Wordless, he nodded.She could heal. I ran tests of my own.He cut himself multiple times, sometimes deeply. And Elianne had healed them all.I knew a bit about magic. Nothing I knew explained Elianne. But everything I knew made it clear that if her ability was known—if anyone powerful knew—she’d be taken from the streets and used as a healer until she died.
She hid her power. But—and this is my fault—she used it anyway. Because she could. Because it was something she couldgiveto the people around us, who had helped us. Sometimes by turning a blind eye when we stole from them. She always wanted to help. To be useful. To be a good child.The words were bitter.
But Ybelline understood.You loved that about her.
I loved that about her mother. But she was a child. I wanted her to be a child, for however long it lasted. I wanted her to be—
Welcoming. Warm.
—who she was. What she was. Desperate people are stupid, and they do stupid, mean things. But there’s more than just that in the world, even ours. I wanted her to have that. Tobethat.
And she was.
He nodded again. Her name was an echo, the three syllables coming and going, the weight of the name a mix of regret and yearning and bitterness, because hope was bitter when there was no possibility that something positive could be achieved.
Benito died, he finally said. But Ybelline could see that, could know that, as well. Benito, the son of one of the men who had allowed them to steal food when things were very bad and allowed them to buy it when things were better.He died—and his body had been covered in the same marks as Elianne’s.
Elianne was terrified. Jade was terrified. Steffi—he shook his head.It was bad. But she’d kept those marks hidden. No one knew she had them except us. No one could lay blame at her feet.
No one could lay blame at her feet, regardless,Ybelline said, forgetting, for a moment, to be silent.
You know what fear does. You know it better than most ofusdo.
She fell silent again; he was right.
Benito was only the first death. Tina died next. She was Elianne’s age; when Elianne’s mother was alive, we saw a lot of Tina. Not so much after. Tina wasn’t the last, either. But Tina’s body had been covered with marks, and her death—
Elianne was afraid. At first, she thought that the marks had come to other children in the fief; that she would meet the same horrible end. It wasn’t—she didn’t understand, then. I didn’t, either. I told her to stop anything that wasn’t normal. I was afraid that she’d be hunted, that she would be killed. We had no idea who the killers were.
But it wasn’t the fieflord. He started to investigate the deaths. He sent his thugs far and wide. From that, I suspected that those murders happened only in Nightshade. He didn’t care about us. There were no real laws.
Ybelline wanted to know what they were searching for.
Not sure. I didn’t talk to Nightshade’s people. No one who wanted to live—or at least walk or use their arms—did, unless approached, and even then it was dicey. But I heard them talking about rituals, ritualists.
He watched Elianne. When at home, he watched her marks. They had stopped growing, stopped spreading; they covered no visible parts of her skin—for which he was grateful. But his fear was strong enough that he remembered, and because he did, he was the first to notice when the marks began to change.
It was slow; the lines shifted slightly. One thinned. Some of the straight parts were slowly replaced by curves, curls. They darkened. He remembered that. They darkened.
He was not allowed to view the bodies. After the seventh corpse, he no longer tried. Each death caused a drift, a turn, in the marks that adorned Elianne. He didn’t tell her. He didn’t want to scare her. The deaths caused terror enough.
But he was certain, by the seventh death, that the deaths were connected to her. They occurred in one-quarter of the fief, and almost nowhere else; the dead were all children of roughly her age. They had been marked—those marks laid there by the people who had then proceeded to murder them slowly, as if the death itself were a sacrifice. No gods who demanded sacrifices were good news, and Severn knew of none—but there were alotof gods who received the muttered, desperate prayers of those who lived in Nightshade.
And the deaths kept happening. The presence of Nightshade’s thugs became a constant. The fear of the deaths eclipsed even the fear of Lord Nightshade. And the marks continued, death by death, to shift, to change. Elianne was herself—afraid, but unchanged by anything but the shadow of very sensible fear. But he was afraid that she wouldn’t remain that way.
He knew nothing.
He knew that he knew nothing. He hated himself for the ignorance that it was almost impossible to relieve. He didn’t read much, but even had he, there were no books to read; no experts—on this side of the Ablayne that separated fiefs from the rest of the city—with whom to confer. Even were there, they might demand to see Elianne, and if they did, they might keep her.
In the end, he chose to take the biggest risk he had ever taken in his life—and that life included facing Ferals. He sent a message to Castle Nightshade.
Ybelline could see the spire of that castle; could see the breadth of it, the shadow it cast across the whole of the fief, sunlight notwithstanding. She could see the cages—empty on the night Severn visited—that were meant to display the grisly remains of those who had displeased the fieflord. She could see the gates, and the Barrani who guarded them at all hours of any day. Only when the fieflord chose to venture into the streets of his fiefs did those guards vanish, and their absence was not a good sign for someone like Severn.
The message was verbal. The men to whom it was offered were mortal; mortal thugs, not the Barrani. Against men, Severn was large enough, old enough now, to stand a fighting chance. He had no intention of visiting Castle Nightshade in person; he had seen the use to which those cages were put, and he had no doubt that what was left of him after the fieflord took offense would fit them nicely.
A scuffle did ensue, and knives had been drawn, but no blood had been shed, and no Barrani had intervened to ruin Severn’s day. He offered information to Nightshade about the murders that were even now occurring in the fiefs. A possible lead.
He did not choose to meet Nightshade anywhere near their home—although it would take Nightshade no time to find it, should he choose to do so. But Severn was far more than uneasy now. He was certain that the murders were circling Elianne, terrified that if something wasn’t done, she would die.