“Karston,” Simeon says quickly, shooting me a look of mild concern. “I don’t think she wants—”
“I saw one of your tattoos. Part of it, anyway. You’re a legend,” Karston says quietly, rubbing a hand along the stubble lightly covering his sharp jaw. “You were the reason I came to Grenwyr City, to the new school, even though my father disowned me for it.” He kneels before me like a warrior about to be honored by his leader. “You’re a hero to a lot of people around here.” He gestures to the temple walls, then flashes a triumphant grin. “Iknewyou’d come back. The others said you wouldn’t. But I never doubted.”
As he holds my gaze, I now understand why he sought out Valoria’s school—beyond his thought that I would be involved, apparently: His eyes aren’t blue, like I thought when I first saw him. They’re a rich violet color that only looks blue in certain lights, like when the sun peeks through gaps in the shade and washes them out.
“What does your Sight show you?” I ask, my curiosity warring with my discomfort over being called a hero.
“Gates to the Deadlands, like you,” he says with a touch of pride.
I exchange a glance with Simeon, who raises his brows. Everyone else I’ve met with an unusual eye color has a unique magical ability, a power other than one of Vaia’s five gifts, so there must be more to Karston’s skill.
“Thanks to Jax and me, Karston knows everything about being a necromancer that you can put on paper,” Simeon adds. “We trained him, because as far as we can tell, he’s one of us.”
“But with no dead to raise, what’s the point?” I sound just like Jax.
Simeon shrugs, his expression neutral. “Valoria seems to think our magic might still be needed someday. She doesn’t want to lose what we’ve learned about raising the dead the way King Wylding lost so much other knowledge.”
I glance back at Karston, who’s still kneeling. Sliding closer to Simeon, I make room on the bench, but Karston doesn’t rise.
“Get up,” I urge. “I’m nobody’s hero.”
Completely ignoring my words, he says in a rush, “Master Odessa, would you ever consider taking me on as your partner?” Running a hand over his close-shaven dark hair, he amends, “I know no one could ever replace Evander. I’m not half the swordsman he was. But now that you’re back, you might need to go to the Deadlands someday, and according to the rules... no one should ever go alone.”
I cross my arms. “No way. I don’t need a partner, andno oneneeds to go to the Deadlands anymore. We can stop potential Shade-baiters before they ever reach the spirit world. You can help us patrol the cemeteries around the city—without a partner.” I’m not sure why I feel a pang of guilt as Karston’s face falls, though he quickly hides it. “Besides, I’m...” My voice trails away as I think. What am I, now thatI don’t raise the dead? I go with the first thing that comes to mind. “A fighter. I have to keep Valoria safe as she tries to make peace with the rebelsandtrain up an army.”
“I understand,” Karston says solemnly, climbing to his feet at last. “But if you decide you need a hand with matters of death in the future, I hope you’ll consider me.” There’s something about the way he carries himself, a certain confidence that I like. Maybe even respect.
“I’m a terrible partner, anyway. I’m unreliable,” I add hastily, more to myself than Karston, ignoring Simeon’s muttered protest. “I’m selfish and short-tempered. I make bad decisions, because sometimes I think with my fists instead of my head, and—”
“Me too,” Karston cuts in, grinning sheepishly as he touches the swollen spot beneath his eye. “From what I’ve heard, we’ve got a lot in common.”
Just like when Nipper wagged her tail at me back at the dragon farm in Sarral, I can feel my resolve slipping faster than water through my fingers.
“How much do you know about raising the dead, anyway?” I press.
“Everything—at least, in theory,” Karston says firmly, echoing Simeon. “I know you have to anoint the dead person’s body with milk, then take one of their kin into the Deadlands with you in search of the spirit you want to return to our world. You call the spirits to you by spilling blood, and you keep your wits about you by eating honey.”
I frown. “Any child in Grenwyr City could tell me as much.”
He’s reminded me of an old rhyme, one the Sisters of Death taught me as I worked alongside them in their kitchen making sticky buns.Milk to wake them, blood to sate them. Honey to steady, sword at the ready.
Karston gives me a long, considering look. “I know it’s a good idea to always carry liquid fire with your blood and honey, too. Onewell-aimed vial could take down a hungry Shade just waiting to gobble up you, the spirit you came for, or both.”
I nod, resigning myself to the inevitable. He has knowledge but not experience. Of course, he can’t get that without traveling to the Deadlands... with a partner. And while there’s no need to go there now, I don’t know what the future holds. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I can’t count on anything forever.
“People who hang around me tend to get hurt,” I snap, but the bite I mean for the words to hold isn’t quite there. “Sometimes fatally.”
Karston nods, his brows drawn together in thought. “So I’ve heard.”
“And?” I prompt, though I already suspect what he’s going to say, because it’s just what I would.
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then, if you’re serious about this, I suppose we can try it out sometime, should the need arise...” Leaping up from the bench, I offer Karston my hand. As he takes it, I add, “But so we’re clear: You could never replace Evander, and it may be years—if ever—before I need to return to the Deadlands. Which means the most we’ll be doing for the foreseeable future is trading off patrol shifts a few times a day to keep Shade-baiters from doing anything stupid.”
Karston’s grip is warm and strong as we shake on it. “If there’s one thing I understand about the world after eighteen years,” he says, “it’s that I have to take whatever I can get, whenever I can get it.”
XII
