She nods. “And then there’s the flooding. I know not where you are headed, but the way south will be closed for quite some time.”
“Why?” Merc demands as he sits down on the bed again.
She almost catches her flinch, but it’s too quick for her self-control, the burst of fear escaping through her muscles, her fragile body jerking from head to toe under all her red felt.
In a gentler tone, Merc says, “Tell me more about the southern route? Please.”
The maid sits down on the floor, her skirt folding up in a regular series of creases, like a fan. As she links her fingers and sets her hands in her lap, she’s like a living doll, her porcelain skin contrasting with the fringe of dark hair that frames her heart-shaped face.
“There is only one way to pass through the peaks of the Rozars,” she replies. “And if you had come yesterday, you could have made it. With this rain, the flooding will force you to wait.”
“Mountains can be traveled, even in a downpour.”
Her head shakes. “The dragons protect their breeding grounds so one must stay close to the ground, but the flooding of the way through will make that impossible, especially as the Old Trail is blocked.”
“So there’s two ways, not one?”
“I’m sorry.” The maid shakes her head again, her hands twisting as if she’s afraid of upsetting either of us. “I shouldn’t have said—I mean, the Old Trail is quite impossible, no matter the season or the weather.”
“Why?”
“The Crystal Gate shall not allow anyone to pass—”
I put my hand up to stop the interrogation. “Thank you for the bread and drink. I feel much better.”
“Oh, mistress. Of this I’m glad.” The maid gets up to her feet, the red skirting uncreasing in a stair-like progression. “You have a proper meal due to you, which I would be pleased to bring—”
There’s a shout off in the distance and the girl wheels toward the exit. Like a bloom wilting, she deflates into her fear.
“If you will excuse me.” She bows to Merc and then to me. “I shall return with your meal as soon as it is ready.”
She doesn’t so much leave as dematerialize, a living ghost chased by a death that I would bet, if I were to ask her and she were to be honest, she well knows is coming for her—and soon.
“If I could get my hands on the man who’s beating her,” Merc mutters.
I refocus on the plate, which still has bites of bread on it. “You’d do what.”
“Kill him.”
“But that would be murder.”
He laughs in a short, cold way, and leaves that as his reply.
Putting another piece into my mouth, I can feel something unfamiliar building within me, and I try to push it aside because the emotion is so dark. But I’m tired of the cruelty in the world, and sometimes, though it’s just a fantasy, it feels good to imagine evening the scales.
“I’m going to go downstairs and get the lay of the land,” he says as he gets to his feet. “If you’re okay now.”
“Looking for your next job, already?”
In the silence that follows, I meet his eyes—and mean to. I also know that black and white gaze will haunt me after we part.
For what will feel like forever.
“Are you going to the south tomorrow?” I ask him.
“I’ll wait for you to pull the latch into place.” He opens the door. “Before I leave.”
For a moment, he glances over his shoulder. The yellow light from the lantern on the table finds every shadow in his features, from what’s beneath his frowning brows to the hollows under his cheeks and the cut of his jaw. The angles of him seem much more pronounced than when we left my village, proof of how much we have traveled and how little we have eaten.
