“Right, yeah.” He drew a pistol and held it out to her, but she scoffed at the offer.
As she headed inside, he holstered the gun and slumped against the side of the house, eyes locked on August. Birds chattered around them, and a cloud blotted out the low sun. Felix shivered against the chill.
August stared straight ahead, biting at his lip, his expression turbulent.
A crash came from inside the house, followed by a panicked curse.
Felix reacted instantly, pushing off the wall and nearly tumbling up the steps. When he shoved through the front door and found Marlow in the back of the house, he froze.
A corpse lay at her feet in a dark puddle of blood, jagged rib fragments scattered around it like macabre puzzle pieces. A blacksmith’s hammer lay abandoned a few steps away. The stench of the room hit him like a physical blow, and he instinctively threw a hand up over his nose.
He took a slow step toward the corpse, careful to avoid the blood, eyes settling on the woman’s empty chest cavity. She was a wielder. The creatures would have left the heart otherwise.
“How long has she been dead?”
“A day,” Marlow answered. “Maybe two.”
Which meant the creature could still be close by.
Had it been a neighbor? Someone she’d trusted? Had she let them inside? Or worse, had they lived with her?
Marlow’s gaze jumped abruptly to the front of the house. “Where’s the aesling?”
Felix responded with a curse.
We’re keeping you alive to close the tear.That was Felix’s explanation, but it didn’t make sense. Why go through the trouble of dragging him all the way to Fallowmoor for an open doorway? How bad could it really be?
August shifted uncomfortably. It was clearly bad enough to outweigh Felix’s temper. August was still alive—impressive, considering that if the roles were reversed and August had the same advantages, he would’ve killed Felix already. Still planned to. He had to sleep sometime.
“They’re both inside, Auggie. Let’s go!”
He straightened with a jolt as Lottie appeared from around the corner of the small house. He’d been lost in his thoughts and hadn’t noticed that Felix was gone.
“Go where?” The rolling farmland stretched out to the distant road, and the forest spread beyond that. It was too far. He’d never make it before they came back.
“Anywhere but here. Come on!”
August nodded. Revenge would have to wait. He wasn’t going back to Fallowmoor. He was done living his life on everyone else’s terms.
Lottie slipped back around the house, and after one last glance at the open doorway, he followed. When he stepped into the back garden, he stopped. Lottie was gone, and a figure stood halfway across the yard, scarecrow-thin, draped in filthy farm clothes. The man’s mouth moved, though August couldn’t make out what he was saying. Sunken eyes locked onto him, and the man’s head dipped forward.
An anchored?
No, he was too solid. Just a resident of the hamlet, then.
“I’m not with them,” August called. “They’re the ones stealing from you.”
No response.
He scanned the yard for Lottie as he tried to tug his hands free of the rope. Which way did she go?
“Do you have anything to cut me free?”
A wide grin slashed across the stranger’s face.
August took an uneasy step back. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out.”
Then he noticed the kitchen knife protruding from the man’s thigh.
