Timber and Tomb

Copyright 2024

Written by A.R. Geiger

Published by Story Nook Productions.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For information regarding permission, contact Story Nook Productions through our website at argeiger.com.

Original cover art copyright © 2024 by Deranged Doctor Design.

Original illustrations copyright © 2024 by E.Noel

CONTENT WARNING:

Contains references to cutting. Reader discretion advised.

Other books in this series

Spire and Stone

Other books by A.R. Geiger

The Birdwoman ...and other short stories

Of Mice and Fairies

Of Bullfrogs and Snapdragons

For Noah,

Thank you for your endless patience and support.

And for Gloria,

This book would never have been written without you.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Sorrow’s Heath

A Peasant’s Daughter

Brenner’s Man

Huntsman

The Sentinel Stones

Tomas

Nightmares

Old Wounds

Maeva

Forgotten Sins

The Reckoning

Predators and Prey

A Place to Run

The Krathe

Cameron Woodgate

The Devil’s Lover

Family Ties

A Broken Life

Marshland Ghosts

Silas Thorne

The Cells in Ivra

A Guilty Sacrament

The Healing Houses

All My Stupid Sins

The Gallows

The Devil’s Cathedral

A Detour

Rylee

An Old Friend

Reunited

The Way-Marshes

Twelve Years Old

A Dying Soul

The Hand of Justice

Roth Yulwood

A New Ghost Story

Maeva’s Cottage

Atonement

Bait

Starved and Broken

Ebosa

Deepmulk

Old Feuds

Confessions

Where the Gulls Nest

Common Ground

A Witch’s Grave

Only Children

One of Us

Healing

Miss Me?

Death Has No Favorites

Welcome Home

A Bloodhound

Below the Palace

The Offer

Magda

Betrayal

Revenge

Questions

Maeva is Waiting

Ace

A Cold Queen

A Single Soul

The Ghost Walker

At Peace

Preparation

Path to Hell

Leaving Ivra

On the Bridge

A Desperate Plan

Troubled Waters

Tomas’s Grave

Prologue

From the east he came,

With blazing soul,

And a crest of fiery bone.

Ghost Walker,

Child of storms,

Now stood twixt spire and stone.

To the east he strode,

To the huts of men,

Who’d cursed their souls to doom.

Ghost Walker,

Child of soot,

Now stood twixt timber and tomb.

~ The Lay of the Ghost Walker

Water dripped from the stones, echoing from slimy walls to vaulted ceilings. When Colin Burke looked up, the light of his torch was lost in the soaring darkness. Only the blackened stone of the walls were visible, the walls and a few of the cages hanging from the ceiling on rusted chains. Their bars gleamed in the uncertain light, and he tried not to look too hard at the shadows clustered inside for fear of seeing something that would feed his nightmares. Somewhere off in the darkness a scream pierced the silence. He flinched, hurrying to catch up with the guard who had brought him to this evil place.

Avrena Dul. City of a Thousand Screams. So the tales had named the dungeons beneath the coastal city of Beyora. The common folk skirted the paths outside its entrance, whispering its name as if they were afraid a plague would be summoned with the words. It was left alone, nearly abandoned except for the skeletal force of soldiers left to guard it. A symbol of fear amid a city of spice and trade.

No light lived along these narrow passages. Night nested here among the cells, breeding in the tunnels and caverns like black mold, spreading and swelling with the force of the tides. Night ruled here. Night and fear. They slept in the stones, and the stench of their excrement turned his stomach.

The guard didn’t seem to notice the smells or the screams. He splashed through the ankle-deep bilge water heedlessly, the light of his lantern reflecting in a thousand fragments across the water’s surface. Colin could smell the filth in it, the disease it carried, but he’d been lucky enough to arrive at low tide. High tide brought the water up past a man’s knees, sometimes deeper.

Colin drew a linen kerchief from his sleeve, pressing it to his mouth and nose. “Are we nearly there?”

The guard glanced back at him and grinned. One of his front teeth was broken to a crooked stump, and several others were as black as the slime growing on the walls. “Losin’ your stomach for this place already, Burke?”

Colin frowned. “No. And it’s Chancellor Burke to you, Gerwik. I’m on official business for his Lordship the Archduke. Try to remember that.”

Gerwik laughed harshly and hung his lantern on a spike in the wall. “Official business my arse. You ain’t no more official than I am, Burke. Just a stooge for the higher ups, you are. Just like any of us.”

A sharp reply leapt to Colin’s lips, but he bit it back, resolving not to argue with the stupid fool. Gerwik snorted and drew a ring of keys from his belt, sifting through them with impatient fingers. Colin watched, passing his hand nervously over his thinning hair. “Are you sure you shouldn’t have brought more men? I could have waited while you called a detail—”

Gerwik spat into the dark water and laughed at his fear. “I thought you were in such an almighty hurry? Don’t worry, we won’t have no trouble with this’n. He’s half broke already.”

He inserted the key into one of the reinforced doors and twisted, shoving it open with a creaking groan. Colin swallowed hard, feeling for the pouch of sparrow bones tucked inside his shirt. His heart was pounding in his chest, too loud and too fast. Not for the first time, he cursed this assignment, wishing the Archduke had given it to someone else. He had no desire to question a demon.

Gerwik retrieved his lantern and gestured for Colin to enter the cell ahead of him. “There you are, Chancellor Burke. Your prisoner. Don’t worry none, I doubt he’s in any shape to take on a man of your stature.”

Colin’s lips tightened, and he approached the cell with assumed courage, choosing to ignore the slur against his thin waist and hunched shoulders. Gerwik winked at him, whispering, “Just don’t get too close.”

Colin froze. “Why not?”

“Well, you know the tales about this’n, don’t you?” Gerwik lowered his voice, grinning maliciously. “The Bonesmith, they called ‘im. He used to collect the dead. Took ‘em from churchyards, sometimes. Or just stole ‘em from their homes, before they knew they was dead.”

Colin’s fingers tightened convulsively around the pouch of sparrow bones. “That’s ridiculous.”

Gerwik cackled. “So ’tis. But that’s what they say. Had some black art he was practicing in that forest, ‘fore they took ‘im. But they never found all the dead he took. All the bones.”

Colin almost left then. Almost. But Gerwik’s smile was too provoking. Colin pushed past him into the cell, squeezing the amulet around his neck as if it were his only anchor to the world outside. Gerwik came in behind him, leaving the door open.

The cell was awash with the swill of the tides. The dark water shone red as Colin entered, his torchlight dyeing the black ink-like water crimson. A brick shelf was built against one wall, providing some relief from the wet during low tide. Tales said that high tide sometimes rose up to the prisoner’s necks. Or higher. Colin shuddered at the thought of what it would be like to die in these cells, drowned like a rat when the sea came in.

The creature he’d come to see was lying huddled on the shelf. Its emaciated form looked like a bundle of picked bones, bound together by rags and cast aside to be cleared away later. Colin hesitated, half wondering if the beast had died before he’d come, thus saving him the trouble of questioning it. But Gerwik stepped around him, hanging the lantern from a hook on the wall. “Wake up, slime,” he spat, slapping the beast’s shoulder. “Get up and bow your head for his lordship.”

His lordship. A moment ago, he’d been nothing but a stooge. Colin stepped back as the figure rose to its feet slowly and the full light of the lantern shone on its face. Without meaning to, he uttered a choked curse, half sob, half prayer.

The Dreyen looked at him, and with a twisted smile bared its incisors. Lank black hair hung to its shoulders, stringy with the filth of the tides. Its face was pale, as white as a corpse’s, and its dark eyes were hollow and as ancient as the Pale Lady’s whisper, as if she’d told it secrets that no man had any right to carry. It held Colin’s eyes like a snake holds a bird with its gaze, and Colin felt the strength leave his limbs, his fingers growing numb with terror. In his fear, he could almost feel his soul slipping away, tearing from his chest as if the creature drew it forth with the strength in its gaze.

Gerwik hit the creature in the face. “Bow your head, stupid,” he snarled.

The Dreyen bowed its head, blood dripping from its nose. Colin studied it with horror, unsure the creature was rational enough to understand speech. He’d heard of Dreyens gone feral, but this was the first time he’d ever seen one. He licked his lips and looked at Gerwik. “Can it answer my questions?”

“Aye, it’ll answer them.” Gerwik tugged at the glove on his left hand. The steel studding his knuckles was crimson. “Whatever you want. Isn’t that right, half-blood?”

The Dreyen shrugged its shoulders. Gerwik hit it again, so hard that it staggered beneath the blow. “Answer proper!”

The Dreyen licked blood from its chin and looked up at him. “Yes . . . lord.”

Its voice was soft, modulated and deep with an accent that came from the mountains. Colin shuddered again, finding it difficult to link the rich voice to the emaciated demon standing before him. “Your name?”

“Tomas.”

“Tomas what?”

“Tomas Fleck.”

Colin swallowed, growing bolder. The creature was still looking at him, looking through him with those old, hollow eyes, but his soul was still firmly nestled in his chest. “Tomas Fleck, you are charged with murder and high treason against the crown. Do you understand that?”

The Dreyen’s eyes never wavered. “I do.”

“Do you admit your guilt?”

Again, no reaction. No fear, no shame. The animal was uncanny. “Yes.”

“Will you plead for mercy?”

“Not from you.”

Colin flushed. “You’re destined to hang. I’m here to oversee that. You still have information that the Archduke wants. Badly. I suggest you use it to your advantage now, before the hangman comes for you.”

The Dreyen bared its teeth. “I’d rather have my conscience clean when the Pale Lady takes me.”

Gerwik hit it again. Colin flinched at the blow, glancing at him with a shiver of fear. “You shouldn’t do that. It’s bad luck.”

Gerwik laughed. “You’re an old woman, Burke. What, you think he’s linked with the devil?”

“No, he’s right,” the Dreyen said so quietly that at first Colin didn’t realize that it was the creature that had spoken. It looked up, straight into Gerwik’s face, and its eyes went jet black. “It is bad luck.”

Steel flashed. A knife, jerked from the folds of the Dreyen’s torn clothing. The beast killed Gerwik so fast that he had no time to scream. His body fell, splashing into the water sloshing over the flagstones. Fear took Colin’s breath as the Dreyen turned to look at him.

Blood stained its white hands. It bared its teeth, and Colin stumbled back against the wall, dropping the torch into the water. It hissed and went out, and the shadows loomed, night drawing nearer. Everlasting night.

His lips were numb with terror. He choked on a cry as it came closer. But who would hear one cry here? What was one scream to a thousand others?

The creature pressed a hand over his mouth, leaning in close until he could feel its breath. Its eyes were still black, black with the soul of the animal that lived in its chest and whispered in its dreams. “Shh.” The knife was still in its other hand. A shard of steel wrapped in rag to protect its fingers. “Don’t scream. Don’t speak. Just nod or shake your head. Did he bring others with him?”

Colin whimpered, shook his head. The beast leaned in closer. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. The Dreyen released him, stepping back, and said quietly, “Tell the hangman I’m sorry that I missed him.”

The animal, sleek and black, took his shape and vanished into the water. The door slammed shut behind it and a draft blew the lantern out. Night rushed in, icy and damp and dark. Colin fainted.

Fog rolled in from the south, damp with the chill of the plains and whisper of coming autumn. The dull grass, heavy with summer’s seed, swayed beneath the weight of the misting rains. Out on the plains nothing could hide from the rain, not the grass, not the deer that grazed here, and not the wolves that hunted them.

The two riders, cloaked in heavy black wool, sat slumped in their saddles bearing the intermittent rain with stoic tolerance. They’d left the city some hours ago, before dawn had risen and the rain had begun. Now their oiled cloaks were soaked through, and the only relief from the cold came from the bodies of their mounts. Scant comfort in such cheerless lowlands.

Viggo shook rainwater out of his eyes and looked back the way they’d come, back toward the city they’d left and the life he hoped never to see again. Ivra had disappeared into the curtain of rain, the gray bulk of its walls lost in the gray of the skies. They were alone now with the silence and the fog. How many times in the last six months had he wished for this? A thousand? Ten thousand? A hundred times a day since he’d first come to Ivra, at least. Maybe more.

If only he could enjoy it. Breathe it in. Savor it the way he’d dreamed of in days past.

His hands were wet and stiff from the rain. He flexed his fingers, closed his eyes, and saw the blood again. Blood on his hands, blood on his fingers. Cat’s blood. He still woke up at night sometimes, remembering it. Feeling the heat of it in his dreams. Feeling her dead weight in his arms as he’d carried her back to the palace in the rain.

He could still remember how that fear had tasted.

His horse snorted and shook its mane, the sound loud in the stillness and silence of the plains. The saddle creaked, wet leather squeaking beneath him as he shifted. Viggo put his head back, looked up at the gray skies, and let the misting rain wash the heat of the memory from his skin. He would carry it forever, he was sure. In his nightmares.

But it was over now, and he wasn’t dreaming at the moment. It was over. It had been for months. Spring had gone, summer had passed him by, and autumn was stirring in the winds. And he wasn’t alone.

She was watching him again, as if she could hear the thoughts in his head and see the memory of fear etched into his expression. She nudged her horse a little closer, pushed her hood back and smiled at him. “All right?”

The blue in her eyes took his breath away. Blue like the sky after a rain, blue like the flax that grew in the hollows and the valleys around the Core. Blue that made him forget the gray skies and the color of her blood. “Freezing. Aren’t you cold?”

Cat laughed and lifted her face to the heavens, breathing as deeply as if the smell of the wet earth and the rain were as rich as perfume to her. “Yes. My fingers are numb and so are my feet, and it’s lovely.”

He laughed. She could always make him laugh, always, even on the darkest nights when she couldn’t sleep for the pain still wracking her wounded leg. Her pain had dominated their lives for months, and he’d lived in fear that the wound would turn putrid, and gangrene would take her from him. The Widow had told him that no god lived in the basilica where the priests and bishops lit their incense in Ivra, but he’d gone there anyway. Nearly every night, in fact, after the poppy juice and woodwind oil the boneknitters gave to Cat for her pain coaxed her into a drugged sleep. He’d knelt on the stone floors and begged for her life, and twice had even been bold enough to steal a few candles to light beneath the altar.

Whether his prayers had been heard or not, he didn’t know. But the wound had stayed clean. He would gladly have stolen a dozen candles to give thanks for that.

The rain grew harder, changing from a soft murmur to a dull roar. Cat flipped her hood back up, and he lost sight of her blue eyes, her smile. Viggo hunched deeper into his cloak and tucked his hands tight against his breast, scarcely feeling the leather of the reins cutting into his skin. He would have liked to keep her talking, to exchange his gloomy thoughts for her laughter, but the silence and the cold forbade it. The plains were a solitary, lonely place. They kept their own counsel, and their mute voices silenced his own. The old tales called them Sorrow’s Heath, and they said that when night fell and the wind blew, men could hear cries on its breath. A mother, weeping for her children. Viggo had never thought much about it before, listening to the stories told around the fires at night with as little belief as he ever did. But now that he was here with the rain at his back and the cold creeping into his limbs, he found that the name fit more than he’d thought.

But it wasn’t a mother’s tears he heard when the wind rose, moaning over the wet wastelands with a sigh that cut his heart. Not a mother’s tears, or a lover’s wail, as other stories claimed. It was a woman’s voice, low and husky, one that had echoed in his head and his heart since the day he’d met her in the basilica.

“I came for the same reason you did.” She touched her forehead and her breast in homage and bowed her head. “To pray for your soul.”

His skin prickled.

Silence slipped between them, and the arched ceilings echoed with the sound of his breathing and her murmured prayers. At last, she raised her head again. “No prayers of your own?”

“No prayers,” Viggo said thickly. “Maybe whatever god they worship here will hear yours.”

“No god lives here.” She looked up at the marble arches overhead and the silken hangings and the doves roosting on the beams. “They’ve barred the doors against one.”

“Then why come?”

She looked at him, her face only a shadowed outline behind the black veil. “I came for you.”

A chill shivered down his back.

“You have blood on your hands, Guardian.”

“Who are you?” Viggo whispered hoarsely. “Are you a witch? How do you know all this?”

“Am I right?”

He would have cursed her if the words hadn’t turned to stone on his tongue. He looked away.

She rose to her feet and shook ash from her sooty skirts. She wore thin gloves of woven lace, so black against her skin that it looked as though the fire had burned the patterns into her fingers. “The fight houses have more dead men to hand you if you stay. It’s time to leave.”

He knew what she meant, even before she went on, and his heart stilled.

“Go to Silas Thorne. Tell him everything. Then take your partner and go north. Follow the slave you set free.”

“I can’t,” he said hoarsely, and the words fell like chains into the silence. “I can still fix this. All this—being a Guardian, swearing an oath—it was supposed to mean something. It does mean something. I’m not ready to give it up yet.”

A candle sputtered, wax spitting across the stone floor. The flame died. She tilted her head thoughtfully, studying him as if to see right through him, and said, her voice soft with disappointment, “Are you willing to pay the price of that choice, child of blood?”

His skin prickled. “Yes.”

“So be it.” She moved past him, fading into the shadows. “I leave you to your prayers, then.”

He’d been afraid that night that his choice would condemn them both—and that the Widow would take Cat’s life in revenge for the way that he’d rejected her. But months had passed, Cat’s leg had healed, and the anxiety tearing apart his soul had eased.

He was finally sure of his choice.

Viggo leaned back in the saddle and pulled a pair of leather gloves from his saddlebags. The rabbit fur lining the inside was as damp as everything else on this forsaken plain, but it was warm. They had hours yet before they would reach their destination and find some scant shelter from this incessant rain. Hours before they would leave the plains, and days, maybe even weeks, before they sought the shelters of men again.

If they were lucky.

His breath was hanging in the air, white as the fog above the Way-Marshes. He blew gently, watching it crystalize, and smiled. Chilled and lonely and gray as these lands were, he found something charming in their solitude, something sweet in their emptiness. It had been so long since he’d known what it was to breathe without being watched. Ivra was a city of eyes, the castle a place of whispers and silent feet.

Nothing moved on the plains but the sway of the grass in the wind. Nothing whispered but the voices of the rain. Men said that ghosts haunted the moors and bogs between the city and the woods they were riding toward. They told tales of the Ghost Walker mostly, striding through the tall grass with his burning heart and vacant soul, but there were others. A child that screamed on empty nights. A dog that drove horses mad.

The Widow, shrouded in black veils, who wept over her dead and lured men onto the moors at night with her aching cries.

Viggo put his head back and closed his eyes, letting the rain mist his skin again. He’d known immediately when he heard the stories that the woman he’d met that night was the ghost from the moors. The Widow. The thought didn’t frighten him as much as it should have. Really, he didn’t think of it much at all. He tried not to think about those days now. Not about Fane or the fight houses or his own despair. They never spoke of it, although sometimes he still dreamt about the chapel and the arena he’d been forced into. Cat, to his relief, seemed to have shed the hold Fane had on them as easily as if it were a cloak she no longer wanted. Her smile had returned, and her laugh, and only rarely, when she thought he couldn’t see, did he catch a strange look in her eyes. A shadow that belonged entirely to the house built beneath the hangman’s nooses.

None of it mattered. Not anymore. They were away from Ivra now and on the track of their first mark as King’s assassins. A rogue bloodhound from the south was rumored to have taken refuge in a forest some leagues from Ivra. A murderer, the Archduke had told them, a butcher and a deserter. He’d killed several people in the last few weeks and promised to kill more. They were to bring him back—him, or his body, whichever they preferred.

Until they did, Ivra was far behind them.

Dusk came, and the forest appeared out of the curtain of rain as abruptly as if night had sent its darkness on ahead of it. Islay Silvare, known to the common folk as the Krathe. 

Viggo saw only the black mass of the woods at first, trees blurred by the rain and mist. But the mist drew back as they rode nearer, and a village emerged from the gloom. A dozen low huts huddled together beneath the shadow of the trees, their battened windows glowing with firelight. A pigsty crouched in the darkness, a sheepfold next to it with a draggled flock clustered together beneath a battered shelter.

A well. Dead gardens. The peasants that lived on the plains around Ivra weren’t given much to live on, despite their rich masters’ lavish lives. Viggo tried not to think of what would happen to the peasant children that Fane owned now that he himself weren’t there to pay Fane’s debts for him. The slave market in Ivra was a cruel place.

A door opened in one of the buildings as they rode into the village. A man came out to meet them, carrying an oil lamp and with a dog at his heels. Viggo swung down from his horse, cursing under his breath at the animal as it shied away from his touch, and said, “Kai Guise?”

The man paled. They’d known, of course, that he was coming. The soldiers who’d been here first would have told them. But knowing didn’t make it any easier, or the man’s fear any less.

Not many men would be pleased to find out a Dreyen knew their name. Especially an assassin.

Kai bowed, his eyes darting toward Cat as she dismounted as well. “That’s me. Ask what yuh will. I’ll help yuh as I can.”

Viggo passed his reins to Cat, glad to be rid of his horse for a while, and said coldly, “Where’s the girl?”

Kai froze. “The girl, yur lordship?”

“The girl who saw what happened.” Viggo tugged his gloves off. The wet fur clung to his fingers. The rain pattered on. “I want to see her.”

Other doors were opening now. Men stood in the doorways, watching, framed in firelight. A sow squealed in the growing dark as several pigs fought over the scraps in their trough.

Kai shifted from one foot to the other and glanced over his shoulder. “I—yuh won’t need her, lordship. I can tell yuh whatever yuh want to know.”

“I’m not a lordship. And I can hear plenty of rumors in Ivra. As many as I want.” Viggo looked at him, knowing that just his expressionless gaze would break down the man’s will to resist. The peasants who lived on the moors lived too close to the ghosts and devils to cross a Dreyen. “Shall I find her myself?”

A muscle twitched in the man’s cheek. After a breath, he bowed again. “As yuh wish.”

Viggo followed him into the house. Cat stayed where she was, with the horses in the rain, although he could feel her eyes following him as he stepped through the gate and walked up the narrow path to the door.

Inside, a cheerful fire burned in the grate, hissing and smoldering from the damp creeping down the chimney. A kettle simmered over the flames, braided onions and herbs hung from the rafters, and four children wrestled on the floor like puppies. Their giggles silenced abruptly at his entrance, and they scattered to every corner of the room to hide in the shadows.

A woman straightened up from the fire, her hands clenched in her woolen skirts. Viggo stepped into the room and let the door shut behind him.

Kai didn’t meet the woman’s furious gaze. “He wants to see her.”

The woman didn’t move. Her knuckles were white, but she met Viggo’s eyes and lifted her chin. “He can’t.”

Kai hissed something at her, his voice cracking. Viggo waved him to one side and brushed his hood back, moving further into the room and saying low, “She’s done nothing to be ashamed of, mother. I’m only here to speak with her.”

Her lips trembled. He was doing this wrong. He knew that. Fear was meant to be his trade. Lant Curtis would have swept her to one side, or bared his teeth at her and shattered her soul with a few well-chosen words.

Viggo couldn’t bring himself to do the same. Not here. Rain hissed outside, but in the house there was an air of simple comfort and warmth. Pots gleamed on the walls, a cat purred on one of the neatly made beds. The smell of thick stew and hot tea mingled in the air, and the fire crackled.

Poor or not, they were happy in their own way. He wanted to leave them that way.

“Kai can tell you,” she whispered. The words were pleading now, although Viggo had the feeling that if he made a move toward the children in the corner, she would fight to stop him. Desperation made women dangerous. Even peasants. “She told him. He can tell you.”

“I’d like to hear it in her words, that’s all.” Viggo glanced over her shoulder as one of the children behind the bed shifted. A girl, seven, maybe eight years old. “Children tell stories better than adults.”

The woman bit her lip and nodded at the girl.

She came out tentatively, her dark eyes huge in her thin face as she looked at him. The dog went to greet her, waving its fringed tail, and she clung to its neck as she came closer. She was so small, too small to have a King’s assassin searching for her, and suddenly Viggo was glad that he and Cat had been sent instead of Lant and his vicious partner. Fear left such a stain on children.

Maybe. Maybe he could get through this without leaving terror behind him.

He squatted down to her level and took the cloth doll he’d bought at the markets in Ivra out of the pouch in his belt. “What’s your name?”

The girl’s eyes widened, as if he were a magician who’d conjured it from thin air. “Alyss.”

“Alyss.” Viggo nodded, turning the doll in his hands. He’d spent seven coppers on it, money Thorne had given them for “expenses,” and he could still remember the confusion in the merchant’s eyes when she’d sold it to him. “Did you see something out on the moors, Alyss? Something you want to tell me about?”

The girl moved a step closer to him, timid as a deer, her little hands clenched as if to stop herself from snatching the doll from him. “I seen a sheep being killed.”

“Did you? That doesn’t sound nice.” Viggo smoothed the doll’s knitted hair with his thumb, looking at it and not at her. At its button eyes and stitched smile, and the dress that he’d picked out himself. “Did you see what killed it?”

Alyss looked at her mother, as if she didn’t know whether to answer the question or not, and whispered, “I seen a devil.”

The woman’s lips pinched tight.

“Can you tell me about it?”

“It were half-dark,” the girl said doubtfully. Her fingers were twined in the dog’s thick coat. “I gone to fetch Gerald from the flocks, and it come out of the trees and caught one of the lambs and twisted its neck.”

“Did it see you?”

The girl shook her head. “I hid in the grass, an’ it gone back into the woods.”

Kai shifted, saying low, “I can show you just where, lordship. No need to bring her out on a night like this. More’n likely, it was a wolf. Things look different at dusk. That’s all. And we’ve had trouble with wolves.”

Viggo nodded absently, only half-listening to the man, and said, “Alyss?”

The girl looked at him.

“What did it look like?” Kai opened his mouth to answer for her, and Viggo stopped him with a quick gesture. “Was it a wolf, do you think?” he asked.

Alyss shook her head, looking suddenly so stubborn that he almost laughed. “It were a man. He were limping.”

Relief flooded through Viggo’s breast. One of the guards from Avrena Dul had said their quarry was injured. “What made you think he was a devil?”

Alyss stood on one foot and looked over her shoulder uncertainly, tugging on her thin sleeve as if to force it to cover her bony wrist. “Gerald said I were fibbing.”

Viggo clicked his tongue, as if he, too, knew what it meant to be accused unfairly. “I don’t think you’d fib. What did you see?”

She bit her lip, squirming, and whispered at last, “Bit the lamb’s neck, he did. Under the trees. Turned himself into a devil and dragged it away.”

The wolf, second-skin and second-soul, stirred in his chest, and Viggo let it burn in his eyes and take his shape, just for a breath. Kai uttered an oath, and the woman turned so white that she looked as though she might fall.

Alyss stared at him, fascinated. Viggo shook the wolf off and cocked his head. “Like that?”

She nodded, so entranced that he could have laughed. “How yuh done that?

“It’s a secret.” He smiled and held out the doll. “You were very brave. That’s for you.”

Her eyes shone. She took it gingerly, as if it were a living thing, and cradled it in her arms, stroking the coarse dress and cloth boots. “She’s got real lace on her dress,” she whispered in awe. “Like a lady.”

Kai shoved his hands in his pockets, as if to keep himself from snatching it out of her hands, and said hoarsely, “She ain’t need that.”

Alyss’s face fell. The woman, too, was looking at the toy as if Viggo had sewn black spells and ill luck into every seam, and he knew instinctively they wouldn’t let her keep it. Not from him.

He rose, casting a contemptuous look at the man. “Should I tell His Lordship you wouldn’t accept his gift?”

Kai’s eyes widened. “The Archduke sent it for her?”

“You think I bought it?”

Kai chewed on his lip, hesitating, and bowed. “We’re grateful.”

“You should be. It’s not often His Lordship offers that kind of favor.” Viggo glanced once more at the girl and turned away, ducking as he left the house, and ventured out into the pattering rain again.

Cat was waiting for him. He took his horse’s reins, ignoring the stares from the men and women still gathered surreptitiously in their doorways and at their lighted windows, and swung into the saddle. “It’s him. We’ll camp in the forest tonight and find the trail in the morning.”

She mounted and cast him an amused glance. “How did she like the doll?”

Viggo’s face grew hot, and he turned away, digging through his saddlebag to avoid her eyes. “She liked it fine.”

“Did you tell her about the lace?”

Viggo sighed and gave her an exasperated look. “Are you going to keep doing this?”

Cat grinned. “What was it, five dolls you said no to? I just didn’t know you were so particular about lace.”

“I’m not.” He shifted in the saddle, looking away, and said reluctantly, “She liked the lace.”

She laughed gaily and turned her horse away, urging it on down the road. “Good. I’d hate for all that time in the shop to have been wasted.”

Viggo grumbled under his breath and spurred his mount after her. “Anytime you want to forget that . . .”

Cat looked back at him, her smile all mischief. “Never. Not in a thousand years.”

She trotted on ahead, and he laughed under his breath, murmuring, “No, you wouldn’t.”

Magda, the housekeeper’s daughter, brought the tea in an hour before dawn. Silas Thorne breathed in the scent of peach blossoms and applewood appreciatively and gestured for the girl to leave the tray on the side of his desk. He hadn’t realized it was so late—or so early. He’d meant to return to his apartments hours ago.

The girl flitted around the room like a cheerful ghost, relighting the fire that had fallen to coals, replacing candles that had burnt to stubs, and opening the window a crack to let in the first breath of dawn. Thorne leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “Magda, what would I do without you?”

Her light laugh had the freshness and bustle of the kitchens still in it, as if she’d brought the life from below up into his gloomy office. “Crumble to dust in that chair, as likely as not, Yur Highness. Yuh dinna go to bed last night?”

He shook his head ruefully and glanced over his shoulder at the crimson line beginning to appear along the horizon. Ace, one of the Dreyens at his shoulder, straightened up as hurriedly as if he’d been caught dozing against the wall. Thorne hid a smile. “No. I meant to.” He glanced at her in amusement and added, “Don’t tell your mother.”

She laughed and vanished through the servants’ entrance, leaving the room a good deal brighter and more pleasant than she’d found it. Thorne rose, wincing as his bad leg sent pain darting up his spine. Punishment for the hours in the hard chair.

The door opened and one of his pages stumbled in, his eyes wide, “Your Highness—”

Lant Curtis strode in after him, mud-stained and travel-worn, dragging a staggering prisoner behind him. Reika prowled in his wake, feral as a wildcat. Thorne nodded to the page. “It’s all right, Oliver. I’ve been expecting him.”

The man bowed and left, shutting the doors behind him. Lant shoved his quarry to his knees, holding him there with a hand on his collar, and nodded his head to Thorne, the closest thing to a bow anyone was likely to force out of him. “Your Highness.”

Thorne leaned against his desk, taking weight from his leg, and poured himself a cup of tea, stirring crystallized honey into the amber liquid as he asked, “Has he said anything?”

“No. But he will.” Lant glanced at Reika, something like amusement darkening his eyes. “I thought it better to let you ask the questions.”

Thorne nodded. He could feel the nervous tension in the room, buzzing beneath the surface like the breathless pause before a lightning strike. His own bodyguards had moved away from the wall, edging closer so as to be within arm’s reach of him.

Just in case.

Thorne fixed his gaze on the captive and said low, “Well. Let’s start with your name.”

The man spat at him. Ace moved forward, quick as always to take offense on behalf of his master. Thorne glanced at him, quelling a reaction, and said, “That isn’t a very good start.”

The man had blood caked into his matted hair and in his scraggly beard. He looked as if he’d been sleeping in rubbish heaps for several weeks, and the stench of his torn, filthy clothes overwhelmed the more delicate scent of the peach blossom tea and perfumed candles. He licked grime off his teeth and said coarsely, “Git this stupid shank off me first—”

Lant snarled low and deep and vicious. Some of the color drained from the man’s face, and Thorne said quietly, “You’re alive because I asked him to keep you that way. Don’t antagonize him.”

The man shifted, his eyes darting toward Reika. She bared her teeth at him in a smile that sent a shiver down even Thorne’s spine. Something in that look—hungry, hunting—broke the man’s will, and he said, half-whining, “My name’s Alfie Hash. But I ain’t done nothin’. Yuh got no reason to be draggin’ me in here.”

“You worked for Joseph Brenner before he died. He hired you as a soldier?”

Hash squirmed. “No. I ain’t know who that is. I been a tinker now for—”

Lant hit him in the face hard enough to split the skin beside his left eye. Thorne sighed, rubbing his aching neck. He’d been awake too long for this. “You’re not a tinker. You worked for Joseph Brenner. He hired you as a soldier.”

Hash had bitten his lip when Lant hit him. Thorne could see the fear growing in his eyes now, as if he were finally realizing what kind of mess he’d gotten himself into. He shook his head. “No, I got a shop down by Port Street, just after—”

Lant flipped his hunting knife from its sheath. Hash screamed, scrabbling to get away from him. “All right, all right! I done worked for him. But all I did were guard his gates and keep thieves out, I never had nothing to do with the rest.”

“What ‘rest’ are we talking about?” Thorne asked quietly.

“With—” Hash sobbed, his breath coming too fast, “with them Dreyens he sold, and the fight houses. I were only in them a time or two, and I never done nothing to help him with it, I swear!”

“Were you there the night he was killed?”

“I were guarding the gates, that’s all! I ain’t seen it happen, only came in after the girl’d done for him.”

“Did he tell you anything about her before?”

“Just that he were leaving with her—had a buyer down in Beyora. But I didn’t know nothin’ else about it. I weren’t one of the ones who went to get her from her lord’s apartments.”

Thorne frowned. “What?”

“I weren’t—”

“They took her from Lord Ravenstone’s apartments? Wasn’t Lord Ravenstone there—at Brenner’s house when the girl killed him?”

