I remembered too many things, and I wished I could forget them all.
“Good morning,” said Brigid. “You look terrible.”
The littles stared at me with unabashed fascination. One of them whispered to the others behind her hand. This happened with all the new recruits. My reputation was the stuff of legend.
I tried my best to ignore them. The sight of their fresh littlefaces—so young, so unprepared for what awaited them—was like a kick to the gut. And how do you respond to a kick to the gut? You either kick back or you collapse.
“I need to fight someone,” I declared.
Brigid glanced down at her tiny charges. “Well, we’re a little busy at the moment. But I’ll be free at the hour.”
Panic lanced through me. “I can’t wait twenty minutes.”
Just then, Posey entered the stables, balancing two pails of water on her shoulders. When she saw me, she stopped short. Her luminous, green-tinged copper skin and the silver cascade of her hair was such an outrageous contrast to the drudgery of fetching water for horses that I almost laughed. It occurred to me that perhaps I was going mad.
“Is it true?” she asked, staring right at me.
Brigid peered past Posey at the stone yard beyond, where Nesset was striding toward the main house. “Ah, Nesset! Do you have a spare few minutes?”
The Vilia turned, instantly on her guard. I didn’t blame her. The forced cheer in Brigid’s voice spelled trouble.
I returned Posey’s stare. I was in no mood to pretend. “Is what true?”
“I heard about the mission to Sablemire.”
“Well done, you.”
Posey shrugged off her water pails. They hit the ground with a heavy thud, sloshing water everywhere. “They were just people. Just families. And you murdered them.”
“That’s enough, Posey,” said Brigid. Her voice sounded suddenly very far away.
“They were hostiles in a volatile territory,” I said, not taking my eyes off Posey’s. “Isolate and dispatch.”
I was a soldier. She didn’t frighten me. Nothing frightened me.You did well, Mara. I never doubted you.
“Volatile?” Posey scoffed, her silver fae eyes bright with tears. Herhand flew to her throat. She clutched her locket in one angry fist. “No one cares about Sablemire. Not even the greediest fae clans bother with it. There’s nothing there but rocks and goats. Those Oldens could have hidden there in peace, and clearly the villagers were letting them.”
“There is no room for uncertainty in times of war,” I said, realizing only after I’d said the words that they were the Warden’s, not mine.
Posey shook her head slowly. “Will I be next, then? What if the Warden wakes up one day and decides I am toouncertain, too volatile? That my usefulness no longer outweighs the fact of my Olden heritage? If she orders you to isolate and dispatchme, will you do it? Or what about Nesset? She’s a revenant, created by necromancers. That sounds quite Olden to me.”
Nesset, whom Brigid had wrangled into the stables with no small effort, suddenly squared her shoulders. “I’d like to see anyone try and dispatch me.”
“Thank yousomuch, Nesset,” said Brigid, pressing a curry comb into her chest with one hand and ushering the three littles toward her with the other. “My helpers here are almost finished. Only Gray Gus remains. Don’t forget that he can’t hear very well out of his right ear, so mind that you don’t sneak up on him.”
Posey hadn’t moved from where she stood. The puddles of spilled water spread slowly toward her toes. “You’re not who I thought you were,” she said quietly. “And neither is the Order. I thought your goal was peace, not extermination. I’m leaving.”
“You can’t,” I said at once. “You know too much about Order operations. If you leave, we’ll find you.”
“And kill me.”
“Yes.”None of us can leave, I thought.Not you, not me. We’ll die in this place. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe today.
Posey watched me for a moment, perhaps ready to say more, but then she glanced at the littles and stormed out instead.
Brigid took my arm and led me outside in the opposite direction. “Mara? Shall we?”
“As long as you stop using that voice, yes.”
