“No one. Yet. Marshall Cutter found her.”
Marshall Cutter? He knew that name. Kendrick thought a moment, and the image of the vampire he’d met on the street when he’d been searching for Genevieve flashed before him.
“Found her doing what?”
“He can tell it better than I can. We have her in one of the audience rooms off the main chamber.” Joseph led him around the labyrinth of tunnels in the Ossuary before they emerged into the main room. At the side of what Rupert had considered a dais, an archway led to a slightly smaller utilitarian chamber. Joseph entered and stepped to the side.
Kendrick ducked beneath the archway and took in the scene. Several guards held a small, plain woman in chains on the floor. Her eyes were red, and she hissed at all assembled. Kendrick could see no reason behind her gaze.
Marshall Cutter, in the attire of a city clerk or office worker, barely took his eyes off the woman. He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Mr. Cutter?” Kendrick held out his hand. “I wish we were meeting again under better circumstances.”
“Aye, sir.” Cutter murmured.
“Tell me what happened,” Kendrick said.
His normally deep-brown complexion paled a few shades. “Sir, I would ask for clemency for her.”
“You know her?”
He hesitated and then nodded. “I know of her. Her name is Lily Pendleton. She was one of Julius’s vassals. I saw her once or twice after her maker…well, you know. She didn’t look well, but I thought it had to do with the change, fear from upheaval, that sort of thing. But tonight, I saw her on the street, and she didn’t know me.” He hurried to add, “We never spoke much—her maker didn’t like that—but she always would acknowledge me when she saw me, or when I passed her on the street. Tonight, she looked right past me. Not like she was ignoring me—like she didn’t see me at all. It worried me, so I followed her. I thought she was just going to feed, but—it wasn’t normal feeding. She fair fell on her victim, and if I hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve ripped that human girl’s throat out.”
“She lives, this girl?”
He nodded. “I knocked her out so I could bring Lily below—and that took some doing—but I sent one of the door guards to play human and raise a hue and cry that they found her. I didn’t want her to come to some harm from another human.”
“Good man,” Kendrick said.
“What is going to happen to Lily?” Marshall asked.
“That may depend on Miss Pendleton.” Current Ossuary policy was that any lost to the madness or those who had killed in a rampage were to be put to death, to safeguard vampiric existence. Lily hadn’t killed, but she still was lost to the madness and the bloodlust. Kendrick could guess what had happened. No one had taught her control or how to craft her own fetters for the urges. Her maker had been the one to control her, and now he was dead, and she was unmoored.
Come back out of the dark, lass, he thought.
“Call her,” he told Marshall.
“What?”
“You knew her. Speak to her. Use her name. See if she is too lost in her urges, or if there is a way back for her.”
Marshall swallowed and then stepped forward to where the woman was struggling against her silver fetters. “Lily,” Marshall said. “It’s Marshall. Lily, I’m sorry I didn’t see you were struggling. I didn’t think to—to reach out to you. But I am now. I’m right here, Lily. It’s not too late.”
He took another step forward, trying to catch the woman’s attention. “Can you look at me? This isn’t all you are. You’re a flower in spring, and that’s one of the best scents I can think of. Do you remember that scent? Easter Sunday, and the whole world smelling of lilies?”
Lily blinked red eyes, her frantic movements slowing.
Go on, Kendrick thought.Come back to us, lass.
Marshall kept speaking in a low, soothing voice. “I know you’re hurting. Those early days—I had forgotten how hard it seemed, to do any little thing. To be anything other than desire and a pit of despair. But we’re still people, Lily. You’re still you. Don’t give that up.”
She stilled. She was listening.
Marshall reached out to her. “Will you take my hand, Lily? If you can hear me, take my hand. If you do, I swear I won’t let go.”
His hand waited in space for an eternity.
Then a trembling hand slipped into his, and he clasped it tightly.