Hash shook his head. “No, they got her earlier. Brought her in that morning. She were alone with Brenner when she killed him.”

“Where was Lord Ravenstone during all of this?”

Hash probed his split lip with his tongue, glancing uneasily at Lant and the naked knife still in his hand. “Fight houses, more’n likely. He made good money with that male of his—were there almost every night for near two months.”

Thorne cursed softly. He’d wondered for a long time if Fane Ravenstone had connections to a fight house. His sudden influx of gold, the beaten, hunted look in his guardian’s eyes . . . he’d half-expected to find the two of them in the cathedral the night they’d raided the illegal games, but there’d been no sign of either of them, and with Brenner’s death placing them halfway across the city—

But, of course, it wasn’t so easy. He’d suspected that from the first, especially when he’d seen how desperate Swifter had been to get away from his master. Without proof, he’d been content to let things lie the way they’d fallen.

Now, however, it seemed he wouldn’t have that luxury.

He sighed and moved around to sit behind the desk again. His leg was aching. It always did when he hadn’t slept, and he’d slept little enough since the investigation into Brenner’s death had revealed a much larger network of traffickers than they’d initially suspected. He nodded to Lant. “You can hand him off to my men now. And send Brentwood and a detail to Lord Ravenstone’s apartments. I’d like a word with him.”

Lant sheathed his knife. In this light, the rose tattooed across his throat looked like raw flesh. “I can bring him myself.”

Thorne rubbed the bridge of his nose, cursing this whole shamble to hell. “No, I’ve another mess for you to clean up.”

When Cat woke, Viggo was gone, his bedroll empty. She sat up and pushed back her blankets, shivering in the damp air. The fire had fallen to coals in the night. Smoke wisped above it, mingling with the pale mist that the trees around her wore as a cloak in their dark branches.

The air held the icy stillness of predawn, and the horses hadn’t yet stirred, night still lurking among the undergrowth of the Krathe. Cat pushed unruly hair out of her eyes and twisted, looking for Viggo. She heard him before she saw him, the whisper on his tongue as gentle as she’d ever heard it.

He was down on one knee, crouching on the damp ground at the edge of the hollow with sparks in his dark eyes. Mist swirled around him, caressing his skin with white fingers, his hair still tousled from his pillow and his hand stretched out coaxingly.

A wolf stood in the trees, not five yards from him, pale as a wisp of smoke with flames reflected in its eyes. Cat caught her breath when she saw it, and the leopard in her bristled and would have run, but she checked it, half afraid to scare the creature off.

The wolf stole forward, shy as a spirit of the trees, timid as a wraith. It was small for a wolf, small and slight and pretty, with dark fur marking its pale muzzle. It crept forward, touched his hand, sniffed his fingers, his wrist. Viggo touched the black marks around its eyes, ran his fingers through its thick fur and bowed his head, whispering to it with words she couldn’t hear. It nuzzled his chin, pressed its head to his, as affectionate as if it had known him all its life. He stroked its pale throat, its white head, and marked ears. A twig cracked, loud in the stillness, and it was gone, disappearing into the gathering mist as if it had never been, as if it were nothing more than one of the ghosts that the peasants said lived within the borders of the Krathe. He watched it go, yellow tracing the ironstone in his dark eyes. For a moment, Cat wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t follow. She stirred and rose to her knees. He looked up at her and smiled, the yellow fading from his eyes. “Morning.”

His voice was muted by the silence of the trees. Heavy mist still crept between the trunks, chilling her bones. Cat shivered, looking up at the gray in the sky. “Didn’t sleep well?”

“I did.” He rose, brushing wet leaves from his trousers. His expression still looked distant, as if he were a very, very long way off. Cat knew that feeling. It was an ache in her soul, sharp with longing, for what she didn’t know. For her, it wasn’t woken with a wolf. Freedom had a different shape for every Dreyen. “Very well, actually.”

“No nightmares?” She looked at him, searching for the shadow that Fane had left on him, but his eyes were clear, and some of the weight lifted from her chest.

“No nightmares,” he said cheerfully. He looked happier than she’d seen him in a long time, happier even than he’d been after they’d been freed from Fane. As if his heart—and hers with it—were finally settling. “No nightmares, plenty of sleep, and now,” he tossed a handful of kindling down beside the fire, “we have a trail to follow.”

Once the sun had burned the fog away from the trees, light fell through the branches and leaves like flecked gold, dancing on the tangled undergrowth of the forest floor. Cat held out her hand, letting the light play over her fingers. The air was warmer here beneath the trees. Only the sound of the horses’ tread and the saddles’ creak could be heard in the silence.

Viggo rode ahead of her on the narrow path, pushing aside thin branches as they reached for his hair and snagged at his clothing. Cat brushed a dead leaf out of her hair and looked back the way they’d come. The trees had closed in around the path, thick as reeds in a marsh already, although they’d only been traveling for several hours. Even in the bright cheer of late morning the silence felt uncanny.

The clearing appeared out of the trees without warning, undergrowth falling away before a deep hollow concealing a single cabin. Smoke tainted the air, rising from a crooked chimney, and the sharp ring of an axe punctuated the silence. Cat nudged her horse up beside Viggo’s. “What is it?”

“Huntsman.” Viggo’s dark eyes narrowed as he studied the vale. “The King’s gamekeepers. They live out here all alone and watch after the King’s interests in the Krathe. Catch poachers and such.”

Cat nodded. The rough, mean little cabin looked as though it belonged to the trees. Moss grew on the shingled roof, and the dark wood of the logs was stained with weather and smoke. Viggo clicked his tongue, urging his mount down into the hollow. “Let’s go ask the price of ale.”

Cat bit back a sudden smile. “You could ask if he’s selling lace.”

He shot her a look over his shoulder and didn’t answer.

Cat swallowed her laugh and followed him, although she didn’t like meeting new people half as much as he did. He sought them out when he could slip away from the training court without being seen—peasants, traders, servants. People who didn’t mind speaking with a devil’s son. He asked them questions and listened to their stories as though there was something of real worth behind every word, every song. Cat found it harder to care about such things. What the humans gossiped about among themselves interested her very little.

The huntsman heard them coming. He came around the corner of his cabin with an axe in his hands. Cat reined in her horse when she saw the fear in his eyes. The fear and the hatred.

Viggo did the same, hissing a curse beneath his breath at his horse as the animal shied beneath him, dancing sideways and bobbing its head. “Good ‘morrow to you,” Viggo called, his deep voice echoing beneath the trees. His horse shied again.

“Good ‘morrow,” the man replied suspiciously, his accent coarse with the brogue of a commoner. His rough beard was streaked with gray and stained yellow around his mouth from chewing tobacco. “What yuh be wantin’? I ain’t got no quarrel with yur kind, ‘alf-blood.”

Viggo crossed his arms and leaned comfortably on the pommel of his saddle. Cat could see the amusement in his eyes, although he was dead serious as he replied, “I don’t doubt it. King’s man, are you?”

“Aye, am at that,” the man said. His hands tightened on the haft of his axe. He cast a wary glance at Cat, licking his lips. His two front teeth were missing, knocked out in a fight, Cat guessed. “Always been loyal, always will be. Ain’t got nothin’ on me, ‘alf-blood, so clear off. I ain’t done nothin’.”

“Of course not.” Viggo glanced over at the cabin, studying a rack of drying pelts leaning against the outer wall. Deer hides were stretched against the logs, tacked into the wood, and fox and beaver pelts hung from a long rack. Wolf pelts, too, and more than a few of them. Cat saw Viggo’s eyes darken. “Hunting been good?” he asked.

The huntsman shot a look at the drying skins, and his skin went white beneath the dirt and grime. “I got a right to hunt.”

Viggo shrugged amiably, tearing his eyes away from the drying pelts. “Never said you didn’t.”

Cat shifted uncomfortably, wondering how long the by-play between the two of them would go on. The huntsman’s eyes flicked over to study her again. His gaze traveled down her slender frame, lingering longer than she liked, and at last he said, “Yuh’ve no business here. The Lady don’t like to be disturbed.”

Viggo frowned. “The Lady?”

The man lowered his voice as if the trees would hear him talking and smite him for speaking behind their backs. “The Krathe. The Krathe, boy. Don’t yuh know nothin’ o’ the ground yur walkin’ on? She lives and breathes, ‘alf-blood, and the heart beating in her chest don’t have no love in it for outsiders.”

Viggo smiled at him, and gold sparked in his irises. “Yes, I know. I can hear her.”

The man looked at him darkly. “Aye, yur kind would. I heard yuh can speak with the wind when it pleases yuh.”

“Sometimes.” Viggo looked over his shoulder, running his eyes over the gloom beneath the trees as if he could hear them whispering now. Cat bit the inside of her lip, half tempted to remind him that they were in a hurry. He could be irritatingly easy going when he wanted information. “When it has anything to say.”

The huntsman spat a laugh. He was leaning on his axe now, instead of gripping it tightly, and some of the animosity had faded from his eyes, as if Viggo’s admission about his “lady” had made him more friendly. “It’s been saying a fair piece lately. The wind and the Lady. I hears them, I do. Outside my window when I’ve gone to bed. Speakin’ and whisperin’. Lady don’t like bein’ disturbed, and she’s been disturbed a fair bit in the last few days.”

Cat leaned forward, interest rising. “What kind of disturbance?”

The huntsman glared at her, his expression darkening again. “They ain’t ought to send a woman in here. Bad luck it is, sending a woman in. The Lady won’t like it.”

Cat’s temper flared, but before she could say anything in return, Viggo said very softly, “I’d watch the tongue in my head when I speak to her, if I were you. Death’s daughters have a quicker temper than any wood spirit.”

The huntsman looked at her quickly, as if reevaluating his dismissal of her. Cat bared her teeth at him. His face went white, and his hand went to his throat, tugging a worn pouch from the collar of his tunic. “I ain’t got no quarrel with Death’s daughters, nor devil’s sons, neither,” he said quickly, pressing the pouch to his lips. “Be off. And may the Lady offer yuh mercy for yur souls while yuh ride.”

“The Lady can offer her mercy to whom she will,” Cat said coldly. Her horse danced beneath her as if sensing the anger behind her sharp words. “Hunting Dreyens have little use for mercy.”

“Naught to hunt in the Krathe for yur kind,” the man said warily, looking at her as though he were still trying to decide whether Death had carried and borne her as the tales said. “Naught but ghosts.”

“Who better to hunt a few ghosts than the King’s own demons?” Viggo said. The huntsman flinched, taking a step back, and Viggo smiled at him. “I believe you were asked a question.”

The huntsman looked at Cat, and she smiled at him, baring her incisors. He swallowed. “Don’t know everythin’. Just that the Lady’s been disturbed. Ain’t been settled like, ain’t been peaceful. And yestereve . . .” The huntsman swallowed and looked over his shoulder. “I done saw something. Something I ain’t never seen before, an I done lived here for thirty-odd years.”

“And what might that have been?” Viggo asked him, feigning boredom, but Cat could see the urgency in him, the biting interest.

The huntsman made a sign to ward off evil, pressing two fingers to his lips and heart. He looked over his shoulder again. “The devil come through here,” he whispered. “Not two days since. I seen him. After dusk it was, just when the trees were waking up. I were hauling water from that stream there when I seen him. White as a ghost he was, pale and dead-eyed, with black hair stringing down near past his shoulders. Face like a skull he had, when he looked at me from out o’ them trees. Dropped that bucket, I did, and lit for home. I heard enough stories about the Bonesmith to know when to turn my back.”

“The Bonesmith?” Viggo raised an eyebrow.

The huntsman spat in the dust. “Aye. The Bonesmith. Naught worse in these trees than what the Pale Lady herself sent to ‘em.”

“I heard he was dead.”

“Dead?” The man laughed hoarsely. “Dead? Can yuh kill the devil hisself? The Bonesmith dinna have no heart to pierce, ‘alf-blood.”

Viggo only nodded, his dark eyes thoughtful. After a moment, he turned his horse away, nudging it back along the path they’d been following. “Well, then. You’d best be bolting your doors when we come back through here. I’ve got a charge to bring him back to Ivra.”

“The devil, taken back to Ivra?” The huntsman gaped after him as Cat swung her horse around as well, following Viggo. “What for?”

“To hang,” Viggo called back cheerfully, already passing beneath the first branches of the forest. “What else?”

They lost the trail an hour before dark fell, and the Krathe turned against them like a snake, faster than an adder’s bite.

The light faded. Mist drifted through the undergrowth and swirled across the path, cold as autumn’s breath. The trees loomed overhead, and Viggo felt the air still, as if the Krathe were holding its breath.

The fog thickened, and he felt the ghosts began to stir.

He’d heard the stories, of course, from the groomsman who’d given them their mounts, the shopkeeper who’d sold him the doll. They spoke of the Krathe in hushed voices, as if it were a burial yard or a hangman’s court. Peasants lived and died beneath the eaves of the forest, but they didn’t venture inside, not to poach or forage or cut wood.

They knew better.

The dead lived in the Krathe. They walked its paths, they guarded its valleys, and they alone ruled the trees. Whatever the king might say to the contrary.

They rode their horses up out of a deep dell, Viggo’s mount stumbling on the uneven footing, as the first of the monoliths appeared out of the mist. Viggo jerked his reins without meaning to, pulling his horse to a halt before they could pass beneath the shadow of the monument, and felt a chill shiver down his back.

The stone stood higher than his head, even on horseback, reaching twenty or thirty feet in the air. It looked as if it had been cut from the bones of a mountain—black as fired steel and shaped smooth and even from tip to base. Moss grew on the surface,  creeping into cracks, but still, Viggo could see the symbols chiseled into the stone. They were foreign and unreadable, so old that some of them had been nearly erased by time and weather.

But still there. Still holding sway.

Another stone stood guard far to their left, another to their right, barely visible through the trees. He didn’t doubt that he would find others if he cared to ride in either direction: stones that stood sentinel against intrusion from the outside world.

Or, were they meant to keep something in?

Viggo heard the whispering begin as they rode their horses past. Voices came out of the trees, whispering, haunted voices. Voices just barely on the edge of hearing, so faint that they sounded more like the beginning of madness than human words. Viggo shut them out, keeping his eyes on the path ahead. The only ghosts he believed in lived in his head. The Krathe woke memories in the men who walked here, that was all. The silence stretched, branches stirred, the fog writhed like ghostly hands beside the path. Peasants and farmers talked in hushed voices of ghosts and dark magic, not understanding that they brought their phantoms with them from the outside world.

Memories were the only ghosts here, stirred up by strange surroundings and too much silence. Everyone had dead friends and dead family they thought of when other distractions were left behind.

Cat glanced behind them, watching the monoliths fade into the shadows. Her face was pale, and Viggo could see the gray in her eyes when he looked at her. What kind of memories the Krathe stirred up in her, he didn’t know. The border post in K’vul, maybe, where she’d grown up with parents who she still refused to talk about. Or the house beneath the hangman’s nooses in Ivra, where Joseph Brenner had taken her the night she killed him.

She had as many nightmares as he did.

“Too bloody quiet,” he said, more to break the silence than anything else. The words shattered the stillness, and his horse shied beneath him, jerking to one side so suddenly that he nearly fell.

Cat grinned at him as he got it back under control. “I think you scared her.”

Viggo cursed the animal straight to hell and shook his head. “We should’ve walked.”

“We’d still be out on the plains.”

Viggo glanced up at the tangle of dark branches overhead and grimaced. “Exactly.”

Cat laughed.

Viggo reined in and dismounted, glancing over his shoulder with a shudder. “We may need to make camp here and find the trail tomorrow.”

Cat nodded, her eyes fixed absently on something in the trees to their left. Something he couldn’t see. The whispering closed in around them, soft as a rush of wind through leaves. “Either way. I don’t mind going on.”

“Not much use without a trail.”

She nodded, still not looking at him. He bumped her leg. “Cat?” Nothing. He prodded a little harder. “Cat!”

She shook herself and glared at him. “What?”

“What are you looking at?”

She frowned, looking back to the left. “Lights.”

“What?”

But she was already off her horse, wading through the waist-high ferns. Viggo hooked his reins on a branch and went after her, stumbling in the thick undergrowth. The forest closed in around them, and his skin prickled.

Behind him, just on the edge of his vision, a shadow moved. The voices of the ghosts—trapped in his mind or wandering the Krathe—grew louder.

Without warning, Cat vanished beneath the waving fronds, and panic jerked through him so hard that he nearly choked. “Cat!”

The ground dipped beneath him, and he staggered, scrambling down a steep slope into a deep hollow. A spring trickled from the rocks on the far side, pooling at the bottom of the vale, and Cat was already on her stomach at the edge, peering into the water. “Viggo,” she breathed, soft as a child, “come look at this!”

Lights glowed beneath the surface of the pool. Red and green, deep purple and blue, swirling this way and that like tiny glow worms. Viggo took two steps toward her, frowning, and froze.

Kelpies darted among the rocks, swift as minnows, with transparent, childlike little bodies, flickering, incandescent fins, and fiery hair that seemed to burn beneath the rippling surface of the pool.

Cat had a look of utter rapture, and she leaned forward, their lights reflecting on her skin and down her throat. Viggo moved toward her, resisting the urge to yank her away from the edge, and said low, “Cat. Don’t touch them. They—”

“Make you bleed. I know.” She leaned further out, and the tiny bloodsuckers flocked to her shadow, huge, pixie-black eyes fastened on her through the glass-like water. “There must be a hundred of them.”

“That’s nice. Back away, all right?”

She took a leaf from the bank and set it in the water. One of the kelpies darted forward, crimson fins swirling in the current as it snatched the prize with tiny hands and bore it away, back beneath the bank. “I’m not going to touch, just look.”

Another kelpie darted forward, rippling in circles as if waiting for a second leaf to appear. Cat gave it a twig. “They hoard things, did you know that? Pebbles and leaves and things. I gave one a flower once. She carried it for days.”

Viggo glanced over his shoulder, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling, and came to sit beside her, careful to keep his distance from the water. The little creatures looked almost human in the fading light, very nearly like children, only as large as one of his hands, except for the needle-like dorsal and the graceful fins. The stories he’d heard about kelpies were all bad. Demon fish, people called them. The touch of their skin drew blood quicker than a blade, and they fed on it in frenzies that made the water boil. They swarmed children in the water and killed them and used their lights to lure the stupid and unsuspecting within their reach. “You were allowed to play with demon fish?”

“They aren’t demon fish.” Cat looked up at him with a frown. “Why would you say that?”

“The tales say they kill people. Sounds like a demon fish to me.”

“And the tales are always true?”

Viggo opened his mouth to retort and shut it again, realizing his mistake. Of course the tales weren’t always true. He couldn’t think of a single one about Dreyens that rang true to life. He looked up at the fading sky peeking through the dark branches overhead. Night was coming, stars scattering across the blue sky like silver dust. It seemed like a long time since they’d been at the huntsman’s cabin, more than just two days and a night. The Krathe seemed to make every hour stretch. “I suppose the tales might be wrong. How do you know so much about them?”

“There were a few in a pond near K’vul. I named them all, every single one of them. I still remember the names.” Her face colored, and she rose, scrubbing moss and mud from her elbows. “Never mind. Let’s keep going.”

“I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. What were their names?”

She cast him an amused look. “I’m not telling you. You’d laugh.”

“Swear I wouldn’t.”

“Liar.”

He laughed, but his eyes were drawn to a flicker of movement, a flash of color on the opposite bank. He stood, brushing grass and twigs from his trousers, and skirted the pool. Kelpies scattered, darting back beneath the banks. Cat frowned. “Where are you going?”

Giant moths, orange as the rising moon, large as the breadth of his hand, clung to the bark of a tree on the far bank. The tree’s silvery branches trailed in the water, swirling in the current, and when Viggo brushed the moths away, dark blood was clearly visible against the silver trunk. Fierce triumph rose in his chest. He ran his fingers over the reddish handprint, imagining a wound that would have bled like this. “He tried to catch one,” he said softly, half to himself. “Or pull it off. He must have stepped in the pool.”

“Viggo?”

He looked over his shoulder, grinning at Cat. “You’re not the only one that likes kelpies. Shall we keep going?”

Mist rose over the surface of the lake, pale as gossamer threads in the moonlight. Trees leaned down over the water, branches and leaves caressing the deeps with silent hands. Viggo stole forward, circling the narrow beach, now as the wolf, now as himself.

The wolf sensed it first, above the ripple and murmur of the lake and the distant roar of the waterfall that fed it.

The unease. The quiet and fear that stalked the paths of men, woken by men’s scent and loud breath. The tracks that their quarry had left behind him were accompanied by the scent of his passing. At last, a trail so fresh it might have only been laid an hour since.

The trees stirred to his left, and a pale shadow passed beneath their dark branches, silent as a ghost. Cat. The leopard was hunting.

The tumble of ruins appeared out of the forest as unexpectedly as if they had been scattered there by a forgetful hand. Dark shapes clustered between the trees, shattered walls, and crumbling towers rising from the ground like stone giants. The remains of the walls led down to the lakeshore, disappearing into the depths as if the lake had swallowed them. Inky water lapped at the stones of the keep.

A light glowed in the windows of the ancient castle.

Cat reached it first. The door was ajar, creaking on its hinges in the night breeze. Rotting wood swung on rusted iron, and Viggo saw her slip inside. He followed, leaving the wolf when the sharp, pungent smell of burning incense touched his throat.

The hall beyond flickered with shadow, moonlight falling through the broken rafters. Candles were scattered across the floor, dug down into the moss and propped against stones. Their light flickered against the walls casting shadows. Incense smoldered in a clay dish.

A man knelt at the foot of an old grave, his head bowed.

Viggo stepped into the room with his sword ready in his hand, but the sight made him pause. He lowered the blade, watching the smoke rise and wreath the stones. The gravestone was clumsily carved, crawling with ivy, matted with moss and dirt. Even the name was barely visible.

Maeva.

Cat slipped into the hall behind him, her sword in her hand. He stayed her with a gesture, although there was little need. Her soul was in her eyes, as it only ever was when she felt the rain on her skin. They both felt their own grief too keenly still, even after all these months, to mock another’s.

At last, the man sat back on his heels, raked hair out of his eyes. “Thank you for waiting.” His deep voice echoed in the hall, coarse with the accent of the northern mountains. “I’m ready now.”

Viggo sheathed his sword and nodded for Cat to circle to the left. “You’re a hard man to track down, Tomas.”

“Am I?” Tomas pinched a candle flame out and looked down at the soot on his fingers. The smoke that rose from its smoldering wick wreathed his gaunt frame. “I don’t remember that I tried to hide the trail much. Maybe it’s habit.”

“It’ll be easier to come quietly.”

Tomas stood and turned toward him. “Easier for you or me?”

Moonlight shadowed his eyes, sharpened his features into a hollow skull. His face was bone white, like a corpse’s, and his eyes were sunken and dark with old pain. Viggo moved toward him, pity and a trace of fear shuddering down his spine, as if he could see his own hopelessness in the man’s expression, left over from the nightmare of the fight houses. He banished the thought from his head and moved toward the man, baring his incisors in a ruthless smile. “It depends. How quickly do you want to die?”

Cat was on the other side of the hall now, between their quarry and the only other exit. Tomas glanced at her and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” He looked again at the gravestone, as if to commit it to memory. “We can do it now.”

Quicker than thought, he flicked a knife from his belt and threw it hard at Viggo. Viggo ducked, stumbling sideways, and felt the blade hiss past his head, so close that the wind of it stung his eye. He uttered a disdainful laugh. “Missed.”

The flicker of a smile touched the man’s lips. “Well, I’m getting old. They say it happens. Try again?”

“Don’t.”

He went for another knife. Viggo lunged for him, dodging the second blade as it went wide, and tackled him. The man fought like a feral wolf, as if the animal that lived in his soul had gone mad. His head hit Viggo’s chin, and Viggo tasted blood in his mouth.

Red light surged around him. White sand. The scream of the fight houses.

Panic roared through him, and he hit Tomas so hard that his head snapped back, and he went limp.

Blood flowed, soaking into the damp moss. The smell of it turned his stomach.

When the man woke, he was bound by his wrists to a hanging bough, and the moon was sinking behind the trees beyond the lake.

Viggo added wood to the fire he’d lit in the shelter of a derelict wall and watched the man struggle. He writhed, fighting the ropes as if he thought his gaunt frame and skeleton limbs would be enough to tear the knots. Viggo let him struggle for a long minute and said low, “They won’t break.”

Tomas froze, his narrow chest heaving, and twisted to look at him.

Viggo sat back, holding his eyes, and bared his incisors in an icy smile. “Relax. You’ll live longer.”

The man laid his head back and shut his eyes. “My dearest wish. Where’s my knife?”

“Didn’t stop to look for it.” Viggo glanced at the lake shore and the path where Cat had disappeared. They’d left their horses nearly a quarter of a mile back. It would take her a while to find them. “I imagine it’s back in the tower somewhere. Don’t worry. You won’t need it again.”

“Waste of a good knife.” The man frowned, wiggling around until his back was to the tree, and rested his head against the rough bark. He had blood on his throat. In his hair, too. It was a mercy his jaw wasn’t broken. “Two knives. I threw two, didn’t I?”

“You did. But not very well.” Viggo rose and picked up his hunting knife, glancing at the kindling he’d cut for the fire. He hadn’t found much dead wood near the tower or the lakeshore. He’d look for more later, once Cat returned. He respected the Krathe too much to risk cutting living wood here. The trees had a soul to them here, more than anywhere else he’d ever walked. He didn’t dare offend them. “I might forgive you.”

Tomas grinned, his eyes shut. He looked utterly spent, like a man who’d used the last of his will to reach this spot and had nothing left for himself. “That’s kind of you. I’ll forgive you for losing my knives, then.”

Viggo uttered a dry laugh and didn’t reply.

The moon dropped lower and fog rose above the lake, drifting among the trees and the scattered ruins on the shoreline. Viggo watched it come in, his skin prickling, and thought back to the monoliths they’d ridden past the day before. Men said the dead walked in the Krathe, ghosts gathering beneath the trees until even the rustle of their leaves was haunted. Watching the mist roll in now, he was willing to swear the rumors came from this spot. It had a ghoulish feel to it. As if even the stones were alive.

Something moved on the lakeshore, nearly startling him out of his skin. Cat emerged from the shadows, leading their horses. Viggo passed a hand over his face, willing his heartbeat to settle, and called, “Took you long enough. Did they stray?”

Cat laughed, the liveliness in her tone banishing the ghostly atmosphere in the clearing. “It’s been barely a quarter of an hour. Lonely already?”

Viggo grinned. “No.”

She came into the firelight and tossed him the saddlebags from her mount. “I’m starving.”

“Am I on cooking duty, too, then?”

“Do you want to unsaddle?”

“I’ll cook.” Viggo dug through the bags and made a face. “What sounds good? Moldy bread or hard tack with dry stringy meat?”

He looked up, expecting a laugh, and a stone dropped into his gut as he realized Tomas was staring at Cat, a strange expression on his face. Viggo bristled, half-rising, but Cat’s eyes turned green as sea ice and sharp as the north wind, and she flashed a smile that chilled even Viggo’s soul. “Find something you like, old man?”

“You’re a child,” he whispered, the words soft with incredulity. He twisted around, staring at Viggo as if he hadn’t seen him before. “You both—they’re sending children now? They couldn’t find another executioner?”

Viggo smiled at him. “They didn’t need to.”

“How old are you?”

“Old enough.” Viggo dug the bread from the saddlebags and used his knife to scrape the mold from the crust. It had gotten damp with all the rain on Sorrow’s Heath. He’d throw it out, but he wasn’t sure of finding anything else, and, with the way his middle was pinching with hunger, even moldy bread sounded palatable. “Does it bother you?”

Tomas uttered a choked laugh. “Maybe. Should I feel guilty for throwing a knife at a child?”

“Well, so long as you didn’t hit me.”

“I think the intention to hit you is enough.” Tomas stretched his jaw and grimaced. “How long have you been out of your Core?”

“Six months. Maybe eight.” Viggo glanced over his shoulder. Cat had hobbled the last of their horses and was setting them loose to graze. She was listening, he could tell, and the taut line of her jaw made him wince. “And yet, you’re the one tied to the tree. Age isn’t everything.”

Tomas rubbed his face with his bound hands and looked toward the lake. “It explains why you didn’t kill me.”

“Does it?”

“You have another reason?”

Viggo set the bread to warm on the stones around the fire and shrugged. “It’s a long way home, old man. Bodies stink. You’ll come quietly.”

Tomas grinned at him, his gaunt face shadowed by the firelight. His eyes were very black. “Will I?”

“You don’t want to die.”

“That’s the trouble with being young, isn’t it?” Tomas leaned back against the trunk and shut his eyes. “You believe that’s true. Don’t worry. Give it five, maybe even six years. You’ll understand. When things get bad, even death’s got its charms.”

A shiver rippled down Viggo’s spine. Cat was looking at him, seeing the shadow that his own desperation still had over his soul. He remembered that feeling. Too well. He cleared his throat, not meeting her eyes, and said hoarsely, “I’ve got a muzzle with me, old man. I might not kill you for talking too much, but I can shut you up if I feel like it.”

Tomas didn’t reply.

The nightmares were waiting for him when he fell asleep. Red light flared on white sand. Blood flowed.

Dead men. Dead faces.

Viggo was choking when Cat shook him awake. Choking on adrenaline and the brazen taste of another man’s fear. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. He jerked away from her, and she slapped him, hard.

The dream fled. Viggo rolled over and retched into the grass, his heart thundering against his ribs as if to shatter them. His stomach hurt. He put his head down and forced himself to breathe, in and out, counting each breath until they came without catching in his throat.

Cat nudged his shoulder, handing him a waterskin. He sat up and drank, trying to ignore the way she was looking at him—as if he might shatter right there in front of her.

He’d earned that look too many times in the last few months. He was tired of being the source of it. “I’m all right.”

“Did you bite your tongue?”

Viggo probed his lip with his tongue and winced. “My lip. Is it bleeding?”

She nodded.

Viggo swore and sat back against the wall, staring out into the dark trees. The fire had fallen nearly to coals, and the moon had vanished behind the trees beyond the lake. Only the starlight kept the darkness back, and there was precious little of that. “How long did I sleep?”

“An hour. Maybe a little more.”

An hour. He would have laughed if his heart weren’t still beating a painful tattoo against his ribs. An hour, and he doubted he would sleep again for another four. It took much longer to recover from his dreams than it did to have them.

Cat tugged the lace from her braid and ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it loose. “What was it this time?”

She was being careful not to look at him, her tone so casual that it felt false. Viggo took another drink, another retch catching in his throat as pieces of the dream came back. He’d been in the fight houses, in the ring, and a man, tall as kings with a face like smoke, had been watching him from the crowd.

The Ghost Walker.

Cat raised an eyebrow at him. Viggo drained the waterskin and tossed it aside. “Nothing. I don’t remember.”

The lie was so obvious, so stupidly obvious, that his cheeks burned hot. Cat held his gaze coolly, but, to his relief, said nothing. Viggo cleared his throat and looked away, nodding at the fire. “Did you mean to let that die out?”

Cat shrugged. “I didn’t really think about it.”

Viggo nodded. Silence slipped between them, and he stood, stretching the stiffness from his back. “You might as well go to sleep. I can take over for a bit.”

“It’s only been an hour.”

Viggo allowed himself a strained smile. “No point in both of us staying awake.”

“Wake me when you’re tired.”

“I will.”

Another lie, but she believed this one. Viggo waited until she’d curled up beneath the blankets on her pallet before he rose and kicked another log into the fire. Sparks flared up, scattering through the branches overhead.

When he looked up, Tomas was watching him.

Viggo flushed, and he bared his teeth at the man to hide his shame. He’d forgotten, in the midst of dreams and ghosts, that he and Cat weren’t alone any longer. The pity in the man’s eyes stung. “Get a good look?”

Tomas shifted, his gaunt face shadowed by the firelight, and said, “Lot of ghosts in these woods.”

“Is that so?”

“People usually have nightmares when they first come to the Krathe. I wouldn’t pay it any attention.”

“I don’t have nightmares, old man.”

This time, the lie didn’t sting and almost sounded believable. Viggo sat down against the wall and shut his eyes. He’d been dreaming since they passed the ring of stones two days ago. Mostly about the fight houses, a few times about the Core or about Fane’s apartments.

Always, in every dream, the shadowy figure of the Ghost Walker had been standing in the background with fire in his hands and his eyes. Watching. Waiting. For him to speak, to notice him, something.

As if they had business together that Viggo himself didn’t know about.

With a start, Viggo sat up, realizing he’d nearly drifted off. He leaned forward, adding wood to the fire. “So. The Bonesmith.”

Tomas frowned. “What?”

“That’s what they call you. In the stories.”

Tomas uttered a hoarse laugh. “Do they?”

“The peasants do.” Viggo ran a hand over his face, working to shove down the exhaustion aching in his bones. If he fell asleep now, with the memory of the dream still fresh in his mind, the Ghost Walker would be prowling in his head in ten minutes. Better to let him fade first. “They say you killed a man you weren’t meant to, and as punishment the Pale Lady sentenced you to build her an altar of bones in the Krathe. So you started murdering peasants.”

“An altar of bones. I do remember that part.”

“I half expected to find you at the foot of it.”

“You really think it’s real?”

“Why not?” Viggo shrugged. “The peasants do.”

Tomas stared at him. Viggo smiled coldly. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t kill you. Maybe there are people who want to see you suffer when you die.”

