I cannot hide my irritation. Idle words are all he knows. Blessed Scriptures from Ithrandril are nothing but a waste of time.
“What were the words you dealt?” I ask. “Just now, with Mayor Samuels?”
It is not the question I should be asking. In fact, I should ask no questions at all. Stay quiet, bide my time until I figure out what the hell I’m doing, lessen the chances of being tied to the chair tonight. My fingers curl at my sides.
His mouth twists, yet he offers an arm. “Let’s take a walk.”
I blink, try to swallow, but the muscles in my throat snag. I loop my arm through his and follow where he leads, the soft ground of the graveyard giving beneath my feet.
“Mayor Samuels has brought some…concerns to my attention.”
Of course he has.I grind the inside of my cheek between hardened teeth.
“The villagers are growing worried about all the deaths, about the girls still left in Rixton. Many folks are thinking of sending their daughters away—their wives, even—to places deeper in the countryside, even to Lysdin, perhaps. The Samuels were just discussing it before…before…well…” His voice trails off.
Nerves tie knots in my stomach. I lave my tongue across my lips, but they remain as dry as sand.
“I have decided to contact one such place. For you. A house of healing near the border of Idlewild. The mayor assures me it is the safest option.”
Dread prickles at the back of my neck, his words searing my skin like a brand.
A house of healing. I’ve heard of such places. Buildings made from iron and stone, filled with cells for those society no longer wants. Women who question their husbands and daughters who carry curses in their veins. Just another prison. Another place to be molded and formed to Ithrandril, when all that runs in my veins is shadow.
Dread curdles to anger in my stomach.
“Am I allowed no say in this?” The question cracks between my lips.
Father’s eyes harden. “Your sickness runs deep, child. Who is to say your mind can even make the right decisions anymore?”
I swallow another jolt of anger. “There is nothing wrong with my mind.”
“No?” It is not so much a question as it is a challenge. “Then tell me, where do you go when your sickness takes over? What do you do when everything around is devoured by shadow?” He reaches toward my cheek, then hesitates, as if a single touch might poison him.
His countenance shatters, and there is a flicker there of the man I used to know. The father who used to sing while he washed the dishes and lit candles in the windows of the vicarage every Yuletide. But then his face tightens, and he presses forward.
“The next coach arrives in Rixton within the week.”
My boots slip in the muddy grass. His sharpened words cut my throat.
“I wonder, Father, if you say any of this for my comfort or only to make yourself feel better for sending me away. These houses of healing, they’re mad. Filled with—”
His gaze snags on something beyond us, and then he grips my shoulder, fingernails digging into my flesh. “They think it’syou, Adelaide. That your gods-cursed blood has made you a monster.”
“I have done nothing!” Rain runs down my face, but I do not reach to wipe it away. It is a truth I already know, what the villagers believe me capable of simply because I am different. Sickly.
Father clenches his jaw. “Do you have something to confess, Adelaide? Otherwise, you have left me no other choice.”
“You haveeverychoice.” Saliva pools at the back of my tongue, sweet as nightshade. I blink hard against tears. “You could choose to love me, tokeepmesafe, believe that I am not this…thismonster, but you lock me in a room when my sickness—”
“Enough, child!” My father stretches tall, his fists clenched.
My eyes latch onto the pin of his cloak. In the hazy light, his eyes teem with hellfire, jaw so rigid every line, every bone, juts out like broken porcelain. I grit my teeth, and my pulse flutters in my throat.
“I am not a child.”
“You will harken to me!” Father’s voice is sharp as thorns, lips peeled back in a snarl. “You are a fool, Adelaide. A sickly fool. And you will do as I say. If you—” He takes a breath to steady himself. “If you ever loved your mother, you will listen and do as I say.”
His rage turns to shadows on his face, and I can barely draw a breath. He stands there a moment longer, erect, the anger steaming off him in waves. And then he sighs, a ragged thing, lifts his hat from his head to wipe at the sweaty, graying locks.
