Chapter 41
The innkeeper handed Marlow a key and said something August couldn’t hear.
He stayed back near the door with Felix, shifting his weight.
He needed to run. This town was crawling with Watch.
If he could get free, it would be easy to find one and have Felix arrested. He’d be executed on the spot, no doubt.
Good, August thought. He’d rather do it himself, of course, but a win was a win.
But what then? Go home and face his mother?
No, he couldn’t. This plague was as much her fault as it was Ashcroft’s.
The thought made him nauseous. He’d be happy if he never had to see her again.
And he certainly didn’t want to be the aesling again.
He’d never wanted the throne, but that was truer now than it had ever been.
August had gladly washed his hands of all of it. He wasn’t going back.
He’d avoid the Watch, then. Find somewhere here to hide. Haverglen seemed like a safe place. No lost, from what he could tell. But something about the town set him on edge. It reeked of secrets.
Marlow returned with the key, and Felix clapped a hand over the back of August’s neck through his hood, forcing him forward.
The stairs creaked under their weight, and when they made it to the top, Marlow opened the door to the room and motioned for him to go first.
It was small—too small to comfortably fit the two beds crammed inside—and the wallpaper was browning and peeling in spots. A ratty curtain covered the single window, and the stale air smelled of body odor and week-old food.
August scowled. “Absolutely not.”
Felix shoved him past the threshold and locked the door behind them.
“Sit,” he ordered as he crossed to the window, pushing the curtain aside to look out at the city below.
Marlow dropped onto the nearest bed, the wobbly frame protesting loudly beneath her.
“Why are we here?” August asked. He perched on a wooden chair at the edge of the room. Marlow might not have been worried about contracting bedbugs or fleas, but he certainly was. “I thought we were going to Fallowmoor.”
“Calling in a favor from an old friend.” Felix let the curtain fall as he turned to August. “But first, we need sleep. I’m wrecked.”
“And food?” August asked hopefully. The ache in his empty stomach was noticeable even through the rest of the pain.
Felix frowned, ready with some rude remark, no doubt, but it fell away. He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Actually, I could eat.” He plopped flat on the second bed, and August shivered, itchy with phantom insects. “Marlow, would you mind going downstairs and grabbing us some dinner?”
“Get it yourself.”
He pushed up to his elbows and quirked a brow. “And when the aesling tries to escape through the veil, you’ll stop him?”
She hesitated, then rolled off the bed. “You’re a right pain, d’ya know that?”
Felix grinned. “And you’re the best. Thanks a million, Mar.”
She grumbled something under her breath, then a moment later, she was gone, and he was alone with Felix.
“You’re clearly confident you can stop me if I try to escape,” August said. “So, can you get rid of this stupid rope?”
“I could, yeah. But I won’t.”
“Just for the night,” August pressed. “I can’t sleep like this.”
Felix stared back in unimpressed silence, then lay flat and closed his eyes.
August kept trying. He needed his hands free. Needed to run. “You don’t think it will raise suspicions, dragging me around with my hands bound?”
Felix said nothing.
August shifted in the chair, glare fixed on his profile. Gods, he was insufferable.
Movement across the room pulled his attention, and he let out a relieved breath.
Lottie. She’d come back.
He feared that one day, she’d get so mad that it would sever the connection. She’d move on, and he’d never see her again, and the thought was too painful to bear.
As she leaned forward to peek through the gap in the curtain, a ribbon of golden light shone through her, catching on the dust motes and pooling on the floor behind her, unobstructed.
He looked away as a chill settled over him. He hated the little reminders of what she was. Reminders that she wasn’t actually there.
“What is with this place?” she asked. If she were still angry, she didn’t let it show.
“I don’t know, but it gives me the creeps,” August answered without thinking, then clamped his mouth shut.
Felix rolled onto his side and propped his head on one hand, studying August, clearly puzzled by the unprompted remark. But it didn’t take long for him to figure it out.
“It’s terribly rude to exclude people from your conversations.”
Lottie went on, still watching the city through the window. “Everyone here is just going about their day. It’s nothing like Bedwyck. How is that possible?”
August gave a subtle shrug. Was it possible that the elixir only affected Bedwyck? Perhaps he’d get back to Fallowmoor and find it exactly as he left it.
But the woman in the market square. Felix’s noble friends. The elixir was prevalent in Fallowmoor even before they left. So why was this place unaffected?
“How are there no lost here?” he asked Felix.
“Ask your anchored friends,” was Felix’s dry response. He was quiet a moment before he asked, “How long have you been sick?”
August hadn’t expected that question. “Does it matter?”
