Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Lux had slept fitfully. While tiredness eventually came upon her, it was thoughts of Ghadra that kept her awake.
Specifically, those whom she’d left behind inside of it.
In the end, she’d dreamt of Riselda. Or rather, the tree into which the woman had been swallowed.
She dreamt of the last time she stood before it. The day she’d left.
“You were right. I can revive more than the dead.” Her eyes tracked up the massive trunk until she reached the silver-veined leaves. “How did you know? I wish you would have told me everything.”
Outside the inn, Lux yawned and Corvin dipped his head toward her.
“Did you not sleep well?”
“No,” said Lux, prodding at the purple splotches beneath her eyes. “Too many thoughts, and most of them contradictory.”
The collector hummed his understanding. “I remember that feeling.”
“How did you fix it?”
“By finally realizing my place in this world.” He grinned at her. “It took a while.”
Lux pulled her gaze away. She breathed deeply the scents of wet, growing things as she stared at the forest town.
Realize her place in the world? Where did someone even begin?
In Ghadra, every day felt like wading through a slog of marsh mud.
Each one had been the same as the terrible day before; she’d been stuck fast. Now, here in the expansive world, she felt unmoored.
How could anyone make the correct choice when there were so many choices to be had?
As if summoned by her thoughts, a black carriage rolled to a stop before them.
Identical twin lanterns hung lit from either side, and the driver in front was dressed all in rich black, a wide-brimmed hat low over his brow.
Being in the business of preserving old things must be lucrative, she decided, crossing her stained, yellow sleeves.
The one problem with colored silk, she supposed. It did not travel well.
When the second carriage ambled up behind it, Lux tucked her face away from its driver. She couldn’t have her plans ruined now if he were to recognize her from Loxlen. Silas seemed a suspicious sort; he’d likely make sure she was entombed next.
This is the correct decision. It must be. And if it wasn’t, well…she would be no worse off than now. Maybe she would still be better, because traveling to Mothlock meant traveling to the sea.
Corvin stepped forward and lifted the latch. He pulled the door open and gestured. “After you.”
This time, she acquiesced and climbed in.
Only, the collector hadn’t but placed one boot on the stair when a shouted, “Wait!” stilled his next step.
“Wait! Where do you think you’re going?”
Lux leaned forward on the luxurious seat, her gaze riveted on the slivered space between Corvin and the door. On a frazzled Sven, hair a vast array of direction, barreling toward them.
“Please. Miss. Saints above, I never got your name. Where are you—”
“Sven!” Magda stood now at the inn’s entrance, her stare severe. “Viktar needs you.”
“But she’s going with—”
“He needs you.”
Sven shifted backward, his expression torn. Corvin climbed in, and Lux said, “Take care,” and nothing more, because neither did she truly know them nor wish to see them again.
But Sven’s worried frown only deepened. “Please don’t stay,” he replied, entirely too solemn, before Corvin shut him out.
Lux parted the curtain as they lurched forward, giving her enough time to watch Sven arguing with Magda on the porch, his brown cheeks coloring a deep red. Good riddance, she thought, easing back.
“Friends of yours?”
Lux breathed a humorless laugh as she turned her attention to the man opposite her.
While his gloves were in place and his coat buttoned, he went without a hat or hood.
Away from the autumn air, it was a comfortable temperature in the carriage, and Lux lowered her own.
His head tilted, studying her as if she were a portrait, which prompted her to raise her eyebrow and say, “They tried to rob me in Ravenwood. The oldest of them died of a bad heart, and when I revived him in exchange for my freedom, I received my being outed as a necromancer in a suspicious town in return. So no, not friends of mine.”
“Death to the Devil,” snorted Corvin, and his eyes appeared to lose some of their iciness. “Did you come from Loxlen? Someone should have warned you Ravenwood is filled with bandits. They’re a lawless bunch preying on anyone they can, but our carriages are usually left alone.”
“I did, and no one said anything of it.” She scowled as her heart niggled at her to be fair. “I suppose I hardly spoke with anyone either.”
