Lux’s teeth clacked together.Don’t say a word!her head demanded, and so she tried again to free herself instead. Her cloak only ripped further. The tearing drew the attention of the woman, whose hard eyes ground against Lux’s.
“Best lash the girl up,” she said.
“No,” growled Lux.
The woman’s gaze dropped to the knife. “Then give us the coin.”
“Absolutely not. I’ll starve.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll get a job. Or married.”
“Or you could do either of those things yourself and leave me be. I earned what I have; I didn’t steal it like a coward.”
The remaining sets of eyes focused on her.
“I’m married already,” said the woman, in the same tone Lux had once heard someone mention their rotted tooth. “And this is my job.”
Lux hacked a horrible laugh. “Thisis a crime.”
“What doyoudo then?” said the youngest of them.
Lux’s glance slid to the body slumped on the bridge.If her only options were to be tied and stolen from or threatened then stolen from—
Don’t even think of it.
Too late.
“I bring back the dead.”
Sven’s mouth fell wide, his nose and eyes running yet. “What’d you say?”
“Sure you do,” snorted the youngest bandit, his mouth twisted arrogantly beneath his crooked nose. “How convenient for you to suddenly possess some rare brilliance right as we’re about to rob you.”
“Believe me or don’t. But I’ve the book I use to perform the enchantment, and nearly all the ingredients. Though Loxlen is alarmingly short of marsh snapper eyes.”
“What the devil is a marsh snapper?” asked the crooked-nosed bandit, his attention traveling to his companions. “Any of you heard of that?”
“Me,” said Sven, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “Big-beaked turtles.”
“Me,” said the woman. Her voice was quiet but stern, and when she leveled her gaze at Lux, it was the same. “Say you canrevive the dead, girl. That’d be a mighty sought after service. What were you doing out by Ravenwood all alone?”
Lux surveyed the bedraggled trio, the dead man at their feet. Their worn boots were each coated with forest debris, bits of mushroom clinging to the toes, their shirts faded and stained. The woman’s skirt had a tear down one side, crudely sewn.
“Why do you care to know?”
The woman’s stare sharpened. “Because it’s helpful in assessing threats: a skill we need to survive.”
“Will you get this damned arrow out without tearing it all the way through if I tell you?”
The bandit inclined her head.
“I’m making my way to the coast.”
Lux didn’t add further details. There was no possible way the bandit could think she would. That she would reveal how she’d spent her entire life in a miserable city, that she’d lost the only family she’d had and then lost the one she’d thought had returned. That she’d always wished to see the natural wonders of the world but had never allowed herself the dream.
That she’d gone from one quaint village and bustling city to the next, keeping her eyes sharp in search of bottled silver or whispers of ageless beings.
The bandits couldn’t think she’d share all of that.
