Now this place was only lavender and old books and the particular herb blend Eda Mire used for her strange teas. A blanket still draped over the chair. Her notes still scattered across the workbench. Like she’d just stepped out and wouldreturn any moment to find us invading her secret space. She’d be so pissed, and I longed for that anger.
Except I’d never see it again. Because she was dead. And we were here because there was a chance my best friend had fucking killed her.
“Wait a minute. We got out,” I said quietly, the realization settling over me like cold water. “We actually got out of the city.”
Lucy looked up from where she was examining a shelf of preserved tinctures. “Welcome to the outside. Better make yourselves comfy because if we go back, we may never be able to leave again.”
She was right, but it didn’t bring me any hope knowing that part of our team was trapped on the other side of all those hunters. We’d escaped. By accident, by desperation, by the grace of a scrivener who’d hidden her true nature for Furies knew how long. But Calder couldn’t dream of getting that lucky. Wickett, maybe, but no one else.
“So we don’t go back,” Pip said, though her voice shook slightly.
Lucy had moved to Eda Mire’s desk, her sharp eyes cataloging everything with that particular intensity she was prone to. Hands running over the bottles of Nocturnal Essence and Thornberry Syrup. Dreameater Drops and Elfroot Paste. She opened a drawer and went very still.
I knew what she’d found before I crossed the room to look.
Life Runes. Dozens of them. All valuable enough that possessing that many could get you killed.
Only an assassin would keep so many. Trophies. Markers of contracts fulfilled. Evidence of kills. Even though I’d lied to her face about Eda Mire’s true nature before, if I doubled down, she’d never believe it now.
Lucy plucked one from the drawer, running her finger along the carved edge. Her voice went soft, almost fragile. “He was going to die anyway.”
I waited. Gave her space for whatever was building in her mind.
“My brother. Draven.” She stared at the rune like it held answers she’d been seeking for months. “This one is mine. Well, it was mine. Twin to the rune Draven wore. I gave it to Eda Mire as payment.”
I swallowed my gasp. “You hired her?”
Lucy’s thumb traced her rune’s pattern over and over. “He was struggling to shift. Had been for months. It started small, a delay here, a moment of weakness there. But it was getting worse. We both knew what it meant. What was coming.” She finally looked up, her eyes dry, but haunted. “His worst nightmare was dying on that field in front of everyone. Stuck mid-shift, screaming, unable to complete the change while thousands watched.”
Like what happened at the games.
“So you...” Pip’s voice was small, uncertain.
“So I hired Eda Mire, bought him dignity instead of horror.” Lucy set the rune down. “I requested it to be fast. Painless.”
“But it was murder,” Pip said.
“It was mercy,” I argued.
Lucy’s voice hardened. “And it was his choice. He asked me to arrange it. Begged me, actually. Near the end, when the fear got bad enough. My brother was the golden child. No matter how smart I was, how hard I trained, how many people I helped... to my parents, nothing mattered beyond him and his spotlight. He was their pride, their legacy.”
“So you escaped,” I said, understanding clicking into place.
“I had to. I knew I’d spend the rest of my life being compared to his memory, being invited to honor him by beingless... ambitious, less sharp, less everything that made me inconvenient. I thought claiming to search for his killer would give me freedom. A future of hunting a phantom while my parents left me alone.”
“But they didn’t,” I guessed.
“They signed a contract for me to join the Silverbolts in his place the same day they learned of his death. Before his body was even cold.” Her hands clenched. “Take his spot. Carry his legacy. Die on the same field he was terrified of.”
“That’s why you joined the Venatori,” Pip breathed, her wings dropping as she flew closer to Lucy.
“Yes. Because even with a death sentence hanging over me, at least I have agency.” Lucy finally looked at us fully. “I’d rather die hunting something real than spend my life performing grief for someone I mercy-killed.”
The silence stretched. Not uncomfortable. Just... heavy with understanding.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally. “For all of it. For your brother asking that of you. For the choice you had to make. For your parents. For?—”
“Don’t. I’m not. He got the death he wanted. I got my freedom, temporary as it is. That’s more than most people get.”
