Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
Cecily Otterbee was thirteen years old, and the girl could feel others’ emotions. Blasted bad luck for her. When Lux had asked if she could also manipulate them, she’d said she didn’t know. She’d never tried.
They tucked Hildred’s body away from view as best they could, then Lux needed a reprieve. Her lungs were sore, and her muscles exhausted. Huddled and shivering on a rock, they stared out at the waves.
“It sounded like a dream to come here,” lamented Cecily.
“I have five siblings and I’m in the middle.
Do you know what that’s like? I feel forgotten a lot of the time.
But Corvin—he made me feel unforgettable.
He said he could see the blessing of Saints on me, and if I wished to work for Mothlock, he would ensure my education until I came of age to join their society. But when I arrived…”
Lux closed her eyes against a monstrous wave’s violent crash. She absorbed what Cecily said in rapt silence.
“I feel ill here. Deep inside. I felt it right away, but I didn’t know what it was from.
Artemis is their healer. He said I was sensitive to change, that it was salt-sick and I would feel better soon, but the drink he gave me didn’t last long.
And the shackles to keep me from being lost hurt my ankle bones.
When I injured their cook… I swear I didn’t mean to. ”
The chain clanked as the girl shifted. Lux’s hands twisted uselessly in her lap. They yearned to occupy something.
A knife. Or a throat.
“It isn’t the salt-sick,” Cecily whispered.
“I doubt it,” said Lux.
“They want so badly. I don’t think you can comprehend without feeling it yourself. It hurts me to feel it.”
“But what do they want?” said Lux, mostly to herself.
“I don’t know. But the attendants scare me. I told you about her.” Cecily pointed toward the partially hidden body. “They don’t feel like anything. And I don’t want to be like that.”
“Empty.”
“Empty.”
Lux shook her head. She’d never known anything like it. The confusion overshadowed any guilt and any dread. How could Hildred have been alive without lifeblood? The old loose pages once belonging to Riselda’s alcove said it couldn’t be done.
“I need to go home. Even if I have to tell my parents they were right.”
“They didn’t want you to go?”
“They told me a story once. Of a person they knew. Who went to Mothlock and never came out again. They said it’s a cursed place. And there are more of those stories.”
“That didn’t deter you?”
“Lord Corvin said they were lies spun by their enemies. That I couldn’t trust the slanderers. It made sense to me…at the time.” She rose from the rock. “And you’re here. Why are you here?”
Lux followed her. Together, they made for the precarious steps cut into the cliff. “I’m sick too.”
Cecily turned sharply toward her. “The same as me? I thought—”
“No. Not the same.”
“But are you sure it’s true? Artemis felt excited when he told me I needed his help.”
Lux’s memories retrieved an image of Viktar, cold and stiff upon his bed in Verity. “I wish it wasn’t. My symptoms began before I ever met a collector.”
“Well,” said Cecily, beginning to huff in their steep climb. “I hope you get better soon.”
“Me too.” Lux pressed her knuckles to her chest. Don’t give out on me, you lumped organs. But as they continued their ascent, she thought for sure she could hear the remnants of the sea she’d breathed sloshing around inside.
“I only have to get to the forest,” muttered Cecily in front of her. “They won’t be able to track me in there.”
“Not to be pessimistic,” Lux heaved. “But won’t they make straight for your home?”
The girl tripped while sidestepping a crab, and Lux reached to steady her. Ignore the pain, she demanded of herself. Only, she saw how much farther they had yet and knew she might pass out by its end. Her sodden dress felt like it weighed five times as much.
“I didn’t think of it.”
“I have some money—a good amount. It should be enough to get you by for several weeks while you contact your family.” Lux would have to say farewell to the necromancer’s journal. The disappointment hurt. “Though, I’m not sure how far you’re going to make it in those shackles.”
Already, Cecily had to take each step with care. The chain between her ankles wouldn’t allow her legs to stretch far enough to walk up the stairs normally. Lux didn’t complain about the slow pace; she needed it badly.
The idea that they chained the girl nightly under the guise of safety… Lux clenched her teeth until they protested. “Maybe I can find something to cut through them.”
Cecily remained silent, and when they crested the cliff, Lux realized why. She was crying.
