Chapter Three #2
She sat down at her desk, gazing at the newspapers tacked to the walls, the edges of the cheap paper curling from the relentless heat of the forge.
Articles about deaths and disappearances that seemed like they might have involved faeries, or the creatures they had created.
The walls around Lyssa’s bed were papered in clippings about the Beast, specifically, along with all of the information Lyssa had gathered on the creature.
There were lists of its various names, its numerous victims. A map of Ibyrnika, with red pins to indicate verified deaths or sightings before Buxton Fields, and yellow pins to indicate potential sightings or deaths in the years since.
There was only a smattering of yellow pins, despite how active the creature had been before—and not a single one of those leads had panned out.
Lyssa had wasted so much time chasing down dead ends, stalking rumors and shadows, and all the while the monster lurked somewhere just out of her reach, biding its time until the next massacre.
She spent the next two hours scouring the newspapers Rosaline had saved for her, searching for anything that might lead her to the Beast: frantic eyewitnesses insisting they had seen a monster; accounts of livestock being brutally slaughtered in the night; reports of violent deaths perpetrated by unknown assailants, especially if the speculation was either “serial killer with no discernible motive” or “wild animal that has developed a taste for human flesh.”
There was a knock on the smithy door below, Ragnhild’s hopeful call of “Dinner!”
Lyssa ignored it. She would eat later, when she had finished her work.
But there was not even a whisper of the monster in close to a year’s worth of papers. It was like the damned thing had vanished.
She was starting to fear that it had. The Hounds—the creatures crafted by the faeries for the sole purpose of slaughtering humans—couldn’t be killed by ordinary weapons, nor did they die of old age or disease.
But that didn’t mean someone else hadn’t gotten to the Beast first and hidden it away, out of her reach.
Someone who knew exactly what killing it would mean to Lyssa.
She shook the thought away, and the spark of anger that accompanied it. No. The Beast was still out there, somewhere. It was only a matter of time before she found it.
Or it decided to come out of hiding and unleash more than a decade of pent-up bloodlust on another circus, another celebration, another group of unsuspecting humans.
By the time she was finished with the last newspaper, her muscles were stiff and her mood was dark. She desperately needed that hot bath.
“I’m going to the pool,” she told Brandy, but he was already snoring, his paws twitching in dream, what remained of the beef-hide chew on the floor. Lyssa picked it up and set it on the bed beside him so that it would be close at hand when he woke up.
Shoving the stack of letters still waiting to be read into her bag, she slung it over her shoulder and went downstairs without bothering to put on clothes—surviving on the streets of Warham had robbed her of any sense of propriety, and it was only Ragnhild and Nadia here, anyway.
As she slipped out of the smithy, her foot landed on something soft and squishy. Lyssa reeled back, nearly falling on her ass, before she realized that it was a plate draped with an embroidered hand towel to keep out dirt and curious insects. Her dinner, presumably.
“Did you have to put it right there?” she snapped, and could imagine Nadia’s smirk, Ragnhild’s measured reply. Where else was I supposed to put it? Next time, come eat at the table when I call you, if you don’t want your food left on the ground.
With a muttered curse, Lyssa snatched up the plate and took it with her into the forest.
There was a river a little way into the trees, and she followed it until she came to a switchback path leading up a steep incline.
The hillside was dotted with pools overlooking the river below, each with a different temperature; Lyssa climbed nearly to the top, to one of the hottest pools.
She set her plate and her bag full of letters near the edge and slid into the steaming water, sucking in a breath at the sting of it against her wounds.
The water had healing properties, and by the time she got out of it, her fingertips wrinkled and her muscles loose, her bruises would be faded yellow and her barely scabbed cuts would be nothing but soft pink scars.
It was only good for minor injuries, though—anything worse, and she would need Ragnhild’s magic instead.
Lyssa unwrapped the towel from the plate, picking up bits of tender lamb and roasted garlic potatoes with her fingers and popping them into her mouth.
Not enough salt, of course, but Rags was right—the mint jelly more than made up for it.
The lamb was better cold than the Kingmaker’s chicken had been fresh, despite being slightly squashed, and she almost regretted not sharing any with Brandy.
She leaned back against the side of the pool and opened her mail between bites.
A lot of it was junk—advertisements from various shops begging her to try their wares.
Everyone wanted to be able to say that the Butcher relied on them for all of her faerie-killing needs.
She tossed the handbills aside and set about opening the letters from Bleakhaven next.
The ones from this Alderic Casimir de Laurent.
Lyssa snorted, and almost choked on a piece of potato.
Only a prissy rich prick from a long line of prissy rich pricks would have a name like that.
The first of his letters was dated nearly a year ago—right after she had last been in Warham.
Dear Ms. Carnifex,
I read about your success with the Serpent of Ire, recently, and made up my mind to contact you.
Lest you think I am merely an admirer, let me disabuse you of that notion straightaway—I have need of such services as you provide, and humbly request an audience.
I would be most grateful if you would call upon me at my home-away-from-home, whenever is most convenient for you.
I am there nightly from seven in the evening until closing.
He gave the address of a pub in Bleakhaven and promised to make it worth her while. She snorted again—the prissy rich prick spent every single night in a pub? Probably hiding from a nagging wife and a gaggle of snot-nosed brats he couldn’t stand.
The next few letters were more of the same, though as time wore on they began to sound a bit indignant at her lack of a response.
I am quite impressed by the continued success of your business endeavors, when answering your mail is apparently such a challenge for you.
A laugh burst from her lips at that, and she tossed the paper aside.
The last letter was dated only a few weeks ago, and the tone was entirely different from the rest. In fact, it contained only two sentences, rather than the lengthy paragraphs of flowery language that had characterized the others.
Ms. Carnifex, please. You are my only hope.
Despite this Alderic Casimir de Laurent clearly being the exact type of man Lyssa hated most, she was intrigued.
Like most noblemen, he had danced around what it was he wanted her to kill, but his mention of the Serpent of Ire led her to believe that it wasn’t some ordinary ogre he needed eradicated from his property.
The Serpent of Ire had been a Hound—a faerie-made monster, distinguishable from the faeries themselves by a glowing glyph located somewhere on their bodies.
Each glyph was different, and held a key to the magic that had made the creature, which Rags could then use to figure out how to unmake it.
As for the unmaking itself, only a weapon crafted with certain ingredients and spells could kill a Hound.
If de Laurent was begging for Lyssa’s help because she had slain the Serpent of Ire, he might have a Hound for her to kill. And if there was a Hound lurking around Bleakhaven, there was a chance it was the Beast of Buxton Fields.
If it wasn’t, well … at least it sounded like de Laurent was desperate enough to pay her handsomely to kill whatever it was he wanted dead. Besides, it would be more fun than dealing with trolls.
Lyssa winced. She had promised Rags she would stay here for a few days.
“I’ll rest after this one,” she said aloud, as if this modified promise would somehow make its way down to the witch’s ear.
Who knew—maybe it would. She had no idea what the extent of Ragnhild’s powers were.
“Really, I will. But for now, there’s a lead to follow. ”
Lady willing, it was the lead she had been praying for.