A strained pause. And then:
“I did it,” he said. “All right? Are you happy? Here it is.”
What?I clutched at my chest, which felt no different, in a momentary panic.
I clawed open my bodice as far as I could and stared at the unblemished skin. There was no bruise, no rot, no spiderweb of inching veins. My breathing slowed as I realized he was talking about the heart he had harvested, and not mine.Idiot, I thought to myself.
I heard the chink of glass. He must have reached out to pass something to her, because I saw her lean forward in her seat and stretch out her hand. It was another jar, not as large as hers. The sorceress unscrewed her own, and tilted Sylvester’s down to pour from one to the other. The solid thing floating inside Sylvester’s jar hit the liquid in hers with a stomach-turningplop,and she screwed the lid back on.
“I’m glad you realized it was madness to keep her here intact,” she said.
“It’s nothers,” Sylvester corrected her.
“Then whose is it?” she asked sharply.
“Someone I ... met.”
“You harvested!” she exclaimed. “I’m proud of you, brother.”
I could see the jar again now. It winked in and out of my sight as she moved it in her hand, glowing faintly. There was something floating about in it, something solid but disintegrating, trailing threads of itself as it moved.
It was in some sort of oil, I thought, some golden and viscous substance. The sorceress’s mood seemed to have improved somewhat, however, and she smiled a little as she turned the jar over in her hands and peered through the glass.
“It’s not very big, is it?” she said.
“It’s big enough,” said Sylvester.
“Of course, it’s not big enough. You know the situation,” she said. “We need more, more, more. Much more, if we are to keep the peace in the kingdom, and restore the crops, and keep everyone plump and prosperous. I do not mean to nag you, brother,” and she winked, playfully, which was one of the most disturbing things I had ever seen, “but you understand that it is terribly important.”
“You’ve had enough of them without me for years,” said Sylvester sulkily. “You’ll live. And there are shelves full of them in the palace.”
Shelves full of them in the palace.Now that was something to report to the society. Getting into the palace had to be nigh impossible, but perhaps they knew of some more shady characters who could help, like their mysterious magical benefactor.
“There are not,” said the sorceress shortly. “Not any longer. The mold, fungus, whatever it is, has been spreading.”
A fungus? Like the one infecting the Snagged, perhaps.
“Whatever it is,” she continued, “it has killed more than half of them. We have a deficit to make up. We have had to renege on our agreements with the closer villages.”
“Renege?”
“This was in yourlessons, Sylvester. We agreed to leave them alone in exchange for the produce and meat that we needed.”
“Why can’t we just grow our own? I know, I know,” as she tried to interrupt, “I know that what we do is toxic. I know that the earth of the city is dead, and things do not grow here except by magic. That we,” and I heard the edge of self-contempt in his voice, “infectthis place. But if we stopped harvesting ...”
“We need hearts,” as always, the word jolted something in my chest, “to keep us safe. To feed us. To keep Darius on the throne. It affects everyone. It is very sweet of you to want to keep your housekeeper—”
“Foss.”
“—Foss, alive. But surely she would want her family to remain protected? Her village? They have not fared so badly, in recent years. For a long time, we have just picked the odd one here and there, plucked portions of hearts, only taken full ones when it was absolutely necessary. It is regrettable, of course, but now with this ... disease, we must harvest with a scythe if we are to build our stores back up. We will lose a few villages on the outskirts, but that iswhat they are for. In time, they will recover and rebuild, and they will be grateful that we kept them from a worse, more painful fate.”
“Grateful.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
Lose a few villages on the outskirts?I felt a rush of rage at how carelessly she spoke.
“Foss’s father lives in one of those villages,” said Sylvester, echoing my thoughts. “He is a butcher. Like mine,” he added with a huff of a laugh.
