As I fall into silence, Merc stretches his arms over his head, his powerful body arching like a bow. Then he goes to his pack, and I know what he’s taking out of it. He tucks the oddly bladed weapon up his sleeve and pulls things back into place.
Opening our door, he glances over at me. “I don’t know how long I’ll be—”
The sound of men laughing and women cooing draws both our attention. Down the hall at the head of the stairs, there are charges coming and going out of the working women’s rooms, a nonstop carousel of arousal and satisfactionthe velocity of which suggests Merc’s very right about the crowd down below. They’re drunk and very distracted.
“Lock up,” he orders in a grim voice.
Things close behind him, and I go to the latch. After I bolt myself in, I turn my hands over and expect to see red upon my palms. That they’re flesh-colored is a surprise. Meanwhile, all that vengeance I was alight with earlier has faded, and so too the moral qualms. The clarity I have in the aftermath is a cold, empty logic.
The maid’s death. The cook’s death. One of the two I must live with, and I know which is the easier of the curses.
And that’s my decision.
As for Merc? Well, he’s a professional, isn’t he.
As the din of the crowd rides another swell in volume, I go restlessly into the water closet and run the sink. Bending down, I part my lips to drink—
There is sand on my tongue. Actual sand.
My fingers tremble as I bring them to my mouth to clear the particles, and I go to the slice of light that penetrates in from the bedroom lantern.
Black grains of sand.
Rushing back to the sink, I try to rinse them out of me with great swooshes of water, but no matter how many times I draw from my cupped hands and spit things into the drain, the sand refuses to clear.
Convinced I’m going mad, I prowl around the bedroom, and my pacing takes me over to the window seat. What I find there is the only thing that could distract me: Merc’s left his journal open, and in the light of the lantern, the graceful strokes of lead pull free of the pale paper and form something with depth and breadth, as if the page is a window and I’m looking out at an actual landscape.
It’s a gate, between a pair of stone pylons, and the wrought iron is curved into a beautiful design of hearts and flowers.
I run my fingertips over the drawing, marveling that someone with such brute strength could have such a delicate hand with a pencil.
I shouldn’t go through his other drawings, but I do, starting all the way back at the first page. It’s landscapes, one after the other starting with a mountain range. Then it’s a verdant valley. And another set of mountains, but this time from the perspective of a trail. A lake. A road. A village center. A meadow… and then, finally, the gates.
Frowning at the design of the barrier, I want to know what’s on the other side, as if it’s real and I’m standing before the thing. But from what I can see between the curls and strokes of lead, there only appears to be just more meadow.
I go back to the beginning again, and as I make a second pass through… I realize it’s a journey. Not ours, but perhaps one he took once.
Or maybe it’s the way back to his home.
I return the journal to where it was, and think about how he’s going to move on. And then I consider the maid’s future. Even if he saves her from the cook, what awaits her next in this harsh place? How much help can I be to her—when I have to keep my own self alive? There are so many dark alleys, dark corners, dark nights here at the Outpost.
And that’s assuming the demons don’t come—
In the hall, I hear arguing, and I go to the door. Slipping the bolt free, I crack the panel and peer out. Down at the stairs, two men are shoving at each other, their bodies banging off the corridor walls. A third one sneaks around the rumble, and slips into the room of one of the women with a sly smile, as if he intends to take what they’re fighting over.
I focus on the face of the working woman who welcomes the interloper into her bedroom. She’s not afraid of the fighting—or the men. And I think of the pair who were singing as they sat together earlier. And the others I have seen.
The one who Merc—
I shake that vision right out of my head.
For all the drinking and the violence, for all the rough and the tumble, the women here have not been bruised or handled roughly that I’ve seen. More than that, they’ve never shown any fear, or flinching, which means what little I’ve witnessed is in fact the way of things: They’re protected in this establishment.
That’s why they’re unafraid—and untouched except for when they choose to do what they do for the coins they keep.
And with a sudden clarity, I know who watches over them.
Fifty-FourAn Offer Made.
