But when they woke, it was to a world utterly changed.
“The god who gave you these forms? I think we call her the Weaver of Souls.” Carol tried to putweavinginto images.
The bird-woman blinked at her.Weaver. Gift-giver. Soul-tender.
A god who reincarnated into different bodies over hundreds of years must have many names.
“She’s dead,” Carol whispered. “And so long as the Soul-Eater is alive, she’ll stay that way. That’s why you need the Soul-Eater.”
Someone else had betrayed them, too. Carol strained to understand. They’d woken up—and then…
“But who told you all this? How did you know the Soul-Eater is the only one still around? Or—or who I was, and where to find me? Whose ship are we on?”
It was too many questions all at once. She caught the tip of her tongue between her front teeth, carefully, holding back her impatience. “Who—”
“Him.”
She didn’t notice a door had opened above until it shut. There was a gangway along the front of the top row of cells; a man walked along it, flanked by guards, until he was staring down at her through the floor.
“Ah,” he said. “Miss Zhang. It has been too long.”
Water swirled around her wrists and ankles. The ship swayed back and forth in its steady swell, but for Carol, the ocean opened in a pit beneath her.
“Mr. Fairchild?”
Adrian Fairchild. A man she hadn’t seen since she was a teenager. Since his daughter had invited her out on their yacht and pushed her overboard to see if she would shift, or die.
Eloise’s father.
“You b-brought me here,” she stuttered.
“Of course!” The lights had gone on when he entered; she could clearly see the fine lines on his face, the way his eyebrows rose in perfect amusement. “What luck, isn’t it, that our paths have crossed again. It’s beyond time I put right my what my daughter broke. Wouldn’t you agree?”
34
Moss
Someone was calling his name.
It hurt.
35
Carol
Adrian Fairchild’s guards unlocked the chain from the floor, pulled her upright, and half-led, half-dragged her to a cabin so luxurious it felt like she’d teleported to a different world from the one that contained a partially submerged metal cage.
To the Fairchilds, those worlds were one and the same. Their power, and the cruelty that power let them play with.
She still couldn’t believe it was him.
“Eloise—” she began, uncertainly, staring unseeing around the room.
“Isn’t here. Oh, no, not my girl, sharing a boat with her old dad.” She dragged her eyes back into focus in time to see him smile, a thin, loveless crease across his face. “She has her own little venture keeping her busy. This will be a lesson for her, too, if she isn’t careful. And you know my Elly, Miss Zhang. Careful and her are like water and oil.” He chuckled like he’d made a joke.
“Then… why am I here?”
“I told you, didn’t I? I’m doing my fatherly duty. Cleaning up her messes, starting with the worst.” He held out one hand ina gesture that took in her entire body, then nodded at a chair. “Make yourself at home.”
