the vines again. No, they had killed him. The magic she felt glowing in them. In her veins.

  Fen fled past him along the river.

  Chapter Four

  A Black Bolt

  FEN RAN. HER HOOD HAD BEEN SLICED BY KANG’S SICKLE, so she held it in place as she picked her way along deer paths. The vines in her arm rubbed against tall grass, brushed against bamboo trees and reeds. The sensations made her run faster. How could she feel through them? What was this thing growing on her? In her?

  The vines had killed Kang. Right in front of her! Of course, he had threatened her life. But she hadn’t meant for him to die.

  After what seemed like hours, she stopped and sat down in the shade of an osmanthus tree, its orange flowers rich with the fragrance women often used for oiled perfume—her mother’s favourite. It took Fen several minutes, one-handed, to sew the hood together. It was tight when she pulled it back on. The whole time, she ignored her right stump. She didn’t even want to look at it. What if the vines decided to kill her?

  But her stump itched and without thinking, she lifted up her sleeve and scratched. The skin was rough as bark and the collection of vines still hung there. They grazed against her fingers, almost like a greeting, and she yanked her left hand back.

  When she’d attacked Kang, it was as if the vines had shot out of her arm and then retreated on their own. She would never forget the sensation of touching his face—grabbing his tongue!—with those tendrils.

  Whatever power had made them grow had also made her hair turn red. Fen wondered if severing her arm from the elbow down would cut the magic out of her. Her hair would turn back to black and she could go home.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she whispered, surprised by how raspy her voice was. “You’d bleed to death.”

  Well, I don’t have to cut off my whole arm. She took out her father’s knife and grabbed one of the longer vines. She used her foot to hold it to the ground so it was tight against a stone and sliced as close to her stump as possible.

  “Ahh!” Cutting into the vine hurt as if someone had stabbed her finger. A few drops of blood oozed out of the piece she’d lopped off. Her blood inside a vine! It made no sense. It was wrong.

  Wrong!

  She gritted her teeth, but when she went to slice another vine, it jerked out of the way. They were a part of her and yet they had a will of their own. A chill ran down her back, despite the sweat.

  She slid the knife into its sheath. It would take too long to cut the green growths off—instead she wrapped up her arm again. She needed to get leagues away from the village if she wanted to live past nightfall. Maybe there’d be a hermit in Helwood who could advise her on what to do with the vines. She stood and started hustling through the tall grass.

  Fen had grown up next to the Vilia River and it ran in her blood. So much of her time, when not working, was spent fishing for carp. Or catching eels. Often she’d take May with her and they’d whisper stories about cherry trees on the moon or water demons frolicking at the bottom of the lake. Thinking of May made Fen shiver with sadness. She might never see her again.