The man’s jaw clenched. Viggo studied him, searching his eyes for the fear he knew was there. Silas Thorne had told them plenty about the man they were to bring back to Ivra, but it wasn’t his stories that lived in Viggo’s head these days. He’d heard more from the herbwomen in the healing houses in Ivra and around the fires in the marketplaces after dark. Men there weren’t so quick to recognize a Dreyen when they saw one, not with his hood up and his tattoo covered, and he’d had little enough to do while Cat had been in recovery.

The rumors he’d heard about the Bonesmith’s bloody history had been enough to silence any guilt in his head when it came to dragging the man back to Ivra and leaving him at the foot of the gallows there.

“If you really believe in ghosts, old man, you shouldn’t have come back here. The dead remember a long, long time.”

“You don’t know the story. Not the real one.”

“I know you were a bloodhound for a soldiers’ outpost before you murdered a peasant girl and disappeared into the Krathe,” Viggo snarled. “I know most of those you killed were children. I know you’re a coward.”

“That part is true, actually. I am a coward. But,” the man hesitated, glancing at the dark trees as if the ghosts he believed in were listening, “the rest—is complicated.”

Viggo laughed. “You think there’s an explanation that makes it better? Did you know any of them? Their names? Who their families were? Or didn’t you care?”

Tomas held his eyes for a long breath. “If that’s how you think of it, why didn’t you kill me?”

“I’ll leave that to the executioner.”

“Why?”

Viggo stood, saying with brutal mockery, “Because you don’t deserve a quick death.”

He kicked wood into the fire and walked away, toward the lake. Tomas’s voice followed him. “Her name was Maeva.”

Viggo stopped and looked back. Tomas’s face was drawn, his eyes so distant he might have been looking at a ghost of his own. “The peasant girl I killed,” he said low. “Her name was Maeva.”

Viggo didn’t answer him.

He fell asleep by the shore of the lake less than an hour later. The moon had vanished from the sky, hiding itself behind a veil of trees, and the kelpies had appeared beneath the waves, darting this way and that, shimmering darts of green and silver, red and purple and blue light.

He fell asleep with their tiny, soulless black eyes in the back of his mind, and when he woke, a woman was standing in the water up to her waist, her pale hands cupped around one of the tiny creatures as it clutched her thumb and stared at up at her with a strange kind of adoration.

Viggo started to his feet, his skin crawling as the tiny animal twisted in her fingers and looked at him. Its eyes were very black. He swore. “What are you doing?”

The woman stroked the creature’s long, flowing dorsal fin and lowered it back beneath the water, watching it dart away. Her unruly hair was tied back with a blue scarf, and her eyes were silver when she smiled at him. “You don’t like them?”

“The demon fish?” He laughed. “No. Who are you?”

“One of the dead.”

His skin prickled, and he realized suddenly that, despite the way she’d touched and stroked the kelpie, her fingers had no blood on them. “The dead,” he said softly.

“The Widow sent me.”

His skin went cold as ice, and he took a step back. “What?”

She touched the water, watching the waves ripple beneath her fingers. She was older than he’d first thought. A slight, straight woman with weathered skin and gray streaks in her curly hair. She looked like a witch, like she’d stepped out of one of the stories they told in the servants’ courts after dusk fell. “Are you happy? She wanted to know.”

“Am I—what?”

“Are you happy? With your choice.”

Viggo stared at her, lost for words, and remembered the disappointment in the Widow’s voice when he’d refused to follow her request to tell Thorne everything and disappear with Cat out onto the plains. Had she been trying to lure him away that night? Out into the dark and the loneliness of the heath where she could snatch his soul? “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I am.”

“There’s still a price to pay.”

He shook his head, although he knew it was true. “No, we paid that.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. My partner—”

“Your partner’s blood won’t be what the Pale Lady demands, Ghost Walker.”

Ghost Walker.

Viggo went as numb as stone.

The woman looked up toward the tower. Kelpies swirled around her skirts, light reflecting up from the water on her pale face. “You don’t know the name?”

“It isn’t mine.”

“No? It’s what I was told to call you.”

“By the Widow.”

“Yes.”

Viggo shook his head, feeling sick. “She made a mistake. Or you did.”

The woman laughed and shook hair out of her eyes. “No, no mistake. Ask the Bonesmith.”

“The Bonesmith?” Viggo half-turned back toward the camp, as if the fire might have leapt up again and he could have seen Tomas lying among the stones. “Tomas?”

Her eyes softened, and the smile playing on her lips had a wistful note to it. “Yes. Tomas. He knows. He’ll help you.”

Viggo choked on a laugh. “He’ll help me. The man I have tied to a tree is going to help me?”

“Yes.”

“Why would he do that?”

“You don’t want his help?”

Irritation snatched at his throat, and he smiled. “I don’t need it. Tell the Widow I’m happy with my choice—and the name I have.”

Amusement flashed through her silver eyes, and she laughed. “She said you were stubborn.”

“I don’t listen to ghosts often.”

“No.” She studied him thoughtfully. “But you will. Goodnight, Ghost Walker. When you see the Bonesmith, tell him Maeva sends her love.”

Viggo’s stomach dropped. A sharp crack snapped through the woods behind him, and he whipped around with his heart in his throat.

When he turned back, the woman was gone and even the kelpies had vanished.

The sunrise was piercing through the trees, sharp as ice and nearly as cold, when Cat woke the next morning. Mist drifted in from the lake, and pink dawn edged the gray clouds in the sky.

She sat up, shoving the blankets to one side. Viggo was sitting by the ashes of their fire, watching the light stretch over the lake, his eyes dull and absent. Cat scrambled upright, trying to kick off the tangle of blankets. “I thought you were going to wake me.”

Viggo shrugged, not looking at her. “No reason to. Never was tired enough.”

Cat’s stomach turned over, and her eyes darted toward his wrists and the leather vambraces covering scars he’d carved into his flesh. All his sins, he called them. She still wasn’t sure whether they were sins or nightmares, or what would cause the next one.

He caught the look and forced a grim smile as he rose to his feet. “Nothing to worry about. Just tired.”

Cat nodded, knowing he was lying. His eyes were hollow and more weary than she’d seen them in a long time—since they’d escaped from Fane and the fight houses had lost their hold on him. He picked up his spare tunic from the mess that was his knapsack and turned toward the lake, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll be back. Call if you need me.”

He disappeared among the ruins, and Cat shut her eyes, cursing Fane Ravenstone to the blackest corner of hell where he belonged. She could still feel Joseph Brenner’s blood on her hands, as if she’d never been able to really scrub it off her skin and from beneath her nails after she’d killed the man, but there were days she regretted not sending their master straight after him. The Pale Lady could torture them both, for all she cared, for what they’d done to her partner’s mind.

“He’s young for the fight houses,” a voice said.

Cat glanced over her shoulder. Tomas was seated against the wall, awake and watching her. His gaunt face looked like a skull’s even in daylight. He cocked his head, studying her, and asked softly, “How long was he in the ring?”

Cat held his eyes, a sharp needle of anger burning through her breast, and said, “Long enough.”

“He’s lucky. Most don’t make it out.”

Cat didn’t bother to reply. She stood, kicking aside the last of her blankets, and gathered up the last of their kindling to set a new fire. She could feel Tomas watching her, his gaze grating like sandstone against her skin. At last, she looked up, meeting his eyes flatly. “He told you?”

“He’s got the scars.” Tomas shrugged. “After meeting the first ten or twelve from the rings, you start to recognize them.”

A slight smile twitched at the corner of Cat’s mouth. “You’re smart.”

Tomas said nothing.

Cat clicked flint and steel together, breathing life into the flames as they caught in a handful of dried grass. She tucked the bundle beneath the structure of twigs within the circle of rocks and watched it begin to burn.

“You’re from Crainfell.” Tomas leaned forward, nodding at the compass tattoo on her arm. “Like I was.”

The flames caught, biting at bark and wood, crackling and snapping hungrily. Cat added heavier branches and shrugged. “So?”

“Bloodhounds don’t usually have partners.”

“I have more than one tattoo, old man, in case you didn’t notice. I’m not a bloodhound anymore.”

His eyes darted toward her shoulder, to the scorpion etched into her flesh, and he nodded. “Better that way. It’s good to have someone to rely on.”

Someone to rely on.

Cat swallowed a sudden rush of nausea and stood, turning away before he could see the guilt those words caused. The ghosts that whispered in the Krathe laughed at her, taunting her with her mother’s voice.

“I taught you better.”

She’d been hearing the words since they passed the standing stones and entered the inner soul of the Krathe. Her mother’s voice, scornful, mocking her from the darkness when Viggo fell asleep with his arm around her, scoffing when she nudged her horse closer to his on the trail.

She did rely on him. More than she had intended. More than she’d been taught.

How stupid.

The man was still watching her, something like knowing in his black eyes, as if he, too, heard the whispering and understood it enough to catch what was said. She looked at him, letting the leopard burn through into her eyes as she flashed a mocking smile, the words as much for her mother’s condemning ghost as for him. “While it lasts.”

“You don’t expect to stay with him?”

“No. Why should I? They’ll separate us eventually.”

Tomas nodded and said softly, “But you’ll miss him.”

Panic skittered beneath her skin. Would she? What would it be like, waking up on her own again, facing the whole long endless day without him to make it bearable?

She smothered the thought hurriedly, reminding herself that he wasn’t gone yet. When the time came, she would make the best of it as she always had before. “That’s the beauty of the double tattoo, isn’t it?” She shrugged, the words so cynical that it made her sick. “I have a partner for now, and when it’s time to move on, I won’t be the one looking back.”

A deep laugh floated from beneath the trees behind her, glacial as a ghoul’s breath. “You know, I’d be willing to admit that I was wrong about you.”

Cat spun around. The figure emerging from the fog and ruins of the castle was wreathed in mist, too dark for a ghost, too small for a ghoul or devil. He came forward, passing through the broken and scattered stonework, and a chill passed down her spine as she recognized the face beneath the dark hood.

Lant Curtis. Silas Thorne’s personal hellhound.

Lant grinned at her, the rose tattooed across his throat gleaming like raw flesh in the half light, as if the wolves that roamed the Krathe at night had torn his throat out. “You’ve got more poison to you than I expected from a compass brat. Good for you.”

“What do you want?”

“Looking for his Holiness. He ditch you?”

“I’m here.” Viggo came walking up the path from the lake, his hair wet and his eyes narrowed warily. “Where the devil did you spring from?”

Lant Curtis smiled at him, brushing the deep hood back. His dark clothes were wet with dew and the dripping branches. His war axe was in his hand, carried loosely, like he’d forgotten it was there. “Here and there.” He glanced up at the tower. “Gods, this is an eerie spot. What was it? A boneyard?”

Viggo shrugged. Cat still couldn’t tell if he liked the man or not. He spoke of him as if he himself weren’t sure. “A watchtower, maybe. What are you doing here?”

Lant ignored the question. His broad shoulders were bare, and the glittering eyes of the snake tattoo coiled around his upper arm gleamed red, even in the dull light. “And you’ve caught your fox.” He bared his incisors at Tomas, and the light in his gray eyes sparked with gold. Gold and green. “Hello, Fleck. Remember me?”

Tomas did. Cat could see it. His face went pale as limestone, and a muscle in his jaw twitched as the memory of real pain went through his dark eyes. Lant saw it, too, and laughed. “That’s right. Brought you in the first time, didn’t I? The three of us had a good time.”

“The three of us—” Cat’s heart dropped in her breast, and she turned instinctively to look for Reika, Lant’s vicious partner. The mist to her left stirred, and the woman appeared as if Cat’s thought had summoned her. She smiled in Cat’s direction, venomous as a snake, her dark hair braided back and her throat tattoo gleaming in the thin light.

Viggo didn’t look at her, but Cat could feel the anxiety buzzing beneath his skin, despite his outward calm. He tugged on his tunic, moving toward the wall where his gear was piled, his sword buried beneath the contents of his knapsack. “He remembers. Almost took my head off with a bloody knife.”

Lant stepped in his way, casual, his smile still intact. “And he’s still breathing? I’d have thought you’d break his neck for that.”

Reika was behind them now, prowling and silent as a wildcat. The leopard began to stir in Cat’s breast, not liking the air or Lant’s mocking smile.

Viggo held Lant’s gaze, his jaw working, and said low, “Why are you here? Last I heard, you were out on assignment in Ivra.”

“Oh, I am. On assignment, anyway. Just . . . not in Ivra.” Lant’s smile turned feral, and Cat stopped breathing. “I’m here for you, actually.”

Viggo stared at him, feeling the ground crack and give way beneath his feet. Red light flared in the trees, conjured by his mind and hot as fire, as if he’d never really escaped the fight houses. As if they’d only been waiting for the chance to drag him back again.

Torch light. The scream of the crowds.

“It’s tough luck, Holiness,” Lant said softly. “You almost made it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Viggo whispered, already choking on the thin wire of fear wrapping around his throat. The lie sounded pathetic, even to him. “I’m only doing what I was sent—”

“Thorne knows about the fight houses.” Lant’s dark hair was beaded with moisture from the fog, and the scar on his cheek stood out, livid against his pale face. “I thought he’d leave it alone, but he’s hell-bent on seeing every last man involved stand trial. Including your master.”

Fane. Viggo tried to imagine what that would be like—to see Fane Ravenstone dragged up before a magistrate, Thorne himself, even. To see him writhing in the dock like the stupid coward he was, begging for mercy from a man who wasn’t any more likely to offer it to him than he had been to Viggo.

Watching that moment would almost be worth what would be waiting for him afterward.

Lant grinned as if he could see the look in Viggo’s eyes and knew what he was thinking. “That’ll be something to see, won’t it? You’ll have to testify, of course—nothing like the word of a King’s Dreyen to bury a man in the cells for the rest of his life.”

“And then what?” Viggo asked before he could stop himself. He looked up, looked Lant in the eye, and let some of the dormant anger burning in his soul sear through. “What happens afterward? They send us to the gallows?”

His voice was too harsh, too sharp. It echoed among the trees and the ruins, bounding off stone, cutting through the mist like a knife stroke. Lant’s eyes narrowed, his smile becoming fixed. “That’s up to you, isn’t it?” He moved toward Viggo, hefting the war axe in his hand. “It’s all about your choices now. You—and your little kitten—can come quietly, make things easy. That’s your best bet. I’ll put in a good word for you with Thorne—even make sure you get the credit for taking in your target.” He jerked his head in Tomas’s direction.

Viggo took a step back, trying to sort through the words in his head, make sense of them. Tomas was struggling against the rope around his wrists, already guessing where things would end up for him. Cat had her eyes on him, her jaw tight and her eyes wide, and she said softly, “He’s right. Viggo, let’s go. We can talk to Thorne.”

Viggo barely heard her, the sound of his own heart hammering against his ribs blocking out everything else. Reika was between them and the horses now. Silent, still. Watching.

Lant continued. “Listen to her, Holiness. Who knows. Thorne might be in a giving mood.” He shrugged. “You do what you’re told, maybe you’ll end up somewhere together. The salt mines. Maybe even a border post. You never know how lucky you’ll be.”

Viggo laughed, the sound scraping against his throat. No, he knew how lucky he was. His soul had been cursed somewhere between the Core and the fight houses, although he hadn’t seen the witch who’d done it, and there would be no luck for him. “I’m not the lucky kind.”

Lant’s eyes hardened. “Don’t make this worse than it is, Holiness. You don’t want to die here.”

The words felt eerily similar to the ones he’d spat at Tomas only a few hours before. Viggo glanced at the man, understanding suddenly why he’d come back to this place, why he’d thrown the knife and fought when he had no hope left.

This was a good place to die.

If Lant had been ordered to kill him, it would have been over then. Viggo saw it in the man’s eyes, even as he ducked past the man and made a lunge for the blade sheathed by the wall. He heard the hiss of Cat’s sword as she drew it, heard the scream of the horses as the panic around the fire reached them. Then his blade was in his hand and he spun around, flicking it clear of the sheath only just in time to block a blow that would have knocked him senseless. Lant’s teeth were bared. Viggo could see the madness in him, the vicious bloodlust that he knew only too well from his fights in the ring. He scrambled backward, wielding his blade desperately, struggling to find his balance for a fight he knew he couldn’t win. A fight he’d lost already in his mind and in his nightmares.

Cat’s cry of pain snapped him out of his own fear. He twisted, caught a glimpse of her struggling with Reika beside the fire. The war axe thundered down again, nearly driving him to his knees. Lant jerked it clear, pivoted the blade and slammed the shaft into his jaw.

Pain exploded behind his eyes. Darkness rose up, flooding through the fog, eating at the corners of his vision. He could taste the blood in his mouth. He spat, struggling to get back to his feet, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. The ground was moving. Lant raised the weapon for another blow. “Too bad, Holiness. You tried.”

A horse screamed. Lant spun, swore as Viggo’s horse came bolting into the camp, blood on its haunches, panic in its eyes. Lant stumbled back, dropped the war axe, and grabbed its halter. It spun, rearing drunkenly, screaming in fear or pain. Its hoof clipped Lant’s temple, and he went down with blood on his face.

Viggo reared backward clumsily, groggy with pain, only half aware of Cat’s horse as it bucked past him, of the packhorse thundering through the camp. He ducked and swung around, looking for Cat.

She was on the ground. Reika had her down, and there was blood on her clothes. Viggo screamed at her, the wolf in his voice. Reika pivoted, baring her sharpened incisors, her black eyes feral with fury. He slammed into her bodily. Her head snapped back, and she fell. The pack horse reared above her, stumbled on the stony ground. His hoof crushed her shoulder, and her shriek tore the sky with its pain.

Viggo caught a glimpse of her huddled, broken figure, of Lant’s horror as he scrambled to his feet. The older man’s scream matched hers.

Then Viggo was running. He heaved Cat to her feet, half-pulling, half-dragging her after him. Knotted ferns and tangled undergrowth snatched at his legs, pulling him back, tripping him up. His own breath sounded like a sob in his throat. Lant’s voice followed him, screaming curses that had no meaning.

His foot snagged on a broken root. He fell, dragging Cat down after him. They landed in a patch of ferns, the massive leaves covering them and enclosing them on all sides. Cat twisted, struggling to rise. Viggo clamped a hand over her mouth and hissed desperately, “No! It’s too late. He’ll see us.”

She froze, her slender frame crushed beneath his chest. He could feel her heartbeat against his, pattering like a frightened animal’s, like a bird that wasn’t allowed to fly.

Silence fell.

Cold crept into his legs. White fog swirled in the forest around him, stroking his arms and throat, condensing on the narrow leaves of the ferns, dripping down the back of his neck. He could hear, faintly now, the ripple and lap of the lake, but everything else had gone as silent as if it were afraid to breathe. The birds, the frogs. Even the horses. He couldn’t hear Lant anymore, not Lant, not Reika. The man was hunting somewhere beyond them through the ruins. Searching for them. The thought seared into his mind, fear shortening his breath.

Cat’s face was pressed into the ground as if to hide the sound of her panicked breathing, the sobs she couldn’t quite stifle inside herself. Viggo could feel hot blood soaking through her tunic, feel the sticky wetness on his fingers and sliding down his wrist, but he didn’t dare move to check where it was coming from. Not yet. He was too afraid that the slightest movement would draw Lant to them, the smallest sound would give them away and spell the end.

A hand touched his shoulder. His heart jerked with shock, and he spun around, expecting a blade in his throat or between his shoulder blades.

It was Tomas. Tomas, with torn flesh on his wrists and Viggo’s sword strapped to his back. Tomas, who could have disappeared into the trees by this time, who looked more ghost than man and still had the pain of his years in Avrena Dul carved into his flesh. Viggo stared at him, his heart pounding. The man held a finger to his lips. “He’s headed back into the trees,” Tomas breathed. The words were softer than a whisper, but still the air around them seemed to shiver when it heard them, as if it felt Viggo’s fear as deeply as its own. “This way.”

“With you? But—” His voice sounded odd in his own ears, raw and afraid and helpless, like a child’s. Stupid of him. “How did you get free?”

Tomas laughed quietly and held up his bruised hands, shredded flesh hanging from his wrists. “You should learn to tie a knot better, boy,” he said. “You’re too kind with your knots to hold someone for long if they’re determined to get free. Come on, or I’ll leave you for him to find.”

But Viggo’s mind was working again, his thoughts ordering themselves into something that resembled reason. “The horses. That was you?”

“It was.” Tomas began to wriggle backward. “And it’ll be wasted if you don’t stop asking questions. Hurry.”

Cat changed when they left the ferns, letting the leopard follow Tomas. The leopard carried her pain with it, the sharp, bitter sting of the wound left by Reika’s blade. Its gray fur was quickly sticky with blood, but it wasn’t pain that slowed her step. It was fear as cold as the night and as thick as the fog around her. Fear fed her shaking heart and her weak legs.

Viggo was afraid, too, she could tell. She could see it in his eyes before he let the wolf take his shape. When he led the way through the rustling ferns, following Tomas, he left the scent of it behind him.

Only Tomas seemed not to feel the pervading terror lingering in the still air beneath the trees. The animal in his soul—an otter, sleek and quick as a shadow—led them west, down a steep slope thick with ferns and lined with broken stonework. West, toward the edge of the lake, where the Flumen flowed into its still waters. He seemed to know exactly where he was going and why, but Cat could think of nothing ahead that would hide their tracks and cover their scent when Lant Curtis came looking. They called him soldovän in Ivra, soul-drawn, like the ghosts that walked the eastern marshes and knew when the living touched their land, but he was flesh and blood, like Viggo, like herself. She knew only too well what flesh and blood was capable of if pressed.

Lant would find them. For Reika and the snap of bone Cat had heard when the packhorse had stepped on her.

The thought almost made her choke. They’d had a chance. A brief moment in time where they could have made it back to Ivra alive and unhurt. If Viggo had only listened—she cut the thought off before it could go further.

It was too late now. They couldn’t do anything but run.

The falls emerged from the mist ahead of them, gray-green in the morning light. Black cliffs rose above the rippling lake on this side of the water, and the surging might of the Flumen tumbled down them in a deluge of incredible power. Cat could hear nothing now. Not a sound of pursuit, not the pad of their own feet, or the swish of the ferns around them. Only the thunder of the falls surrounded her, drenching the air with its tumultuous roar. Tomas turned aside, leaving the lakeshore behind, and led them up behind the cliffs. Cat followed without question. She’d lost any ability to care where he was taking them or why, pain blurring her ability to think. Reika had put the point of her sword into her shoulder, just below the bone and above her breast. Cat could feel it there still, like a red-hot poker beneath her skin, and she could still hear the way the woman had laughed when she screamed.

Yes, there were a few in their race who enjoyed pain.

The leopard left her when they reached the ledge. Her tunic was soaked. The torn fabric stuck to her skin, glued to her flesh with dried blood, and she felt dizzy when she touched it. Viggo looked back, concern written into his eyes, and she tried to smile at him. It came out wrong, stiff and still, not forgiving, not at all like the smile she would have liked to have given him.

He didn’t smile back.

The ledge was only about four feet wide and barely long enough to accommodate all of them. It had been cut out of the rock about halfway up the cliff, scored from the stones by time and pounding water. Cat leaned against the wet cliffside and closed her eyes. She felt exposed up here, horribly, horribly exposed, as if the blood on her chest and side were bright marks painted on her to attract the man hunting them. He would smell the blood, maybe, or see it. He would be here soon.

Tomas had released his otter’s shape and was farther along the ledge, almost beneath the waterfall, running his hands over the black rock as if he expected to find a crack or cleft that he could crawl into to hide. Viggo hissed impatiently. “We have to go, old man. We can’t stay here. What are you doing?”

Tomas didn’t look at them. He was leaning out, reaching into the water. “Looking for the way across,” he called back softly.

Viggo’s face went as white as it had when Lant had told him that Thorne had found out about the fight house. For a moment, he seemed lost for words, and she saw his anger return, as it always did, to protect him from his fear. “Here?” He could sound so cutting when he tried, so vicious. “We can’t cross here!”

Cat pressed a hand to her shoulder, biting her tongue to keep from screaming at Tomas. Viggo was right. The lake stretched away to their right, edged with woods, reflecting the sky, and the waterfall plunged past just ahead of them. She could see the far shore through the mist and shredded water—a hundred yards off. Too far to climb beneath the falls, especially with her shoulder like this. Her fingers were already numb.

“We cross here, or it’s back along the shoreline to your camp. I’m sure Lant Curtis would appreciate not having to hunt you down.” Tomas pulled back, shaking water out of his eyes. He beckoned to Cat. “Come on. You’re first.”

Cat stepped back. She wasn’t afraid of heights, not like Viggo was, but the thought of climbing across a wet cliff beneath the thundering, pounding force of the falls made her weak at the knees. She looked helplessly at Viggo. He shook his head. “No. You’re insane. We’re not climbing across that.”

“Then die here.” Tomas shrugged. “Those are the choices.”

Cat bit her tongue and went to join Tomas. He took her arm, guiding her to the very edge of the cliff. “Easy now. Just a short climb, barely ten feet. You’ll be fine.”

Barely ten feet? The man was stupid. She clenched her fist, allowing him to maneuver her to the place where she would step off. Fine mist coated her hair until it was nearly white, and the cold water drenched her injured shoulder. For the moment it felt lovely, dulling the hot, stabbing pain of her wound, but in ten minutes, she knew, it would stiffen until she could barely use it.

“Right here.” Tomas went ahead of her, slipping beneath the waterfall. He took her hand and slid it along the rock until her fingers found a deep incision in the stones, cut and shaped to allow her to grip with her fingers. “There’s a narrow shelf a couple of inches wide for your feet, and more handholds along the way. Can you make it?”

Cat clenched her jaw and dug her fingers into the grooved nook. Her hands were shaking. Stupid, stupid fear. She spat into the falling water. “If you can,” she said through clenched teeth.

She stepped off the ledge and into the icy deluge.

The cold hit her first, like a slap in the face. She caught her breath and tightened her grip on the groove of stone. The drop beneath her seemed impossibly long, nearly a hundred feet, she guessed, down into black water and jagged, blacker stones. Tomas slipped away in front of her, nearly invisible beneath the curtain of falling water.

The shelf was slick with water and moss. She inched along it carefully, clinging to the groove in the rock where he’d placed her left hand and searching the smooth wall ahead of her with her right, looking for the next hollowed cut. It, too, was slippery when she finally did find it. She dug her fingers into the stone, holding on with her fingernails as much as with her hands, and pushed forward again.

The next groove was rougher than the last, and she cut her fingers when she pushed her hand into it. Her fingers were shaking. The shelf beneath her feet wasn’t wide enough to hold her weight, not all of it. Her arms had to take most of the strain. The wound in her shoulder hurt so badly she had to shut her eyes and bite her lip to keep from crying out.

There was no fourth groove. The narrow shelf beneath her feet ended so abruptly that she nearly stepped off of it and only caught herself just in time. Her fingers, running over the cliff in front of her in search of another place to hold onto, met nothing but frigid air and biting mist. She froze helplessly, panic flickering into her mind, but Tomas’s hand caught hers, his deep voice echoing out to her from among the rocks. “Not far now. Jump toward me.”

Cat cursed him.

“Too late to go back. Jump—I’ll catch you.”

Cat closed her eyes, spitting every curse she knew into the drenched, mist-ridden air, and jumped.

Tomas caught her even before her feet hit the rock. Her knee buckled, pain shooting through her ankle. He drew her back from the edge and left her to lean against the stone, moving to help Viggo with the same leap.

Cat shut her eyes. Her legs felt weak underneath her, whether because of the blood she had lost or the adrenaline rush from the jump, she didn’t know. The damp sand beneath her boots shifted, and she looked up and around. A long, narrow passage had been cut into the rock behind the falls, like an unfinished tunnel with a wall of water on one side and chiseled stone on the other. A roof of black rock hung overhead, still bearing the marks of pick and shovel. Green-tinted water plummeted past, sheer and aqua from the pale light flitting through it.

Viggo touched her elbow, helped her to straighten up, and when he put his arms around her and held her she pressed her face into his chest and tried to forget everything but the feel of his embrace.

His hands were shaking, his tunic soaked, and his breath distorted in her ears. He was afraid of heights, she knew, more afraid of them than she would ever be. He fell, sometimes, in his nightmares. They were some of his worst, but he never screamed in them. Those were silent, tortured dreams she couldn’t help him with, dreams she never knew about until he woke the next morning with hollowed eyes and a bitter smile.

“All right?” Viggo asked, his voice sounding as rough as if he’d just woken from one of those nightmares.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

She wanted to scream at him, to strike him away and ask what in hell’s name he’d been thinking. She forced it in, holding her breath until she could say without blame or anger, “We could have gone back.”

“I know.” His breath rattled in his throat. “I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking.”

She said nothing. What was the use now? What could she say that would change what he’d just done to both of them?

His arms tightened around her. “Can you keep going now?”

Cat drew back and looked at him. He had blood in his mouth, on his throat, smeared into the blond scruff on his chin and jaw. He had a boy’s beard and a man’s eyes, as if everything he’d seen and everything he’d done had added extra years. Her heart twisted, and she touched his jaw, tracing the bruise Lant Curtis had left on him with her fingertips. He flinched. “Is it broken?” Her voice sounded odd in her ears, not like her own. It was too calm, too collected and dispassionate, as if she’d somehow detached from it.

“No,” Viggo said, but too quickly. She could see that it was hurting him far more than he’d willingly admit. “It’s nothing. I can still talk, can’t I?”

She was going to laugh at him, to tease that, yes, he could still talk, and she wouldn’t grudge it against Lant Curtis, but it wouldn’t come. The laugh, the smile, the teasing, flirting words. What came instead were tears, hot, stupid tears. He drew her into his chest again when he saw them, and she buried her face into his shirt and cried with relief. Relief that he was still here, that the blood would dry and the bruise would fade, and she hadn’t lost him to his own stupidity yet.

Not yet.

It was raining when they finally left the roar of the Flumen behind them, a fine, misting rain. Tomas led them off the deer trail and beneath the trees where the fall was lighter and the ground was still dry. Cat was swaying now, and her face was white, although she still smiled at him determinedly when he checked on her, as if to prove that she could lose blood and keep going all the same. When she stumbled twice, Tomas looked back at her, and then nodded at a dry hollow beneath several oaks. “We can stop there. For a little while.”

Viggo didn’t argue, although he still felt like a hunted animal, always glancing over his shoulder. He took Cat’s hand, helped her to sit and tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his tunic to bind the wound in her shoulder. They’d left everything behind when they’d run from Lant, their spare clothes, provisions. Cat had her sword and the knife in her belt, but Viggo had left most of his things. If it hadn’t been for Tomas, he wouldn’t even have his sword anymore.

Tomas.

Viggo looked up, searching the trees around them, but the man was gone. He’d vanished, as quickly and quietly as if he had never been there at all. What if he’d seen his chance to be shed of the two of them? Viggo couldn’t blame him, not after everything that had happened, but he couldn’t suppress an uncomfortable lurch in the pit of his stomach. They were across the Flumen now, in territory Viggo didn’t know. They could have used a guide.

Viggo shook himself. No matter. The man was gone now, and he wouldn’t waste time chasing him. He soaked the strip of cloth in a trickling stream winding past and pressed it to the wound in Cat’s shoulder, cleaning the dried gore away as gently as he could. Cat hissed in pain, clenched her jaw, and looked up at the gray sky. “Is he gone, then?”

“He’s gone.” Viggo squeezed the cloth, red water flowing over his fingers into the stream. A kelpie darted out from beneath the bank, swirling in and among the clouded red, its transparent body and delicate, sapphire fins hardly visible among the ripples. “Must have slipped off quietly.”

Cat laid her head against the knotted bark and absently watched the kelpie swim. Another joined it, and another, drawn by the scent of blood in the water. Viggo went farther upstream to rinse the rag the second time, not wanting to risk putting his hand into the water with the little blood-feeders. When he came back, Cat had a brightly colored leaf in her fingers and was offering it to one of the smaller kelpies. The tiny creature’s face lit up, and it snatched the prize and bore it away, back beneath the reeds. Viggo wrinkled his nose. “They’re feeding on your blood, you know.”

She shrugged absently. “I can’t use it anymore.”

Viggo rolled his eyes. She picked up another leaf, twirling it in her fingers. “Why do you think he helped us? He could have gotten away.”

“He did get away,” Viggo said shortly. He went back to cleaning her wound, but the answer hadn’t satisfied Cat, or the doubts still swirling about in his own mind. Viggo pushed the thought away. Tomas could go his own way for all Viggo cared, to the southern wastes or the sea or hell itself if he wanted.

“He saved us,” Cat said quietly. She was still looking at the kelpies. They were watching her now, too, waiting for the next offering of leaf or twig, or the next flush of blood in the water. Their black, soulless eyes gave Viggo the shivers. “With the horses. We would be dead now, or on our way back to Ivra, if he hadn’t let them loose.”

Viggo squeezed water out of the rag and rinsed it clean in the stream again. The kelpies streaked to devour the blood he’d left in the water, and he watched them for a long time, not looking at her. “I know,” he said at last. Quietly. So quietly that he wasn’t sure she’d heard him, but he didn’t repeat it. He looked away from the water, dispelling the shame crawling over his skin with a deep breath. “But he’s gone now, so it doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s bind that up.”

But he wasn’t gone. A quarter of an hour later, Tomas emerged from the curtain of rain shaking wet hair out of his eyes. He was carrying a pair of dead partridges in his left hand, and he set them aside and drew a tangle of vine out of his pocket, a vine with white flowers and velvety crimson leaves. “Grubwort,” he said, offering it to Viggo. “Chew the leaves, and press them on her wound. It’ll stop the bleeding and dull the pain for a few hours. Enough time for us to get clear, anyway.”

