An officer looked up, meeting Felix’s intense stare. He pointed, saying something to another, and a moment later, they were storming in his direction.
“We need to leave.”
Marlow glanced at the officers and muttered a quiet curse.
Felix cast one last look at his city, the vast darkness of the torn veil looming over its centre. Then they did the only thing they could. They ran.
The screams had become a common occurrence, reverberating down the narrow streets of Bedwyck. The horror of it all had faded to a dull numbness, though Felix wasn’t sure when the change had happened. When he’d become indifferent to all the death.
He pushed forward down the dark street, ignoring a cry for help, unfazed by the sudden snap of bones as the pleas fell silent. It probably wasn’t a wielder, anyway. The ones left were smart enough to stay hidden. He actually hadn’t seen another wielder in weeks.
When he and Marlow first arrived in Bedwyck, they’d found a room to rent in a run-down tenement in the Blackreach District. Soon after, their faces were plastered on wanted signs across the city. It wasn’t surprising after everything that had happened back home.
Those first months were a blur, and when Felix thought back to them, all he could recall was the grief and the low burning anger. August’s face was always there, at the back of his mind. The constant kindling that kept it smoldering.
When the elixir made it to Bedwyck, tearing through its population, Felix dragged himself out of his dark pit of despair and chose instead to act. He tracked down Ashcroft’s businesses, one by one. Destroyed every elixir he could find. It gave him somewhere to focus his anger until he found the aesling. Took his mind off the fact that they were stuck in this place. He hated hiding, and he hated this damned city even more.
But he knew it wouldn’t stop the elixir’s plague from spreading. As long as Ashcroft was still out there pulling the strings, and the crown was throwing money in his direction, there would always be more.
Felix glanced up at the streetlamp, its amber glow barely piercing the thick, damp fog. They’d stopped glowing pink weeks ago, with no wielders willing to risk their lives for that job. He, of course, understood, but he still missed the pink. It felt like yet another loss. A sign of something ending.
Marlow had taken a job as a healer at a small clinic, but it had shut the doors last month. Every business in Bedwyck seemed to be closing. The silver lining was that their landlord stopped coming by to collect the rent.
People were fleeing to safer places, and Felix had to admit he was envious. Nine months was far too long to be away from his city. But there was an anonymity in Bedwyck that he wouldn’t find elsewhere.
As he passed a wall lined with posters, he tore down one bearing his face without slowing his steps. He didn’t need to look to know what it said. He not only had it memorized, he had one hanging proudly in their flat.
Felix Connolly. Dangerous wielder insurrectionist, wanted for the murders of Heir Aesling Augustus Ellingwood and Second Aesling Charlotte Ellingwood, for high treason, and for the use of prohibited magic. A reward of 100,000 caern will begranted to any person who delivers this villain to the hands of justice, dead or alive.
He quite liked the “villain” bit. Even if it was a bit dramatic. And most of it was the truth, or at least close to it. He hadn’t directly killed Lottie, but his actions had caused her death. Treason was fair. Dangerous? Obviously. The only glaring inaccuracy was that, despite his best efforts, he was unequivocally sure the heir aesling wasn’t actually dead.
He’d seen what the Hollow Dark had done, the way it healed the gash in August’s hand in a matter of seconds. It would’ve done the same with a gunshot wound.
August was alive.
Marlow didn’t believe him. Said he was off his rocker. But Felix knew what he’d seen. He knew he was right.
He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his frock coat, his finger tracing the frigid metal of the strange locket he’d taken that night. The thought of August still out there somewhere was vexing. But Felix would resolve that, if he could only figure out where he was hiding. He clearly hadn’t gone back to his mother. The aesran still thought he was dead.
Fog hid the river below as Felix crossed Greyrock Bridge, but the gurgling of the water was loud in the silence. He continued down the narrow street, unable to see more than half a block in any direction.
The Greyrock District was compact, made up of towering, run-down tenements and illegal businesses. It was dangerous even before the elixir made it here. And it was where most of Ashcroft’s businesses were located.
Now he had a lead on another. It was good timing. He desperately needed a distraction tonight. He had to get the aesling out of his head. Needed to stop obsessing about the fact that August turned seventeen today when he was supposed to be dead.
Felix wrapped the locket in a fist, the unnatural cold burning his skin.
Another scream shattered the silence, this one uncomfortably close. He spun around, scanning the small patch of street he could see before the fog swallowed it up.
Nothing.
When he turned again, a beefy man blocked his path, a mask covering everything but his shadow of a beard and thin, cracked lips.
Before Felix could react, the man clamped a hand on his shoulder and buried a dagger deep in his stomach. He gasped, instinctively calling on his magic, but the pain spread sparks across his vision. He couldn’t focus.
The grip tightened as Felix struggled to pull away. The dagger twisted. A groan tore from his throat, and the world tilted violently.
“Ashcroft sends his regards,” the man said, stale tobacco smoke on his breath.
