Chapter Five
FIVE
Atingle runs along my exposed skin where the thickening mist brushes over me as Keeva leads me deeper into the merchant quarter.
“Do you ever think about why the Martyr left us?” I look up at the faint stars above. “She abandoned us. Every person on this isle.”
Keeva glances over one shoulder and pins me with a knowing look. “Be careful, Maeve,” she cautions. “Especially given who we’re about to ask for help. Play the game or they’ll slam the door in your face—if they don’t stick a knife in you first.”
“I’d like to see them try,” I scoff. The words sound braver than I feel, and the look Keeva shoots me makes it clear she sees right through me.
“Trust me—these aren’t people you want as enemies.”
I kick at a loose cobblestone. “I’m getting a little sick of trust me.”
“Believe me.” Keeva’s black eyes darken in the shadows. “I’m getting sick of a lot of things in this city.”
Her tone draws me up short. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Keeva rubs a hand over her face. “Forget I said anything.”
I bite my tongue—yet again.
Survive. That’s what I have to do. That’s all Finn has to do, no matter what secrets she’s keeping. Nothing else matters, so long as we’re alive, and together.
The streets are wider here in the merchant quarter.
This part of Dyfflin is farther from the docks, rising up the foothill of the mountain where the High King’s castle looms above.
Signs of the Assay are everywhere in the bits of dyed cloth in the colors of the isle’s oldest noble families.
I lose count of how many different banners hang tucked in the corners of windowsills, covered by panes of glass that are clear instead of smeared with grime.
Seven, eight… no, it has to be seven different banners.
The shadows just make the shades look different. One almost looks like the dark green of the finest ink, or a wild, dark sea. But none of the noble families use that color in their banners—at least, none I’ve ever heard of.
Was it one or two entire noble families executed after the last uprising?
The uprising and the aftermath are a blur in my memories, blackened out by terror and grief.
Voices rise as the door to a winehouse down a lane to our left swings open and couples stumble out, smelling like fine wine and pipe tobacco and the mellowing nabisa leaves that grow in the inland hills.
They argue over themselves, debating the skills and merits of the noble daughters, or their houses. I can’t tell which.
My calves ache from the incline; the salt sticking to my skin isn’t from the sea air but my own sweat.
Most of the people living in these gray stone town houses have some kind of connection with the High King and his court, or access to markets abroad as merchants.
If any of the merchants have noble blood, it’s weak—nobles who were recently granted their titles, or else merchants with a royal commission.
None of them have any idea what it’s like to struggle—to fight.
We stick to the shadows of the street and try not to look even more suspicious than we already are. Keeva stays a few feet ahead, glancing over the shuttered town house windows.
“This way,” she says, ducking into a small lane twisting left off one misty, dark street.
There aren’t any windows in the private lane, narrowing around us as I follow—just gray stone walls and a faint scent of moss growing through cobblestone cracks.
The lane snakes between the backs of two tall stone town houses to my left and right and leads us back, farther and farther from the wider street behind us.
A chill clings to the stones around me, and I shiver.
Keeva glances back at me and nods ahead.
At the end of the narrow lane, a three-story town house of gray stone rises out of shadows.
Just two narrow windows glare down at us—one from its second level and one from its third.
The front door is plain and unassuming with a heavy brass knocker set into the worn black wood.
As we step up close, the air shimmers, and I can just make out the faint carved silhouette of a serpent with a pair of curled wings.
Keeva stops there, her face drawn. “Let me do the talking. If Finn knew I brought you here…”
My throat tightens. “If this doesn’t work, she won’t know you brought me here anyway.”
Sorrow darkens her soft eyes. “You think I don’t know that, Maeve? That I don’t know exactly what will happen if this doesn’t work?”
Regret sours on my tongue. The sting of my impulsive words hangs between us.
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget it,” Keeva says with a heavy exhale. She tugs at her flowing tunic like she’s suddenly nervous. Her hand smooths over the linen, and she straightens to her full height. “Let’s just get in and out as quick as we can.”
She grabs at the heavy brass knocker. Keeva raps it once, twice, three times, then once more. The only sound in the lane is our tense breathing, but my mind plays tricks and imagines the growing hammer of gardai feet marching up the stone.
My pulse leaps at the creak of old hinges.
The door swings open, and an older woman in a navy cloak so dark it’s almost black steps out into the mist curling up the stone walls. Her black eyes flash in what seems like recognition, darting over Keeva. “You.” Then her narrowed eyes scrape like blades on my skin. “And who is this?”
“She doesn’t matter.” Keeva’s words sting, but I know her well enough to guess what she’s doing—trying to keep the focus off me. “I need a favor.”
The woman barks out a laugh. Her grin reveals teeth filed into points sharp enough to rip out my throat. “A favor? And here I was, thinking you’d come to grovel for forgiveness. You swore an oath, girl, and—”
Keeva cuts her off: “I was in the streets. I saw what happened. And I know… I know it’s my fault.”
How could any of what the gardai did possibly be her fault? That’s absurd.
“Of course it’s your fault,” the woman snarls, one hand in her pocket. A strange, static taste gathers around us and makes my teeth ache. “We warned you this could happen and you kept selling to her anyway, vial after vial. If you think any of us will help you now, you’ve wasted a journey.”
