As I struck sparks off the steel, my mind walked through plans for the handle and sheath. I hadn’t been lying when I told Penny I didn’t have much skill with carving or tooling, but I didn’t plan to hand over a piece that felt unfinished. I didn’t know him well enough yet to settle on any specifics, though based on what few things I’d watched him scribble in his sketchbook, I was leaning toward something botanical being to his taste.
I’d been working for at least an hour or two when the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and my skin prickled with the feeling of being watched. A dark shape moved in the edges of my vision, and without even having to look, I recognized the billowing black robes immediately.
Merrick didn’t bother to announce himself, and I didn’t acknowledge his arrival until I’d reached a point with the steel where I could pause without risking ruining what I’d already done.
“Come to watch me work?” I asked as I set down my hammer and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my glove.
“Simply wondering about your absent apprentice.”
I glanced over and, though he was leaning casually against the wall inside the doorway, his arms were folded tight over his chest and his shoulders were tense. He kept his distance from the heat of the coals, but I suspected it was more to do with his heavy robes already being too warm than out of fear.
“He’s spending time with that woman from the bakery. Rosie.”
He scoffed. “Shirking his duties for social calls. That sounds about right.”
I bristled at the assessment and leaned a hip against the stone edge of the hearth. “He completed the tasks I assigned him for the day. I see no reason to deny him the chance to spend time with friends if he’s not leaving things unfinished.”
“How benevolent of you. I suspect you’ll come to regret being so lax with his discipline before too long. He’s always had a knack for causing trouble. I can only imagine the damage he could do in a place like this.” He gestured to the shop with a smirk. “That boy should never be trusted around fire.”
I recalled the burnt-out barn back on the Oliver farm. It was easy enough to assume that it was connected to Penny and Sayla’s injuries, though I hadn’t thought about what might have caused the fire. I hadn’t wanted to ask. But after what I witnessed in the stairwell, I was starting to wonder. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out Merrick had hurt Penny, given his propensity for cruelty and the threat of violence that had underscored the entire exchange. For all I knew,Merrickhad been the one to start the fire.
“Are you sure it’s notyouI shouldn’t trust?” I asked.
His head tipped back as his face split into a grin, and he laughed until his cheeks turned red.
When he finally quieted and caught his breath, his smile faded into a sneer. “Speaking of Penwell, I’ve been trying to figure out how the two of you might have met. What with you having faded into obscurity and my half-brother not being bright enough to haveevercome up with the idea of following Eeus on his own, it’s a wonder the pair of you ended up here together. How did you talk him into it? Did he know you planned to use him and the farm to curry favor?”
If I didn’t know better, I might have mistaken him for a protective older brother instead of a power-hungry zealot. But his concern for Penny was a poorly crafted act that I saw for the veiled insult it was.
“He foundme.” It took every ounce of my self-control to keep my voice even. “Tracked me down through rumors. He’s more clever than you give him credit for.”
Merrick scoffed again and waved a hand. “I give him the credit he’s due. But you…” He eyed me up and down, his expression a clear indication of his disdain. “What exactly isyourangle here? You didn’t have what it took to be one of us thirteen years ago, and I doubt you’re any better now. Why subject yourself to this again?”
I met his gaze, unflinching in the face of his hatred. I had come to take down men like him, men like my father, who preyed on the weakness of others to build their own power. I was overdue to clean up a mess I’d played too big a role in helping to create, and no amount of threats or posturing would deter me.
“I’m here to correct my father’s legacy,” I said. “To support Levitt and be part of putting Ashpoint on a better path.”
Merrick’s lip curled. “Why correct something that isn’t broken? Vaughn had vision. He was a revolutionary. He did what needed to be done.”
I’d forgotten what it was like to hear people sing my father’s praises so openly. Outside of Ashpoint, his name was spoken in near-silent whispers as if saying it aloud would summon him as a specter of death and damnation. From what Levitt told me, even those who were there for the end of his reign knew better than to defend his actions.
He was a monster. Only another monster could revere him.
Merrick’s shoulders tipped back, and he looked downhis nose at me. “This place would have fallen to ruin after Vaughn’s death if not for me. Too many here have forgotten the old ways and forgone tradition, and it has only been to our detriment that we must follow someone who is weak and small minded.”
“Best not let anyone else hear you speaking treason,” I cut in. “There’s a reason Levitt is the Right Hand and not you.”
The same fury he’d turned on Penny in the stairwell flared in him now, and I knew I’d struck a nerve. All my efforts at keeping my own emotions in check to remain above reproach, as Levitt so aptly put it, were undone by my inability to hold my tongue.
Merrick was already my enemy, and there was no getting around that, but the last thing I needed was to make things worse.
“You’d best learn your place here, Kitingor,” he snarled, pushing up from his lean on the wall. “Because you are so far beneath me that it would be easy to crush you under my heel. All I need is a reason.”
At the rate I was going, it would be a wonder if I managed not to give him one.
26
Penny
