Chapter 27
THE POISONER
As I walked through to the market square, the buildings seemed much taller than usual.
They were misshapen, stretching high and distorted like a caricature.
It was like how you imagine a childhood home, or at least an attempt to remember it.
The more steps I took, the taller they became.
Or, perchance, it was I who was changing in size, becoming smaller and smaller until I could sit on a flake of frost.
No, a simple illusion, nothing more.
The wind howled as it whipped around the corners of the stone and brick buildings. An animalistic yet artificial sound as the buildings groaned, calling, begging me to not continue the path I had chosen.
A chittering rose around me, echoing and knocking against the walls of the alley.
As the small street opened up to the square, a gathering swelled with interest. One or two voyeurs added to the mass, a shuffling of dark figures. Like buzzards collecting a crowd. Their croaks and squawks congealed into one audible mass.
I passed one, then two, then many, the crowd becoming denser the further I traveled, the harder I tried to peer through the crowd at the spectacle. My body was squeezed between the others, unable to move any closer before I saw.
An erected wooden pole atop yule logs, old wagon wheels, anything they could find.
Tied to the pole was a woman. One whom I don’t think I could forget if I tried.
An image I remember from two years ago in that Den, resurfacing to me at such a time as these.
A tired, exhausted woman, black hair sticking to the sweat of her brow, and her chest pulled open, her ribs spread like wings for the crowd to see.
Her chest cavity bare, only trails of blood from what was taken, her heart discarded at her feet.
Used while she was useful for what she could provide.
I rubbed the spot on my shoulder, remembering two different pairs of teeth that pierced the spot, both memorable in their own ways.
The voices around me began to change. This was not the noise of chatter, of conversation—not even of outrage. This was squishing, ripping, and chewing.
“Look,” a voice said.
The woman’s blank eye straightened from its dead gaze, slowly sliding across the white of the eye to land on me. She mouthed something.
“What do you need?” My voice was ragged, shoving through the chewing noises, even making it past the mass of bodies, like something was trying to pull me away. “Tell me; I want to help!” Even when shouting to her, the volume was dampened.
I climbed the piles of rubbish; it cracked and snapped under my feet, splintering under the pressure.
“I want to help!” I shouted again, finally seeing her eye to eye.
“You want to help?” she mouthed.
A crackling sound snapped and hissed in my ear. Shaking as I begged, “Let me.”
“Help yourself.”
Her arms shot out, heat searing into my skin as she grabbed my face, yanking me close. Her pale eyes steadied on mine, her brow taut. Her hold on my face was motherly, painful, but out of love, of fear.
“Forevermore, even in death.”
The crackling was louder; it was right under my feet. I winced and tried to pull away, but her grip was tough like ragweed. Red burst from the corner of my eyes, the head no longer just under her fingertips, but the bottoms of my feet, my back, the air in my lungs.
“Wake up.”
My own voice split through my eardrum in a howl I would expect from a madwoman, or a cry marking a death. The fire around seared our flesh.
“Wake up!”
Fingertips squeezed my head and face on either side, shaking my head rapidly as if it would clear the fog.
Everything ached, from my head to my fingernails to the toes of my numb feet. When I opened my eyes, I was met by another pair. Fleeting vulnerability lit them, a haunted intensity that evaporated faster than eighty proof.
The pounding in my head was either coming from a raging headache or Luka’s grip on the sides of my head.
A drip of black slid down his cheek, three lines hatching over the old scar, exposing the demon that was just below the skin.
I lifted my trembling hand, black crust under my nails.
He didn’t say my name; he did not comfort me. The only thing grounding me was his grip, as if to scruff a feral animal.
“If you can’t keep your head on straight, someone may cut it off.” He jerked my head once he realized I was awake.
I stumbled back, looking around. I was in the square, maybe a block or two from the shop.
“Where is Silas?” I staggered back, my body desperate to create distance.
“He’s busy,” Luka said coolly, stepping toward me again.
“Stay away!” I swung my hand at him.
He caught my wrist. “You’ll break all on your own if you keep refusing help.”
“I do not need your help.”
“You can’t afford to be so picky much longer. Whether you deny my help or that from someone you believe to be more well-meaning—you will crumble all the same. You hide your wounds better than most.” It almost seemed like a compliment. “Your Nest may not even notice until it is too late.”