“I sold to her to help you.” Keeva speaks lower than I’ve ever heard from her. “We risked our lives to help all of you. So Old Ones help me, you shut that door, and I’ll—”
The scent of static thickens and every hair tingles on the back of my neck.
Keeva stiffens, her nose twisting at the scent as the woman draws one hand from her pocket, and a strand of… what is that? A tendril of viscous black liquid swirls like a bracelet around her wrist, vanishing up into the arm of her cloak. The woman bares her sharpened teeth. “You’ll what, exactly?”
In the shadows, I swear her eyes flash pure black.
Keeva’s breath catches in her throat.
The woman smirks. “Get home safe, both of you.”
Her words sound more like a threat than a well-wish.
She retreats, sliding back into the shadows behind the door. When I hear the hinges creak, panic races through me. She’s our last chance, and if she slams that door on us…
“Wait!” The word rips from my lips, and the door stills.
“Maeve, no.” Keeva reaches for my arm.
I shake her off and square my shoulders to face the woman with the sharpened teeth.
She studies me the way a cat might eye a mouse. Lightning crackles behind her glare, and the air seems to charge as the mist presses in close around us.
“Whatever you need. Whatever the price. I’ll pay it.” My words come out braver than I really feel. Beside me, Keeva shrinks back, but I keep pushing. “I just need one favor.”
The woman’s eyes roam like liquid poison over my skin, fear numbing me the longer she goes without blinking.
“Then ask your favor,” she says finally, opening the door wide enough for us to slip through into the darkened hall beyond. “But if we refuse, there’s no walking away.” She lets the door hang open.
I’ve come too far to turn back now.
My hands find the edges of the blackened door and curl around it. I step through, pulling Keeva with me, and seal us into the darkness.
Keeva’s shallow breathing fills the silence.
I fight to calm the racing of my heart as I let shadows wrap around me.
A single green flame bursts to life at my left—even though I don’t so much as hear the strike of a match—illuminating the older woman’s sharp cheekbones.
She brings up a small stained-glass lantern, flame flickering inside.
That must be what makes the light look green. Even her fangs take on the eerie tinge.
She waves us through, and the green lantern is the only light in a hallway that never seems to end.
I can’t pick out more than faint details of anything we pass—a glowing bronze vase with some kind of yellow wildflower; portraits in faded, rich hues set in frames blackened with age; tapestries woven in brilliant threads that shimmer in the strange light.
Something soft and warm slashes against my leg, darting through the dark, and my hand leaps for the blade at my waist.
A faint hiss follows.
“Touch her,” the woman snarls in warning, “and die.”
I let out a breath and relax my grip on the hilt.
The woman’s steps are sharp and pointed, each one the tip of a needle seeming to thread the shadows just a few feet ahead of me.
Keeva trails right behind, never more than a heartbeat away. Her breathing shifts as we climb a set of narrow stairs, up to the second, then third level.
A dark wooden door polished to catch the light opens, and shadows spill out.
A dozen candles flicker on a table, casting a soft orange glow over the middle of the room but leaving the edges shrouded in darkness. The unmistakable scent of struck matches lingers in the air.
My eyes fly around the space. There aren’t any windows, no other doors.
There’s no way out.
With a sharp slash of her hand, the woman gestures toward a low cushioned bench. “Sit.”
Not an invitation—an order. I hear the difference in the iron of her voice, so we obey.
The woman’s lips curl, and she turns with a swish of her cloak to slip back out the door we came from.
A faint click follows, and my whole body tightens.
Keeva lets out a breath. “You shouldn’t have done that, Maeve.”
“Seriously?” I turn to face her. “She was about to shut the door on us.”
She hesitates. “Maybe we should’ve let her.”
The threat of soul-rending grief rips through me. I taste its poisoned promise and shove it down with every ounce of strength I have in me, slamming the door shut on the part of me that remembers what grief like that feels like.
I can’t go back there.
Turning the fear into anger is as easy as breathing. “Say that again.” I drop my voice and glare at Keeva. “I dare you.”
Keeva shakes her head, then runs her hand over her neat braids. “These are the Whisperers. Any price they want for their help will be a price too high to risk paying. Don’t agree to anything they ask. She wouldn’t…” Her voice cracks. “She doesn’t want this for you.”
My heart wrenches inside my chest. “I saw that wound on her side. It wasn’t fresh.
She didn’t get it from the gardai in the market today.
And you didn’t seem the least bit surprised.
” I narrow my eyes at her. “You’re part of this.
I don’t know how yet, but I’m not a fool.
So don’t try to tell me what I should or shouldn’t risk to save her. ”
“Whatever you think of me,” Keeva says cautiously, lifting her hand in front of her. “Think. This isn’t a situation you can walk away from. She wouldn’t want you in danger. Not from these people.”
The candles flicker and shadows shift in the far corner of the room.
I sense movement from the edge of my vision, see long limbs slinking from the cover of velvet darkness pooling in the farthest corner of the shadows.
Fuck.
We never checked the rest of the room.
A rough, lethal voice carves through the dark. “You really should have listened to her.”