Viggo took it without looking at him, feeling numb. A sharp, pungent odor clung to the leaves and the flowers. When he chewed them, the juice they released into his mouth was as bitter as coal oil. Tomas laid the partridges down by the stream and dug a shallow pit in the damp loam, scraping until the dirt he unearthed was dry and sandy. He lit a fire there, near the edge of the stream where it could be put out quickly, and glanced at Cat. “Can I use your knife?”

Cat passed it to him. Viggo could see the shame growing in her eyes. He bit his lip to silence the ripple of it in his own mind. “Why did you come back?” he asked bluntly, breaking a silence that had grown painfully awkward.

Tomas looked up at him, raised an eyebrow. His dark eyes had a trace of amusement about them. He shrugged. “To bring you the grubwort. And to roast the birds.”

“I meant with the horses. You could have gotten away while Lant was on us. Why didn’t you?”

“I did get away, actually,” Tomas said. “So far, anyway. I’m not particularly hopeful about our chances.” He sliced a neat slit down the first bird’s breastbone and drew off the skin, feathers and all.

Viggo pressed the poultice to Cat’s wound. She hissed with pain, but her eyes remained fixed on Tomas. Viggo looked back at him, the man’s avoidance stinging like a gnat’s bite on the back of his neck. “There must have been a reason.”

Tomas tossed the offal and skins of the two birds into the stream and watched absently as the water began to boil with ecstatic kelpies. “I don’t know either of your names.”

Viggo clenched his fist, digging his fingernails into his palm. “That’s not an answer.”

Tomas looked over at him, thoughtful and silent.

Cat broke the silence unexpectedly. “Caitlyn.” The leopard flickered in her eyes, as if it, too, were curious about the man. “Or Cat. Whichever.”

“Viggo.” Viggo bit his tongue. “Now we all know each other. Why’d you come back?”

“Know where you’re headed yet?”

Viggo glanced at Cat, but she was watching the kelpies again, her expression fixed and her eyes distant. He looked away. “No. No, not really.”

Tomas was silent for a long time. The stream chattered, filling the silence with its own busy murmuring, empty of meaning and continuing on and on, words without a point and without an end. Viggo sat back on his heels and looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped now, or become so light he couldn’t hear it pattering against the leaves overhead any more. Tomas was right, they would have to leave soon. Lant Curtis would be on their trail, and if they stayed here he would find them. Viggo closed his eyes, ran his hand over his face. For a moment it seemed as though the Pale Lady herself were following them, wandering the paths of this accursed wood in pursuit, her gray skirts trailing behind her and her voice raised to call him back. It would be easier, in the end, if he went to her of his own free will, if he greeted her as a friend rather than as an enemy. She would take him either way.

“I know a place,” Tomas said hesitantly, interrupting the inane chatter of the stream and the dreary thoughts roaming through Viggo’s mind. “Where you’d be safe . . . for a while, anyway. Somewhere you could rest and . . . make a plan. I was headed there myself when—” but he didn’t finish the sentence.

Somewhere they could rest. Viggo barked a hoarse laugh. “That sounds good. What’ll it cost us?”

“I don’t follow.”

“You want something, old man. Otherwise you would’ve been long gone the minute you got free.” Viggo scooped water from the stream and scrubbed at the blood that still clung beneath his nails and between his fingers. “I’m an honest man. I like to pay my debts, and it seems I owe you something already. But I want to know what else you’re expecting before I commit myself.”

Cat’s face was flaming. She hated this side of him—and probably always would. But she kept silent, and he knew she was thinking the same thing—although she wouldn’t have said it so abruptly.

“I was going to leave,” Tomas admitted, his gaze on the shifting ferns, as if he, too, heard the swish of the Pale Lady’s skirts among the undergrowth. “But . . . Maeva wouldn’t have wanted me to. She would’ve gone back for you. So, I did.”

Viggo stared at him, a chill skittering down his spine like spiders on his skin. “Maeva.”

Tomas nodded.

“The peasant girl you murdered. That Maeva.”

“Yes.” Tomas rose abruptly, nodding at the fire. “We’ll need more wood for that. Don’t let the meat burn.”

He walked away, and Viggo stared after him, confusion burning between his ribs.

Tomas led them south, away from the river. The forest swallowed them, drowning out the sound of the Flumen and muffling their footsteps with the breath and sigh of the trees. Viggo’s fear followed him for miles, stalking in his footsteps, wandering the paths at his heels, and whispering in his ear with the Pale Lady’s cold words. Always two steps behind. Always there.

But fear couldn’t keep up forever. The wolf left it behind first, too lost among the trees to care. Viggo felt the knot in his breast ease one of the many times Tomas left the deer trail they were following and waded through the undergrowth until they found another.

The whisper of the trees, the song beneath their breath, and the melody in their leaves replaced it. Beech and rowan trees hung over the path, their leaves rustling in the slight breezes. Oaks towered overhead, their branches reaching into the sky as if to touch the clouds. The paths that Tomas led them along where almost lost in the thick undergrowth, fiddleheaded ferns, blackberry brambles, and wild vines battling for the precious patches of weak sunlight that filtered through the canopy overhead. Viggo could hear his own breathing in the silence, his own heartbeat, and he wondered briefly if the others could hear it as well. He was going to ask, but the words never left his tongue. The forest silenced them, and he forgot. The trees liked it better that way anyway. He could hear the voices of the leaves just at the edge of hearing, caught more often in speaking by the wolf than by himself. The words almost always escaped him, and the name they spoke wasn’t his own. But the meaning was clear. Come. Come deeper.

They were words that were drunk with longing, and he could taste the desire for them on his tongue. Maybe it wasn’t ghosts that haunted the Krathe after all. Maybe it was that the Krathe had its own soul, and those who were left to wander in it too long very seldom decided to leave.

Maybe the Krathe itself lured people in.

The sun was high overhead when they halted at last. Weariness was etched into Tomas’s lined face. He ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair and said, “We’ll rest here for a while.”

Viggo only nodded, looking about him and feeling dazed. They’d come to a deep hollow, the ground sunk into a narrow bowl. Hemlock trees claimed the forest floor, their twisted roots banishing the tangled undergrowth and leaving the ground bare. A stream twisted through the narrow defile, chattering over black stones and thick moss.

The last few hours had passed too quickly; he’d barely felt them go by. The trees had swallowed him up, soothing him with a kind of peace he hadn’t felt in years. For the first time, the uncomfortable realization that he had no idea where they were, or how to get back to the river, struck him. But maybe it didn’t matter. Nothing waited for him on the banks of the Flumen, or in Ivra. Only death. He had no reason to retrace his steps now.

Cat eased herself down beside the stream and kicked off her boots. It had been hours since he’d spoken to her, although it felt like longer. Her face was pale. She leaned against the rough, knotted trunk of a tree and closed her eyes. Viggo watched her for a long minute, guilt stealing the dreamlike happiness the trees had infused in his thoughts. He ran a hand through his hair and went to sit next to her. The stream was laughing, teasing the branches and ferns that trailed in the water and rippling over the black stones like molten glass. Viggo picked up a leaf lying on the moss and twirled it between his fingers. “I’m sorry, Cat. For all this. I’m sorry that you got stuck with me when you came to Fydera. I’m just bad luck.”

“Definitely bad luck,” she said. Her fingers slipped into his and squeezed. He looked up. She was smiling. “I knew it the minute I saw you. Do you think if I carry sparrow bones in a pouch around my neck, it will ward you off?”

Viggo laughed. Why could she always make him laugh? Even when he was trying so hard to be serious. “I’ll buy you an adder’s skin next time we’re in Ivra. You can put it under your pillow.”

“So I can dream about you at night?” She wrinkled her nose at him. “No thanks.”

“You don’t like dreaming about me?”

She laughed and flicked a twig at him. It caught in his hair, the sap sticky in his fingers when he pulled it out. He tossed it into the stream, watched the current carry it away. Ferns grew along the mossy bank, and rushes, and they cast shadows on the water as dark as the rocks beneath the surface. An old tree had fallen across the water, spanning the stream. Dark sap, amber with age, clung to its bark. Hundreds of moths as big as his hand were feeding on it, white as frost and edged with crimson and dull brown.

“You like it here,” Cat said softly.

Viggo looked up at her quickly. She laughed and leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair out of his face with her fingers. “Saints. Look at you. The Pale Lady following in our footsteps and our world crashing down around our ears and you’re happy. We should have done this a long time ago.”

Viggo smiled slightly and looked down at the leaf in his hands. The veins were red, tracing through the delicate green like the lifeblood of a tree in its leaves. He traced its jagged edges with his fingertip and whispered, “They’re going to kill us.”

Her eyes softened, and she nodded. He looked up at her, trying to understand where the pulse of life in his heartbeat had come from. Why did he feel freer now than he ever had before? Even when they’d finally gotten clear of Fane. Even with Lant Curtis on their trail and the claws of all his lies digging into his skin. “I want to get to the sea, Cat. I want to taste the salt on the wind and in the rain like you were telling me that night. I want to see the waves on the sand and the salt spray on the cliffs and hear the seagulls crying after dusk. Do you think we can make it that far?”

Tomas was watching them, but Viggo couldn’t bring himself to care because Cat was smiling. Her eyes were pale blue with tears, as blue as the sky when it had been washed clean by a summer’s rain. “We can always try.”

He nodded, and looked up at the trees overhead. Pale sunlight was filtering through the canopy of leaves. He could smell the forest’s perfume on the air, as sweet as summer’s kiss. He closed his eyes. “We have to go back, Cat,” he said, so quietly he wasn’t sure she’d hear him. “I have to tell Thorne the truth. If I die now, with this on my soul—” He couldn’t finish.

She didn’t answer, only slipped her hand into his and gave it a squeeze.

They reached the town an hour after dusk fell through the trees. Fireflies winked among the undergrowth, and the glow of distant firelight and lanterns from the far off buildings mingled with their soft light.

Viggo stopped just beneath the eaves of the forest, his chest constricting until he thought his ribs would crack. “What are you doing?”

Tomas, already out from beneath the shelter of the branches, looked back at him. “I told you. We can rest here.”

Cat swore at him. Her wound was bleeding again, although she’d been trying to hide it, and Viggo could see the weariness burned into her face. They’d both been counting on a place to hide—somewhere they could rest. A cave, maybe. Somewhere Lant Curtis wouldn’t find them.

Not this.

Viggo spat in the grass. “What are you going to do, old man? Knock on the doors and beg for a place to sleep? They’re not going to feed you like a stray dog.”

Tomas uttered a soft laugh. “Who knows? They might.”

Viggo cursed and turned back toward the woods. “Come on. We passed a gully a mile or two back—”

“It’s called Millcross,” Tomas said, stopping Viggo before he’d gone two steps. The man ran a hand through his hair and glanced up at the darkening sky. “I have . . . people here. They’ll help us.”

“People,” Viggo repeated, trying to work out what the man’s cryptic tone meant.

“People.” Tomas paused and shrugged. “Cameron Woodgate. Maeva’s brother.”

Cat’s eyebrows rose. Viggo stared at the man, his mind darting back to the grave in the tower, the stone with the clumsy lettering carved into it, the candles—

“Maeva wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

His face grew hot, and he glanced at Cat. She turned away from him so hurriedly that he knew she’d had the same thought as himself, and he caught a glimpse of red flushing up her neck. Embarrassment curled around his ribs, and he said awkwardly, “You and Maeva were—”

Tomas was studying him with something like amusement in his dark eyes. “Yes.”

“Right.” Viggo barked a harsh laugh and looked up toward the town, trying to shy away from the thought of them in his head. The peasant girl and the bloodhound. “And you think her brother will have anything to offer you? Other than a knife between your ribs?”

Tomas shrugged, still looking so amused that Viggo felt irritation crawling up the back of his neck. “Well, we can always try, can’t we?”

He walked away without waiting for an answer, toward the lights of the town. After a breath, Viggo followed him. Cat padded in his wake, her cheeks still as red as fire.

Millcross was a miners’ town. A sandstone quarry lay to the south along a road beaten into the grassy plain by cart wheels, iron-shod hooves, and peasants’ feet. The houses were low and huddled together as if to hide from the openness of Sorrow’s Heath in the shelter of their own walls. The streets Tomas led them through were narrow and dark; stray dogs slinked in the shadows baring yellowed teeth when Cat looked in their direction, their tails tucked between their legs and their ears pinned back.

The houses they passed were shut and bolted, windows shuttered against the night and—Cat guessed—the ghosts that walked the line between Sorrow’s Heath and the Krathe. Superstition guarded every door, bundles of whiteleaf flowers and bindweed nailed above every stoop.

The house he brought them to was shuttered and boarded up, gray purslane and crimson-tipped ivy climbing the porch steps and creeping up the walls. Whiteleaf and bindweed bundles were nailed above this door, too, against the ghosts that wandered Sorrow’s Heath. The blacksmith’s forge to its left had crimson ivy crawling up its smoke-stained beams. Cat touched the sticky blood soaking her sleeve and glanced back the way they’d come. Blood drew ghosts. Ghosts, the Pale Lady, wolves from the heath. Probably all of them were following by this time, drawn by the smell of blood.

If she could have, she would have blamed the ill-luck clinging to her skin on the blood as well. She could feel it digging its claws into her, twisting fate and damning her soul as assuredly as if someone had sewn a dried raven’s heart into her clothing.

She would have gladly, gladly blamed every bit of their ill-luck on the blood seeping through her bandages. Or on the ghosts in the Krathe. But no, if she were honest—if she were really, truly honest, it was Viggo. He’d caught their misfortune with both hands and held onto it with a stubbornness that made her want to scream.

Tomas knocked, and almost before the sound had faded, the door was whipped open, and a burly, dark-haired man stood in the lighted gap, his face grim as thunder and a black, fire-scarred hammer in his hand. Cameron Woodgate, if Tomas was right.

Cat took an involuntary step back, the leopard in her stung to life by the blatant hostility in the man’s eyes. Tomas didn’t flinch, only swept the hair out of his eyes and smiled faintly. “I meant to get here before dark.”

The hammer dropped with a thud. In a breath, Cameron was out the door hugging Tomas so fiercely that Cat heard the wind leave his lungs.

“Gods above,” Cameron whispered, sounding as though he’d half-lost his voice. “Gods above—I thought you were dead!”

Tomas pulled back, laughing beneath his breath, and dragged his forearm across his eyes. “Not yet. Soon, I think. Can we come in?”

Cameron cast a quick glance over Viggo and Cat and stepped back hurriedly, drawing Tomas in after him. “Yes. Gods, yes. Get in before you’re seen.”

Viggo followed them. Cat hung back for a breath, the leopard nearly on fire with anxiety, tugging her back toward the woods and the trees and the safety of the Krathe. It had more sense than she did. If only she had the brain to follow it.

Instead, she slipped in through the door after them. Warm firelight welcomed her, easing the chill of the heath. A fire crackled cheerfully in the fireplace on the far wall, and a dog thumped its tail on the floor from its place in the corner. Bright curtains hung over the boarded-up windows, and a kettle steamed on the table in the middle of the room.

Cameron shut the door, latching it, and said, “Elsa took the girls up to bed. I was making tea—” he looked at Tomas, the words catching in his throat. At last, he could only choke, “They said you were in Avrena Dul. I didn’t believe it, but—”

Tomas forced a smile. “I guess I was more important than I thought.”

Cameron’s face paled.

Avrena Dul. City of a Thousand Screams. Cat winced, flooded with memories of tales her mother had whispered to her after the lights were blown out at night. She had meant them as a warning of what would happen to Cat if the soldiers had ever found her living in the border post with her parents. They’d been lies, it turned out, stupid, pitiless lies from a woman who was more afraid for her own skin than her daughter’s soul.

Cameron waved a hand in the air as if to dispel the dark shadows the name conjured. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters. Can I get you something? A meal?”

Tomas nodded with some relief. “It’s been a long day.”

The man ushered them to the table, gesturing toward the benches tucked beneath it, and vanished through a door beside the fireplace. Cat settled herself and glanced at Viggo. His face was hollow, but he smiled at her in a way that was meant to ease her mind, as if he could make her forget his cryptic words in the Krathe or what he was planning to do.

“We have to go back, Cat.”

Cameron returned a moment later to set bread and sheep’s cheese, wizened apples and a pitcher of milk on the table. The kettle hanging over the fire hissed, and he wrapped a rag around his hand and lifted it from the fire, setting it on a sideboard. “That’s all we have on short notice, I’m afraid. Times are lean with a new master, but if you can wait until tomorrow, one of the shepherds owes me a favor.”

“We won’t trouble you, blacksmith,” Viggo said quietly. Cameron glanced their way, as if really seeing them for the first time, and Viggo met his eyes with an ironic smile. “Although your attachment to a murderer is touching.”

Cameron stared at him, and his grip on the kettle slipped. Hot water splashed across the sideboard, and he leapt back, swearing. Tomas half-rose, ready to help, but the man waved him off. “It’s all right.” He mopped up the water with the rag and looked at Viggo again, saying low, “The Bonesmith isn’t a murderer.”

Viggo bared his teeth in a grin. “The stories say otherwise.”

“The stories—” The man looked from Viggo to Tomas and laughed incredulously. “Has he told you who made up those stories?”

The ghost of a smile touched Tomas’s face. “I haven’t.”

Cameron seemed to see that they didn’t understand. He picked up the kettle, gesturing for them to sit. “A hot drink wouldn’t hurt any of you.” He poured steaming water into a pot, added dried leaves from a box on the mantle, and said, “It started because of my nephew. He killed a hunting dog that belonged to Robert Tate, the man who owns most of the heath south of here.” Cameron paused, remembering. “The dog had attacked the boy’s sister, and because he killed it, they were going to hang him. Before they could, the Bonesmith found him on the heath and . . . what did we say? I don’t remember.”

Tomas traced the woodgrain in the table with his thumb. “Dragged him into the Krathe and cut his throat under the full moon, I think. Used his bones to summon a witch. No one ever guessed. It was a good story.”

He glanced up, seeing, maybe, the confusion battling between Cat’s ribs, and said, “It was a year after Maeva and I were—married. We were living in the Krathe, and we came back to visit. The boy—Ben—had been hiding on the heath for ten or eleven days by then, and he wasn’t going to last any longer. They were going to find him, or he was going to die of hunger and cold. His mother—” Tomas rubbed his face wearily, “was frantic. Ready to do anything to save him. Even entrust him to a Dreyen.”

Cameron poured tea into an earthenware mug and handed it to Tomas. “It was Maeva’s idea. She loved stories about the Widow and Sorrow’s Heath, and she knew how superstitious people were. Once she and Tomas heard that Ben needed a place to run to, they agreed to hide him in the Krathe with them right away.”

“But unless he was dead, his family would suffer for him,” Tomas said. “So, Maeva made up a story, and the Bonesmith was born. A friend of the family went to the soldiers with a tale of a ghost from the heath who devoured the boy in the moonlight . . . and Ben came to live in the Krathe. He stayed with us for nearly ten years.”

Cameron wiped spilled tea from the table with a cloth. “He’s living in Beyora. Did you know? I got a letter from him—I think a year ago now. He has a wife.”

Tomas nodded.

Cameron passed a mug of steaming tea to Cat. She took it wordlessly and glanced at Viggo. He wasn’t listening to the story, not really. His eyes were locked on the fire, empty and soulless, and a chill went down her back. She touched his wrist, whispering, “All right?”

He smiled at her, and her heart fell as she realized that his silence and waspish retorts from the last several hours stemmed from more than just weariness. He was angry. Angry and holding it in check in a way that made her afraid of how it would come out. Tomas looked at him, too, apprehension flickering in his eyes, and said, “Is there somewhere we can sleep for a few hours?”

“The barn,” Cameron said hesitantly, as if he were trying to understand the sudden shift in mood. “It’ll be drafty this time of year, but—”

“Warmer than sleeping on the heath.” Viggo drained his mug and set it down. “We’re grateful. It’s a long road back to Ivra.”

Tomas’s face went white, and he leaned across the table toward Viggo, saying hoarsely, “Viggo, listen to me—”

Viggo stood, casting him a look of such contempt that the man flinched. “I’ve listened enough, old man. Now I’m going to do what I should have done when all this started. Tell the truth and get Fane Ravenstone sent to hell where he belongs.”

He walked away, and Cat followed after him, her heart thudding against her ribs in a way that hurt like cracking bones.

Ill-luck. He was hanging onto it with all his might, and now it was going to choke them both.

Darkness emerged from the trees as night fell. Cold came with it, a chill that swirled in the dark water of the streams and edged the dying grass with frost. Peter Gawin glanced upward as he left his cabin, watching the stars emerge overhead, pinpricks of ice in a field of darkness. Winter was coming to the Krathe, drawing closer every day, whispering at night of snow so deep he would have to wade in it.

Yes, winter was coming. But thirty years as a huntsman in the Krathe had taught him to adapt to the dark months. He knew this forest better than his own breath, and months of wind and whirling snow held little fear for him.

The stream was edged with ice, woven lace against the black water. Peter filled his bucket and turned back, cursing beneath his breath as he slopped water down his stained front.

They were waiting for him when he came out of the trees. Peter saw their horses first, already hitched to the post in front of his cabin. He froze. A torch burned beside his door, dripping pine pitch and sending a red glow flickering across the clearing, illuminating the man leaning against his doorframe. In the light it cast, Peter caught a glimpse of bared incisors, dark as crimson.

The man straightened up, dark eyes fastened on Peter’s face, and looked straight through his heart and into his soul. Peter felt the color drain from his face.

No, not a man.

A Dreyen.

He almost ran, stupid as it would have been. The beast seemed to sense the thought and bared his incisors in a snarl that made Peter’s flesh crawl. “How far do you think you’d get?”

All thoughts of running died instantly. It would come after him if he ran, into the darkness among the trees, away from the light, away from the safety of his own home. He’d seen Dreyens hunt before. Better to die here if that’s what the beast had in mind.

He edged forward, forgetting his bucket and the hatchet hanging from his belt, half tripping in the darkness. “What’d yuh want? I ain’t done nothin’, I swear it. Ain’t got no business with yur kind.”

His voice was thick with fear, his words shaking in his mouth, his tongue stumbling. The Dreyen heard it and smiled coldly. Without the good humor usually associated with such an expression, it looked ghoulish. Like the death grin of a skull. “You do tonight. You’re a huntsman, a King’s man?”

“Yes.” Peter licked his lips.

“Your kind are healers.”

It wasn’t a question. Peter rubbed his hands together, clenching his fingers to stop their shaking. “Sometimes—”

“Herbmasters? You know about salves to stop bleeding and prevent infection in open wounds?”

Peter nodded. His voice wasn’t working anymore, the intensity of the Dreyen’s piercing glare silencing his tongue.

“Good.” The Dreyen turned his back, moving toward the horses. “Inside. Stoke the fire and boil water. I need clean bandages and whatever herbs you have.”

Peter hurried to do as he was told, unlatching his door and pushing it open. “Huntsman.” The Dreyen’s voice stopped him. Peter looked back at it, and the bitter cold in its eyes stung him like an adder’s bite. “If you bolt that door, I’ll kill you.”

Peter’s heart skipped another beat, and he nodded, his lips too numb for a proper reply.

The fire had died low since he’d left, lulled to sleepy coals. Peter added wood to the grate, blowing on the embers until they flared to life again, devouring the fresh fuel. His fingers were still shaking, and he burned them on the rising flames, the fire stinging worse than even his fear. He spat on the burns and rubbed the soot from his hands onto his trousers, fumbling as he hung a battered kettle over the flames. Water. With a pang, he remembered the bucket he’d left behind him on the edge of the clearing and the water that had spilled when he’d dropped it. His boots were still soaked. He swore and scrambled to his feet, turning toward the door to fetch it.

The Dreyen entered carrying a woman in his arms. The Pale Lady came behind him, gliding into the room with her chilled breath and white hands. Peter froze, terror choking him. The Dreyen looked at him, contempt in its eyes, as if it saw his fear and the reason for it and scorned him for it. “Where are you going?”

“Water.” Why must his voice shake so badly, betraying his fear to a beast that fed on it? He cleared his throat, his mouth dry. “I left the bucket—”

“I’ll get it.” The Dreyen set his charge down in the only chair in the small room. Her eyes were open and clear, black as the night itself, but her face was sheet white and there was death and pain chiseled into her features. Dried blood soaked her tunic, and a rough, clumsy bandage swathed her shoulder. “Stay here. Mix your salves. She’ll need fresh bandages as well.”

A woman. Peter cast her a dark look when the Dreyen disappeared outside. Women were bad luck, bad luck in the Krathe, bad luck at sea, bad luck wherever they went. Death had an affinity for them.

The Pale Lady stood over her now, white as the fog on Sorrow’s Heath, her veil drawn over her face as if she were waiting to see whether the woman would yield to her or not.

Probably not. Peter had seen Dreyens fight for their lives before. They clung to their souls with more strength than any human could.

Peter drew the pouch of sparrow bones from beneath his tattered tunic and pressed it to his lips, muttering a prayer to the protecting saints beneath his breath. The Dreyen didn’t look at him. Her gaze was fastened on the dancing flames in the grate, watching the fire as if it were whispering to her about her fate. He turned away, shunting aside a wooden bench, and dug through his cabinet. The pouch he was searching for was tucked away in a corner behind a clay jar. He tucked it into his belt and poured a trickle of white powder from another sachet into a stone pestle, adding a few drops of witch hazel from a vial to the mixture. Shepherd’s Purse for infection, yarrow to slow the bleeding . . . he crumbled several dried leaves between his fingers and added them, smelling the contents.

When he looked up again, the Pale Lady was gone, vanished like a breath of smoke, and the Dreyen returned, carrying the water. Peter poured it into the battered kettle, willing it with all his strength to boil quickly. His shoulders were tense, his muscles clenched in an effort to ward off the beast’s anger, which still radiated around him like the breath of a demon, but the Dreyen took no more notice of him.

The woman closed her eyes, sweat beading her forehead. The Dreyen soaked a rag in the heating kettle and bathed her face, whispering to her. Peter watched them out of the corner of his eye, adding herbs to the simmering water until the steam smelled of springtime and rain on the moors. The words on his breath were too low for the huntsman to make out, but her voice was higher, louder, and confused with the heat of the fever. “He’s going to get away, Lant. You have to go after him—”

The Dreyen touched her lips, silencing her. Peter moved closer on the pretense of adding some of the hot water to his salve, curiosity buzzing at the base of his skull, then his heartbeat faltered as the man said, “I’ll get him, Reika. It might take a week, a month, even a year, but I’ll get him. I always do. I promise.” The Dreyen took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. “And I’ll make him scream for what he did to you. I swear it. He’ll bless the saints when he sees the hangman after I’m done with him. I swear it on every corpse I’ve left behind me.”

Peter dropped the pestle and scrambled to pick it up again, retreating to the other side of the room. He pressed the pouch of bones to his lips and heart as hard as he could, thanking every saint and god he knew that he wasn’t the one the Dreyen was after. Whoever the man was, he would die screaming. Even hell was preferable to a Dreyen’s vengeance.

They slept in a barn that night, back behind the smithy. Cameron took them there himself, his startled eyes darting toward Tomas as if to ask what kind of people the man had brought to his house. He left them with a torch, and the door shut behind him.

Tomas didn’t answer him, not a word. His gaunt face was utterly calm, and he offered no resistance as Viggo bound his hands and secured him to a ring in the wall.

Viggo dreamt about Kaleb that night. About him wandering the Krathe, looking for Tessa—the partner he’d lost to his master’s greed. Viggo went after him, trying to call him back, and felt a chill as a tall, ashen figure began to follow his friend through trees.

The Ghost Walker.

The being turned when it heard Viggo’s cry, piercing him with a burning gaze, and Viggo woke with a start.

Dawn fell through the cracks in the roof overhead, and dust hung in the air, catching the faint light. Cat was curled against his chest on the straw and sacking they’d used for a bed. Viggo shivered, pulling her closer, and she wiggled around and pressed her face into his tunic.

She had straw stuck to her cheek. Viggo picked it off, murmuring, “Are you awake?”

“No. Shut up.”

He laughed and looked up at the roof. Frost clung to the boards, and he could see through them to a gray sky that promised a glacial wind across the heath. “Can’t. I’m freezing.”

Cat burrowed deeper into his warmth, humming softly with contentment. “I’m not.”

He grinned.

A sparrow flitted up into the rafters, fluffing its feathers against the cold. In a few days, all the birds would be gone, flying south toward the sea to chase the warmer weather.

The sea.

He still wanted to reach the sea. He wanted to make it to the shore and wade into the salt waves and disappear into the cliffs with the gulls so not even Lant Curtis could find them. He wanted it so badly that he ached. But the dream clung to him, heavy with foreshadowing, and the mark he could feel in his soul had grown so black in the night he was afraid Cat would see it in him.

Cat seemed to sense the change in his mood. She pulled away, looking up at him, and asked quietly, “Did you change your mind?”

He couldn’t look at her. The sparrow nestled down on the rafter, its feet vanishing into the puff of feathers.

“No,” he whispered at last. “I haven’t.”

“We could still disappear. They might not find us.”

“I can’t.”

Her jaw tightened slightly, but she nodded.

“You don’t have to come, you know.”

She smiled, a little sadly, and touched his cheek, tracing his jawline with her fingers. “Yes, I do.”

His breath came a little short at her touch, and he sat up suddenly, startling the sparrow and sending it darting out into the gray morning. “You really don’t.”

She rolled her eyes and sat up, dragging the leather lace from her hair and picking straw from her braid as she shook it loose. “And miss the chance of seeing Fane Ravenstone beg for mercy at Thorne’s feet? I wouldn’t think of it.”

Viggo laughed hoarsely and rose, shaking straw from his shoulders. Tomas was awake, leaning against the wall and looking out the window the sparrow had fled through. Viggo went to check the ropes around his wrists and winced as he realized the man’s knuckles were swollen and purple. He tugged the knot loose, nodding at his hands. “Get the blood moving again.”

Tomas flexed his fingers. His face was gray as ashes, and he leaned forward, saying low, “Viggo, listen—”

“Rub them together. No point in losing the use of your hands just yet.”

Tomas grimaced and did as he was told, his expression contorting with pain as the blood began to flow again. “You don’t have to do this.”

Viggo didn’t look at him. Guilt clawed at his breath, made worse by the memory of the man’s help in the last few days. If he hadn’t turned back, Lant would have killed them both, and he would’ve escaped. “No, I do.” He hesitated, watching the color change in the man’s hands, and said low, “Listen. You’re a decent man, Bonesmith, if your stories are true—and I’m inclined to think they are. I’m sorry it’s going to end this way. But I have to go back, and you’re the only chance we’ve got.”

“It won’t help. You know it won’t.”

Viggo shut the words out. “I won’t tell them about Cameron. No one else has to suffer.”

Tomas stared at him for a long breath and said low, “You don’t have to either.”

Viggo shut his eyes.

“You and Cat can make it. I’ll help you. You’ve got no chance if you go back now—why do it?”

Viggo stared at the floor, frustration tearing him apart. At last, he jerked the rope around the man’s wrists, pulling the knots tight again. “Because.” He ran a hand through his hair, fighting the fear needling his soul, and said softly, “I have to. That’s all.”

He walked away, trying to ignore the way the man was staring after him.

Cameron came to the barn a quarter of an hour later, his fire-scarred hammer in his fist and determination cut into his face. His eyes went to Tomas first, as if to assure himself that the man was still alive, and then he took a long breath and said grimly, “I’m not letting you take him.”

Viggo buckled his sword belt around his waist and raised an eyebrow at the man. “I wasn’t aware I had to ask you.”

Tomas struggled to his knees, alarm searing through his eyes. “Cameron, go back to the house.”

The man ignored him. “I don’t understand half of what happened last night, but I’m not letting you drag him off to a hangman’s noose.”

Viggo bared his teeth. “Maybe I should drag you both to the nooses.”

Cameron’s eyes didn’t flicker, his jaw set and stubborn as he glared at Viggo. “Maybe you should.”

“For gods’ sakes.” Tomas made it to his feet, stumbling on the rope tethering him to the barn wall as it caught around his ankles. “You have a family. Don’t be a fool.”

Cat was on her feet now, too, and Viggo could see the disbelief hidden so carefully behind her indifferent expression. It mirrored the confusion in his own soul, and he uttered a callous laugh. “Listen to him, blacksmith. A half-blood isn’t worth your life. Or your family. Go back inside.”

Cameron’s gaze darted toward Tomas again, fear flickering through his eyes for a breath. “Tomas is family.”

Viggo laughed at him, although his ribs felt as though they would crack from the shame crushing his chest like a steel trap. “Is he? And here I thought he was just the man that killed your sister.”

His words sucked the air from the barn as if the Pale Lady herself had stepped through the thin walls. Tomas’s face turned gray as ash. Cameron stared at Viggo, his expression contorted with confusion, and whispered at last, “Is that what he told you?” He looked at Tomas. “Did you tell him that?”

Tomas flinched. “I—it’s the truth.”

“The hell it is,” Cameron snapped. His glare swung around to include Viggo. “Your bastard archduke killed my sister.”

Tomas shut his eyes. “Stop—”

“You aren’t going to do this.” The man hefted the hammer in his fist. “Go back to Ivra or the Krathe or hell itself if you want. But leave him here.”

Viggo shook his head and moved toward him, saying softly, “You have daughters, blacksmith. They’re young. They need a father.”

The man’s steady gaze faltered.

“You made a mistake with your sister. You left her with him,” he nodded at Tomas, “and it cost her everything. Don’t make it again.”

For a breath, no one moved. Tomas strained against the ropes around his wrists and whispered hoarsely, “Cameron, please. Just go.”

