“I have a great deal to tell you. Do you feel well enough to hear it?” I asked. She nodded again and met my eyes.
I felt less worried then. I’d seen her so many times, watched her do so many things, but I’d never felt her gaze upon me, never felt the force of her being looking directly into mine. Her eyes were unflinching, filled with certainty, but also something else: a thing hard to name that was not quite compassion, not quite sincerity, and not quite fellow feeling, but something related to all of these. My mother would have called itcorazón, a strength and openness of heart. “Miss Quinn,” I said. “My name is Samuel May.”
“Are you…” she began. “Are you the one…?” She was struggling to speak.
“Yes,” I said, reaching out to take her hand.Yes. She squeezed my fingers, and her eyes, searching mine, lit with hope. “Yes, I’m the one who has dogged your steps these last few weeks. But I musttell you. You won’t find Rosetta’s spirit here. She’s already gone.”
Clem blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Someone else has already taken her back to the realm of the living as a thew.”
“You…” She frowned. “Why would you think that? What did you see?”
“I didn’t see it happen, but Iknowthat it has happened, because I know who brought about her death, and I know why they did it, and I know that the moment she passed into this realm someone came to collect her spirit.” She looked at me without speaking. “I’m sorry, Miss Quinn.”
For several seconds she stared down at the stones. She didn’t seem aggrieved by my news, only confused. No doubt the journey into the realm had taxed her so greatly that she couldn’t respond to something so shocking. For a moment I thought she might sink down onto the stones and close her eyes, but instead she looked up at me. “Tell me what you know,” she said.
It wasn’t elegantly told—I was worried by the drained look upon her face—but I told her everything I knew: about her efforts to free her mother, and the Cisneros Society, and my own unfortunate role in its work, and the methods relied upon to acquire spirit thews. I couldn’t tell which parts of it, if any, most astonished her. She simply sat through my recitation with a grim expression, and when I was through, she began with her questions. “Each time a woman has been stoned, the purpose has been to create a thew?”
“Yes.”
“Why are they marked with letters?”
“Initials. To designate the enchanter who will bind them.”
She took a breath. “The spirit who helped you—Corbin. Is he also helping now?”
I shook my head emphatically. “No. Like me, the spirits who once assisted the other ropers couldn’t bring themselves to continue with such a scheme.”
“But then how do they get thews? You’ve made clear that no Society member is courageous enough to come here himself.”
I nodded. “Yes. But the Society is practiced in coercion. They’ve found the way to extract the cooperation of spirits here in the realm who still have loved ones in the realm of the living.” I paused. “There are many here who would do anything to keep the people they love safe. It hasn’t yet come to me, but it will.”
Clementine looked at me gravely. “I see. So for you this isn’t merely about seeking retribution. It’s about protecting your mother and Cris.”
“Precisely. It’s only a matter of time.”
“What do you propose, then?”
I paused. Would she accept? I felt absurdly nervous. “You must take me back to the realm of the living. As your thew.”
She peered into my eyes, as if trying to detect the truth in them. “Are you sure you wish to be a thew?”
“I’m sure.”
“How can you be? You’ve never been one. You don’t know what it’s like.”
I put my hand on her arm. How could I explain to her that as a spirit, I had seen far more in just a few months than I had in almost two decades as a living person? Nothing was hidden from me. And I knewher. “Being your thew would not be the same as being a thew for the Cisneros Society.” I could not say at that moment what I also felt: that I would have done almost anything by then to stay by her side. The conviction had stolen up on me slowly, and now it could not be denied. I wished to be with Clem, wherever she might be.
“That is true,” she said quietly.
I seized on her agreement. “Once we’re back, Miss Quinn, we’ll find a way to stop them.”
“I don’t just want to stop them. I want to dismantle the entire Society.”
I smiled. “Very well.”
“And ensure that they never take another woman’s life.”
