Chapter Six #2
Even if the Whisperer keeps his word and doesn’t kill me, there are still a dozen different ways I could die by tomorrow.
Someone could’ve seen us going into that house.
The Lady of Shadows could have spies on Keeva, keeping tabs on her poison supplier.
We could turn a corner any second and walk straight into a unit of gardai.
The green tunic visible through the slash in my cloak where the Whisperer’s knife just missed my ribs feels like a glaring torch, waiting to draw a guard’s attention.
Slowly, we retrace our steps, winding back down the hill to Quayside. The crunch of Keeva’s boots is the only sound breaking the silence between us.
She reaches for my arm. “You shouldn’t have done that, Maeve.”
We turn onto the lane where I live, where Finn lies waiting for us.
“No.” Emotional exhaustion makes it easy for bitter words to slip their shackles. “You should have.”
For a single second, my chest swells with something hot and righteous before hurt twists across Keeva’s face and regret fills me.
I don’t mean the words I said. I often don’t.
Doesn’t change the fact that I said them, though. The bitterness and hurt in me flame out as fast as they flare, and all I’m left with is the ash of regret.
After, I promise. After we help Finn, I’ll apologize.
Keeva’s dark eyes shine. “If you knew what they’ve done…”
“So tell me.”
She recoils. “What?”
My eyes narrow on hers. “Tell me why that woman, that”—I drop my voice—“Whisperer couldn’t stand the sight of you.
Or how you knew I’m just as fast as that asshole with a blade.
” I step right up to her; I think I see guilt flicker in her eyes.
“What shipments was he talking about, Keeva? What have you been selling that made them so angry?”
Her lips press into a thin slash, and Keeva’s eyes dart behind me, to where the lane is thick with deep shadows. I check over my shoulder, dread stalking close.
There’s no one there.
Keeva’s throat works. “It’s not that simple. You don’t remember what it was like out on the streets, those weeks after your mother—” She rips her gaze away, eyes squeezing shut. As if the words could ever hurt her more than how much what happened hurt me.
“That’s how you met, isn’t it?” My throat tightens painfully. “You and Finn. After the execution.”
“We were both young and furious,” Keeva admits with a soft, sad smile. “And hurting. Hope felt impossible back then.”
Hope is as drained as magic in this city. “Some things never change,” I sigh.
Keeva’s dark gaze flickers to mine, just outside my front door.
“They can,” Keeva murmurs as I crack it open. “They are.”
I’ll believe that when I see it.
The slatted door widens—and my stomach heaves.
Rot hangs in the air. The reek of it coats the whole room, and it only gets worse as I move closer to the pile of soaked blankets in the corner and find Finn underneath them.
Please, no.
A horrible rattle shakes her body. Our father crouches at her side, brushing the matted auburn locks from her sweat-slick forehead, humming softly.
Envy sprouts sharp teeth in my heart. He would never do that for me.
But Finn would.
Keeva reaches out a hand for my father. “Maeve can watch her for a little while. We should get Finn some water.”
My father swats her off the way a bear might brush off a swarm of bees. But finally he relents and lets Keeva press a water bucket into his shaking hands and lead him outside. She glances over her shoulder at me, then shuts the door behind them.
We’re alone.
My fingers tremble. The well is at the end of the lane, barely six shacks down. I only have moments to figure this out.
Finn’s lips are as gray as a shroud, and her skin is fire.
The shimmering black liquid in the vial I draw from my pocket reminds me of starlight in ink. I pop the tiny cork and quickly bring the vial to my sister’s lips. The magic inside is thick, viscous. It slides in a slow trail of midnight honey into her mouth.
A faint tingle races up my arms, straightening every hair.
The Whisperer hadn’t said or done anything to the vial before he slipped it into my cloak pocket after we’d made our agreement. Did he need to? Or could a mage shape a droplet of magic for healing in advance, so it could work on any wound a person might find themself with?
I can’t imagine I’m the first one to throw a knife at him.
I squeeze my eyes shut so hard that stars burst in the darkness of my mind, and send up a prayer to the Old Ones—to the Martyr, even. To whoever might listen and help me now.
Heal her.
There are no guarantees with magic. I know that from the stories my mother told.
Mages did their best to shape the tendrils drawn from the Seven Wells before the High King had them drained, but power is every bit as volatile as any other element.
A flame can warm, or it can rage into a wildfire.
The sea can lap at your toes or drown you in its depths.
But Old Ones, this dangerous hope is a lure I’ve never known before.
A long moment passes, but my sister doesn’t move.
A sob swells in my throat. This will work. It has to work. Then—
Finn’s eyes shoot open.
She gasps, sucking in air like a drowning woman breaking the surface. But the sound is clear. The veins in her eyes flare once, twice, with shimmering black. Her wild gaze locks on mine. “No,” she chokes out.
The scream breaks out of me. “Keeva!”
Footsteps hammer the ground, and the door rips wide open. Moonlight streams in and Keeva’s eyes widen. A strangled noise sounds in her throat as her gaze finds Finn’s.
Keeva collapses.
Our father stumbles past her and falls to his knees beside me in the dirt. “How?” Tears streak down his ruddy cheeks.
Finn’s eyes don’t leave me. The tears gathering in them fall, but she just keeps staring. “No,” she rasps.
And I don’t have the heart to tell her, even as the secret sinks like poison into my bones.
The price for her life was mine.
At some point in the dark hours before dawn, after the black rot begins to fade from Finn’s fingertips and the heat of her skin cools, I change and let myself collapse onto my lumpy old mattress on the other side of the room.
Sleep brushes milky tendrils around my mind but never fully claims me.
Even from across the room, I can hear Finn’s steady breathing, and it’s the sweetest sound in the world.
But I can’t shake the tightness in my chest or the prickle of dread crawling up my spine.
The same haunting unease that I felt on the street presses up against me as the darkness of early morning fades into the thin violet just before dawn. I strain to pick apart every rustle and creak and whisper of wind outside our shack.
That’s when I hear it.
Soft at first, then louder with every crash of panic in my veins.
The muffled clink of sheathed swords and pebbles crunching under too many boots.
They’re coming.
My brain screams, and I fight to hurl the blankets off me. Rough whispers slither through the slats from outside the door, and terror turns me into stone as I realize—
They’re already here.