Cameron held Viggo’s gaze for a long breath, but the man’s will was broken, and Viggo could see it. After a moment, he took a step back, saying softly, “It wasn’t a mistake.” He looked at Tomas, his face twisted with pain. “I’ve never thought that.”

He left and the door shut behind him. Tomas sagged against the wall and covered his face with his hands. He had blood on his fingers.

She’s finished, Curtis.”

Lant stared out the window, watching the rain streak the glass. The sky was gray tonight, almost black. Black with weeping, black with sorrow. Autumn had touched the plains, the skies, and they wept. “That can’t be,” he said quietly. His voice sounded strange in his own ears, detached, cold. Far too cold. He wanted to scream, to rage at the man sitting at the desk in front of him, as cool as if the Archduke hadn’t just condemned him to a lifetime of hell. Alone. “I treated the wound. It never got infected, not that badly. Reika is too strong—”

“Her shoulder was shattered,” Thorne told him, as briskly as if he, too, wanted to end this embarrassing scene as quickly as possible. “It’ll heal, but she’ll never regain full use of that arm. If I sent her out again, it would be a death sentence.”

Lant couldn’t look at him, bony fingers constricting his throat. Shattered. The bone-knitters and healers, herb women and physicians in this castle could do many things, but they weren’t gods. They had their limits.

The sky continued to weep, dark rain pattering against the window panes. Curtains fluttered in the slight draft flitting beneath the door. Lant could see the ghosts of a thousand men in their floating lengths. He looked away. “What will you do with her?”

The Archduke stood, wincing as he put weight on his stiffened leg. In this world, only humans were allowed to keep their infirmities, to continue on. Horses were killed for a broken leg, dogs for an injured back. Dreyens for a body that couldn’t fight anymore. Lant had seen it happen many times.

But not to her. Not to Reika.

He wouldn’t let it.

“She’s a valuable asset, with or without her injury,” Thorne said. He winced again and leaned against the side of his desk. His bodyguards moved closer. Always within arm’s reach. Always close enough to intervene. Lant could have laughed. As if the two of them would have been enough for him. “Dunharrow, the Core where the two of you trained, badly needs instructors at the moment. I’ll keep her here until she’s healed and send her there.”

Lant said nothing. He could feel the fire in his chest, the rage that he’d long since stopped trying to quell. Reika didn’t belong in Dunharrow. She belonged with him—the same way it had been from the beginning. He almost said so, but duty stayed his tongue. He knew better than to question the Archduke, better than to ask for a favor, even after fifteen years of loyalty. Even he, with all his influence, all his years of service and his perfect track record, was only a Dreyen. And Dreyens were not allowed to beg. Or to love.

Thorne was watching him, waiting for him to respond or to beg or bow to his wishes. Lant inclined his head slightly, the closest he would ever come to bowing to any man, human or Dreyen. “As my lord wishes.” The servility in his own voice made him sick, and he longed to curse at the man, to condemn him to the blackest corner in hell for what he was doing.

“Given the circumstances I don’t think it necessary to give you another partner,” Thorne said almost apologetically. Lant clenched his fist, hating him for his power and hating him for his pity. “I’ve had it in my mind for a while to establish a team, under a single leader, to track down larger groups of insurgents. I’ll leave it to you to pick your men. Take whoever you like. Any bodyguard you want can be replaced,” a slight smile touched the corner of his mouth, “barring my own, of course.”

Lant nodded, not trusting his voice to respond. He could hear the wind coming in from the plains outside, moaning like a woman who’d lost her lover. The night was grieving, and he wanted to be alone somewhere out in the darkness where he could grieve as well, away from the Archduke and his insipid pity, away from Reika and her pain, away from the bone-knitters and their useless skills. Somewhere he could scream.

Thorne studied him as if he really could see the thoughts in Lant’s head. He couldn’t. Lant had learned long ago to keep what was his to himself. Only Reika could see through him when he wanted to close the world off. Only Reika, because he’d let her in so many times. Far too often. He was paying for that now with pain that would never, never heal.

At last, Thorne looked away and beckoned to the shadows on the far side of the room. The candles floating in their silver bowls had burned low, the torches were nearly snuffed out by the draft of the rains, and gloom hung in the corners like burial shrouds. A man emerged from the darkness, prowling from the corners like a rabid dog summoned against its will. Lant could see the madness in his black eyes, the death he’d seen and the death he’d caused, and he smiled bitterly. He knew the man even before Thorne leaned back to ease his stiffened leg, and said, “Here’s the first of your men. Mason Biek. Gather the rest as you choose them and bring Swifter to me. I need him alive if I’m to make my case against his former master.”

Mason bared sharpened incisors, looking Lant over with something akin to respect. Lant snarled at him until he lowered his eyes, then looked away, enjoying the fear he could see in Thorne’s bodyguards. They were children, weak, stupid children who had never earned the blades at their sides or the tattoos on their shoulders. But Mason—Mason could prove to be useful. If he were leashed properly.

He looked at Thorne again, a thought flashing through his mind like the lightning in the black skies over the plains. “What about the old man and Swifter’s partner?”

Thorne shrugged. “Do what you like. Only bring him here as quickly as you can.”

Lant did bow then, if only to hide the snarl that bared his teeth and sparked green and gold in his eyes. “As my lord wishes.”

The bone-knitters had all gone by the time Lant got back to the room they shared. He stood outside the door for a long time, too cowardly to go inside, but afraid to leave without seeing her again. His heart was hurting in his chest. Stupid, foolish heart. How many times had he wished he could burn it right out of his chest, sear it away until it was nothing but ash? He would have been able to, but for Reika. She made it beat, softened it to flesh and blood instead of stone. She made him something more than what he should have been.

She was waiting when he went inside. Her shoulder was swathed in bandages, and she was leaning against the frame of the open window watching the rain. He entered quietly, closing the door behind him. She spoke without turning around, “They’re retiring me, aren’t they?”

She always knew. Always. What he was thinking, what he was feeling. He could never hide anything from her. Still, it seemed hard to answer her. Even now.

Her shawl was lying on the bed, a heap of loose wool. Lant picked it up. He ran his hands over the soft fabric as he came up behind her and wrapped it gently around her shoulders. “Yes.” He could hear the thickness in his own voice. The pain. “To Dunharrow. They’re making you an instructor.”

Reika nodded, her fingers digging into the soft wool. “Better than the birth camps.”

Anything was better than the birth camps. Treason, murder. Suicide. He wanted to say so, but she would object, and he didn’t want to fight with her tonight.

Her hair was wet, tumbling loose and damp down her back. The blood that had been caked in it was gone, and her color was so good that for a moment he could have sworn nothing was wrong with her. Nothing had changed. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and took her in his arms as gently as he could, careful not to bump the offending shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered miserably. “I should have done better. I should have—”

She turned, pressed her fingers to his lips. “Lant. It isn’t your fault.” She smiled at him bravely. He could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes. How many times had he seen her cry? Once, twice? Twice. Only twice. “We both knew this would happen someday. Nobody lasts forever.”

“We could. We still can,” he told her desperately. His voice was shaking. He tried to swallow the fear rising inside him, the terror that came from losing her. “We always talked about running, Reika. We could go now, maybe make it to the forests before they found out—”

“Lant.” She touched his cheek, pressed her forehead against his. Her fingers were cold. “No one makes it. You know that better than anyone.”

He did. He did, but he didn’t care. Not in this moment.

Reika was shivering. Whether from cold or something else, he didn’t know. The fire hadn’t been lit, ash lay damp in the grate, but there were candles burning everywhere. On the table, on the mantle. Even on the floor in the corners. She loved candles, always had. When they stayed in Ivra together she burned them like a rich noblewoman, no matter what the servants tried to tell her. He’d even been able to get her a few scented ones once. Lavender. He could still smell them when he thought of it.

“I have to go,” he whispered, his forehead still pressed against hers and his fingers in her hair. “They’re moving me tonight. So you can rest.”

She nodded. His things were already packed, had been since they’d gotten back. He hadn’t done more than toss them in a corner since then. He wished now that he had taken the time to unpack, to scatter everything across the room so he would have an excuse to linger. But Mason was waiting. And every minute he stayed only hurt them both.

She closed her eyes when he left her, as if she didn’t want to see him go. He was already halfway out the door before she spoke. “Lant?”

He looked back. She was leaning against the window frame again. Watching the rain. “Yes?” he choked in a whisper.

“Kill him for me.” She looked at him then, her dark eyes shiny with tears. His heart lurched in his chest, lurched with such pain that for a moment he thought it would kill him. It didn’t. It didn’t, but he wanted it to. “Make it hurt.”

Lant nodded, his voice hoarse. “I swear.”

On the morning of the third day, Ivra appeared from the mist swirling over Sorrow’s Heath, black as the slope of a mountain against the white-rimed grass stretching around and behind them.

Cat paused when she saw it, the leopard stirring uneasily in her chest, urging her back along the path toward the wild loneliness of the plains. It had never liked the city, the stone walls caging them in, the crush of people, the incessant noise. Did it understand, the way she did, that it was different this time? That they were walking toward their own death now—or at least, to a cell that would cage them in worse than the city walls ever had?

Probably not. It trusted her too much, that was the trouble, expecting her to have the sense and self-preservation not to put the noose around her own neck.

Viggo stopped, too, swaying slightly with weariness, and the haunted look in his eyes when he studied the walls cut through her own fear. He hadn’t slept, not since they’d left Millcross. Even the leopard had been able to sleep on Sorrow’s Heath despite the moaning wind, but every time she’d woken in the night, she’d seen him lying on his back, his eyes open, staring up at the night.

“Only an hour or two left,” he said softly, breaking into her thoughts. He looked her way, forcing a smile as he ran a hand through his wet, rimy hair. “Good to be home.”

The words fell flat, and the laugh she knew he wanted to hear stuck in her throat. “Good to be home,” she repeated instead, relieved when she didn’t choke on the words. “Bet they missed us.”

“Definitely.” Viggo glanced over his shoulder at Tomas. The man looked dead on his feet, his dark eyes so vacant that Cat wondered if he had any soul left in him at all. His wrists were bleeding. “Still alive, old man?”

Tomas shut his eyes and rubbed a bound hand across his face. His fingers left blood smeared across his skin. “We can still turn back.”

Viggo looked up at the bleak walls of the city and said nothing.

Cat wanted to add her voice to the old man’s to convince Viggo that, yes, they could still turn back. They could go back to the Krathe and cross the river again, disappear into the trees where the leopard had been so happy and Viggo had looked at her with such hope. She bit her tongue and remembered how strange happiness had looked on him, then shook the thought out of her head. Even the sorcery of the Krathe wouldn’t stave off the madness she could see growing in her partner’s soul. He didn’t sleep at night, barely ate, and looked over his shoulder with every other step, as if Lant Curtis or Fane Ravenstone or whatever ghost haunting his steps were gaining ground on them.

No. No, he would find no peace until he’d told Silas Thorne everything.

If his confession was what it took, she was willing to follow along.

Tomas looked at her, as if hearing her thoughts, and said softly, “You know he can’t fix this. It won’t do any good.”

She knew. She knew, but what was she supposed to say? He wasn’t listening to her either.

“You’ve said your piece, old man,” Viggo told him without looking around. “It’s been very convincing. Give it a rest now.”

“You’re not listening.”

“I am. But maybe you’re lying, and I shouldn’t listen.”

Tomas stared at him. “Do you really think that?”

Viggo was silent for a long time. At last he said quietly, “No.”

Cat looked back the way they’d come, tuning out their voices. She’d heard the same argument over and over again in the last few days, and it grated against the argument warring in her own soul.

Fog stirred on Sorrow’s Heath, and the woman who’d been following them since they left Millcross emerged from the mist.

Not following them. Following her. Cat bit her tongue, knowing neither of the men had seen her, although she’d sat at their fire last night and walked the same paths they did, never far behind, always present and always silent.

The mist parted way before her, and the ground seemed to freeze where she stepped, as if even the marshland could be chilled by a mother’s contempt.

Sonya Ashcliff smiled at her daughter, so mockingly that Cat guessed she knew where the path ahead was leading them. Her hair was loose, the way she used to wear it in the summer, and she was barefoot, although pools of dark water stood edged in ice in the marshy ground, and the path they’d been following was so stony that it hurt Cat’s feet despite her boots.

She wouldn’t mind, of course. Ghosts didn’t feel the cold or stub their toes on the rocks in the path.

Cat didn’t look at her, choosing instead to look out across the heath at the blowing grass and the swirling mist and the watery, pathetic sun that had failed to burn away the fog when it rose. Her mother watched her, running her hands along the frosted heads of the grass growing by the side of the path.

“We can still turn back.”

She could still turn back. She could, alone. She could let the leopard out and let it run, and find a place where the shadow of Ivra couldn’t reach. Or, she could turn to Thorne when they returned, tell him that none of this was her fault or her choice. He would believe her. She could escape from the noose that was tightening around them both and start again, the way she had all those years ago when the soldiers had found her in her mother’s cabin. She’d done it before. Her heart had a way of resetting itself, of shedding the people she couldn’t hang onto any longer. She could do it again. She’d told Tomas that, hadn’t she? Before all of this had started.

“When it’s time to move on, I won’t be the one looking back.”

Cat’s stomach turned over, and without meaning to she turned and met her mother’s eyes, an excuse already on her tongue. An excuse or a denial. The woman’s triumphant look silenced both, and she didn’t have to say the words for Cat to feel them like shards of glass in her skin.

“I told you.”

I told you.

She had, of course. Sonya had been right. Cat looked at Viggo, feeling her heart lurch with guilt when he caught her eye and smiled at her. Her father had loved too much and her mother not at all, and Cat had tried so hard to protect herself with her mother’s bitter shell, but it hadn’t worked.

It was Viggo, that was the trouble. Viggo with his stupid laugh and wry smile and shattered soul. She wouldn’t have stayed for anyone else.

“Are you ready?” Viggo was still looking at her, a shadow flickering through his eyes as if he could feel Sonya’s condemnation in the still air.

Cat forced a smile for his benefit, shame crushing her ribs as she said, “I’m ready.”

The men guarding the gates gave them an odd look when they passed through, as if they weren’t used to seeing Silas Thorne’s hellhounds straggling back to their master on foot. Viggo had been expecting more questions—even soldiers waiting for them at the gate—but the men waved them through, and no one followed them into the city or up the long winding road to the Gentry’s Circle or even beyond to the very gates of the palace.

The soldiers there knew more than the guards at the gates. The sergeant on duty stared at Viggo as if he were one of the ghosts from the Krathe when he asked for an audience with the Archduke, and one of his men hurried off to bring news of their arrival.

When he was gone, Viggo leaned against the wall and shut his eyes, working hard to ignore the way his heart was beating against his ribs. Tomas was nearly dead on his feet by this time, his face as expressionless as if his soul had elected to stay outside the city. Cat, too, looked absent, and he couldn’t guess what she was thinking—or what she had been thinking since they left Millcross. She was better than he was at guarding her thoughts. Much, much better than he was. No doubt the whole world could see the fear that was eating him alive from the inside out, chewing on his bones like woodworm and leaving him weak at the knees.

The sergeant avoided them, moving to add more wood to a brazier in the center of the guardhouse. A pike leaned against the wall in the corner, a silver crest embellished into the steel head. The man glanced at it, licking dry lips, obviously wondering how quickly he could reach it and whether or not he would be in time if Viggo drew his sword.

Viggo almost laughed. He and Cat were bloodstained, mud-spattered, limping, and more weary than he could ever remember being. He’d never been less of a threat in his whole life, but he doubted the man knew it.

“You won’t need that,” he said quietly, shifting to ease a cramp in his left calf.

The man looked at him sharply—and then at Tomas. Fear was scratched into every line in his face. “You couldn’t have tied it up better?”

Viggo stared at him, trying to understand the words, and glanced at Tomas and the bindings around his wrists. He’d tried to get out of them once, last night probably. His hands were raw from struggling, but Viggo had taken his admonishment about learning to tie a knot better seriously, and the ropes had held. “He’s all right.”

The man’s eyes darkened. “Aye, that’s what you say. But I’ve heard the stories.”

The flicker of a smile touched Tomas’s lips, just for a breath.

“Heard tell he’s only come back to Ivra to settle a score.”

“He came back because I brought him,” Viggo said, half-distracted. Would Thorne send Lant Curtis for them? If so, he himself would probably be dead before they had a chance to speak to Thorne. Or would they be taken to the cells first? “Where’s your man?”

As if his words had summoned him, the soldier came through the door, out of breath and still as wary as if he expected to find his sergeant dead in the room and Viggo gone. Or was it Tomas they were afraid of? Viggo wasn’t sure anymore, not of anything. The man nodded to his sergeant and said to Viggo, “His Lordship’s waiting on you.”

Silas Thorne was waiting for them in an office that overlooked the palace courtyards. Four men were with him, soldiers with his personal crest on their breasts, but Lant Curtis was nowhere to be seen.

Four men and Thorne’s bodyguards.

Ace’s eyes were on fire with anxiety, and even Brand, who was normally so stoic that it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, looked uncomfortable. Cat made eye contact with Ace immediately, giving her head the slightest of shakes, as if to remind the man that his friendship with her wasn’t worth his master’s trust in him. He didn’t look as though he’d made up his mind about that yet.

Thorne’s gaze went immediately to Tomas, to the bruises and torn skin on his wrists and the emptiness in his eyes. He frowned. “Well. I’ll admit, this isn’t what I was expecting.”

Viggo’s throat constricted. Something else stood in the corner of the room among the shadows. Tall as kings, with a heart that blazed like a fire and a face like smoke.

The Ghost Walker.

Viggo forced himself not to look at the spectral figure, to keep his eyes locked on Thorne. He’d woken it—woken it like a fool—the moment he’d ridden past the monoliths in the Krathe. It had followed him ever since, dogging his steps through the Krathe, haunting his sleep when he closed his eyes around their campfire, even waiting for him at the gates of Ivra, as if to assure him that the walls of the city wouldn’t protect him.

And now it was here, too, and Thorne was looking at him. Viggo shut his mind to the creature among the shadows, focusing on his lord. The man had been a lifeline once before. Now, it was all he could do to keep from blurting out the whole story, garbling it in a rush of words that would make no sense to anyone but himself in an effort to make the man understand. He bit his tongue and said hoarsely, “Your Highness . . . I can explain.”

Thorne’s expression relaxed, and he nodded. “I’m sure you can.” He straightened up, wincing as he moved to sit behind his desk, and gestured to one of the soldiers. “Wrentwood, take the Bonesmith to the cells. I’d like to hear Swifter’s story before anything else.”

The man shifted uncertainly, looking at Viggo darkly. “My lord, maybe I should stay.”

Thorne lifted an eyebrow at him, surprised. “It’s all right. Viggo and I are old friends. I won’t need you.”

A knot in Viggo’s chest loosened, and suddenly he could breathe again. The soldier cast him another dark look and took Tomas’s arm. The man resisted him for a breath, staring at Viggo with such contorted anxiety that Viggo realized, with a shock, that the only fear the man had in his body was for the two of them.

The soldier hit him so hard that he stumbled before he was hauled out.

The door shut.

Thorne leaned back in his chair and studied them both. His expression was so grave that Viggo’s heart skipped a beat, but at last he asked quietly, “Are you all right, Ashcliff?”

Cat touched the blood on her tunic as if to cover it with her fingers. “Yes, my lord.”

“Should I send you to an herbwoman first, before we sort all this out?”

Cat shook her head. She looked numb, only half herself, and Viggo could feel her weariness like another soul beside him.

Thorne turned his attention back to Viggo and spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t understand what happened.”

Viggo stared at him, and suddenly his tongue felt heavy as lead. He’d thought about what to say to Thorne; really, he’d thought of nothing else for two days. But every carefully worded explanation, every apology, every excuse fled from his mind and left him standing there mute, stupid as a thief who’d been caught in the marketplaces. “I—” He looked to Cat for help . . . and felt the blazing eyes of the Ghost Walker burrowing into his soul. “We tracked Tomas—the Bonesmith—to the Krathe, and we were going to bring them back, but—”

Thorne stopped him. “I have time, Viggo.” He motioned them both to chairs. “From the beginning. Don’t try to rush. Just tell me everything.”

And Viggo did. Everything poured out as suddenly as if he’d broken the seal holding back all of the memories of the last six months. Discovering Fane’s thefts, his master’s drunken rage, the riding crop across Cat’s face and the blood on his own hands after he’d hit his master. His stupid oath to remain silent, Joseph Brenner. The fight houses. He kept nothing back, nothing but Kaleb, as if even speaking the man’s name in these walls would summon his ghost. He ended the tale at last with Lant Curtis’s threats in the forest.

His threats, and Reika’s scream.

Thorne listened intently, scrawling notes on a sheaf of parchment and stopping him periodically to ask questions. Where was the ledger where Fane kept his accounts? What was the name of the peasant who’d been there when Viggo had first noticed the thefts? Did he remember anyone else from the fight houses—names, faces? Any of Joseph Brenner’s friends? Had Brenner taken them to their homes?

When they finished, the light had vanished. A maid flitted through, lighting lanterns on the walls and candles on the desk. Thorne rubbed his face wearily and sat back. “Is that all of it?”

Viggo nodded. He felt numb, poured out and empty, and he stared at the floor—waiting for the Ghost Walker to fade into the shadows and disappear, or stride forward and snuff the life from him with an ashen hand.

It didn’t move, but stood in the shadows, the fire in its breast and its eyes flickering.

His confession hadn’t done enough. The scars beneath his vambraces burned like fire, and he shut his eyes, swearing to the apparition that there was more to come. He was going to die, but, by the gods, he would die with a clean soul. He would.

If only it gave him the time.

Thorne studied him for a breath and stood. “That’s enough for today, I think. You both are tired—and hurt. Someone will take you to the healing houses and give you a place to sleep.”

Viggo didn’t move. “And then what?”

Thorne rang a bell on the desk, summoning a servant from outside. He looked at Viggo, compassion in his eyes. “I’ll need time to consider that. You’ve helped me immeasurably here—and you came back on your own. I won’t forget that.”

Whether he was meant to be reassured by that or not, Viggo couldn’t guess. It would have to be enough for now. Besides, he didn’t intend for Thorne to be given the chance to contemplate it for very much longer.

Cat touched his wrist, and he turned to follow her out into the hall.

The cells in Ivra were buried far beneath the guardsman’s keep, down a winding stair lit with flickering torches and swathed in spider webs. The guards who stood at the head of the stairs looked at Viggo curiously as he entered, but they made no move to stop him, as if Thorne’s assurance that he trusted Viggo had been passed among the ranks.

The Ghost Walker followed him down the steps like a black dog.

The air was cold in the cells. The walls felt like ice, and his footsteps echoed against the walls so loudly that he could have sworn he was the only living thing buried here. He shut out the thought, descending quickly and striding along the corridor at the bottom.

The last door on the right, Thorne’s men had told him. As deep as a man could be buried in Ivra.

No better place for the Bonesmith.

Tomas was awake when he slipped into the cell. The man was seated against the back wall, his face in shadow. Viggo shut the door behind him and set the lantern he carried on a rough table. “Still alive, old man?”

The faintest breath of a smile flickered across the man’s face. “Unfortunately. Come to bring me to the gallows?”

Viggo uttered a hoarse laugh and looked up at the stones overhead. He felt as though the weight of the entire city were bearing down on him. How could men breathe down here? “No. I have a question for you.”

“Ah, the interrogation first. I will warn you, I am notoriously stubborn. But it does pass the time. Ask away.”

“How did you meet Maeva?”

A frown flickered across the man’s brow, and he raised an eyebrow. “I imagine the Archduke is pacing his office waiting for the answer.”

“With bated breath. So?”

Tomas studied him thoughtfully, and for a long minute, Viggo didn’t think he would answer. Finally, the man shifted, leaned forward, and said, “There’s an outpost about six miles from Millcross. A unit of soldiers is stationed there to watch over the highroad. When I left Crainfell, I was sent there. Must be—” he hesitated, thinking. “Nearly twenty years ago now. I was their bloodhound—spent a lot of time in the Krathe, mapping pathways, searching out some of the robber bands that hid in the trees, that sort of thing.”

A door opened far down the hall, setting off a clamor of desperate cries that sounded like men who were already dying in their graves.

“One day, I fell climbing into a ravine and hurt my ankle. The outpost was too far off, so I went to Millcross.” He looked down at his hands, picking at the dried blood flaking from his palm. “Well, not there. It was a little hut on the outskirts. They told me the town witch lived there.” He uttered a humorless laugh. “I figured a witch was as good as a healer when your soul belonged to the devil. Turned out I was right, and she was willing to help.”

Viggo stared at him. “Maeva was a witch?”

“People have all kinds of names for folk who are different than they are.” Tomas shrugged. “She grew herbs they couldn’t and healed men whose graves were dug already. It was witch enough for them.”

He was silent, his eyes absent, lost in years that were past already. Viggo waited and finally said softly, “So?”

“So, she made me laugh.” Tomas didn’t look at him, his voice so quiet Viggo had to lean forward to hear it. “And she wasn’t afraid—Maeva never was afraid of anyone, even when she had reason to be. I was young and stupid and lonelier than I’d ever been in my life, with no partner and only a kennel waiting for me at the outpost.”

Viggo frowned. “A kennel?”

Tomas’s jaw tightened, and he forced an ironic smile. “The soldiers in the outpost had a . . . unique sense of humor.” He rubbed a hand down his thigh, looking at his fingers oddly, as though he couldn’t remember where the blood on them had come from. “I had half a dozen excuses for going back to see her: my captain had refused to pay her for treating my ankle, so I brought her game to settle the debt; I stumbled on an herb in the Krathe I knew she wanted for her garden; I’d caught a mink in one of my traps and couldn’t be bothered with the hide and it would’ve been a shame to let it rot. That sort of thing.”

“And she let you do it?”

A smile twitched at the corner of the man’s mouth, and he shrugged. “I wasn’t the only one who was lonely. We had . . .” he paused. “The same kind of soul.”

Viggo flushed, thinking immediately of Cat and the night the fight houses had shattered him almost beyond repair, and the feeling of their souls mingling together.

“A year later, I was ready to get out, and Maeva was ready to come with me. Her brother,” he sat back against the wall, “was getting married, and she didn’t have anywhere else to go. So . . .”

“And they thought you killed her?” Viggo asked softly.

Tomas hesitated, his eyes on the door, his jaw working. At last he said low, “Oh, I killed her. That part is true.”

“How?”

Tomas ran a hand over his face. “No rest for the wicked, I see. You can’t let me have my last hours in peace?”

“What’s the answer?”

Tomas looked down at his hands, rubbing at the blood on his wrists. “It was my fault. There was a child in one of the villages, a girl. She’d caught the eye of the man who owned the land, and her parents were afraid . . .” he trailed off, lost in a memory of pain. After a moment, he took a deep breath, shaking off the thought, and said, “I didn’t feel good about it. It was the wrong timing—people were looking for us, they were on the alert. We’d only just taken a boy from the southern villages to save him from the salt mines. But Maeva insisted. After all, we’d been doing this for nearly twenty years without more than a few close calls. So . . . we went. They caught us on the way back. In the tower by the lake.”

“Who?”

“Lant Curtis. Soldiers. I don’t remember most of them.” Tomas paused, staring at the wall, remembering. “They needed the Bonesmith alive. But not her. She was just a witch who was in the way.”

Viggo winced, feeling the man’s pain as if it were his own. At last, he whispered, “What happened to the girl?”

Tomas shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing good.”

Viggo looked away.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, soldiers’ boots. Tomas glanced up and raised an eyebrow. “Looks like we’re out of time.”

“Was it worth it?”

The man frowned. “What?”

“You chose all this, old man. Was it worth it?”

Tomas held his gaze for a long breath. A door slammed down the hall, and a key rattled in the lock. “Yes,” Tomas said quietly. “It was worth it.”

The door opened, and two men entered. Their eyes turned to Viggo immediately, as if they’d come to the cell looking for him and not its occupant, and one of them—a bearded man with a twisted lip—jerked his head back the way they’d come. “Archduke’s looking for you, halfblood. He sent to your rooms, but your partner said you were here.”

A chill skittered down Viggo’s spine, and for a breath he wasn’t sure the next cell they walked into wouldn’t be his own. He gestured toward the door. “Lead the way.”

He followed them out and tried to ignore the way Tomas watched him go, as if he—not the older man—were the one destined for the gallows. Their boots echoed on the stone floors as they went, and the Ghost Walker’s icy breath trailed behind him, prickling the back of his neck with foreboding.

The men took him to Thorne’s private apartments above the courtyard. He could see the fountains through the windows glittering like molten silver in the light cast by the rising moon.

The man was bent over his desk when he entered, writing as hurriedly as if someone were calling him away and whatever words were trapped in his head would vanish before he returned.

The door shut behind him. The soldiers who’d brought him were gone. Thorne didn’t look up, but said over his shoulder to him, “The bishop is offering a sacrament at the basilica in ten minutes.” He glanced up at the sand turner on his desk and swore. “I’m late. But I want you to come with me.”

Viggo nearly choked on a laugh. A sacrament? Did the man think offering blood, even in a god’s house, would absolve him of all the sins he’d stacked against his soul? “If my lord wishes.”

Thorne nodded absently, his pen scratching across the page with almost frantic haste. Viggo glanced around, a slight frown creasing his brow. The apartments were nothing like Fane’s lavish quarters. They were spare and almost military with nothing to hint at the power the man who lived in them held. The carpet on the floor was thin and faded, the furniture wooden and serviceable.

A maid appeared from the bedroom with her arms full of brocaded silk and velvet. She set them down on a chair and clicked her tongue. “Now yuh’re late for certain.”

Thorne uttered an oath under his breath and stabbed the pen into his inkwell. “They won’t notice. Thank you, Magda.”

He dressed quickly, and the door at the other end of the room opened to admit Ace and Brand. Ace met Viggo’s eyes immediately, and his expression twisted with contempt—and anger. Viggo looked away, strangling the guilt that leapt into his breast. No doubt the man was thinking of the rusty stains on Cat’s tunic and the exhausted despair in her eyes. Ace cared more about her than anyone else Viggo had seen him with in the months they’d known the man, more, even, than his often-silent partner. No doubt he would have liked to wring Viggo’s neck for the pain she was in now.

“Ace, I’m going to have you stay here.” Thorne straightened his coat and ran a hand through his disheveled hair as if that might tidy it enough for the bishop and his saints. “I don’t want to draw attention to myself with more than two of you.”

Ace reddened, but he bowed and disappeared back into their room. Thorne picked up the letter he’d been writing and shoved it unceremoniously into his pocket, leading them out and down the stairs with a quick stride. “It’s better that we’re late, anyway,” he said over his shoulder. “I want to stay near the back, where you can see better.”

Viggo frowned, trying to work out what the man meant. He glanced at Brand, but the man was looking carefully away from him, his jaw set like stone. Viggo looked away.

The carriage ride to the basilica was made in total silence. Brand watched the streets and houses as they swept by, and Viggo bit his tongue and tried not to think about what Cat would be feeling by now. He’d been gone too long. She would be frantic by the time he got back, probably imagining him swinging from a noose down by the gates.

The carriage pulled to a halt before the basilica, and Viggo moved to climb down. Brand stopped him, saying low, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Viggo stared at him.

Brand met his eyes. “We all knew what kind of man Ravenstone was,” he whispered. “What would probably happen to whoever was given to him. We should’ve told you. I—it wasn’t your fault.”

Viggo held his gaze for a long, long breath, his heart hammering uncomfortably against his ribs, and whispered at last, “No. It was.”

He climbed down from the carriage roof and followed Thorne into the basilica, trying to swallow past the knot in his throat.

Inside, the air hung heavy with smoke from the candles and the incense burners. Viggo followed Thorne to a raised box off to one side, a place where he could sit without being too near the lords and ladies who came here to cleanse their souls.

At the front of the basilica, before the altar, a man robed in scarlet intoned prayers over a bleeding calf.

Thorne dipped his fingers in a silver bowl waiting for him and touched his forehead and his lips, murmuring a prayer that Viggo couldn’t catch. He sat, and Viggo moved instinctively to stand behind him. Knotted silk hung from the ceiling, pale as gossamer, and smoke wreathed among the pillars and the faces of the pious ranged throughout the benches. He hadn’t been here since the nights he’d come to beg for Cat’s life. It felt different now that it was full—less holy, less reverent. The smell of blood was stifling.

Thorne bent his head and said low, so only they could hear, “We have an hour. Most of the gentry in the city are here. I want you to look carefully—tell me if you recognize any of them from the fight house.”

A shock darted through Viggo’s breast, and he said awkwardly, “My lord—”

Thorne shook his head. “It’s all right. I’m not expecting much. Just look. And take your time.”

Viggo bit back his protest and scanned the crowd, struggling to see clearly through the hazy shadows of the basilica. Men, women, Dreyens. A few were nodding off in their benches, others bent so far forward that their heads almost touched the backs of the benches in front of them, as if whatever sins they were begging forgiveness for weighed as heavy as chains around their necks.

His eyes scanned row by row, searching each face, panic growing as he did. He didn’t remember any of them, not the screaming crowds, not the Dreyens he’d fought. He’d done his best to forget, to never look too closely, dreading the day he really would recognize someone.

He’d scanned nearly half the church before he saw the man. He was sitting nearest the aisle and leaning back on crimson cushions, rings adorning his fat hands. His coarse face was nearly as red as the last time Viggo had seen it when the man had dragged Tessa into the chapel by her hair and thrown her at their feet.

Kaleb’s master.

Kaleb.

