Chapter 46 #2
Lux’s blood chilled fully now, every hair on her body standing on end. But Corvin didn’t look at her any longer. He looked at Mistress Farrentail, a pout on her pursed lips. “Oh no! An attendant?”
He nodded. “An awful accident. The staff here have always felt like family to me. We take care of one another in Mothlock. The cliffs are dangerous, but Hildred wasn’t new to them. I can’t begin to fathom what happened.”
Lux could hardly think with her heart thundering. If he knows it was me…
“So much loss these days.” Mistress Farrentail shook her head full of feathers. “But I almost forgot: Mr. Swallowpeak wished for a word.” When Corvin hesitated, she said, “I’ll take care of the girl.”
His lips quirked. “See that you do.” His glance shifted to Lux. “No need to speak to anyone else. I won’t be long.” Then he weaved through the crowd.
“So rich. So disgustingly wealthy. If we were to bleed them, would their blood be made of diamonds?”
Lux recoiled at the voice, her eyes darting to an alcove where she found clawed fingers gripping either side of an urn, eyes glowing over the lip.
“Draw the dagger. Let’s see. Let’s see. Let’s—”
“I told you not to follow the zealots, you ridiculous girl.”
Gone was Mistress Farrentail’s sugary voice, and in its stead was a demanding tone, sharply underscored with disappointment.
It was a tone she recognized. The Dark Market’s claw vendor and her poisoned apples surfaced in Lux’s head.
Her lips parted in irritation before she hissed back, “And yet you did. You told me you didn’t know what lifeblood was, and now I know you’re a cheat and a liar. You’ve drunk it, haven’t you?”
Unlike the older woman’s, Lux’s voice was all fury. People were almost always a disappointment to her; she didn’t need it to seep into her words.
“Sure, I lied about not knowing what it was, but you couldn’t expect me to admit something so volatile in Loxlen. Not to a perfect stranger.” Her crooked fingers snatched at Lux’s waist, dragging her close. “Why’d you do it then?”
“What? Follow them? Why would I tell you?”
“Because. Because this is so much bigger than you, and you did not listen, and now I know what you are, and I am quite literally shaking in my shoes that you’re about to do something foolish.”
Lux extracted those gnarled fingers from her gown and smoothed the wrinkled fabric. “Don’t preach at me, vendor. I’ve not done anything.” Yet.
Mistress Farrentail’s eyes abruptly squinted as though she’d heard the word Lux hadn’t said aloud. Then she stood on the tips of her toes and peered not into Lux’s eyes, but to either side.
“What are you—”
“You didn’t wear it! No wonder. It’s no wonder!
This is the problem with the younger generations: You must spell everything out for them and even then they usually do the opposite out of spite.
” Mistress Farrentail plucked a familiar yellow feather from her head with hardly a thought.
Blood dripped from its end. “You’ve been duped.
” Then she grabbed hold of Lux’s wrist, warm and strong, and plunged the end into her scalp.
“Devil’s tits!”
“Language!” The vendor thwacked her arm before releasing her, and Lux raised that same arm to press the throbbing point of her scalp. Her fingers brushed along the small feather embedded there. “Don’t rip it out,” the older woman warned. “You need it. You should have had it from the beginning.”
But Lux was hardly listening. Because in the back of her head, where a lurking shadow had lingered, was nothing now but her own secrets and buried thoughts.
Where are you? she thought toward her broken brilliance.
Her nightmare. The decaying monster masquerading as her and driving her to the brink of insanity.
She peered into the surrounding alcoves and found nothing.
“Welcome to my society, girl.” The vendor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “The minions of Mothlock have been terrifying the towns for over a century. It’s time we put a stop to them.”
“We? Me and you?”
“Look for the feathers.”
Lux was too taken aback by the strange request not to follow through. She glanced around the room. At first, she saw none, but then a woman walked by in an emerald gown with diamond drops in her ears, and in her hair was not only a yellow feather same as hers, but a blue and an orange as well.
“They aren’t all the same,” said Lux.
