Chapter Fourteen
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
THE TIME THEY’D spent at Ragnhild’s had been a little under a week in Warham. As dusk settled over the city, Lyssa peered out at the moon from the window of the chophouse where she and Alderic had eaten a tense, awkward dinner.
Waning crescent—a few more nights until the black moon.
Alderic swilled his ale around in his glass. “What’s next?” he asked.
“We’ll need to get the grave dirt, soon,” she said.
“Ragnhild told me that we should both gather some, from two different victims, in case we can’t find any iron with a personal emotional connection to either of us.
” There was that clench of anxiety in her chest again.
It’ll be risky, Rags had said. It could work …
or the sword could fail. She wouldn’t know until the critical moment, and—unlike the Serpent of Ire—Lyssa had a feeling she wouldn’t get a second chance, this time.
If the Beast didn’t kill her, the Hound-wardens would be waiting.
“Where is your dirt going to come from?” Alderic asked.
“Here in Warham,” she said, pushing her mushy peas around on her plate with her fork so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. True to their new business-only arrangement, she didn’t offer anything more than that, and he didn’t ask.
“Can’t you get coffin nails from the same grave you’re using for the dirt?”
“No,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended.
“And why is that?”
“Exhuming a coffin would take too long,” she told him. “If we get caught, we’ll hang.”
He snorted, as if the very idea amused him. Lyssa’s eyes flitted to the new cravat covering the brutal scar on his throat, her brows furrowing in concern.
“What about a crypt?” he asked.
“A crypt might work,” she said. “We wouldn’t have to dig anyone up, at least. But it would have to have wooden coffins, and not just stone sarcophagi.”
“This one does.”
Hope flared within her, easing the tightness in her chest for a brief moment before she tempered it with caution. “Most crypts are private, though. Locked gates. Guarded against body-snatchers, in some cases. Plus, we don’t know if any of the Beast’s victims are buried in crypts.”
Alderic hesitated. Took a sip of his drink as if he needed a moment to gather his thoughts. “Desmond is in the crypt in Liedensham Cemetery,” he said finally, his voice tight with suppressed emotion.
“Desmond?”
“My brother.”
Lyssa picked at her bottom lip, fighting against that fierce urge to protect him from more pain.
Nails from his brother’s coffin would be immensely powerful, and would make the sword even more powerful in turn.
And, with coffin nails as their faerie repellant, they would only have to use one personal concern apiece, instead of needing extra.
It seemed the Lady had granted her a chance to redeem herself for her reluctance to force Alderic to face his past at Bellgaard. She would be a fool not to take it.
He wants the Beast dead, too, she reminded herself. He’ll do what he has to, no matter how much it hurts.
She couldn’t help the pang of guilt at the thought. Alderic would pry nails out of his brother’s coffin because she was too weak to pry them out of Eddie’s.
“Will anyone be suspicious of us?” she asked him.
“No. The priestesses there know me. They’ll give me as much privacy as I need.”
“All right, then.” Lyssa sat back and wiped her mouth with her napkin.
“Coffin nails are the most potent when collected during the black moon, same as grave dirt. If we get the dirt as soon as it’s dark, that night, we should be able to draw a Door, get to Liedensham, and collect the coffin nails before dawn the same day.
It’ll be tight, and we’ll have to hurry, but it should work.
” It had to work. The equinox was only a few weeks away, now.
If they had to wait until the next black moon, they would also have to wait until the Summer Solstice to kill the Beast, and the power in the items they’d already collected wouldn’t last that long. They would have to start all over.
She peered out the window again. A few more weeks until the culmination of everything she had been working toward for almost thirteen years. She let out a breath, a sudden flood of emotion washing over her.
“Feeling all right, Carnifex?” Alderic asked.
The question startled her. She hadn’t known he was watching her. Hadn’t known he could read her expressions, her exhalations, like Ragnhild read her bones.
“I’m fine.”
From the look on his face, he didn’t believe her. “The black moon isn’t for another few nights,” he said. “What do we do in the meantime?”
“Gather our personal concerns,” she said. “If we do that now, then we’ll have everything we need once we get the dirt and nails, and plenty of time to forge the sword.” That alone would take days—days they might not have to spare, if they weren’t careful.