Instinctively, Viggo glanced at the man’s bodyguards, as if seeing the man could somehow erase his friend’s death and Kaleb would be there, shuffling behind his master, yawning irreverently and wishing the hour away.

He wasn’t, of course. Kaleb was dead, and Tessa was gone, too. The men standing behind him were strangers.

Viggo shut his eyes, the words stuck in his throat. He’d kept Kaleb from his story—not intentionally, not really. Even speaking about the other man had felt like stirring up a ghost, and he’d said nothing. He’d forgotten that Kaleb’s master could still pay.

As if any sort of prison sentence could atone for the man’s death.

Thorne frowned slightly, confused by his long silence. “Anyone?”

Viggo bit his tongue and said hoarsely, “Fifth row from the front. The man sitting nearest the aisle.”

Thorne glanced his way and frowned. “Pierce Benneviot. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Thorne nodded thoughtfully. “His bodyguard killed himself a few months ago. It makes sense.”

“That was a lie. He was killed in the fight houses.” The words stuck in his throat, but he’d never felt such relief in saying them. “Kaleb Rainwood. His master was stacking odds on him.”

Thorne’s face had grown frigid. “Stacking odds?”

“Placing double bets. Making him fight two men at a time.” A knot in his chest was loosening, unraveling. He could breathe again. Gods, was this really all it took? “You took his partner. Tessa—Tessa something. I didn’t know her last name. Her master told you Kaleb had hurt her, that they were fighting.”

“But they weren’t?”

Viggo shook his head. “Pierce brought her to the fight houses, but she lost. He couldn’t make any money off her, so—”

“I see.” Thorne took one last look at the man, as if to commit him to memory. “Anyone else?”

Viggo scanned the crowd again. Several other faces popped out at him, as if seeing Pierce Bennoviot had triggered his memory. He pointed them out one by one.

The bishop was intoning the final rites when he saw the girl. Her vivid red hair stood out like fire among all the smoke. Viggo’s stomach plunged.

Rylee.

Rylee Drake.

In a breath, he was back in the Core beneath the trees, rain drumming down around him and Rylee staring at him with shame in her face and Cat’s blood on her hands. Rylee, Dex, Carver—he hadn’t thought of any of them, not in months. His life with Cat, the fight houses, Fane Ravenstone—they’d eclipsed the Core and his life there so thoroughly that he’d nearly forgotten.

The bishop finished his rite and sprinkled the last of the blood on the altar. Thorne touched his forehead and his lips again and stood, ready to leave. Viggo clenched a fist and indicated the lord Rylee stood behind, asking hoarsely, “Who is that?”

Thorne looked at the man curiously and shook his head. “Bence Woodhaven. He’s only arrived in Ivra in the last few months—visiting a cousin, I think. Do you recognize him?”

Viggo stared at Rylee for a long breath, half hoping to catch her eye, and shook his head. “No. I thought so . . . just for a minute. But no.”

“It’s all right. We’ll try this again. You’ll have another chance.”

Viggo nodded and followed the man out of the basilica. Thorne was wrong. He wouldn’t have another chance. He’d done his part to hang the nobles in Ivra.

Someone else would have to continue on after tonight. He was finished.

The healers left an hour before dusk, and Cat lay curled up on the bed watching the candles on the windowsill burn down and flicker out one by one.

Viggo hadn’t come back yet. He’d sworn he was only going to see where they’d taken Tomas, but that had been hours ago, and he hadn’t returned.

Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Thorne had considered his next step and deemed it wise to toss him into a prison cell until Fane was sentenced and they could be sent off to the salt mines or whatever dark hellhole he had in store for them.

Or maybe Lant Curtis had returned from wherever it was he’d disappeared to, and Viggo was already dead.

The thought jerked through her breast like a slap of cold rain, and she stood, wandering the room restlessly and touching the jars the women had left behind. Yarrow, peppermint, whiteleaf oil, silverfoot. Whiteleaf vines grew in the gardens outside her window, their leaves yellow from frost, and dead blossoms littered the beds. The healing houses were very beautiful, and she couldn’t remember another place where she’d been so content just to sit and watch the breeze move the curtains.

She would’ve stayed here, if she could, back when her leg was still healing after their release from Fane. She couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d ever been so happy.

The door opened, and Viggo slipped inside. Her heart skipped a beat, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from swearing at him. Her relief loosed the knot of anger that had been tightening between her ribs since they’d left the Krathe, and she waited until she could speak without hissing at him before saying, “You’ve been gone a long time.”

He dropped onto the bed and lay back, covering his face with his hands. When had she last seen him looking so spent? Not since the fight houses. “Thorne wanted me. I was pointing people out for him. Lords who were in the fight houses.” He began to laugh, and there was a trace of madness in the sound. “Gods. I think I’m more valuable now than I ever was before.”

Cat sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the coverlet with her hand. “Did he say what came next?”

Viggo didn’t answer for a long time. At last, he took a deep breath and sat up. “No. Only that we would try again. I think he’s hoping I’ll remember everyone who was there.”

She nodded. Silence stretched between them, and a breeze swished through the garden, rattling the seedheads of the poppies growing along the border of the beds. “How was Tomas?” she asked softly.

“Not dead. As sarcastic as ever.”

“You talked to him?”

“I—” Viggo rubbed his forearm in a way that made her think he wanted to scrub away the scars there. “I asked him about Maeva. How they met.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “He . . . loved her.”

Her face reddened as she realized where this moment was going. “So?”

Viggo looked at her with an expression that she hadn’t seen before and whispered, “So, he said it was worth it.”

Her mouth went dry, and suddenly she didn’t know where to look, and her skin felt as though it were on fire. She stood abruptly, nearly stumbling over the loose, flowing wrap the healers had left her wearing while they washed and mended her clothes. “It won’t be when they hang him.”

The words were a lie, however cynical she could make them sound. She could more than believe that it had been worth it—if Tomas had really loved Maeva.

She went to the window and held a fresh candle to the wick that was flickering out in a puddle of spent wax. Viggo shifted behind her and even that slight movement made her heart pound. He said low, “I told Thorne everything. The whole truth. Nothing is left.”

“I was there.”

“We can leave now.”

Cat shut her eyes, suddenly wanting to cry or scream at him or both, and hissed when hot wax dribbled over her fingers. She set the candle down, scrubbing her hand on the wrap without thinking, and glanced down at the waxen stain in the soft wool.

“Cat?”

She sat down on the windowsill and looked at him, trying to ignore the way her heart was thudding against her ribs. “We just got here.”

The words were sharper than she wanted them to be. Viggo didn’t flinch, but held her gaze with a kind of softness in his eyes that made every thought in her head scatter in a thousand different directions. “I know.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Do I ever?”

She had to bite her tongue hard to keep from laughing. Gods. He could always make her laugh. They could be standing on the hangman’s platform together, and he would still make her laugh. “Viggo.”

“I’m sorry.” He rubbed his eyes wearily. “I know. I—I’m just barely making sense in my own head. I don’t know how to make you understand it.”

“Try.”

He looked up at her, his gaze softening again, and whispered, “I did say you could stay behind.”

“So I could die on the heath alone? How noble of you.”

He laughed.

Cat sighed and went to sit next to him on the bed, tucking her legs up underneath her and hugging one of the down pillows to her chest. “Tell me why we came back.”

Viggo looked out the window, hesitating over the answer as he struggled to find the words. “I would have thought about it forever. All the lies I told. I would have spent the rest of our lives—however long or short—wondering if telling the truth would have changed things.”

“Did it?”

“No.” Viggo winced and glanced down at the scars on his wrists. “And yes. It made me realize a few things. Like maybe I can fix these,” he rubbed one of the scars with his thumb, “and get them off my soul before I stand before the Pale Lady.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But I think,” he paused. “I think the Bonesmith might. At least, he might have an idea about it.”

She stared at him. “Tomas. Why?”

“I—” he shifted uncomfortably, “had a dream. In the Krathe.”

Her eyebrow rose.

“About . . . Maeva.”

“We’re following your dreams now.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Five or six of them.”

“Do tell.”

Cat opened her mouth and shut it again, then snatched a pillow up and hit him with it. “You’re ridiculous.”

He laughed and ducked, holding out his hands defensively. “Easy. I surrender.”

She threw the pillow at him and bit her tongue, waiting until the laughter in her chest had eased before saying, more soberly, “You have to be honest with me.”

He winced. “I’m trying.”

“Not really.”

He took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it with frustration. “I don’t know anything else myself, Cat. I haven’t thought any of this through.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

He laughed and looked away. “I’ve always been good at hiding incompetence.” He waited a breath and glanced at her, adding softly, “What do you want?”

To be with you, she almost said, but didn’t. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On what the Bonesmith knows.”

Viggo nodded, looking at her so searching that her heart skipped a beat. “I guess we’ll find out, then.”

“And you have a plan to get him away from Thorne’s men?”

“Yes.”

“Is it stupid?”

Viggo grinned, wanting her to laugh. “Yes.”

Cat brushed a few dry leaves from the coverlet and said nothing. She hadn’t wanted to come back to Ivra at all, although she would have bitten her tongue in two rather than say it aloud. He would’ve made her stay behind, and she was too much of a coward to tell him that Ivra, a prison cell, and a noose were preferable to being left without him. But now that they were here, it seemed stupid to leave again. She wanted to face what Thorne had in store for them, take the punishment and make the best of whatever it was. At the very least, they would be together. Why did he insist on making it worse?

And why did she insist on letting him and following after when he did?

She knew the answer too well, although her mother would have mocked her for it. She’d been alone far too long. In Beyora with her parents, in Crainfell, in the Core. She hadn’t meant to let Viggo creep in through the cracks, but he had. A long, long time ago. She couldn’t untangle him from her heart and soul anymore, and she didn’t want to, no matter what her mother’s ghost thought of it.

She would be willing to go through much, much worse than Ivra and its stupid cold stones and soulless lords to keep him from disappearing.

Much worse.

The gardens beneath the basilica in Ivra were tended to by novices, boys who’d been given at birth to the priests in exchange for the forgiveness of their parents’ mortal sins. They swept the paths clean, trimmed the rose bushes and vines back from the flagstones, and left their whispered prayers hanging in the air like the breath of the saints.

Silas Thorne kissed his fingers and touched the stone angel on the gate before he went inside. He had left his guardians by the coach. He always did when he needed the peace of the gardens and the silence of his own company for an hour or so, although it made Ace so anxious that he paced the walls outside like a caged leopard.

The gravel paths inside the gardens were raked clean, although the bushes were shedding their leaves. Thorne followed them through the trees and brushed aside hanging branches as he went. Rose vines were twined among the trunks, bereft of their blooms so late in the year. The novices would have snipped them off by now, preserving the fragrant petals to burn as incense before the altars.

The fountains were still flowing, though. Thorne felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders when he reached them. Ivra stank of sewage water and the crush of too many souls, but here, at least, the air smelled clean and damp, and he could leave refreshed, maybe even without the pounding headache that had haunted him ever since he’d sent Lant Curtis after Swifter and his partner.

He recognized the figure by the fountain immediately, although the moonlight falling through the trees was so weak that Thorne could barely make out the man’s features. Swifter. The Dreyen was standing at the foot of a statue, studying it as intently as if he were a mason himself, and he said without turning around, “Do you know, it took me nearly a month here to realize how ridiculous it was that most lords had guardians.”

Thorne froze in shock, his heart jolting against his ribs in a way that hurt. He glanced back the way he’d come, but the paths were empty, of course. He’d left Ace and Brand with his carriage.

Viggo didn’t look at him. The reflection of the moonlight in the fountains rippled on his face. “They don’t need us. Fane was more likely to drink himself to death than anything else. Half the time I wasn’t even with him.”

Only because he was stupid enough to leave his bodyguards behind, Thorne thought bitterly, Like I just did.

Aloud, he said, “Viggo, what are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

A shiver touched Thorne’s spine like the hand of a ghost.

“I think I understand now.” Viggo looked down. He had a pair of leather vambraces in his hands, scarred and weathered from years of wear. Moonlight fell across his bare arms, gleaming on the rows of scars disfiguring his skin. “We’re meant to burn in hell for you.”

Thorne stared at him. His own words whispered back to him out of the darkness, sharp with arrogance.

Viggo and I are old friends.

Whatever Fane had done to him, it had gone deeper than he’d realized. He’d trusted too deeply in the boy’s unwavering loyalty—in his years in the Core. His time in the fight houses had shattered him too completely.

Viggo tossed the vambraces into the dark water and watched them sink. “Someone has to with the way things are,” he whispered. “Better to have someone without a soul to hold the knife.”

“You know that’s not true.” Thorne glanced at the scars on the boy’s wrists, a dart of pity passing through his breast. “Come back with me, and we’ll talk about it—”

“We’re not going back.” Viggo glanced up at the basilica rising overhead, at the sharp spires and swirling stone oriels and the stained glass windows. “I have the Pale Lady’s claws in me now. But I’ll meet her in my own way and for my own sins. Not yours.”

“If you really think that, why did you come back?”

“I lied to you.” Viggo shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to look at him. His face was deadly calm, without the tortured fear that had struggled in it when he’d come into Thorne’s study earlier. “In the healing houses. I had to make it right. I should’ve come to you myself back when everything started.”

Thorne studied him, trying to work out where the words were leading, and nodded. “I would’ve preferred that.”

“It’s off my soul now. I’ve told you everything.” The boy flashed a humorless smile. “All my stupid sins.”

“And now you’re leaving.”

“Yes.”

Thorne ran a hand through his hair, frustration tearing at his breast. He liked this boy, that was the trouble. He was smart and headstrong, and he should have gone so much further than this. It drove Thorne mad to lose him over Fane Ravenstone’s madness. “You won’t give me a chance to change your mind?”

Viggo bared his teeth in a smile that was chillingly reminiscent of the wolf. “No, I don’t think so.”

Thorne took a step back. Wind stirred in the trees and the moonlight flickered, obscured for a breath behind a shred of cloud.

When it passed, the boy was gone, and only the soft plash of the fountains remained.

Scarlet-throated ravens nested in the rooftops above the hangman’s court. Ravens, rooks, crows. They gathered there in droves that not even the soldiers could drive off, and their cawing heralded the carts bringing prisoners to hang.

Despite the gathering darkness, Tomas heard them calling long before the cart carrying him rattled over the last bridge and into the courtyard where the gallows stood. The ravens in the Krathe slept after dusk, returning to their nests or roosting in the applewood trees that grew along the southern borders of the forest, but here in Ivra it was different.

Here, the bonfires the soldiers lit to celebrate a hanging drew them like flies, and they gathered as swiftly as if the dead men they feasted on were offerings for their benefit.

The bonfires drew more than just crows from their nests. People gathered, too. Common folk, lured from their homes with the promise of cheap entertainment and the thrill of a slow death.

Tomas leaned back in the cart and watched the peasants line the road, torches dotting the crowd and casting light and shadow on their twisted glares. Old women elbowed for room, calling curses at him in reedy voices, men shouted abuse, and two or three boys worked up the courage to throw horse dung at the cart. He could taste their fear in the cool air, sharp as the smoke from the torches.

The Bonesmith.

They wilted to silence when his eyes met theirs, stung with superstition, although they’d come all this way to watch him hang. But didn’t the stories say the Bonesmith was already dead? And how did one kill a dead man?

“We told the stories too well, Maeva,” he whispered, watching the crowd part to let the cart through to the nooses. Not just the common folk had come out to see him die. He could see carriages reined in along the perimeter of the crowds, lords watching from the windows. “Do you think they’ll be disappointed when my neck does break?”

Probably. People wanted their legends, their ghost stories, to be real. Once the Bonesmith was dead, they would move on to another chilling tale.

The cart rumbled through the gate and pulled to a halt behind the gibbet. Four men already swayed above his head. Tomas glanced up at them and looked away again quickly. Crows had already begun to peck at the bodies.

The man who opened the back of the cart avoided his eyes as he pulled him out. A pouch of sparrow bones hung around his neck, scrawled with signs to ward off the dead. Tomas glanced at it in amusement. “Did you know witches use sparrow bones to curse their enemies?”

The man hit him so hard that his lip split. “I’ll curse you if you speak again. Come on, up the steps.”

He pushed Tomas toward the gibbet. Two men stood waiting for him. Four others kept the crowd back from the fences, although their job was done for them by the stories the people had heard of the Bonesmith. They all wanted to see him die, but none of them wanted to be too near when it happened. He could be thankful for that, at least. He’d been to at least one hanging where the condemned man had never made it to the noose. The crowd had taken care of his execution themselves.

The soldier behind him pushed him again. Tomas stumbled, cursing beneath his breath, and climbed the ladder leading up to the platform.

Silence fell. Utter, chilling silence.

The soldier uttered a whispered oath. He released Tomas’s arm and stumbled away from him, fumbling for the pouch at his throat. A sparrow’s bones to ward off the dead.

But the dead came anyway.

Tomas spun around to see what had startled him and staggered as he stepped off the ladder’s rung. He fell awkwardly against the tarred post of the gallows. Shock stole his voice.

Smoke billowed from beneath the cart he’d just left, writhing in the harsh light of the torches like a living thing, rising up as if to blot out the sky. Flames licked at the wheels, snapping at the straw inside, devouring the planks.

A man stepped from the smoke as if he’d been born from it, wreathed in flame, carrying it in his hands and his eyes. Tall as kings with a face pale as ash.

Ghost Walker.

Flames exploded overhead as the gallows caught fire. A woman in the crowd screamed, and the ropes creaked, snapping in the heat. One of the dead men fell, crashing into the planks, and men began shouting.

Tomas didn’t move. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He stared at the being in the smoke as it turned blazing gold eyes on the guard and said in a voice harsh with smoke, “I’ve business with the Bonesmith.”

The man was shaking, staring at the being with glazed eyes as he said hoarsely, “I’ve orders to—”

“Orders will not stand between the Ghost Walker and his prey.”

The man sobbed and fell to his knees.

The Ghost Walker cocked his head, and the gold in his eyes vanished, snuffed out, leaving nothing but black in its wake. “You may leave. As a kindness.”

Viggo.

The voice gave him away. The guard scrambled to his feet and ran as if all the embers raining down around them were from the gates of hell itself. The men on the platform overhead had leapt to safety, the crowd retreating as the scaffold swayed in the wind, engulfed in fire. Viggo jerked Tomas to his feet, cutting the ropes around his wrists with a swift knife, and hauled him along behind as he skirted the blazing cart and plunged into an alleyway on the far side.

Tomas stumbled after him, numb with shock, reeling from the smoke in his lungs and the sudden jerk from death to life.

Behind them, the gallows burned.

They made it nearly a quarter of a mile through the maze of alleys and side streets before the smell of smoke vanished behind them and Tomas’s knee began to fail him. Viggo stopped in a cobbled square to let him rest. Washing fluttered above them, hung between the houses, but the windows were dark and silent, and the screams from the hangman’s court had faded with the smoke.

Tomas bent over, rubbing his aching knee. “You came back.”

His voice cracked.

Viggo looked back the way they’d come. He could still see the glow of the fires in the distance, a garish, ugly red against the walls rearing above the twisted gables and roofs of the houses. He wondered if they could see it all the way from the palace. “You said it was worth it.”

The man choked on a laugh and leaned back against the wall. “I didn’t think you heard anything I said.”

Viggo looked down at his hands and the ash smeared across the scars on his wrists. His own legs were trembling so hard that he wanted to join the man on the cobbles, but his throat felt as though the noose that had slipped around it when he spoke with the Archduke in the gardens were loosening with every breath. “I heard a few things,” he said low. He nodded at the man’s leg. “Can you walk on that?”

The man grimaced and glanced up at the dark sky and the wheeling stars overhead. “Not as far as I’d like to. Although, they’ll probably close the gates—”

The leopard dropped from the rooftop above them, landing soundlessly on the cobbles. Viggo jerked aside, swearing, and hissed, “Woman! We talked about this.”

The leopard vanished, and Cat cast him a dazzling smile. “I know.” She nodded back the way they’d come. “Fire’s about under control. We should go.”

Her left hand was black with soot. Viggo frowned. “Did you burn yourself?”

Cat scrubbed her hand on her trousers and winced. “No.”

“Liar.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and looked at Tomas as easily as if she didn’t feel the burning shame that Viggo did whenever she saw the man. “They closed the gates already.”

Tomas passed a hand over his tired face and leaned against the wall. “Not surprising. Now what?”

“I have a place for us to go,” Viggo told him. “When you’re rested.”

Tomas straightened up with a sigh and waved him on. “I won’t slow you down. Lead the way.”

It took them an hour to skirt the main road and the marketway around the gallows and head west up into the city. Despite his assurance, Tomas did slow them down, but Viggo said nothing about it, letting the man limp along at his own pace. Several times, he caught the man looking at him strangely, as if he were trying to read the reason for their return in his eyes, but he asked no questions, and Viggo kept his mouth shut.

The moon was setting when they reached the street he’d been leading them to, and the light it gave cast dark shadows on the abandoned cathedral as they slipped through the wrought iron gate and down the path to its doors.

The nave echoed with silence when they entered. Viggo glanced up at the vaulted ceiling, a shiver passing over his skin as a brief vision of red light and white sand flickered through his mind. The fight house still looked the same, even after these months. The soldiers who’d raided it had set it alight, but the fire hadn’t started well, and it hadn’t spread, as if the stones had been too frozen to crack or yield to the flames. A few of the pillars were charred, most of the doors cracked and broken.

But everything else was the same. He could swear that the walls still echoed with the screaming cheers of the crowds, the bloodthirsty cursing, the bets. He might have been there only last night.

Cat touched his wrist, and he jumped, realizing he’d lost track of himself and was standing like a fool, looking around the abandoned nave as if it still had a soul in it. She slipped her hand into his, whispering, “This is a bad idea.”

He shook his head. “No one will look here.” He looked over his shoulder, finding Tomas in the darkness, and asked, “Leg all right?”

The man nodded wordlessly, a slight frown marring his brow, as if he were trying to work out Viggo’s connection to the place. Viggo opened his mouth to explain and thought better of it, saying instead, “Come on. We’re not safe yet.”

He groped around until he found a torch. Cat helped him light it with the flint and tinder in his pocket, and he led them back through the empty halls to the chapel. The door creaked when he pushed it open, and dust fell from the ceiling.

The coffins stacked against the walls stood out pale in the torchlight, and the silver writing gleamed through the dust.

Cat covered her mouth and nose with a hand. “What is that smell?”

Viggo shrugged. “Better not to know. Almost there.”

Cat looked at him incredulously. He crossed the room, pushing aside the coffins, and opened the trapdoor behind them—one Kaleb had shown him—and the one he’d used to save himself and Fane when the fight house had been raided. He felt as though he’d stepped back in time, as if this place were pulling him back, reeling him in again. Only this time, his own soul was intact . . . and whatever black soul it had possessed had been burned out by fire. He held out his hand to Cat. “I’ll lower you down.”

She recoiled. “Are you mad?”

Tomas glanced between them and moved toward the dark opening. “I’ll go first. I can help her down.”

Viggo shrugged and took the man’s hand, lowered him into the dark and passed him the torch. Cat swore at them both and followed him, although Viggo could feel the cold fear in her fingers as he helped her down.

When she was through, he followed, pulling the trap door shut behind him.

The torchlight flickered among the tombs. Tomas stood uncertainly at the head of the stairs, as if he didn’t want to tread on sacred ground, and whispered, “Where are we?”

“With the dead,” Viggo told him, and took the torch from his hand, slotting it into a waiting bracket and tossing his backpack down at the foot of a tomb. “We’ll sleep here. When it gets dark tomorrow night we can leave the city through the drains, out into the marshland on the south side. They won’t expect that.”

Tomas touched a stone lily, tracing its gentle curves as he read the name on the tomb beside it. “No, probably not,” he said absently. “Most people drown in those marshes.”

“It’s said that the Bonesmith knows his way through.”

Tomas uttered a soft laugh and glanced around the rest of the room, at the tombs that lined the walls and flagstones on the floor and the low ceiling. “Oh, is that why you came back for me? Yes, I can get you through.”

Shame stung Viggo’s chest, sharp as a thin-bladed knife. He looked at Cat, but her eyes were gray, and she was studying the bare walls as if they meant to crush her at any moment. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

Tomas turned to look at him. “No, I guessed not. You would’ve made it out of the city through the gates if you hadn’t come after me.” He paused, as if weighing his words, and said softly, “Thank you.”

Viggo stared at him, lost for a reply, and said hoarsely, “I put the noose around your neck, old man. Don’t thank me for that.” He straightened and turned back to the trap door. “We’ll need a fire if we’re going to sleep here.”

An hour later they had a fire burning between the tombs, and the heavy stillness had retreated from its cheerful crackling. Cat fell asleep with her head in his lap, and Viggo leaned back against the tomb watching the fire devour the charred remains of several of the doors from the nave.

Tomas stretched his leg out, wincing, and asked quietly, “How did you know about this place?”

Viggo shrugged, his eyes still on the fire. Red light flickered on the stone floor. “It used to be a fight house.” He smiled grimly. “I spent a lot of time here.”

Tomas’s jaw tightened. “Oh.”

Neither spoke for a long time. Viggo stroked hair out of Cat’s face, watching the fire fall to coals, and breathed in the smell of the tombs and the smoke. This room had always had a peace to it, a stillness that went right to his soul, and the crackling of the fire didn’t echo with the screaming of the crowds. Not here. He’d been expecting ghosts to rise from the tombs and shadows—Kaleb and Fane and Joseph Brenner, but none did. He had the feeling that if he’d had the courage to fall asleep, the peace inside these stone walls would keep out even his persistent nightmares.

Tomas was watching him. Viggo bit his tongue and forced himself to look at the man, right in his face, as he said softly, “If you’ll help us through the marshes, we’ll share what supplies we have with you before we part ways. You won’t have to see us again.”

Tomas nodded thoughtfully. His gaze wandered down, taking in the scars patterning Viggo’s forearms, and he murmured, “Seems fair.”

Silence slipped between them. Cat stirred, turning on her side, and squirmed uncomfortably. Then the leopard took her shape and rubbed against his leg before curling up with its heavy tail over its face.

“Where then? After you get out of the city?”

Viggo buried his fingers in the leopard’s fur, tracing the black lines on its head and down its neck. “I’ve got some ideas.” The still air among the tombs mocked him, as if the ghosts that lived here knew that he was lying. They had no plans. Not really. Atonement, maybe, before Lant Curtis found them and broke both their necks. Nothing else. “We were going to head south. For the sea.”

“Why?”

Viggo laughed hoarsely. “She used to live there.” He nodded at Cat. “We’re going to die. I wanted to see it before we do.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Doesn’t it?”

The remains of a door slammed on its hinges far above them. The crash echoed through the cathedral. They both froze, listening, and after a breath, Tomas relaxed. “Wind,” he said softly. Viggo nodded. Tomas leaned back against the tomb again and studied him thoughtfully. “So that’s your plan? Waiting to die?”

“Yes.”

“You could have done that in the palace.”

“Maybe. I’d rather do it somewhere I can breathe.”

“You don’t want more than that?”

Viggo couldn’t answer. Of course he wanted more. Cat wanted more, he wanted more. But how could he claim that with the Pale Lady haunting his steps and Lant Curtis out for their souls?

Without meaning to, he said, “I have to do something. Before we go south. I was thinking, maybe, you could tell me—how.”

Tomas raised an eyebrow.

Viggo flushed, and he immediately wished he’d held his peace. He shifted, his cheeks burning, and gestured awkwardly at the scars running up and down his wrists. “I have to—fix these.”

Tomas stared at him, his expression inscrutable. “Fix them.”

Shame pulsed through him, sharp as a second heartbeat. He didn’t look at the man, but tried to find his breath in a chest that was rapidly crushing in on itself. “Yes.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

The fire snapped. Viggo stared at the wood, watching it crumble to ash, and then spat a laugh. “No, you’re right. You wouldn’t.” He stood abruptly and kicked the last of the kindling into the fire. “We’ll need more of that before the night’s over. I’ll be back.”

“Viggo—”

But Viggo didn’t stop, and whatever the man had been going to say was lost in the silence among the tombs.

They left the fight house at dusk the following night. Viggo was the last to leave the silent chapel, and when he finally emerged from the small room, the smell of smoke drifted after him. Cat caught a glimpse of the look in his eyes and swallowed the question that had leapt to her tongue.

Some things were better not asked.

She looked back after they reached the top of a rise ten minutes later, just before they lost sight of the cathedral among the maze of houses and twisting streets. Flames licked at the roof, and the windows glowed with red light, as if hell itself were trapped inside.

Viggo watched the light grow, his expression wooden and empty. Cat touched his wrist and slipped her hand into his, whispering, “All right?”

He nodded absently and rubbed at a scar on his forearm, the one he’d made the night Kaleb had died and she’d nearly lost him to the fight houses. “Yes.” He paused for a long breath, and said softly, “I’ve always thought they should’ve burned it properly.”

Cat squeezed his fingers.

They headed south. Tomas led the way, plunging deeper into Ivra than either of them had ever been before. “We won’t try for the drains until the moon sets,” he told them, navigating the silent streets as swiftly as he had the paths in the Krathe. His limp was noticeably better. “It’ll be full dark then, and we’re less likely to wind up with an arrow between our shoulder blades.”

Cat turned away as a peddler trundled by them pulling a handcart in his wake. “Is it far?”

Tomas shook his head and stepped over a puddle among the cobbles. “Not terribly, no.”

Viggo looked up as they passed a long alley, studying the distant gleam of the palace rooftops visible through the rise of the city. “We’re close to the palace. Are you taking us through the gentry’s circle?”

Tomas glanced up, too, a shadow passing over his face at the sight of the towers, and he crossed the street swiftly into alley so narrow that the walls on either side brushed against Viggo’s shoulders. “No, we’ll go around.”

“Why?”

Cat’s skin prickled. Viggo’s face was closed off, as empty as it had been when he watched the flames licking up the roof of the fight house, but something in his eyes made her heart lurch. Some painful twist of desperation. Of hoping. He caught her glance and looked away again abruptly.

A cat darted out of a doorway in front of them, vanishing into the shadows as swiftly as a ghost. A bundle of whiteleaf and bindweed, long since dried out, hung over the doorway. Tomas touched it in passing, as if to steal a trace of the good luck still lingering in the leaves. “No use tempting fate,” he said casually. “Unless . . . you had something you wanted to do there.”

Silence.

Cat glanced at Viggo, realizing immediately that he did have something else he wanted from Ivra—but didn’t want to say it aloud. She tamped down a sudden swirl of anxiety and said seriously, “Viggo, we do not have time to look at lace.”

He grinned, some of his cheerful needling returning. “Woman, I will leave you here, I swear.”

She laughed, wishing she could have ignored the catch in his throat when he said the words.

His grin vanished. Viggo looked at her, and the guilt in his face struck her in the chest. After a breath, he whispered, “I saw Rylee.”

Cat’s heart felt suddenly numb, and the patter of rain flooded through her thoughts—rain, a dark night, Dex’s vicious smile as she told Cat what Viggo meant to her and what she was willing to do to keep him.

And Rylee. Rylee, who’d never spoken more than two words to Cat, but who did whatever Dex told her to no matter what. Rylee, who’d had Cat’s blood on her hands by the time Viggo had found them all those months ago.

Tomas stepped into a doorway, avoiding a splash of gray water from a window overhead, and looked inquisitively at Viggo. “Rylee?”

Viggo ignored him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at her with something like a bruise in his dark eyes. “When Thorne took me to the basilica,” he said hoarsely, “he told me her master was visiting a cousin in Ivra.”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think enough to smile or answer him or say anything at all. Her mother’s laughter stung like nettles. “You didn’t tell me.”

“I—didn’t know how.”

Cat held his gaze, trying to sort through the betrayal tearing apart her soul. “This was your plan all along.”

“I have to see her. I have to make sure she and Dakota are all right.”

They were both looking at her, Viggo with that stupid, pleading expression that begged her to understand, and Tomas with a concern that had caught far more than either of them had said. Cat cursed them both under her breath and said, “How are we going to find her?”

“I asked a few of the herbwomen in the healing houses where her master’s living. They knew.”

Of course. Servants’ gossip. The men and women who flitted in and out of the palace knew more than the king’s spies about what went on in Ivra, and Viggo had a way of wheedling it out of them. Especially in the healing houses, where they were more used to Dreyens and had a natural sympathy for him. Cat swallowed a swift retort and said, “Can we get in?”

His immediate relief hurt like glass in her skin. A small, bitter, cruel part of herself wanted him to curse the woman for the way she’d hurt Cat, choosing to remember the blood on his partner’s skin over the years they’d spent together.

It was selfish and stupid. But, gods, she wanted it.

But it wasn’t Dex. Dex had been his partner in the Core, the one who’d nearly killed Cat for taking her place, the one who’d considered him hers.

It wasn’t Dex. That was something.

Tomas shifted uneasily, his eyes still dark with worry as he looked at her. “I know a half a dozen ways in,” he said hesitantly, “if we need one. They need too many servants in and out to really keep things secure. But—” he stopped.

Viggo nodded, so determined that Cat had the feeling he’d made up his mind the minute he’d seen Rylee in the basilica. “Let’s go then.”

Cat swallowed the buzz of anxiety in her throat and followed them, trying to ignore the nagging urge to look over her shoulder, to see the triumph on her mother’s face.

As if she enjoyed watching her daughter’s stupidity come back to bite her.

The house was built of gray stone, the windows draped in black like a mourner’s hut. They slipped in through the back gate, and Viggo picked his way through a garden that was so overgrown and unkempt that he began to wonder if anyone lived here at all.

