“In all fairness, itshouldbe lit on fire.”
“I don’t know.” He tips his head back against the stone. “It’s growing on me.”
A companionable silence settles between them. She shuts her eyes and listens to the rain.
“Asher?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good brother.”
The quiet that follows stretches to the point of unbearability. She opens her eyes and finds him watching her, an unreadable look on his face.
“I’m trying to be,” he says.
When he’s gone, Shea passes the time stacking loose chunks of asphalt into teetering cairns, feeling the hum of the rain in the pavement beneath her. Night steals in like a thief, turning the tunnel dark as pitch. At some point, she looks up and finds Lys standing there, his hands in his pockets.
He doesn’t say a word, and so neither does she. They switch places in silence, giving each other as wide a berth as they can manage. When she looks back at him, he’s seated in a jagged semi-circle of stone, quietly examining her handiwork.
Throat tight, she heads back into the RV. The air here is warmer, but only just. There’s a chill in her bones she can’t quite shake. She finds Poppy in the booth, studiously examing a jar. It takes Shea several heartbeats to comprehend what it is she’s seeing—the specimen container from Van Haut’s lab, a human fetus curled within.
“Ew.I thought I saw you nick that.”
“It looks like him,” says Poppy, balancing her chin on her fist. “Lysander. Don’t you think?”
“This fetus looks like Lys?”
“You know what I mean. Look at its eyes.”
She does. Its stare is black all the way through. It gives the fetus a vaguely cryptid appearance, like it’s some sort of changeling. Like if it had lived, it might have grown into something wild.
“None of the others have eyes like that,” says Poppy. “Like Lysander.”
“Except for this fetus.”
“Shea.”Poppy groans. “I’m being serious. Egor van Haut called him a marvel. There’s obviously something going on. I mean, he has horns. A-and claws. Don’t you think—”
There’s a sound outside, and she falls silent, watching the door. It stays shut.
“I keep thinking about what that guy was chanting,” says Poppy. “The one in the kitchen. Do you remember? He said something about the age of the beast.”
Shea had nearly forgotten. “That was weird.”
“It was more than weird. It sounded like he was praying to Lysander. Like he’s some sort of god.”
“Lys isn’t a god.”
“Iknow that,” says Poppy. “But he’s keeping things from us. And with everything that’s happened, I’m worried not knowing the truth might get us into trouble once we get to the Flatwood. I mean, Lysander has asked Asher to kill someone for him. That’s not exactly a small favor.”
“It isn’t a favor, it’s an exchange. Lys is looking for Ellie.”
“But he isn’t,” argues Poppy. “We’ve been on the road for days, and we’ve barely searched for her at all.”
An ice-cold guilt pools in Shea’s lungs. She thinks of Asher’s silence in the tunnel, the cryptic expression on his face. The way it looked a little bit like resignation.
Poppy sits back and rubs at her eyes. “This isn’t a search party. It’s an assassination mission, and no one has stopped to askwhyLysander wants the mark dead.”
“Paris Keeling has sent multiple people to try and kill me,” points out Shea.