His lips thinned. “But I don’t know what personal concern to use.”
She sighed heavily, the hope of a moment ago fading.
“Me, neither,” she admitted, frustrated at the idea of wasting time, when they had so little left until the equinox.
“Let’s spend the next couple of days figuring them out, at least, so that we can gather them quickly once we’re done with the grave dirt and coffin nails.
Oh—I need to buy metal, too. They were out of the kind I use last time we were here in Warham.
We’ll go over to the Iron Lane tomorrow morning, as soon as they open. ”
Alderic frowned. “Why do I need to go to the Iron Lane? Can’t you go by yourself?”
“No, I cannot. Someone has to pay the bill, and it’s not going to be me.”
“But—”
“Remember what we agreed, when you hired me? Expenses up front, the remainder of the payment when the job is done. Metal is an expense, and expensive. I don’t have that kind of money on me.”
He looked unhappy with that explanation, as if he couldn’t think of a worse way to spend his time. She reminded herself that this was what she wanted, what was best for both of them, but for some reason it still stung.
“Why don’t I just give you the remainder now?” he said. “I trust you to get the job done—no need to withhold payment. I’ll have it transferred into your account first thing in the morning. That way, if there are any more expenses, you can handle them without my involvement.”
“I don’t have a bank account,” she told him.
He looked exasperated. “Would you accept gold bars?”
Lyssa snorted. “I’m not going to carry around a small fortune in gold bars just because for once in your life you don’t feel like going shopping.
” She slid out of the booth and pulled on her coat.
“Come with me tomorrow. It’ll be easier.
You can give the rest of the money to Rags once this is all over.
I’m sure she would be more than happy to accept your gold. ”
“Is she your accountant, then, as well as your witch?” he said primly.
“She’s not my anything,” Lyssa said. “But since I probably won’t be around to collect the remainder of my payment once the Beast is dead, it’d be better if you arrange to give it to her directly.”
Alderic frowned up at her. “Why wouldn’t you be around to collect? Are you going somewhere, once the job is done?” He arched an eyebrow. “A lavish vacation, perhaps, paid for by yours truly?”
“You can’t seriously think that’s what I mean,” she said. When he still seemed confused, she threw up her hands and made a sound of frustration. “Look, in all likelihood, I’m going to die in a few weeks, and—”
“You’re not going to die,” he said, looking horrified. “You’re going to kill the Beast.”
“Of course I’m going to kill it,” she snapped.
“But that doesn’t mean it won’t take me down with it.
” Maybe it was because she had first seen it as a child, but the monster loomed large in her memory, bigger than any other Hound she had faced.
In her nightmares its teeth were as long as her knives, and it was faster than she was, stronger and more agile.
She had never planned to make it out of her next encounter with it alive.
But as long as she killed it before it killed her, she would die satisfied, her oath to Eddie fulfilled.
“You’ve seen what happens when I’m focused on killing something. ”
“This is nothing like the mermaids,” he insisted. “You were upset, then. You lost control. But you’ve fought Hounds before and lived. Why would this be any different?”
Because I care more about killing the Beast than I do about surviving.
“Like I told you before, the Beast is like Death itself,” she said instead. “No one fights Death and comes out unscathed.”
“And you’re going to fight it anyway,” Alderic said, his voice flat. “Because you want to become a legend.”
“That’s right,” she said lightly.
“Is that really worth your life?”
“Why do you care?” she asked, rankled. “You’re the one paying me to kill the damned thing.
You should be thrilled to have hired such a dedicated employee.
” She clapped him roughly on the back and grabbed his pint, gulping down the rest of it before slamming the glass back down on the table in front of him.
“Don’t look so glum, Al. Victory is so close I can taste it.
Though I imagine it would taste even better with a side of hot cocoa from Charlie’s Chocolate Emporium, paid for by my rather generous employer. ”
Lyssa tipped back the dregs of her third hot cocoa and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
Alderic was staring into his untouched first cup, the marshmallows long since dissolved.
He had been quiet since they’d left the chophouse, so lost in thought that he hadn’t even reacted when she’d asked him if he wanted to go buy a new outfit.
Now she studied his face, trying to squash her concern. “We should find somewhere to stay for the next few nights,” she said, crumpling her paper cup and tossing it into the nearest trash bin.