They found a place near the gates, beneath a cluster of pear trees that were badly in need of trimming. Rotten fruit littered the ground, and the overhanging boughs and blackberry vines hanging over the wall gave them more than enough cover.

Tomas eyed the house warily. He’d come with them, although Viggo had offered to find their way through the gentry circle without him and meet him at the drains when they were finished. He’d come, but he wasn’t happy about it. Viggo could see that he didn’t like this place, the houses, the streets, the palace, looming over them now and blotting out the sky to the west. He shifted, wincing as the blackberry briars dug into his leg, and whispered, “Doesn’t look like anyone lives here.”

“They don’t.” Viggo bit a thorn out of his palm and spat into the weeds. “The herbwoman I talked to told me he only visits twice a year, and the house isn’t kept up while he’s gone.”

Tomas frowned. “Why would she tell you that?”

Cat nudged a few blackened pears aside with the toe of her boot and sat down against the trunk of the largest pear tree. “Because he’s the worst gossip in the palace. He talks to everybody, and somehow he gets them to talk to him, too.”

Viggo shrugged. “People like to talk. I like to listen. It works out nicely.” He paused, thinking for a moment of the man who’d first started that odd habit of his. The driver whose life he’d saved—and who’d saved him later. Corey Wicker. Briefly, he wondered what had happened to the man but shook the thought out of his head. He had other things to worry about just now. He sat down next to Cat and looked up at the dark branches and rippling leaves overhead. “Might be nice if some of these were still good enough to eat.”

Cat glanced up, too, and wrinkled her nose. “They’re not. I can guarantee it. You can smell them all the way from the back gate.”

Viggo leaned closer to her and dropped his voice. “That may not be the pears.”

She laughed. It was a relief to hear her laugh. She hadn’t spoken much in the last few hours—not since he’d admitted to seeing Rylee in the basilica. He hadn’t known what to say and she’d been silent, and the chill between them made his heart beat so fast that he was afraid it would crack one of his ribs. They hadn’t been like this, not in a long time. Not since before Kaleb had died. The silence reminded him all too painfully of their first days together, when coaxing her into talking even for a few minutes had felt like a victory.

He didn’t want to go back to that. Not for anything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, picking at another thorn stuck in his palm. “I should’ve told you.”

“I know,” she said softly. Her face was still, her jaw taut as she whispered, “You said that about the fight houses, too—and about Lant Curtis—and when you led us back to Ivra. I hate that you don’t trust me.”

The words struck like a knife, and he dug what was left of a plum pit from the soft ground with his heel, trying to work out how to answer that. “You’re right.”

Cat hugged her knees to her chest, her eyes fastened on the swaying grass in the garden, the fluttering leaves, the dark windows looming over them . . . anywhere but on him. “They meant something to you,” she said softly. “They still do. I know that. I wouldn’t expect you not to care.”

The rusted gate clanged suddenly, swinging open. A breath later, a carriage rattled through, following the weedy drive up to the front steps and pulling to a halt before them.

He saw Rylee before anyone else. She was seated on top of the box behind the coachman, her red hair so vivid even in the moonlight that he would have recognized her anywhere. His heart tripped over itself, and he rose to a crouch.

Tomas eased back, deeper into the shadow of the pear trees, and said, “Is that her?”

Viggo nodded.

The man frowned. “What now? You can’t exactly waltz out there and announce yourself.”

The carriage door swung open, and a man with thinning white hair and a bent back climbed laboriously out. One of the coachmen moved to help him, offering a cane, and the man made his way painfully up the front steps.

Rylee dropped from the roof of the carriage and followed him, silent as a wraith and very, very alone. Where Dakota had disappeared to, he couldn’t guess.

Part of him was afraid to know.

Viggo dug his fingers into the soft ground, his heart pounding oddly in his ears, and whistled. The sound, soft, trilling, echoed through the trees and against the walls of the house.

Rylee froze.

He whistled again, softer this time. A nightjar. That was all the men on their way up the steps heard. That was all Vladimer Hunt and the trainers in the Core had ever heard, too, but the people in his unit had known better. They’d always used that call, usually when they were up to mischief and didn’t want their voices to give them away.

Rylee turned, searching the shadows, the garden, the trees. The old man reached the top of the steps and looked back, snapping at her so harshly that Viggo drew back. She backed away, following him up the steps, but her eyes were on the pear trees.

She’d heard. She would come. Viggo slumped back against the tree again and ran a hand through his hair. “Now we wait,” he said quietly.

The moon was sinking behind the walls by the time the lights in the upper rooms of the house flickered out. Viggo watched them die away one at a time and whispered, “Shouldn’t be long now.”

His skin was crawling with impatience, spiders jittering under every square inch of flesh. Cat was silent, her eyes so gray that his stomach had knotted into a painful ball, and even Tomas looked ill at ease. The man looked up at the house and winced as he eased his seat on the damp ground. “If she’s coming.”

“She’s coming,” Viggo said firmly, although he’d begun to doubt it in the last hour. This was all stupid, more than likely. A waste of time when they had so little time left to waste. Was Lant Curtis looking for them now? Combing the city? Or was he already on his way back to the Krathe, guessing that the Bonesmith would head there the minute he was free?

Viggo shook his head. He couldn’t leave Ivra. Not yet. Not until he knew for sure that Rylee was all right. It would haunt him otherwise, eat him up from the inside out, and he’d had enough of that.

They could wait. Just a little longer.

Tomas was watching him. The man leaned forward, rubbing a hand down his leg. “Who is this girl? To you?”

Viggo hesitated, feeling Cat’s eyes on him as well. Had he ever explained this to her? Probably not. “She’s family,” he said at last, thinking of Cameron Woodgate and the utter defiance in his dark eyes. “My sister.”

Tomas’s eyebrows rose, but the slightest of smiles twitched at the corner of Cat’s mouth, and she looked away, as if the answer was the one she’d been expecting.

The door to the servant’s entrance at the far end of the house opened, and two shadows slipped out. Viggo rose to his feet as first relief and then apprehension flowed through his chest.

He was afraid, suddenly, about this. He hadn’t expected to be, hadn’t really thought at all about what they would think of him showing up this way.

He wasn’t ashamed of the choices he was making now. Not any of them.

But he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to explain them either. Not yet.

Not if they wouldn’t understand.

Rylee appeared out of the darkness first, wary as a fox, her face so closed off that he wasn’t sure she recognized him at all. She stared at him, then at Cat and Tomas. “What are you doing?”

His heart fell. He’d never heard her sound so cold before. The memory of their last meeting, his sharp, accusing voice and the way she’d darted off after Dex—with no goodbye, no resolution—flooded back, and he didn’t know how to answer her for a moment. At last he said hoarsely, “Being stupid.”

Dakota limped up behind her, a wide grin nearly splitting his face in two. “So nothing’s changed then.”

No. No, nothing had changed. Nothing and everything, all at the same time. Viggo barked a laugh and let himself relax. “Nothing important. Gods. What happened to you?”

The man’s smile slipped, and something bitter, like the breath of a ghost, stole into Viggo’s chest. Rylee looked away, back to the house, and there was nothing in her eyes. Nothing at all.

“Not important.” Dakota shrugged and winced, as if the movement hurt him. “What are you doing here? Besides being stupid.”

“You’re going to get us in trouble.” She didn’t snap it at him, only said it in that blunt, detached way that she always had. The way that stung and yet made him trust her all the more every time she spoke, because Rylee would never lie to him. Not to him or anyone else. Not even herself.

“I came to say goodbye,” he said hoarsely, and realized immediately that it was the truth. That’s what he wanted, more than anything else. To say goodbye and know that they were going to be all right without him, despite his mistakes.

But he could see already that wouldn’t be the case. She was too thin and Dakota too pale, and there was a bruise on her throat that stood out black in the moonlight. Dark as a devil’s handprint.

Dakota saw him looking and his face flushed. “My fault,” he said awkwardly.

“No, it wasn’t.” Rylee shrugged, her vacant eyes reminding him—chillingly—of the last time he’d seen Kaleb Rainwood alive. “He knows. I was never going to be any good. I can’t hold my tongue.”

He couldn’t speak. He remembered telling her that. How old had they been? Eleven? Twelve? Too young to understand what they were doing—too young to understand what was being done to them.

“No,” he croaked at last. His voice betrayed him, it always did, but he didn’t try to swallow the sound. He needed to let her know, let them both know how afraid he was—how badly all of this had hurt him. “But it doesn’t matter. You made it longer than I did.”

There it was. The first flicker of something real in her eyes. Something that belonged to the woman he’d known in the Core.

Viggo swallowed hard and gestured over his shoulder, indicating Cat and Tomas. “We’re leaving tonight. I’ve got a price on my head by this time, but I’m not staying to work it out with the hangman.”

They stared at him, stunned into silence.

“Come with us,” he said, without meaning to at all. He’d meant to say goodbye, really, to tell them he was sorry for everything that he helped drum into their heads for all those years. But it hadn’t come out that way.

Cat stiffened beside him. Rylee’s gaze flicked over to meet hers, and for a moment, none of them could breathe.

Dakota broke the silence, his jaw set defiantly. “I’ll go.”

Rylee pulled away from him so quickly that he might have stung her. “Don’t be stupid.”

“You’re going to stay here?” Dakota looked at her, his dark eyes snapping with more temper than Viggo remembered seeing in him. “Alone? With him?”

She didn’t speak. Her face had turned ashen, freckles standing out in stark contrast. She looked at him for a long breath, and her eyes darted again to Cat.

“You may as well,” Cat said so unexpectedly that Viggo nearly jumped out of his skin. Her voice sounded different. Distant, as if she were somewhere else entirely. She met Rylee’s eyes and offered a strained smile. “We’re all meant to die, anyway. Better on your own terms.”

Rylee hesitated. After a breath, some of the tension eased out of her shoulders, and she said quietly, “Better than starving to death, I guess.”

A chill skittered down Viggo’s spine like spiders under his skin, but he said nothing. He wasn’t sure, not yet, whether he wanted to know.

At last, he whispered, “It’s been that bad?”

Rylee turned her face away. Dakota shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. “He forgets—doesn’t like to pay for things that aren’t necessary.”

“Like food,” Viggo hissed, anger boiling in his breast, between his ribs and his heart.

“We’re expensive,” Rylee said with a sudden mocking smile that reminded him, sharply, of how small she could make another person feel. “You can’t blame him.”

Viggo had to bite his tongue to silence a retort. Dakota looked between them anxiously, shifting on his feet. “It could be worse,” he said, always the first to make things up, to make excuses and ease tension. His eyes had dark circles around them, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He nodded at a house across the street, visible through the tops of the pear trees. “Baxter lives there. They’ve got it worse.” His face darkened. “Much worse.”

Viggo’s breath caught, and involuntarily, he looked at Cat.

Her face had gone stone white.

She was drinking too much again. Warren could see the flush of the wine in her cheeks and hear the lightheaded confusion in her laughter as the man at her elbow leaned over to whisper in her ear, kiss her fingertips and her wrist. The candles floating in the glass bowls and standing in the silver candelabra had burned to stumps, but even in the dim light Warren could tell she was enjoying herself. His mistress reveled in two things: rich wine and handsome men. She’d hardly touched the food on her plate. Her enjoyment stemmed from the rosy wine in her goblet and the man at her side, a rich merchant far enough beneath her station to make it scandalous. And she was wealthy enough to afford both.

The others at the table took little notice of the flirting between the two of them. Warren could see the glaze the liquor had cast over his master’s eyes, the stony look he was giving one of his wolfhounds as he fed it from his own plate. The man wouldn’t remember half of what had gone on tonight, and Patricia wouldn’t be the one to tell him. Their marriage was one of convenience, for his title and her money.

“Baxter.” His mistress snapped her fingers at him. “I’m talking to you.”

Warren straightened up quickly, cursing himself beneath his breath. He hadn’t heard her, although he doubted Patricia had meant him to when she’d addressed him. She took malicious pleasure in treating him like a halfwit, especially in front of her friends. She’d made a game of insulting him until he couldn’t speak any more, his stammer so inflamed by her mockery that he had stopped trying. He bit his tongue, already feeling his temper rising. “Forgive me, Lady. I d—d—” He clamped his mouth shut.

The merchant laughed. “By the saints. How did the stupid thing ever make it out of the camps? I hope you didn’t pay full price for it?”

Patricia smiled at Warren patronizingly, as if he were a slow-witted child or a stupid beggar she’d found on her doorstep and adopted. Had he ever hated anything so much as her smile? He couldn’t remember. Probably not. “Poor Baxter. Do you want to try that again? I didn’t quite hear you.”

His hands were shaking. He took a deep breath, feeling Bria brush her fingers against his wrist. Her sympathy hurt almost as much as Patricia’s mockery. He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t h—hear you, Lady. I’m s—sorry.”

“Oaf.” She looked away from him, shaking sooty curls off her bare neck. “You’re mute, not deaf. Stupidity isn’t supposed to affect your ears.”

Warren said nothing. The merchant glanced at him, amusement in his eyes. “Maybe if you ask it again?”

Patricia took a sip of wine and touched the diamonds at her throat. The merchant’s eyes drifted down, following her fingers. “Are you listening this time, Baxter?” she asked him sweetly.

Warren made a concentrated effort to calm the anger churning in his chest. His heart was pounding, thundering against his ribs so hard he thought it might break them. “Yes, Lady.”

Patricia looked disappointed, as if she’d expected him to stumble over even that short reply. She contented herself with another mocking smile. “I left my gloves in the carriage after our ride this morning. Go and get them for me.”

She didn’t need her gloves. Even if she did, one of her precious maids could get them. She’d asked him because it was a humiliating, menial task to give a bodyguard, one more thing to let him know she considered him too stupid for his job. But it was an excuse to get out of this room and away from her supercilious smile. He bowed to her, holding her gaze until she stiffened a little and drew away from him, and then turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him. He’d earned a scolding with that look, he was sure of that, and maybe one day it would earn him more than a scolding. But he wouldn’t stop. She’d never hit him yet, although she beat the maids regularly and slapped Bria when she talked back. She was afraid of him, really. Afraid of his dark eyes and his brooding silence, the way he always looked her in the eyes. She mocked him in front of her friends and complained about him to her husband, but she’d never yet taken a switch to him.

He doubted it would last very long, but he was grateful for it now, at least.

It was raining outside. The sky was as dark as if midnight had come already, and the path to the carriage house was slick with mud. Warren tucked his hands into his pockets and raised his face to the sky, enjoying the pounding rain as it struck his forehead, ran down his neck. He liked it out here, with the wind in his breath and the rain on his skin. Patricia sent him out to humiliate him, but sometimes he could almost have thanked her for it. Anything to get out of her house was a favor he appreciated.

The carriage house was dark, shadows gathering among the rafters and flooding through the stalls. The grooms had finished their work for the night and left only a dark lantern hanging on a nail in the corner. The light it cast danced along the stalls in silvery threads, illuminating the baled hay, the sacks of grain, and the horses’ stalls. He could smell the beasts, hear their soft nickering in the darkness as he entered. He closed his eyes, breathing in the smell, savoring it. What would she do to him if he didn’t come back? He could sleep in the hay, listen to the rain drumming on the slated roof, and be alone for a few hours, something he was almost never allowed. What could she do that wouldn’t be worth a few hours to himself?

He already knew the answer to that. She would punish Bria. He would get off with barely a scolding, and Bria would have stripes on her back in the morning. Bria wouldn’t complain, of course. She never did, even when his temper got her into trouble. But he found it so much harder to resist when he knew she was the one who would pay for it.

Warren sighed and kicked aside an empty sack, feeling his way over to the carriage in the corner. The door was bolted, and the interior was as dark as pitch. He swore under his breath and turned back to fetch the dark lantern.

A woman was waiting for him. The dark lantern hung limply in her fingers, as if she’d been about to bring it to him. The dim light cast a deep shadow beneath her hood, concealing everything but the curve of her jaw and the slight tilt of her head as she cocked her head. “Hello, Warren,” she said quietly.

Warren bared his teeth to hide his shock. Where had she come from? The horses had been still when he’d come in, as settled as if the grooms had just left them, and he hadn’t heard the door open. One of the maids?

No, not a maid. She set the lantern down and steel flashed beneath her cloak. He saw the sword and her face at the same time, and the color drained out of his cheeks. “Cat?”

She pushed the hood back and smiled at him, all blue eyes and laughter, as if he’d seen her only yesterday. “Did you miss me?”

The moon set and the rain washed its light from the skies, and still Viggo didn’t come. Cat sat against the city wall beneath the shelter of a broken down shack and listened to the rush of the drains to her left. I’ll meet you at the drains, she’d told him. Before the moon sets.

They’d both known, only too well, the kind of tension that would rise the moment Warren joined them. Cat wanted to delay that meeting as long as she could—long enough to steel herself for the clash she knew would come.

She wasn’t ready yet, but gods, she wanted the waiting to be over now. They’d found the drains an hour ago, following the careful directions Tomas had given her. But Viggo hadn’t been waiting.

Warren was watching her. She could feel his dark eyes on her, studying her as if he could see every thought in her head. Had he been able to do that back in the Core? She thought so. He’d always seemed to know how she was feeling back then. Perhaps that had been why she’d been so drawn to him.

“Moon’s s—set,” he said suddenly.

Bria looked up. The two of them hadn’t complained about stopping before they were safe, where they could still be seen, but they couldn’t wait forever. They would have dogs on their tracks soon.

Only the fens would hide them. The marshland.

Although, she was beginning to doubt they would find a way through without Tomas.

Cat laid her head against the damp wall and shivered. She hated the wind. Always had and always would, but right now it seemed even more unbearable than usual. The shack sheltered them from the worst of the rain, but the wind came at them from every direction, and three walls and a shabby roof wasn’t enough to keep it out. The voices hidden in it were taunting her. Why not leave? You said you could.

“It’s all right,” she said aloud, more to silence the fear working in her chest than for any other reason. “We’ve got a few hours left before it gets light—and we don’t want to be picking through the marsh without a guide.”

The words mocked her. Warren glanced at Bria, the look so dark and cynical that she wanted to slap him. He’d changed in the months since she’d seen him last. She barely knew him anymore—or maybe she hadn’t ever, not really.

“Are you s—sure he’s coming?” he asked her finally.

Cat looked away from him and bit her lip. Her clothes were damp. How long had it been since she’d felt really dry or warm? Too long. Everything about her was cold. Her hands, her feet. Her heart. “He’ll be here. They must have gotten held up, that’s all,” she told him, but she could hear the lie in her own words. Held up how? Held up with Lant Curtis’s knife between his ribs? “We still have time.”

Warren nodded, but she could see his disbelief.

Bria was watching her. The older girl had a bruise under her eye as dark as the thunderclouds, but her smile was still the same. It seemed she had walked through whatever hell Warren had and come out unscathed. Cat envied her. “We’ll wait for him, Cat. Swifter’s never broken a promise yet, not since I’ve known him. He’ll be here.” The glance that she shot at Warren was filled with warning, as if telling him not to say the words she could see on his tongue.

Warren shook his head, pushing aside broken slates with his boot. “We h—have to go.” His voice was harsher than she remembered it. Like stones scraping on the cobbles. “If we s—stay any longer, they’ll b—be after us.”

He was right. They’d have better luck at the gates than here, waiting like fools for the dogs to catch them. Lies collected on her lips to convince them—and the ghost haunting her every though—that it was wiser to stay, that splitting up now would only lead to trouble.

She didn’t have the courage to speak them aloud. Even unspoken, they were impossible to believe. If she could still leave, she wouldn’t be in Ivra. She wouldn’t have followed Viggo back to a noose.

Loyalty of any kind, to anyone, was a curse. How many times had her mother beaten that into her head? Enough that she could still taste blood when she thought of it. Sonya Ashcliff hadn’t cared enough about anyone to risk herself for them. Not her partner, not the man who’d fathered her child.

Not the daughter who’d been nothing but a curse to her from the beginning.

Warren met her eyes steadily, his face impassive. “We could m—make it out the gates.”

Cat winced. She could see the scar on his cheek, pale and knotted in the dim light. She’d never asked Viggo why they’d fought. She’d been too afraid of the answer to try. “Not before dawn,” she said, although they all knew it was a lie. “We’ll give it an hour.”

The rain was growing louder. It roared in the alleys, pounding against the roof of the narrow shed they were sheltering under. Lightning struck, blinding her for a breath, and, so suddenly that she nearly jumped out of her skin, Viggo was there. Cat lurched to her feet, swearing at him so vehemently that it stung her throat, and snapped, “Viggo Swifter, do you have any idea—”

He had her in his arms before she could say anything else. Cat buried her face in his tunic, feeling his heart beating a frantic tattoo against his ribs. His hands were shaking. “We went to the wrong bloody drain,” he whispered, sounding so hoarse that she knew he’d been thinking of Lant Curtis’s knife, too. “They all look the same in the dark, and I didn’t realize there was more than one until Tomas told me. I’m sorry.”

Ill luck. That’s what the two of them would bring together. If she were smart, she would have left months ago, but it was too late now.

She pulled away, trying to pretend her fingers weren’t trembling, and said, “I’ll forgive you when we reach the marshes. Can we still make it before it gets light?”

She looked at Tomas for an answer. He’d come into the shelter of the shack behind Viggo, Dakota and Rylee trailing in his wake and a kind of knowing amusement flitting through his dark eyes when he looked at her. He shrugged. “We’ve still got time. Once we’re away from the walls, it won’t be hard to find a place to camp, either. As long as you don’t mind sleeping in the marsh.”

The Way-Marshes by the city walls were deep and still, with paths that wound through the mist and vanished without warning into vast sinkholes filled with rushes and clinging mud. Fog clung to the ground, swirling through the cattails and following in their wake like a woman in mourning, weeping over their vanishing footprints.

Tomas led them through, switching back on his own trail, turning abruptly from one path to follow another, and rebuking them softly when they strayed too far from his chosen footing. Again and again, Viggo reminded himself that the man had been a bloodhound, a pathfinder for the king’s army. He wasn’t likely to lead them astray.

Still, his skin crawled when he stepped too far off of Tomas’s path and felt the ground give way to sinking mud, or when they turned aside to join another path and he realized with a start that the long, unbroken sweep of reeds and rushes ahead of them hid a mire that would have swallowed all of them whole after only a few steps.

By the time they reached the edge of the Way-Marshes and climbed up a steep embankment onto the firmer ground of the heath, his legs were aching with weariness. The afternoon sun was hidden by the drifting fog, and wind keened through the grasses with a sound like a child’s cry.

Tomas stopped at the top of the rise and stood still, his legs trembling as he surveyed the heath ahead of them. His face was gray with weariness, and he looked older than his fifty-odd years. He glanced back the way they’d come, swaying slightly, and said over his shoulder, “This is the most shelter we’ll find before dark. Unless you want to sleep on the heath, we’d do better to stop here.”

The bone-chilling wind was enough to silence any objection. They retreated back down the embankment to a clump of dogwood and willow trees growing on the edge of the firmer ground. Viggo cast about, searching the damp ground for anything dry enough to burn, and swore under his breath. “No fire, I guess.”

The others didn’t respond. Dakota was swaying, his face so pinched and white that it made Viggo’s stomach turn, and Rylee had lost all expression hours ago. Warren scanned the marsh, his face inscrutable, ignoring Viggo as thoroughly as if he’d never existed, and Bria pulled him toward the wall of the embankment, further out of the wind.

Only Cat gave him a fleeting smile, touching his wrist lightly before she followed Bria.

Viggo watched her go, feeling a sick knot beginning to twist between his ribs.

In ten minutes, they’d all found a place to hide from the wind. Viggo settled in a crop of willows, leaning his back against the thin trunks and shifting until he could scan the marsh and the ridge line as far as the fog allowed. Lant Curtis still played heavily in his thoughts, and he doubted Thorne would forget his insolence in a hurry.

He’d been awake for an hour, watching for movement among the stirring grass and fog, when Tomas came to find him. The man lowered himself to the ground with a groan and rubbed his knee, his face twisted into a grimace. “Not sleeping?”

Viggo shrugged. “Someone should keep watch.”

“Probably wise.” Tomas groaned and leaned back against a willow. “Although, I doubt they’ll be after us yet.” He paused, thinking, and added low, “From what I heard, Lant Curtis lost his partner last week.”

Viggo’s skin prickled. “She’s dead?”

“They didn’t say. Only that he was alone and out for blood—and gathering a pack of hellhounds to help him get it.”

Viggo swore.

Tomas scrubbed mud off his boot with the heel of his hand. “You won’t make it to the sea,” he said at last, not looking at Viggo. “Not if you head that way now. The others won’t get far either.”

“They’re n—not looking for us.”

The snarl nearly stopped Viggo’s heart, and when he looked up, Warren met his eyes scathingly, contempt, and a sharp challenge written into his features as he moved to sit opposite them, leaning against an alder that had been warped by the wind.

Tomas glanced between them, guessing, as he always did, at the bad feeling between the two of them. Tension snapped through the air, and he said carefully, “It won’t matter. I’ve known Lant Curtis a long time . . . he doesn’t like loose ends.”

“So what do you s—suggest?”

Tomas studied the man as if he could read into his head and his soul that easily. “West,” he said finally. “If you’re set on going. You might make it to the cliffs. If you do, you’ve got a chance. It’s rough country past there and easier to disappear.”

“If?” Viggo asked quietly. He couldn’t look at Warren, heat buzzing uncomfortably beneath his skin—a strange mixture of shame and dislike.

A heron moved among the rushes a dozen yards to their left, its gray feathers ruffling in the wind as it stalked with dignified surety through the reeds.

Tomas watched it for so long that Viggo was almost sure he’d missed the question. At last, the man stirred and said, “I have to go back to Millcross. Cameron has to know I’m all right. After that . . .” he trailed off, rubbing his palm with a thumb absently. Blood smeared his skin. “I have a place in the Krathe. We called it Ebosa—Maeva and I did. They never found it. They won’t, not where it is. There’s cabins, fresh water, shelter.”

“Could you w—winter there?” Warren asked.

A slight smile flickered across Tomas’s face. “We did. For a good twenty years.” He looked at Viggo. “You could be safe there. Really safe. This doesn’t have to end with Lant Curtis’s knife.”

With a shock, Viggo realized the man meant it. He was afraid, desperately so, but not for himself. For them. Why he should care, Viggo couldn’t fathom, but he did. That was painfully obvious. His stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he looked away, searching for the heron among the brush. It had vanished. The marsh was eerily still, eerily silent. “I can’t disappear yet,” he said hoarsely.

Tomas studied him thoughtfully, his gaze darting just for a breath toward the scars on his forearms. At last he said quietly, “You didn’t get everyone.”

The moment he said it, Viggo knew it was true. He had a dozen names in his head immediately, two dozen. More. Billet, Carver, Tessa. Gracen and Clay. Dex, although just the thought of her and Cat within a mile of each other made heart lurch. He rubbed his face with his hands. Would rescuing them—pulling them out of whatever hell they were living in now—be enough to wipe his slate clean?

Or, at least, cross out a few sins before the Pale Lady came to burn his soul for all the pain he’d caused?

Warren was watching him. His clothes were damp, his short, matted hair wet from the rain. Viggo could see what his time as a bodyguard had done to him. Signs of abuse were scored into his features, his eyes and his manner, and he held his hatred like a shield against the world. He met Viggo’s eyes, bared his teeth. “Who?”

A shiver darted down Viggo’s spine. Silence stretched between them, and at last he whispered, “I don’t know. Anyone. Anyone who’ll come, anyway. They’ve bastardized us all, but there may be a few willing to get out before it kills them.”

Kaleb would have run. If he’d had the chance, if he’d really thought he could make it. He would’ve run.

“Lant C—Curtis is after you,” Warren said bluntly. His dark eyes hadn’t left Viggo’s face. “What will you do if h—he finds you?”

“Kill him,” Viggo said quietly, and knew immediately that it was the truth. There was blood between him and Lant Curtis now, whether his partner was dead or not. One of them would end in a grave, one way or another.

Warren seemed to accept his answer. He sat back, his black eyes taunting Viggo. “Good. I’ll h—help.”

Viggo’s heart gave a sudden lurch, and he stared at him, lost for words. Warren smiled grimly. “Always wanted to s—see how much trouble I could cause. Figure I m—might as well, while I got the chance.”

“What about Bria?” The words sounded choked on his tongue.

Warren shrugged. “She’s not as into rules as she used to be. B—besides,” he grinned, holding Viggo’s gaze with challenge burning in his eyes, “i—if I stay around a bit, I bet I can get Cat to come with m—me when I go. Bria would like that.”

Viggo’s jaw locked. The other man stood, walking back toward the shelter of the embankment. Tomas glanced at him, a question in his eyes, but Viggo couldn’t look at him. His heart was jerking strangely against his ribs, and he looked down, and, wiping flecks of mud from his forearm, traced a scar high up on his forearm, very, very near the first of them. He’d been stupidly young when he made it. Younger than he should’ve been.

They both had been.

They were late to the mess hall again. Viggo could see the trainees leaving it, heading up the hill to their cabins. A few shot them sympathetic glances, no doubt aware of why they’d been held back in the pens.

Viggo swore under his breath, cursing Freya Calinghaw for her quick eye and sadistic temper. The instructor had caught Billet cheating that morning in her lectures, copying answers that one of the others in his unit had passed him. They were only just now finishing the brutal punishment she’d laid on all of them.

Viggo raked mud out of his hair. The rest of his unit were straggling behind him, mud-stained and weary from a run through the thick bogland in the valley below. His legs were burning, his knees so weak that he wondered if they were going to fold under them.

If they did, he doubted anyone in his unit would stop to help him up.

Carver, two steps behind him and to his left, muttered a foul curse at Billet. “Couldn’t just use your thick-headed brain, could you, lump?”

Billet winced and didn’t look at him. They’d all been on him since he’d been caught, and Viggo couldn’t stop it. Two months, he’d been head of this unit, and so far he could only make them listen when they felt like it.

Usually, they didn’t, and it took a sharp word from Freya and Vladimer’s heavy fist to keep them in line.

Viggo glared at Carver, trying to pretend his knees weren’t shaking, and snapped, “Have off. We’re finished, aren’t we?”

Carver spat in the grass, avoiding his eyes as he muttered rebelliously, “He’s going to be, later.”

Billet’s skin turned white under the mud. Viggo glanced around at the rest of them, seeing more than a few set jaws. More than likely, Billet would be finished if Viggo didn’t keep them off him.

If he couldn’t.

He reached the door of the mess hall at the same moment it slammed back on its hinges. The boy behind it stormed out in a rush, colliding so hard with Viggo’s shoulder that it knocked him sideways. He staggered, swearing, and turned on the offender.

Baxter.

The Madiran reject cast him a contemptuous look and shrugged. “Sorry.”

Viggo bristled. The other boy had arrived a few weeks ago, sloughed off into second unit because of a speech defect which should have, according to more than one trainer, landed him in the salt mines. Instead, he’d been brought here, although Viggo couldn’t fathom why, and already his surly attitude and marked contempt for anyone who spoke to him had gotten under Viggo’s skin.

Warren. That was his name. Viggo bared his teeth, snarling, “You can’t watch where you’re going?”

The door slammed open again, and Bria Xinder came flying out. She froze when she saw him, her eyes widening, and her gaze immediately darted to Warren, as if to warn him off. Warren shrugged again, his black eyes as hard as flint. “Didn’t s—see you.”

The quick, almost indiscernible stutter elicited a ripple of laughter among Viggo’s unit. Viggo rolled his eyes. “You’re mute, not blind, stupid.”

Bria’s lips tightened, but she made a conciliatory gesture. “My fault. I distracted him. We’re sorry.”

That was like her. Bria led second unit, but she wouldn’t for long. She was too passive, too quick to avoid a fight, and Viggo doubted she would last another week. Already, she had someone vying for her place, and if she were challenged, it would be over.

Considering the grumbling in his own unit currently, he himself probably wouldn’t last much longer than she did.

The thought sent a needle of fear down his spine, and he spat to cover it, hissing, “Shut up, Bria.”

Warren bared his teeth in a snarl. “How about y—you shut up?”

Someone snickered behind him. Carver, probably. Every bad feeling from the day, every fear, every frustration, came boiling to the surface. His vision blurred, and he hit Warren so hard that the boy staggered back.

Bria screamed something at him, but it was too late. Warren slammed into him, hard. They hit the ground, knocking the wind out of Viggo’s lungs. His vision blurred. The other boy hit him, cracking his nose. In a breath, they were fighting. Dimly, Viggo could hear Bria screaming at him, accompanied by the shouting and whistles of his own unit. He twisted, grappling, trying to get a hold that would end this before a trainer saw them. Warren grunted, the sound more from the beast in his soul than himself, and flipped, driving his elbow into Viggo’s side.

Viggo felt his ribs break. Heard the crunch of bone. Hot, searing pain tore through his chest. A scream burned in his throat.

He was going to lose. He’d lost already. A trainer was shouting somewhere nearby accompanied by Vladimer’s furious bellow.

If they pulled them apart now, it would be too late. He would lose everything—his unit, his place in the Core, any respect he’d been able to scrape together here.

Everything.

The panic drove him nearly wild, and he struggled, scrabbling backward until he’d freed a hand. Warren snarled, Vladimer shouted at him, and he snatched the knife he was carrying from its sheath and struck blindly.

Warren’s scream pierced the sky.

It began to rain an hour after noon. The panes of glass in the windows were streaked with gray, the world outside melting as if the rain meant to wash it away, the same as it did the mud and filth caked in the cracks of the cobbled streets. Did the sun never shine in this accursed city? No, likely not. Ivra was a city for the dead, dead souls, dead hearts. The rain wept through it as if to mourn the loss of those who could have been.

