Burning, poisoning, stabbing.
Unspeakable evil defending the keys.
So many ways to die, so little time.
Another servant arrives with a pair of boots that fit better than any I’ve ever owned and a pile of scarlet velvet that turns out to be a thick cloak, which should be useful to keep me warm on the journey. Somehow, though, it seems wrong to think of such a luxurious garment in practical terms. The scarlet is the bright red of a currant—my mother’s pet name for me.
The bright red of the Freeholders’ insignia.
The bright red of freshly drawn blood.
At least the stain on this fine cloak won’t be noticeable if I’m stabbed to death, corset or not.
I close my eyes to shove the bleak thoughts aside but can’t resist resting my cheek against the soft cloak, distracted by the luxurious feel. But then a wave of self-disgust swamps me. I’m enjoying new clothes, when Lil is dead and Trick is in the dungeon. I shove the cloak away, tasting shame like rusted metal in the back of my throat.
I’m being geared up to wear the false skin of someone brave, but Lil’s memory is in the room with me, a dark thing twining around and through me—a shade of the restless dead, a draugr digging into me with its clawlike fingernails.
You let me die, she cries out, her voice rasping through the shadows.You let me die, and now you play at make-believe.
I start to shove everything back into the valise, but I notice a small fabric pouch in the bottom. When I pull it out, I almost laugh—or maybe cry—with gratitude.
Because it’s mine.
My pouch. The one I painstakingly sewed several years ago. My wooden snow leopard is inside, along with the parchment scraps—words for my braid—I’ve collected. And a few pages I purloined from a cherished book about Captain Wynona Wavedancer, when the Sisters ordered the old copies burned to make room for a new set.
The only things I own that I would have missed.
I hold the pouch up to catch Elianna’s attention. “How? I left this at the library.”
She shrugs. “Kaelen said he’d arrange to gather your things.”
Kaelen did this for me?
I don’t know how to think about any of it, so I put it out of my mind and carefully thread the pouch onto the belt that came with the valise. I won’t take the chance of losing it again.
It occurs to me I’m only a ten-minute walk but also leagues and leagues away from my pallet in the library. I wonder how I’ll ever go back to that life when this is over.
Ifthis is ever over.
If I survive.
Elianna leans forward, clasping her hands together so tightly it must hurt. “Soli. There’s something I want—need—to tell you. Tell somebody, because it’s eating at me. It’s a huge secret, so please keep it in confidence.”
She waits in silence, and I shrug. Who would I tell? “Yes. I will.”
“If I came with you, I wouldn’t be much help.”
That doesn’t make any sense. She’s a Guild sorcerer, with the markings to prove her high level of mastery. She was assigned to a king.
“Why—”
But her eyes shutter, and I can see from her body language that she regrets telling me … whatever she told me.
“Nothing. Never mind. It’s moot, isn’t it?” She turns to bank the fire and doesn’t speak again as she readies herself for sleep. I change into the ankle-length sleeping gown that was in the valise, even while wondering at the odd assortment of things. Will we be staying at fine inns? Who would ever see my nightclothes?
But I say nothing. Elianna pulls out a trundle bed for me, and we both pretend to sleep for an hour or two while I fall further and further into spinning visions of all the horrible deaths that are waiting for me on the journey ahead.
By the time the temple bells strike midnight, the time of monsters—that dark, liminal space between the day just gone and the one to come—I have to hold a hand over my mouth to keep from begging Artemisen to protect me.