Tears pooled in the girl’s eyes and ran quietly down her cheeks. Every time she blinked, a fresh trail trickled.
“Cecily…”
“Why did I think I could go home? I’m so foolish.”
“You’re not. And maybe you can. Only, not yet.
There’s something I—” Lux’s thought cut same as her words.
Yes, there was something she needed to do.
More than one thing now that she really considered it.
But she didn’t know how she could succeed.
Sneaking through a dark manor in search of a single room with a singular goal was one thing.
Doing something worthwhile about kidnapping and other unearthed atrocities was another.
Shaw had burned the mayor’s experimentation room down with his sister’s invention. What worthwhile thing could she do? She had no one.
“It’s better this way. Lucena Thorn always destroys those we love.”
Lux jolted at the voice in her head. At finding the nightmarish version of herself standing rigid at the garden door. It waited for her, wraithlike and dripping in the night.
“We killed another tonight. Because we did not think, only acted. We kill those we don’t love too. We’re an ugly, mindless monster. Lock us away and spare the world of our presence.”
For the second time, Lux felt at a loss for air. She thought she heard another’s voice but couldn’t be sure. Waves bombarded her ears. Waves that weren’t a part of the sea.
“Lux? Lux!”
Lux flinched as her upper arm smarted. She glared down at the sensation.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t want to pinch you, but you looked—I mean you felt… What did you see?”
“I saw—” Lux blinked. Over and over. With each, the apparition faded a little more. When it finally vanished, her shoulders drooped. “It’s gone. It’s all in my head, at any rate.”
“You were so terrified,” said Cecily, her own voice shaking. “It scared me to feel it.”
“I’m sorry I frightened you.”
I shouldn’t be around anyone, she thought. Most of all, a girl like this.
“And now you’re angry and sad. I shouldn’t have screamed and forced you to save me.”
A bit of that anger flamed higher. What she didn’t need was someone relaying her emotions back to her. But Lux bit back any scathing remark. Instead, she dragged a deep breath into her hurting lungs, and said, “You absolutely should have screamed. More of us should scream.”
Cecily wiped at her eyes, blinking away tears. Then she nodded.
“Maybe I can trick that footman, Manphry, into finding me some sort of tool. He’s been helpful.”
“No! He’s empty too.”
Lux frowned, her hand on the rough door. “Who else?”
“Everyone I’ve met except the collectors.”
Devil below.
“Okay. We’ll manage on our own. There must be a carriage house outside the gate.” Lux glanced along the iron fence, where it disappeared into darkened cliffs. There was certainly no going around.
Cecily sniffed. “Probably.”
“Stay hidden in the garden. I’ll gather the money and whatever else I can.” Lux surveyed the girl’s soiled and torn stockings. “Shoes for certain. It shouldn’t take me long.”
“And if it does?”
“Then wait a little longer. If it becomes really dire though, then I suppose go with your original plan. Make for the forest.”
Lux pushed through the garden door. She hated that the girl absorbed every bit of the trepidation coursing inside her. What a miserable brilliance. I would die from it.
But she supposed that was why it wasn’t gifted to her. She was perfectly suited to death: an emotionless state. For the one dead, at any rate.
They crept along the garden path. Lux gave up on her sodden skirt and spent her energy hauling up her drooping bodice instead.
The moon was high now. It lit the tower’s pinnacle and every beast’s wing with a cool glow.
And she decided she hated the look of Mothlock; its presence so like that of a hulking creature lying in wait in the dark.
Then its mouth opened.
The dim light of the courtyard’s lampposts became overwhelmed at the manor’s opening. Cecily stilled like a startled mouse when Lux dragged her knife free.
One. Two. Three. Four. Four collectors swept out onto the stoop. And she knew at once what they wanted. Their hoods shifted as they scanned the garden; both she and Cecily sank to a crouch.
Voices rose amongst them, growing louder. Two hurried down the stairs. One of those turned onto the far garden path. The other made straight for them.
“Devil’s own tits,” hissed Lux. Because there was nowhere, quite honestly nowhere, for them to go. “You’re going to have to run for it, after all. As much as those shackles will allow you.”
She heard Cecily’s shuddering breath and felt the girl begin to rise.
“But give me five seconds first,” said Lux.
She tucked away her knife. Then she burst to her feet and screamed.