Felix would kill him before the darkness did.
“It doesn’t, really. I’m just curious.”
August didn’t want to talk about this. Especially not with him. But Felix’s gaze was steady, familiar, and August found himself answering.
“Since that night. It’s slowly been getting worse.” He glanced down at his hands, his stomach twisting at the sight of the darkened veins now creeping toward his fingertips. It had never spread this quickly before. He hadn’t even used his power. “Well, it was slow. I don’t know what changed.”
He’d be lucky to make it another week at this rate.
“Maybe it’s the proximity,” Felix offered. “We’re close to Fallowmoor.”
“A little tear in the veil couldn’t cause all this.”
Felix swung his legs off the bed to sit up, pushing his light hair away from his face. “A little tear?” His brow tightened. “Do you really not remember what you did?”
August threw up his hands, but the rough rope bit into his wrists, making the movement awkward and agonizing. “I don’t know! I remember opening a doorway to escape from you.”
Felix’s face softened, his eyes fixed straight ahead. “It wasn’t a doorway, Aesling. It was a black tide. You destroyed blocks of the city.”
August let out a short bark of a laugh, the sound brittle. No. That wasn’t possible. He was lying.
“It’s still spreading, from what I’ve heard,” Felix continued. “Growing faster every day. Soon there won’t be any Fallowmoor left to save.”
“I don’t believe you,” said August.
Felix’s gentle expression shuttered. “I don’t need you to.”
He had to be lying. August wasn’t powerful. He couldn’t have done that. He couldn’t cause that kind of destruction. What Felix was describing . . . blocks of the city . . .
He searched Lottie’s face for confirmation, but her frown revealed her uncertainty. She was anchored to her dagger, and when he left Fallowmoor, he’d taken it with him. She didn’t know.
August curled forward, head resting heavily on his bound hands as he struggled to pull air into his lungs. The room was spinning.
Lying. Felix was lying.
“Breathe, Aesling. I need you alive.”
But it made sense. If the veil was wide open and spreading, it would explain his sickness. The symptoms mirrored the aftereffects of the Hollow Dark. And they were getting worse the closer they drew. If Felix was telling the truth, there was still a way to stop it.
Could the solution really be that simple?
Close the tear and live? Would the darkness in his veins simply fade?
Why not? It had the other times. He straightened, hope blooming in his chest. Maybe he didn’t have to die.
Maybe he could save himself. But unless he lost Felix and Marlow, it wouldn't matter. Felix would still kill him.
He glanced up at Lottie, who was watching him curiously. He’d get her dagger back while Felix slept, drive it through his heart, and run.
They all jumped as the door flew open.
“Get up,” Marlow snapped. “We’re going. Now!”
“What happened?” Felix asked as he hopped up from the bed. He winced and doubled over, his hand going to his knee.
Marlow pushed aside the curtain and threw open the window. “Ciaran knows we’re here.” She leaned out, looked down at the street below, and cursed. “It’s too high.”
“As in, here in the city, or . . . ” Felix left the question open.
Marlow cast him an anxious look. “No, as in, there are three men downstairs asking questions.”
“Think the innkeeper will say anything?”
“They’re offering caern. What’dya think?”
August’s gaze jumped to the door, then to Lottie, who vanished a second later.
“Alright, we’ll jump,” Felix said. “You can heal a broken leg or two.”
“I used most of my energy on him thanks to your temper. I can’t heal all three of us.”
When Lottie appeared again, her expression was pure panic. “They’re coming up. These aren’t the Watch, Auggie. You need to get out.”
The overwhelming urge to run pulsed through him, and the prickling sensation built in his fingertips. He hadn’t hidden out in the woods for nearly two years just to be hunted down in a ratty, flea-infested inn.
The air thickened and shimmered.
He thrust out his bound hands. “Cut me free. I can get us out.”
Of course, he had no intention of taking either of them with him. He’d have to be quick. Get through before they stopped him. Once he was gone, Ashcroft’s people could deal with Felix. One less problem for him to worry about.
Felix scoffed. “Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m—”
“Arunas above!” Marlow snapped. “Just do it, Felix.”
To his surprise, Felix listened.
The moment August’s hands were free, he slashed them through the air, tearing open the veil and moving to step through. Felix, unfortunately, had expected it. He seized August’s arm in a vice-like grip, holding him in place.
“I wasn’t going to leave you here.”
Felix gave him a crooked smile. “Ah, now, we both know that’s not true.” He motioned for Marlow to go first.
She stepped through. On her own.
They could cross without him. That would make escaping considerably more difficult.
“Our turn,” Felix said, then dragged August through after her.