His stare deepened, his gaze assessing. “It must be difficult to connect with the living when what calls to you most often is death.”
Lux sucked a breath. When her throat constricted next, she tried to swallow but failed.
She didn’t know what she should say. If she even wanted to acknowledge it at all.
How could he say such a thing to her?
She despised how he’d managed to verbalize her insecurity so simply; in fact, she could say she hated it.
She’d become so good at masking herself, she wondered at what point she’d let it slide from her face.
Or had it been plucked from her—weeks ago—by a boy in an alcove in a mansion far away? He was a thief, after all.
What she did know was if this collector kept staring like that, as if he could see beyond any shred of armor still intact from Ghadra, she would leap from this carriage, damning herself to bandits and whatever else.
Lux dragged her gaze away. “I’m trying,” she managed.
“All we can ever do, correct? At any rate, you should be safe from further bandits or anything else while you’re with me. Mothlock is well-known and widely respected for its work. We’re not bothered.”
“You must have collected a grudge from someone if your investors are being poisoned.”
Corvin’s nose wrinkled. “Right. That. That is new.”
“Maybe your Mistress Lefroy will eventually remember who murdered her.”
“She doesn’t; I’d hoped for that too. But the victims have each had a mark.” He lifted his finger to just below his ear. “A bloodied one. She remembers the prick and nothing else.”
“I didn’t even notice.”
“It was small, so I’m not surprised.”
Lux took a turn then in studying him as he had her. His eyes remained focused on her all the while she did. As if he wished to hide nothing from her. As if he’d never known masking. It was…unnerving.
“You aren’t worried,” she decided.
Corvin blinked at her, slow and deliberate. “It will be handled.”
Lux bit her tongue to say nothing else. It slipped free anyway. “By that Lord Silas?”
She expected him to glare at her for her sarcasm. She did not expect a grin to spread across his face. “You take issue with our titles.”
“No issue,” she lied. “Only think it’s odd.” And pompous.
She couldn’t deny her knowledge of Malgorm’s running was vague at best while sequestered within Ghadra.
She could have sought more, but she hadn’t cared to.
She’d barely survived each day. That had changed in her month of travel.
She’d learned the country was not run by any singular person, but a large council far away.
Though even they were not considered lords.
“Well, I certainly didn’t choose it,” said Corvin. “The title was given to me on my induction into the society. It’s supposed to represent reverence or something—respect for the role we’ve carved out for ourselves in this world.”
She hummed a noncommittal note. His grin grew.
“Tell me why you left Ghadra, Lux. Aside from the obvious fact you were meant for bigger things.”
Lux ran her nail along the seam of the cushions. Over and over. “I left Ghadra because it was a part of my life that had run its course.”
“A chapter ended. So you don’t plan to return?”
“I—”
The carriage lurched.
Lux’s hand reached out to steady herself just as pressure came down upon her leg.
She stared at her fingers gripping the soft fabric over Corvin’s forearm.
At his own gripping the space above her knee.
Their hands retracted at the same moment, and Lux straightened her skirt while Corvin did the same to his coat, his eyes looking anywhere but at her.
“Apologies,” he said. “This road is rough with roots in places.”
“No need. I’m relieved to be in a carriage rather than walking, for once.”
That brought his gaze back, and it was horrified. “You’ve been walking? Why?”
“I never learned to ride, for one. The only horses in Ghadra were reserved for the death-carts or hired carriages. And my funds have been a bit dismal with my lack of revivals.”
“Death—we will come back to that. You’ve been traveling alone, walking, this entire way? You’re either very lucky or very skilled with that knife. Or both.”
“It’s honestly neither.”
Corvin rubbed his smooth chin, and gradually, the shock faded from his features. “All right. What of these death-carts? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Lux’s gaze held his. “They were our means of transporting the dead out of the city and into the forest. There, the trees consumed them.”
He sat forward, eyes impossibly wide and appearing younger than she’d yet seen him, hardly older than her. “A devouring wood? Now you must tell me everything.”