“It’s been late since before they were here. It’s always been too late for me.”
“Only if you let it.”
I spat in his face, and he threw me over his shoulder.
“Leave me!” I pounded my fists on his back, my voice cracking as the noise slapped against the bricks in the empty square. I screamed at him until my voice croaked, exhausted from being unheard.
Alcohol stung against my foot, a low hiss as the cotton ball touched the scratch.
“Bite your tongue,” John muttered. “You’re lucky it was only a few cuts.”
I squirmed in my seat at the kitchen table, directly next to John and a bag of home medical supplies courtesy of Edith.
He held my leg, inspecting the cuts and bruises from my nightly excursion.
While I had hoped it was just a dream, the evidence of Luka tucked under my fingernails told me it was very real.
“It was not luck,” I corrected. John raised a brow, and it made me slouch in defeat.
He checked my shoulder, then my hands. He pushed up my sleeve to reveal an irritated collection of marks in the pit of my elbow. John’s face lifted quickly, and I snapped my sleeve down.
“Are you not worried?” John squeezed my hand, not letting me take it away.
“No, why would I be?” I pushed his hand away and stood.
“Between sleepwalking and that Nest you angered, you don’t think they will plan to retaliate?”
“Not with them knowing a single cut will turn them into ash to feed my springtime garden,” I muttered, grabbing my coat from the back of the chair as I slipped away.
I told everyone to keep their rings on, but not because I was paranoid. I was just being cautious. In the living room, there were more girls gathered than usual. My presence made the group disperse when they caught me in the corner of their eyes.
Rebecca relaxed in her chair instead of fleeing, giving Adeline a reassuring squeeze before she fluttered off as well.
“Rough night?” Rebecca raised a brow, sipping the black coffee from her handmade mug.
“Something like that.” I pulled the blanket closer over my shoulders and sat on the couch across from her. My hair was still a bit damp from the night outing. I hadn’t even bothered to change into house clothes before falling asleep in the kitchen.
“What kept you up most of the night, then?” she asked. Her deep brown eyes were always so stoic, like she knew the answers before she asked questions.
“Too much to think about.” My breath slowed, heavy from exhaustion, like I was floating through the conversation.
“I guess that does come with being a Dam in your own right, even if you are only a human,” she laughed.
“Was there another reason for everyone gathering before? The dispersal wasn’t very subtle.”
Rebecca was in no rush to answer. She took a slow sip of her coffee, the rich aroma reaching my nose as she savored her morning brew.
“When we were dumping parts in the woods, we encountered a corrupted.”
My eyes widened. “Is everyone all right?”
“Of course.” She raised her hand in a calming gesture before reaching forward to place her cup on the table. “We took care of it, but it has some girls a bit worried. They were trading gossip, asking which way you might lean on Mr. Forbes’s proposal.”
My jaw tightened as my teeth ground together. My fingers aimlessly plucked the wool pilling on the blanket. “What did you tell them?”
“I answered honestly. I said you were not in favor of it. It did not calm them.”
My only reply was a nod. My thoughts raced, thinking of how I could possibly ease the crowd without giving in to a monster. It would be like making a deal with the devil, completely undermining our cause.
“There are only a few more days left,” Rebecca mentioned.
“I do not need a reminder.”
“I’m just speaking plainly.” She paused to choose her words carefully. “The needs of the few do not trump the needs of the many.”
“Are you and Phoebe going to lecture me this week?” I left my spot on the couch so I could get ready for the day ahead.
“Where are you going?” Rebecca stepped into my path.
“I need air.”
“We all need some air, but maybe you should wait.” She spoke lowly, throwing a glance at the girls. “For their own mental well-being, they need you here.”
“For their own physical well-being, I’m going for a walk. I have to think. Unless you want to do that for me. Unless you have a quick and easy solution to all our problems, Rebecca?” I looked down at her, cocking my head.
She pressed her lips together, looking away again.
“That’s what I thought,” I mumbled, pushing past her shoulder and out the front door.
They may be comfortable hiding, but they wouldn’t get far if they barricaded themselves like startled hens. Someone had to keep it business as usual, no matter the interruptions along the way.
There was something I had to do, and my window of opportunity was closing fast.
To solve my creature problem, I had to stop hesitating. There was no use stalling it any longer. It was time for him to go.