Page 108 of A Serpent in the Garden

I must have fallen asleep sketching the contours of Remy’s face in my mind. I woke to full gray light flooding the cottage.

“What time is it?” I asked when I spotted Blathilde creaking around in her kitchen, my voice as croaky as hers.

“Midday. I didn’t like to wake you. Seemed you needed the sleep.”

I lurched to my feet and snatched at Remy’s cloak, which Blathilde had hung from a peg by her front door. I’d wasted hours of daylight. Would I make it to Monde’s End by nightfall, even with the vial of Riquin’s blood to help me?

“You ought to eat before you take any more of that.” There was a furrow in her lone, long white eyebrow as she looked at the vial in my hand. “You don’t want to be sick again.”

I felt sick anyway, even after I’d eaten more eggs and bread.

What would happen to me when I made it back home, if I made it back home? I hadn’t the foggiest idea. If it looked bad for me, if it looked like the villagers would see me hanged, would I have enough speed left over from Riquin’s blood to see me back through the wood to Blathilde’s cottage?

“If the villagers don’t allow me to stay,” I said, hating the flush creeping up my cheeks, the vulnerability in my voice, “would you let me stay with you? I’d help in any way I could, with your chores, the gardening. I could even try to learn to hunt.”

Was that pity in her eye? She was grinding the heel of her hand against one of them, so I couldn’t be sure. “You don’t want to come back to me, girl. I wouldn’t wish that on you.”

“I would rather be with you than working in a brothel or camping on roadsides,” I said, stabbing moodily at an egg.

“It’s a lonely life.” One of her fingertips glided over a loose strand of hair to tuck it behind my ear. “I’m better built for it. You would be miserable.”

“I wouldn’t be lonely. I’d have you.”

“If you had no place else to go and no better options, I would take you,” she said. “But there’s a whole big world out there, and I wouldn’t like to see you shut it out in favor of this old place.”

She’d meant it as a warning, but I felt better already, knowing that I would have a place with her if it came down to it. And when I’d gotten down the warm breakfast, she pressed a waterskin into my hands and saw me off.

The plains felt endless last time I’d traveled them, but with Riquin’s blood pounding in my veins I made it through before I’d realized it, dodging the last few mounds of graves and slipping inside the next stretch of wood. Carnivorous flowers didn’t snap at my ankles; by the time they felt my presence I’d already buzzed past. Should anything see me, I’d be little more than a blur.

I ran until I stumbled into the patch of wood where the trees had faces and remembered I ought to eat another hunk of bread, drink some water, as Blathilde had cautioned me to do. Incubus blood, it’s strong stuff, she’d said, pressing the bread into my hands before I’d left her cottage. It works, but human bodies aren’t made to handle it. It’ll make you sick again if you don’t take care of yourself.

Remy had killed all those faeries not far off from where I stood now, I remembered as I chewed, watching the trees smiling all around me. He’d been an ass about it, had taken his sweet time, but he’d shown up for me when I needed him. I didn’t need him now, with Riquin’s blood quickening inside me, but I wanted him all the same. I would take anything, a snide comment, some lewd aside, even an angry curse. He wasn’t anywhere near flawless, but maybe the damage was part of my attraction. I’d never liked perfection, never wanted it. I’ve always been too worried about messing it up.

But he wasn’t there and I didn’t belong here, so I pressed forward through the wood and into the thickening trees. I kept my eyes peeled for signs of Serich, though none manifested.

What little light filtered through the branches had begun to dim by the time I drew close to the edge of the treeline. I was almost too afraid to leave the numbing, quiet incandescence of the wood, nearly as afraid as I was to stay. I didn’t know what would meet me in Monde’s End, whether Serich had made it intact. Whether he had had a chance to tell the villagers what happened, that John Dale had met a just end. How long had I been gone? Just over a week, a week and a half? It felt like a lifetime. I almost had the sense that I’d died, somehow.

So I stood there with a thrumming heart and let the darkness close up over my head. I would dart out once night had completely fallen, when everyone in the village had locked themselves away for the evening. Then I would tap on Livvy’s window and beg her to let me in. She would take the risk of opening her window after dark, I was reasonably certain. Even when she’d known of my affliction she hadn’t flinched away from me. Her first inclination had been to offer what help she could.

From between ghostly white branches, I found pops of glowing lanterns growing through the gathering darkness. The village watch making their rounds, rounding up the stragglers, ushering everyone back inside. Soon the lights would disappear entirely, plunging Monde’s End into black, and I could make my way to Livvy. She would be beside herself; she would throw her arms around me. I would suffocate in her rambunctious curls and bury my face into her shoulder and hold onto her for dear life.

Though it seemed something lurking behind me didn’t share my visions of the future. It had crept upon me as I leaned against a wizened tree, noiseless as the rest of the wood. A finger slid down the sleeve of Remy’s cloak, a hot breath in my ear. If I hadn’t been drunk on Riquin’s blood, my heart would have hammered.

“It isn’t wise to linger on our doorstep after dark,” it whispered.

My brain reacted before I’d given it any orders. I stepped back on the creature’s foot, sank my elbow into its gut, and loosened a blade from my hip as I turned. My borrowed steel slid through a belly as if it were soft cheese, and whatever it belonged to let out a hiss of pain.

I hadn’t realized the darkness hadn’t seemed to affect my vision until that moment. My mind had been somewhere else entirely, but I saw the demon quite clearly now, dragging himself back from my blade and sinking into a defensive crouch. He was filthy, matted, worn to a bone, thin as those mad humans from the gold wood.

“You looked human from behind.” He eyed me and the wicked Hell-forged blade I held warily, as if afraid I would pounce. “I didn’t know.” And he scuttled back into the wood.

I shoved the blade into the belt at my hips and left the wood before I could be approached by something else.

The lights were off in the lane running through the heart of Monde’s End, but here and there threads of light filtered through the gaps around cottage curtains. No fogs to shield me anymore, should someone take it into their head to peer through their window. Jessa had her brother back. Or did she? Was she visiting him in a Frost cell right now, or had her mother come to her with grave news of his demise? Should I move as fast as Riquin’s blood would allow to get to Livvy faster, or keep my pace slow and human, in case someone spotted me? I saw no fingers edging around curtains on the homes I passed, but I pulled my hood up just the same, my cloak streaming out behind me.

I slid into the alley behind the row of cottages and found I did not burn uncomfortably when I passed the church, despite the demon blood in my veins. Was Serich inside it right now, thanking God for his return to the village?

A candle guttered behind the blanket Livvy had tacked up in lieu of drapes. Its flame flickered and poured through the loose fibers of the ancient material. It was still early. She wouldn’t have plugged her ears yet.