“I don’t want to lose the others, either.”
“No. But Severn, you will. You will.” Blue-black eyes narrowed, but even so, they filled his vision. The distant howls of hunting Ferals were harmless in comparison. “Imagine,” the fieflord whispered. “Imagine their deaths. You did not see the corpses of the victims. I did. I have. The deaths were slow and painful; they mutilated the children while they lived. Slowly, and slowly, allowing them to inch toward death without achieving the peace of it for some time. I imagine, in the end, death was relief; it was their only escape.” And as he spoke, Severncouldimagine it. He could see it. He could hear it. The screams of the dying. The loss—ah, of eyes, of hearing; the loss of fingers, of toes. Of teeth.
“Imagine it,” Lord Nightshade said again. “That is what awaits them. I am not known for mercy, but it is mercy I offer. To you. To them.”
Severn closed his eyes, but that did not break the spell—if a spell had even been cast. When he opened them—and he did—the fieflord was no longer directly in front of him.
Lord Nightshade lifted a hand, and his guards once again fell back. “We will go. Do what you know you must, if you are capable of it.”
Severn did not wait. The Ferals were too close, and the rains plentiful enough that clinging to the interior walls of the well itself to avoid them wasn’t a safe option. Had it been day, he would have remained by the well for a few hours, mingling with the crowd. There was no way the fieflord intended to set him free.
There was no way Elianne would be safe from him. Not now.
Severn sprinted. He was vibrating with anxiety, aware of every movement—every rat, every cockroach, every wind-blown piece of garbage. He could track the progress of Ferals by their distant howls; they weren’t hunting yet. They might be, soon. Running when Ferals were close was very, very bad.
Home was fifteen minutes from the well at a brisk walk. Severn returned two hours later. He knew that losing possible tails wasn’t the end of it. What the fieflord wanted, he always eventually obtained—but only if they stayed in Nightshade. They couldn’t cross the Ablayne without being noticed. But they could cross the Nightshade borders, possibly escape that way.
Elianne was awake when he entered the rooms they shared. Jade was snoring; Steffi was sleeping. In sleep, Jade’s face matched her singing voice, and Steffi had always looked placid and pretty.
“Where were you?” she demanded.
He shrugged. He hadn’t prepared an excuse for his absence; should have thought of that before he left. As her brows drew together in Elianne’s version of a glare, he said, “Out.” When her hands fell, as they sometimes did, to her hips, he grinned. Tweaked her nose. “I wanted to inspect the borders. No, not that one. But Barren or Liatt.”
“Why?”
He shrugged again. “We might need to move.”
“We can’t cross the borders.”
“We can.”
“They’re not safe—”
“They’re not worse than Nightshade—and there are no people in the border zones.”
“How do youknowthis?”
“I told you—I inspected.”
“What if you—”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been in the border zones.” And this, at least, was true. She was angry, but worry ebbed as he spoke, and without worry to drive it, the anger would leave as well. “Look—sleep. You’re on water duty tomorrow. And food.”
“And you?”
He shrugged himself out of his coat. “I’m beat. I’m sleeping. You can stay awake frowning all night if you want, but water still has to be fetched.”
Elianne would die.
Elianne would die.
No, no, that’snotwhat the fieflord said. Jade would die. Steffi would die. The fieflord was hunting for the killers, but even the fieflord—who could find anyone in the fief if his anger was great enough—could not find the murderers in time. Severn did not believe he could do what the fieflord couldn’t. And even if he could, what of it? He could send word to the fieflord—if he survived his discovery.
And if these faceless, nameless enemies came now?
Severn would die. Steffi and Jade would—eventually—die. And what would become of Elianne, then? She had survived the loss of her mother because she’d had Severn. What would she have?
Marks, twisted and rewritten, across her body, and murderers as masters.