“No. That’s because they’re each for something different. Canary feathers work best to shield against manipulations. Bluebird feathers are good for covering your tracks. An oriole’s will keep you grounded so your emotions don’t cloud your judgement.”
Lux’s head spun. “I’m really free? From the nightmare?”
“He put it on you right away, did he? Yes, it’s gone. And if he tries to place it again, it’ll sting. Birds will warn you of trouble about—if you pay attention.”
Lux hadn’t allowed herself to feel relief until now. Her shoulders rounded. “Blessed saints.”
Mistress Farrentail raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me they’ve got you thinking of becoming one of them.”
“They’ve offered,” said Lux, scanning for eavesdroppers.
Outside of Shaw, she’d never had an ally in anything; she’d always worked alone. Even partnering with Riselda had been built on using one another without an ounce of trust shared. Lux waited for the feel of resistance to come over her. Instead, an immense weight shed from her shoulders.
“I’d planned to set the place ablaze,” she admitted. “Do you have a plan that’s better?”
“We do. And it involves you not bringing that body underneath us back from the dead.”
Lux’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”
The vendor’s nostrils only flared. Her voice changed, settling back into its initial sweetness. “I told you I’d care for the darling.”
Corvin’s fingertips ran the length of Lux’s arm causing her to shiver.
She leapt to dig for his corruption, but it was too quick of a touch.
He grinned at the vendor and then at Lux.
“She’s quite interesting, isn’t she? And like the loveliest doll in that gown.
” Lux’s mouth fell wide in outrage at the same moment her head alarmed with the dream she’d suffered earlier that day.
Corvin drank from his goblet, and his lips came away stained red. When the music softened, his gaze flicked around the room. “Dinner is about to be served. Lux, would you do me the honor of claiming the seat beside me?”
Collectors and investors moved toward the dark tables, their lacquered surfaces dimly lit. The air she breathed felt heavy. But it was the shadows that bothered her most. They were both too many and too deep. She felt at any moment, something would burst from them and drag her away.
“Of course. Though, I need to excuse myself to the lavatory first.”
Mistress Farrentail’s small smile and warning eyes was the last Lux saw of her before the vendor melded into the crowd.
She wished the woman wouldn’t have gone as Corvin’s head lowered near hers, and he said, “Don’t tell me you plan to run away.”
Lux drew a sharp breath. “No, why would you say that?”
He held out his arm. “Maybe I misread that determined set to your mouth. Come. Sit. Surely, the lavatory can wait until the honoring of all these important minds is through?”
Lux thought about claiming some emergency—a woman’s monthly woes to be precise. But seeing Corvin’s own determined expression, she felt nearly positive he would have followed her out.
He suspected her.
From the moment he’d spoken of Silas’s findings, she knew he did. How much of what she’d done at the cliffs could she blame on a nightmare of his own creation?
Lux had no choice but to take his proffered arm. The tables were arranged into one half of a severed square, open to the floor and the dais of musicians, and her stomach dropped at where he led her.
An attendant drew back a chair at the front table’s center. “You may sit,” he said, dully.
By the time Lux sat, nearly the entire room had as well. Her breaths quickened and she dropped her eyes. But the stares—they were relentless. She could feel their pricks plain. What had they been told?
Get a hold of yourself, she scolded. You have a purpose, and you’re not alone, no matter what anyone else says.
When she lifted her eyes again, her gaze met Shaw’s. He’d taken a seat farther from her than she’d like, but still her body quieted. Distract them, she yearned to mouth. Only, too many paid her attention. She glanced to the mustached man seated beside him.
His stare, acutely familiar, speared her in return, frostlike and hard. A man whom she’d been told was dead. The “brilliant stone mason” possessed irises of the same shade as Corvin’s. As Kent’s. Even Silas and Artemis.
These collectors.
This society.
She’d not met them all, and most of whom she’d interacted with had been shadowed beneath hoods. But she could see them plain tonight. No one else in her travels had possessed such peculiar eyes: silver with an almost iridescent sheen. A color she recognized now.
The music maintained a mournful presence in the background as Lux stared into irises the exact shade of lifeblood.