The heavy thud of the front door closing echoed through the shop. The baker was gone.
“It might give me a way to plug the leaks,” I said. “If the manor is a filter, then Fenrik is clogged. And Kelda is ensuring nothing flows through him ever again.”
Before Briony could argue, the bell above the shop entrance screamed, a violent jangle of brass that made us all jump. I really should have taken the thing down some time. Of course Maren would do that to my door. She didn’t wave hello. She slammedthe door, threw the deadbolt, and then pressed her back against the wood as if holding back a horde of goblins.
“Don’t open that,” she said, chest heaving. “Unless you want to be pelted with rotten cabbages. Or worse, unsolicited advice from Mrs. Gable.”
“Maren?” Briony stepped forward. “What’s happened?”
Maren marched past the display of calming crystals. She dumped a lumpy, moving bundle of wool onto the examination table, right next to where I’d failed to save the hound.
“Kelda Morvain is what happened,” Maren spat, unwinding her scarf. “She’s been busy while you’ve been up at the cliffs playing nursemaid to the lord. I came from the market. Do you know what they’re saying over the turnips? That poor lord Fenrik was fine, recovering, even, until you arrived.”
My stomach dropped. “That’s absurd. He was dying.”
“Truth doesn’t matter when you wrap a lie in silk and serve it with sympathy,” Maren countered, her dark eyes flashing. “She’s telling everyone that your gift is the problem. That you aren’t quieting the magic; you’re strangling it. She claims your ‘unnatural’ silence is causing a pressure buildup in the ley-line.”
I leaned against the counter, the room spinning slightly. It was brilliant. Evil, but brilliant. It played into everyone’s fear of what I could do. “So the river rot...”
“Is your fault,” Maren finished grimly. “According to her, you’re not the cure, Lysa. You’re the infection. She says the manor is rejecting you, and the tremors are the earth trying to shake you off like a fever.”
“That explains the look the dockworkers gave me,” I wasn’t just the weird girl who quieted scared pets anymore, I was the reason their livelihoods were dissolving into sludge.
“It gets worse,” Maren said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s organized a petition. A ‘concerned citizens’ appeal to have the Council intervene and remove you from the clinic. For the ‘public safety.’”
Briony made a sound of outrage, but I just stared at the lumpy wool bundle Maren had placed on the table. It squirmed.
“She’s isolating me,” I realized. “If the town turns against me, I can’t stay here. And if I go back to the manor...”
“You’re trapped with her,” Maren confirmed. “But you’re not entirely without friends. I found this little one shivering behind my rain barrel. Seems he didn’t care for the rumors either.”
She peeled back the layers of wet wool.
Kirion blinked up at me. The wyrmling looked wretched, his midnight-blue scales were dull and shivering, and his oversized wings were tucked tight against his small body. But when he saw me, he let out a pathetic, high-pitched chirp and scrambled across the metal table, his claws clicking frantically until he reached me.
He scrambled right up my front, digging his claws into my apron, and buried his cold snout into the crook of my neck.
“He escaped the manor?” I asked, my hands coming up instinctively to cup his trembling body. He felt fever-hot and ice-cold all at once, the duality of the curse raging inside him.
“Or he was driven out,” Maren said, watching the creature cling to me. “He wouldn’t let anyone else near him. Nearly took a finger off the fishmonger when he tried to shoo him away. But the moment he saw me, or smelled you on me, I can’t say, he practically jumped into my arms.”
I stroked the silver markings along his spine, feeling the jagged rhythm of his heart against my own chest. He wasn’t wild with madness right now, he was just terrified.
“See?” Maren gestured to the wyrmling. “The town might believe Kelda’s lies, but the creatures know the truth. That lizard knows whose magic is keeping the lights on.”
“We need a map,” I said, the thought crystalizing amidst the chaos of exhaustion. Gods I could have slept right there for at least a week. “A real one. An old one.”
Maren blinked, her hand hovering over Kirion’s trembling flank. “A map? Now? Lysa, look at you. You look like you lost a fistfight.”
“If the manor is a filter,” I said, pacing the small length of the room, ignoring how the floor swayed, “then the ley-lines act like veins. I need to see where they flow and how they intersect. The Rainmint Bookshop will have the cadastral surveys from before the Collapse.” I grabbed a clean rag, pressing it firmly to my nose to stem the flow of blood. “We have to go. Now.”
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Maren argued, “until you drink something that isn’t your own blood.”
Before I could retort that I had plenty of blood to spare, a lie, a thunderous pounding rattled the bolted front door. It sounded awfully close to the thump of officialdom.
“Open up!” a muffled voice boomed. “By order of the Town Council!”
Maren rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might get stuck. “Oh, wonderful. The circus has arrived.”