Carver looked away from the window and caught one of the women staring at him. His mistress had many friends, women who came and went, who gossiped about each other and tittered over the men in their stupid lives like useless, empty-headed sparrows. He hated them, every last one of them, but here he still stood. One more dead soul in a city of graves.

The woman looked him over from beneath dark lashes, a sly smile curving the corner of her mouth. When his jaw clenched she laughed at him. Carver could feel the heat in his face, the flush of red in his cheeks that even the warmth in the room hadn’t summoned. He cursed her for it. Under his breath, like the coward he was. He knew only too well what kind of punishments his mistress was capable of meting out for an incautious word. Her Ladyship had a creative mind and a taste for humiliation.

Porcelain clinked in the silence, the hot aroma of spiced tea and mulled wine hanging heavy in the air. Dex had gone out today, riding with their master to look over his land holdings. Carver would have killed to have gone along, but he belonged to Lady Elaine, and she liked to keep him close.

He could feel her eyes on him now, on the red in his face and clenched muscles in his jaw. He set his gaze on the roaring fire and tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword at his side. His fingers ached, his palms slick with sweat. Why did she always insist it be so hot in here? He would have liked to throw the windows wide, to let the rain and the wind in and see if they could awaken some life in his chest again. But the windows were never open, and whatever life had been in him once was gone now. One more corpse added to the pile.

The door opened. One of the maids entered, a mouse-like girl with her hair tucked up in a white cap. She dipped a curtsy, her pinched face blanched with fear, as if she knew only too well how badly her mistress would react to being interrupted. “Pardon, Ladyship,” she whispered. “There’s a—a person here to see yuh.”

Lady Elaine gave her a withering look. “A person? What person?”

“My lady, I—”

The door swept open, shoving the maid aside, and a man strode in. A Dreyen, deep chested and scarred, carrying himself with the proud arrogance of a lord. Carver stiffened, his fingers clenching on the hilt of his sword. A demon prowled into the room behind the man, his black eyes straying over the assembled women with wolfish hunger. Another Dreyen. Carver stepped in front of Lady Elaine, something rising in his chest as he half drew his sword from its sheath. Exaltation. Blood lust. Something. How long had it been since he’d had anything to do, anything but bow to his lady?

The demon’s eyes flicked over to meet Carver’s, and the animal in his chest bared its teeth at him. The man—the demon—whatever it was, had scars seared into his throat, white as the Pale Lady’s fingerprints, as if a dog or a wolf had tried to rip his throat out and failed. Carver had no doubt whatever it was had paid many times over for every scar.

Elaine rose to her feet, cold as a banshee from the northern peaks, her voice snapping across the room with the authority of a goddess, “How dare you come into my drawing room uninvited. I’ll have you whipped—”

The demon retreated, some master Carver couldn’t see yanking its chain, and the other turned his dark gaze on Carver, ignoring Elaine completely. “Going to draw that, boy?” he hissed, his voice soft with menace.

Carver’s throat went dry. The man cocked his head, looking at him with the eyes of a predator, and smiled slowly. “Come on, Bludhærk. Shall we make a mess?”

Bludhærk. How long had it been since he’d heard that name? Since he’d felt like something more than an ornament in his mistress’ home, something for her to display, like fine jewelry. Bludhærk. It reminded him of a time when he’d been feared instead of mocked, when his skills, his training, had meant something. When he’d meant something.

Elaine had stopped speaking, no doubt realizing that she was being ignored. She held her silence, her face bone-white with fury, and when the man’s eyes moved to meet hers she said coldly, “Who are you? How dare you come into my house?”

“Lant Curtis, your Ladyship.” The contempt in the man’s voice turned the title to an insult as blatant as if he’d spat on the floor at her feet. To Carver, it felt like a breath of fresh wind in his face. “I have orders here,” he drew a scroll from his belt and handed it to her, “from his Highness, the Archduke. They’ll explain.”

Elaine snatched the scroll from his hands and read it. Her face flushed. She threw it back at him. “Fine,” she snapped. “What is it you want from me?”

The demon laughed. Lant Curtis smiled patronizingly, as if he were speaking to a stupid beggar or a very young child. “Nothing, your Ladyship. I doubt very highly that you could be of any use. To anyone, in fact.” His gaze flicked around and locked on Carver. His smile faded, green and gold burning through the gray in his eyes. “I would, however, have a word with your bodyguard. If it isn’t too inconvenient.”

When they reached Millcross again the light had faded, and heavy fog had rolled in off the heath, although it couldn’t have been more than three or four hours after noon. Tomas led them quickly through the fields and over a thin fence toward the barn they’d slept when they’d last been here. Had it only been a week ago? Viggo couldn’t remember. It felt like three lifetimes.

The barn and the house were dark and silent, but torchlight glowed in the village square, reflecting on the white fog as if to set it on fire. Tomas paused in the shelter of the barn, a frown flickering across his brow as he ran a hand through his hair, shaking rime and frost from it.

Viggo came up beside him, asking low, “What’s wrong?”

Tomas chewed his lip, leaning against the frosted beam of the barn as he peered into the mist that hung like a white curtain over the village. It was eerily, eerily still. “I don’t know.”

He moved toward the house, the others hanging back in the fog, still unsure of this place or the people they expected to find in it. Viggo glanced over his shoulder, looking for Cat, and felt the knot between his ribs loosen when she smiled at him. She’d been walking with Bria for hours, their heads bent against the wind and soft whispers passing between them as they bridged the long months they’d been apart.

She looked happier than she’d been in a long time. Happy to have Bria back—and Warren. She’d missed them both, and he tried hard not to begrudge her that happiness.

He still hadn’t been able to worm more than a few words out of Rylee, and Dakota’s face was twisted with so much pain from their walk that he hadn’t tried to make the man speak at all. The raw marks of a blacksnake whip peeking from beneath his shirt had been all the answer Viggo needed—at least for now.

Without warning, the back door of the house burst open, and someone darted out, a boy who looked to be ten or twelve. A woman came after him, catching his wrist before he could reach the gate and pressing her hand over his mouth when he began to struggle. “Stop it! Evan! Stop!”

Premonition stirred in Viggo’s breast, cold as the breath of a ghost, and he moved to join Tomas swiftly. The older man’s whole body was rigid with anxiety, and he called low, “Elsa?”

The woman’s head jerked up. Her face was white, pinched with fear and something else that Viggo didn’t quite recognize. Despair, maybe. She stared at them, recognition dawning, and whispered, “Tomas?”

Tomas relaxed, moving toward her, but she clutched the boy’s shoulders and shook her head, whispering fiercely, “You have to go! Roth Yulwood—”

The color drained out of Tomas’s face, and he looked toward the square where red light glowed in the mist. Viggo’s breath hitched as he caught the tramp of soldiers’ boots in the square, the jingle of harness and horses’ hooves. The murmur and moan of distant weeping.

“Where’s Cameron?” Tomas choked, looking back at the house.

But the woman was gone, back into the house, the door shut firmly behind her as if she could keep out whatever haunted menace was prowling the streets of the small mining village.

A scream tore through the mist.

Viggo whipped around, his hackles raised. He moved without thinking, ducking the fence so fast that Tomas couldn’t catch him. Warren was only a half-step behind him, his war axe already in his hands. Tomas swore. “Viggo. Wait!”

He couldn’t. A child was screaming. He rounded the corner of the house, ghosting along the shadows of Cameron Wicker’s smithy, and felt his stomach drop as he came in sight of the square.

A dozen soldiers gathered in the courtyard beneath the shadow of an aging kirk. A bell tower loomed above them, and torches gleamed on every wall. A man was kneeling beside a wooden block, his face so bruised and swollen that it was unrecognizable. He’d been stripped to the waist, his left hand shackled to the block with an iron cuff.

Cameron Woodgate stood in the shadows a stone’s throw away holding a struggling girl to his chest, keeping her away from the square and the soldiers. Her screams echoed among the buildings, nearly drowning out the voice of one of the men as he read aloud from a crested scroll.

Viggo realized immediately what was happening. Tomas appeared, caught his shoulder and hissed, “Viggo, come on. We can’t help. It’s too late.”

It was. One of the soldiers had an axe in his hands, an ugly, scarred thing that looked too dull for the task they had in mind for it.

Warren bared his teeth, a snarl rumbling in his chest. “All this f—for a poacher?”

The soldier reading from the scroll paused. The man began to struggle, pleading in the direction of the road leading out of the village. A horse moved in the shadows of the fog, silver gleaming on its harness. The lord in the saddle gestured for his men to continue, looking so bored that Viggo would have liked to wring his neck.

A bony hand wrapped around Viggo’s heart, squeezing until he couldn’t breathe. He could remember standing among the soldiers in a village very like this one, the same way the two Dreyens he could see flanking their lord were, praying that Fane Ravenstone had some measure of pity in his warped soul. How many men had he saved from this very thing by keeping Fane’s attention riveted to the fight houses, selling his own flesh to spare theirs?

A pittance. Almost none, really. What did it matter that Fane could no longer torment his peasants when so many other lords reveled in the screams of their slaves?

Cat’s hand slipped into his as if she could read his thoughts, and he whispered hoarsely, “Can you get into the bell tower?”

She looked at him strangely. “Yes. Why?”

“I have an idea.” He couldn’t look at her, not at her or at any of them, and he could feel Warren’s cynical gaze burning the skin on the back of his neck. “Come on.”

The girl was still screaming. Roth Yulwood hissed as his mount danced under him, set off by the flickering torches and the noise. The poacher’s daughter, more than likely, although she didn’t look half as stupid as her father had shown himself to be. The man hadn’t even buried the deerskin or the bones of the creature he’d killed, leaving them hidden beneath the scraps in his woodshed. No doubt he’d trusted that his neighbors wouldn’t grow jealous enough over the smell of the meat to report his trips into the forest.

Stupid of him.

Still, even if he had buried them, it wouldn’t have mattered much. The dogs would have led them to the place, and Roth had taken men’s hands and their children with less evidence. The man was lucky he would still have his daughter when all this was over.

Unless Roth himself thought of a use for her.

Roth glanced at the girl, studying her slender frame, her thick, reddish hair, and grimaced at the sight of her face. Her lip was twisted, scarred in a way to intentionally mar her looks and keep her out of a rich man’s bed. A stupid waste. She could have had a better life than she had ahead of her here.

Marcus finished reading the list of charges, and Roth nodded to the soldier with the axe, cursing at his horse as it shied under him. The man moved forward, and the peasant began to scream and struggle, tearing at the iron manacle around his wrist as if he could break it with sheer will.

He couldn’t, naturally. Roth had seen this sort of thing done a hundred times. He’d ordered it a dozen himself since coming into his father’s estate. It always ended the same way. Justice, on the Yulwood estate, was as inevitable as death. His father had seen to that, and he intended to cultivate the same legacy.

The bell above the square struck, the sharp toll nearly stopping his heart.

Once.

Twice.

Eerie, sepulchral tones reverberated through the mist, echoing among the houses. The torches on the far end of the square went out, snuffed by an invisible hand.

His men froze, staring at the kirk, at the sudden gloom shifting between the houses and the roiling fog. Roth’s horse jerked its head, sidestepping, its snort loud in the sudden silence. He cursed it with the devil’s name, and felt the words freeze on his tongue as a shadow came to life in the fog, tall as kings and as dark as if the night had taken to prowling the moors.

As if he’d summoned it with his careless oath.

The soldier with the axe in his hands came to life, shaking off whatever spell the figure had cast on them all. He moved forward, and the figure’s gaze snapped around and fastened on him.

Its eyes blazed, gold and fire burning as it stared at the man. When it spoke, its hoarse voice penetrated through the fog like a hot blade, searing through Roth’s skin until it felt like his heart had turned to ash inside of him. “You called for me?”

The words sucked the air from the courtyard. Viggo’s heart was thudding so hard against his ribs that he was almost surprised the men in the square couldn’t hear it beating against his bones, loud as the tolling of the kirk bell. He was afraid.

But they couldn’t see it.

Ghost stories rose in their eyes, memories of tales told round the fire after dark. Whispers of the Ghost Walker, of Sorrow wandering the heath and wailing for her dead, of the Pale Lady and the child that cried on the moors and devoured the men who came to look for it.

Of the Widow, weeping for her family.

He had seconds. A breath, really, before the stories would dissipate and reality would return. He turned his gaze on the man in the saddle, the lord of this estate, and said low, every word heavy with the timbre of the bell that had tolled. “Roth Yulwood.”

The man blanched.

“Death sends you greetings.”

One of the men made a sign to ward off evil, pressing two fingers to his lips and his heart. Viggo felt the sudden, stupid urge to laugh, wishing his fingers wouldn’t shake the way they did. This wasn’t going to work. Ghost stories weren’t enough, not for this. If it came to a fight, what then? They couldn’t fight a dozen men or the two bodyguards who were edging their horses closer to their master. They were young, certainly, with the crude sketch of a wolf’s head on their shoulders to mark a lesser Core. But it wouldn’t matter.

None of it would. There were too many.

The ghost story would have to be enough as it had been when they’d rescued Tomas. If only he could think of the right words. If only the fog held and the men had no time to think of anything but the superstitions that kept them awake at night.

If only. If only.

If only he weren’t so stupid as to plunge them all into this for the sake of a single peasant.

The lord was staring at him as if he’d risen from the ground with fire in his hands. He was younger than Viggo would have expected. Roth forced a laugh for the benefit of his men and said, “Death? Does the Pale Lady send mortals as her messengers now?”

Even as he said the words, Viggo caught a glimpse of doubt in his eyes. A flicker of fear, as if he were suddenly unsure if he’d made a mistake. Viggo smiled at him, baring his teeth as he felt superstition and terror beginning to stir in the still air. “Is the Ghost Walker mortal, my lord?”

The rest of the torches went out suddenly. Viggo caught a glimpse to his left of Bria vanishing between the houses, a shadow in the fog. The lord’s horse snorted, sidestepping, tossing its head. Cat was on the rooftops now, the leopard stealing over the thatch like a ghost in the mist. The horses could smell it, afraid, not of a ghost in the fog, but of the predators they couldn’t see.

The soldier with the axe still in his hands cursed him and moved forward, snarling, “You’ll bleed, I can swear to that—”

Something hissed in the fog. The man’s head snapped back, and he dropped like a stone, without a sound, without a cry.

Blood trickled from his face, mingling with the cobbles.

Roth’s horse reared up, screaming into the silence. Men scrambled backward away from it, swearing, snatching for their own mounts, and dragging their injured companion with them.

The leopard moved among the rooftops. Ghostly pale.

Roth fought with the reins, struggling to get the animal under control, and spat a curse in Viggo’s direction, his voice high with fear.

Viggo held the man’s gaze, the wolf burning in his eyes, and said low, “Your soul is marked, my lord. Shall I take it now?”

Roth jerked his horse around and fled. His men followed him, scrambling into the saddles, using their reins as whips to urge the horses on.

In a breath, nothing but silence remained. Silence, and the thudding of Viggo’s heart beating against his bones.

Cameron took them to a cottage on the outskirts of Millcross, far outside the last circle of thatched houses. A twisted fence surrounded it and the garden that had long ago overgrown itself.

He pushed the door open, holding up his lantern to banish the gloom as he stepped inside. “Roof leaks,” he said gruffly, not looking at any of them, as if the shadow of the Ghost Walker had followed him from the village and were haunting his thoughts. “But it’s warmer than the open heath, and a fire’ll get rid of the damp.”

Viggo ducked his head as he entered, moving to one side so the others could file in after him. A stone fireplace was cut into the wall opposite them, and a window looked out toward the south. He could see the Krathe through the battered shutters.

Cameron hung the lantern on a hook in the wall and rubbed his hands together, his glance shooting helplessly toward Tomas, clearly hating to leave the man here with them. “I’ll have to ask around for blankets and food and the like. But I doubt anyone will refuse me. You’ll be all right here? Until I get back?”

Tomas smiled encouragingly at him, already helping Bria sort through her pack for tinder and steel while Dakota laid kindling for a fire. “I think we’ll manage.”

The man hesitated another breath, his eyes darting toward Viggo with distrust, but at last he nodded reluctantly. “I’ll be back.”

“And we’ll be waiting,” Tomas told him cheerfully.

The door shut. Viggo let out a long breath, and said wryly, “You think he’s coming back?”

To his surprise, it was Bria who laughed.

Cat’s grin flashed in his direction, warming some of the chill from his bones. “Gods, I hope he is. I’m hungry.”

The fire crackled, banishing the feeling of gloom from the cabin. Dakota leaned back against the wall with a sigh, stretching his feet toward the flame. “I could get used to this.”

“Used to what?” Bria shooed him away, crouching to add logs to the kindling. “Sleeping on the floor or taking up all the heat?”

“Both.” Dakota winced as he moved out of her reach. “And not being cursed at.”

Warren crouched beside the fire and held out his hands to the warmth. “I can c—curse at you.”

Dakota smiled serenely, his eyes already shut. “Yes, but it’s different from you. When you do it, it’s comforting—like a little bit of home.”

Warren swore at him.

“Exactly. See? I feel better already.”

Viggo dragged off his soaked tunic and sorted through the mess in his pack, looking for another that was at least partially dry. The banter around the fire continued, sniping back and forth, growing in volume as Cat joined it. Only Rylee hung back, as removed from it as himself, her eyes flitting away from his when he glanced in her direction.

Tomas shook dust from a mattress and said something to Cat that made her laugh. Viggo pulled on his spare tunic and hesitated, wanting to go and join the group and knowing that it would silence instantly when—or if—he did. The musty air suddenly felt close and stifling.

The door creaked when he slipped outside, but he doubted anyone heard him go. Mist hung heavy over the brambled remains of the garden, but the pattering rain had stopped, and the air was still. The lights from Millcross were all but extinguished by the cloaking fog, but Viggo could see the twisted remnants of the fence encircling the garden, and beyond it the beginnings of a path and the distant black bulk of the Krathe.

He picked his way through the thick grass and tangled weeds and leaned against the fence, breathing deeply until the mustiness of the cottage and the panic from earlier began to recede.

Ghost Walker. That’s what the woman had called him that night beside the lake. Maeva. Had it really been her or his own scattered imagination, twisted and haunted by the air of a forest that addled men’s heads for daring to walk its trails?

Both, maybe. He could see her living here with her tangled curls and her witch-like appearance. Cameron had said this was their cabin once, his and his sister’s. Before Tomas had come along and whisked her away into the Krathe.

Viggo shut his eyes and rubbed his face, trying to imagine it, and whispered, “You must have known you were trading everything in the world for him. What did that feel like?”

A sharp wind soughed through the grass. He could almost see her here, kneeling in the garden, coaxing plants to life with the same tenderness with which she’d held the kelpie. What had she thought when a Dreyen had turned up on her doorstep, broken ankle or not? How long had it taken before she’d guessed the reason he continued to return?

“So. The Ghost Walker.” Tomas leaned against the fence beside him, appearing so quietly that Viggo hadn’t realized he was there until he spoke.

Viggo shifted uneasily. “Yes.”

“Where did that come from?”

“Your dead wife,” Viggo wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he shrugged. “Just an idea.”

“How did you know it would work?”

“It did for the Bonesmith.”

But Tomas shook his head. “The Bonesmith never did anything so risky. We were stories that slipped people away before they were taken by the soldiers. Never in the moment.”

“It was still dangerous.”

Tomas paused, looking out over the heath, and said softly, “Yes, it was.”

“Why did you keep doing it?”

Tomas’s face darkened. “Because the lords can kill a child to punish the father, or hang a man for keeping back some of his own crop to feed his family.”

“You can’t change that. Nothing can.”

“No, likely not.” Tomas rubbed his hands together and looked down at them. “But looking aside would be agreement, and I can’t agree to that. Thus, the Bonesmith. And, apparently, the Ghost Walker.”

Viggo looked away, guilt tugging at his soul. “And Maeva? She was the same?”

Tomas smiled to himself, his gaze lost in memory. “Oh, Maeva was so much worse than I was. If she’d had her way, we’d have stormed Ivra and waged war on the slave markets until nothing was left.”

Viggo stifled a grin, trying to imagine the woman he’d seen waist deep in the waters of the lake storming Ivra’s slave markets. Somehow, the idea fit her very well.

Tomas gestured at the garden. “We met over there. I was trying so hard not to frighten her off—you know how people are with Dreyens.”

Viggo nodded.

“I needn’t have bothered with it. I don’t think anything I said could have warned her off.” Tomas grinned. “The only thing she said after I told her what had happened was, ‘That was stupid, wasn’t it?’ She was right, but it did hurt my feelings a little bit.”

Viggo laughed.

“That was Maeva all over.” Tomas raked a hand through his hair and glanced again at the tangled garden. “Bold, brash—and kinder than she ever had reason to be. By the time she had my ankle set, I was utterly smitten.”

“And we haven’t gotten rid of him since,” a voice said hoarsely behind them, interrupting the silence.

Viggo whipped around, his heart skipping a beat. Cameron emerged from the mist and shadows, and smiled grimly at Tomas. “Although, if we’re honest, I don’t think Maeva tried very hard.”

Tomas shrugged, amusement in his dark eyes. “No, not especially.”

Cameron glanced toward Viggo with wary eyes. “Owaine Mikkleson asked me to thank you.”

Viggo straightened up. “Who?”

“The man you—saved,” Cameron said, hesitating over the last word as if he were still deciding whether he believed it or not. His eyes darted toward Tomas. “His daughter, too, wanted me to pass on her thanks.”

Tomas looked from one to the other and said, “I’ll be in the cottage.”

He was gone before Viggo could think of a reason for him to stay, and Cameron said quietly, “He would have thanked you himself if he’d been able.”

Viggo shrugged callously, his heart beating so fast he was afraid the other man would hear it. He hadn’t wanted to stop here for the night, or to see Cameron again. He could scarcely meet the man’s eyes. “I didn’t save him. You don’t think your lord will be back? His punishment will catch up with him one way or another.”

“Maybe. But not soon. He and his daughter left for Beyora ten minutes ago. I have . . . friends there who can help. Change his name. Give him work.”

“The way they did for the Bonesmith’s victims.”

“Yes.”

“And what will you tell your lord when he comes looking? Your Bonesmith story has worn thin.”

A faint smile flickered at the corner of Cameron’s mouth. “I thought I’d tell him the Ghost Walker took his soul—and his daughter’s—in place of their lord’s.”

Viggo barked a laugh and looked away. He could still see the fear in Roth Yulwood’s eyes. No doubt the story would be enough for him, and he would bless the stars for the death of his slaves in his place. “Is that why you cared about him,” he said without really meaning to, “because he was useful to you?”

Cameron frowned. “What?”

“The Bonesmith.”

The man’s jaw tightened. “No.”

“He’s a Dreyen. You expect me to believe you were thrilled when he began seeking your sister out?”

A laugh floated from the cottage behind them. Somewhere off in the darkness an owl hooted. Cameron looked away, his jaw twitching, staring at the garden as if he, too, could see the ghosts that Viggo had conjured from the mist and were trying to remember what it had felt like in those days. “No. I wasn’t.”

“No one would be.”

“I was afraid for her.”

“You should have been.”

Unexpectedly, Cameron shook his head. “No. Tomas—he was the best part of her life. Whatever came after.” He glanced at the garden again, his eyes on a cascade of brittle whiteleaf draped over the fence. “I think she knew immediately that they were the same sort. It took me longer to understand, that’s all. I never saw things as clearly as she did.”

“They weren’t the same sort.”

“They were.” Cameron looked at him thoughtfully. “You can’t see it yet. You wouldn’t. Not the way they raised you. I didn’t understand it, not then, but I do now. It wasn’t only peasants we helped escape, Ghost Walker. I saw many of your kind pass along our route, their stories much the same as the peasants we sent with them. Power plays the same kind of games with men and Dreyens, and I’ve never seen them make any distinction.”

Viggo stared at him. Silence slipped between them, and shadows flitted through the garden as faint glimpses of the moon tore through the clouds overhead and were swallowed again. Cameron glanced back toward the cottage, eager, maybe, to be gone. Viggo couldn’t think why he’d turned aside to speak to him at all. The man had every reason to hate him, and none to make amends.

Cameron turned and looked at him so keenly that Viggo felt a catch in his breath that he would have named fear if he’d been more honest. “Why the Ghost Walker?”

He wanted an answer. A real one. Viggo choked on a strangled laugh. What was he meant to say? That the man’s dead sister had given him the name when he’d seen her in the Krathe, sent as a message from a woman who was either a witch or a goddess from the old tales and had some strange obsession with him?

No. He hadn’t told that story even to Cat. No one else would hear it.

He shrugged. “A whim. I’ve heard the stories. Everyone has. Does it matter?”

Cameron bit his lip and looked out toward the heath, as if he expected to hear Sorrow’s cold wail among the waving grass. “It might,” he said at last, and disappeared into the cottage.

Viggo’s skin prickled, and he glanced in the direction of the heath, too, half-expecting to see the Widow’s slender shadow among the white-rimed grasses.

Before dawn had touched the eastern ridge line they were up and moving, following Tomas along the twisted paths and deep into the Krathe. They crossed the river at its narrowest point, filing across a bridge of fallen trees and brush, and followed it northwest along much the same path Tomas had used when he’d led them to Millcross the first time.

Viggo kept to himself on the path, thankful that the trees grew in close here and made it difficult to walk in anything but single file. After the biting wind on the heath and the suffocating claustrophobia of Ivra, coming back to the Krathe had felt like returning home. Steam rose from the damp ground, wreathing the undergrowth in a flowing shroud, and dark leaves dripped overhead, drops pattering on the carpet of thick loam underfoot.

The ghosts that had haunted him since he’d set foot in the Krathe the last time had gone, as if he’d laid Kaleb to rest when he’d turned his master in to Silas Thorne. The Ghost Walker, too, had vanished, unless he’d only welcomed the creature into his soul by claiming its name as his own. Wild geese flew overhead, their cries penetrating the fog, and the rush of the distant river flowing through the ravine to their right took the edge from the silence.

Tomas slowed his pace, dropping back to walk with Viggo. “We should make it to Ebosa before dark.”

Viggo nodded. The trees were whispering above them, and he could feel a living, breathing pulse beneath his feet. This place had a hold on him now, and Tomas could have told him they’d be walking for a week and he wouldn’t have protested. His soul felt right here. Better than it had anywhere else.

Tomas picked a handful of hawthorn berries as he passed them, handing Viggo three of them as they walked. “Maeva used to make these into a tea in the winter. She’d drag me over half the forest looking for the bushes.” He smiled at the memory and looked down, picking dark leaves from the handful he’d plucked from the branch. “You started something back there. I hope you know that.”

Viggo winced, knowing immediately what he meant. “I know,” he said softly.

“A story like that isn’t easy to let go of. It can get into your head if you let it.”

Viggo didn’t answer. The others had paused by the hawthorn tree they’d passed a moment ago and were stripping the berries from the branches. Bria was filling the leather bag that hung at her side, her long dark hair tucked behind one ear, laughing at something Cat was saying to her as she gathered.

Tomas glanced at him, as if wondering at the sudden distance between himself and Cat. After a breath, he nodded at Rylee, saying, “Your friend is quite the shot with that sling.”

Viggo looked past where Cat and Bria—with Warren beside them—were picking berries, and found Rylee on the trail behind, supporting Dakota as he leaned to rest against a tree. Her sling was wrapped around her right arm, all leather and thick twine. He nodded. “She grew up with it.” He frowned, trying to remember a time when he’d seen her without the simple weapon, and couldn’t. “She always liked it better than a blade. Carver made it for her.” He paused for a breath, thinking of his friend back at the Core, of his lightning grin and his offhanded affection and his brutality.

Bludhærk.

Tomas nodded. “It saved you with that soldier,” he said quietly. “It won’t always be so easy. Fear isn’t usually enough.”

Viggo ran a hand through his wet hair and looked up at the gray sky. It had been raining that morning. It wasn’t now, but he had the feeling it would start again before long. “No, probably not,” he said, and smiled wryly. “Are you trying to warn me off, old man?”

Tomas said nothing for a long time, watching as Dakota joined the group around the tree, helping strip some of the taller branches. Rylee held back, her eyes so distant that Viggo felt an ache beginning in his bones. At last, the older man shrugged and said low, “Maybe.”

Viggo bit his tongue.

“Lord Yulwood won’t forget last night. Neither will Silas Thorne. A bodyguard who slipped away has some chance of disappearing into the wild. An outlaw, set on causing trouble—” Tomas leaned against an oak, wincing as he worked a stone from the leather of his left boot. “It’s a different story. You’ll end up with a price on your head.”

“Like you did.”

Silence. Tomas flicked the stone into the undergrowth. “Yes.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.” Tomas sighed and laid his head back, staring up at the blowing leaves overhead. “I never have. But you and Cat,” he nodded back down the path, “you have something together. I wouldn’t toss it aside lightly.”

Heat flushed into Viggo’s face, and he looked away before the man could see it. “I told you,” he said curtly. “I can’t disappear yet.”

“Because of those,” Tomas nodded at the scars on his wrists and forearms.

“Yes.”

“You told me you have to fix them. What does that mean?”

Something cracked in the woods behind them. A flutter of wings cut through the still air, and a pheasant passed overhead, vanishing among the treetops. Viggo bit his tongue, trying to work out how to answer Tomas. At last, he whispered, “I wasn’t a bloodhound, old man. You think what happened yesterday was cruel? You should have seen what it was like when it fell to us to make our slaves scream.”

Tomas’s face paled slightly.

“The Pale Lady has a record of all my sins,” Viggo continued. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“And you think being the Ghost Walker will,” Tomas hesitated over the words, “absolve you of that?”

“Maybe.”

A falcon screamed somewhere off in the trees, its cry echoing plaintively through the forest. The others finished picking hawthorn berries and moved up the path, coming toward them. Cat had autumn leaves in her hair.

Tomas was looking at him in a way that hurt, as if he could see all the pain that every one of those scars had caused over the years. “Viggo,” he said softly. “That’s not how it works.”

Viggo didn’t look at him, feeling an ache move through his bones that felt as though it would never end. “You don’t know that.”

Tomas looked as though he was going to respond, but Viggo straightened up and moved off down the path, not wanting to hear anything else or to let the others catch up. Not yet. Not until he’d sorted through the mess in his mind and found some answer to the questions the trees were whispering to him.

An hour later, something stung his shoulder, and Viggo whipped around, catching the second acorn before it hit his thigh.

Cat tossed him another, pocketing the rest as she lengthened her stride until she’d caught up with him. “We found those under an oak back there. Can you eat acorns?”

Viggo made a face, tossed the nuts into the undergrowth and wiped his hands on his trousers. “They don’t taste good.”

“So you can eat them.”

“You can.” Viggo flashed her a grin. “I’m not that hungry.”

“Yet.” Cat brushed her hand through the ferns on their left, the rainwater collected on their leaves rinsing some of the mud off her hands. “Give it a few days.”

Viggo could feel the others watching them from further down the path, probably with some mixture of incredulity and disbelief that they hadn’t killed each other in the past months. He forgot, sometimes, that he and Cat weren’t always the way they were now. When they’d left the Core, there’d been nothing but chilly silences and words that cut to the quick. But they were different people now. He was different.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t get Rylee to speak to him.

Cat touched his wrist lightly. “All right?”

Her fingers were cold. Viggo caught her hand, enveloped her fingers in his warmer grip, and clicked his tongue. “Gods, your hands are freezing.”

“I’ve been cold for so long. I’ll probably freeze to death in another day or two.”

He laughed, although the words felt too much like a prophecy to smile at. He released her hand, shoving his into his pockets. “Maybe we should stop and build a fire.”

“Now?” Cat wrinkled her nose and glanced around at the dripping trees and wet undergrowth, “Where? And with what?”

“I’d bet we could find something.”

“You’d be a terrible gambler.” Cat waited a breath and raised an eyebrow at him. “You ignored my question.”

He sighed. “Fine. I’m tired, that’s all.” He waited a breath, knowing she didn’t believe him, and shrugged. “And my ankle hurts.”

“What else?”

“I’m hungry.” Viggo looked up at the gray sky peeking through the mesh of branches overhead and blew out a frustrated breath. “Lant Curtis is looking for us. Tomas is being smug. And—”

“And . . .”

“And she hasn’t said a word to me.” He hadn’t meant it to come out like that. Really, he hadn’t meant it to come out at all. His partner had every reason to hate Rylee—every reason to resent that he’d gone after her in Ivra and brought her here with them. Complaining to her felt dangerously close to pushing them back to those first nights in Ivra together when she wouldn’t talk and he could think of nothing to say.

But . . . he couldn’t let it go. He’d raised Rylee. She’d been given into his charge when she first came to the Core, two years younger than he was and full of spite and fire. He’d kept her alive for all those years, listened to her rant when she was furious at Dex or Carver, calmed her down when she needed it. There had been a few in the Core that he considered family, and she was one of them.

And now she wouldn’t say two words to him.

Cat said nothing for a long minute, keeping pace with him on the path, her right hand still brushing through the fern leaves, although her fingers were dripping and red with cold. “It’s not you,” she said finally. He looked sideways at her, ready to say something sarcastic, but she shook her head. “It’s not. Think about what you were like in the healing houses right after we got away from Fane.”

Viggo paused, trying to remember, and frowned. “I was normal.”

“You were a mess.” Cat crouched, prying a puffball from between two stones and dusting wet soil from its white flesh. “Everyone knew it. You kept telling me things two, three, sometimes four times. The herbwoman was coming at noon to change my bandages. They were going to bring poppyseed oil in an hour. You’d say it, get distracted with something, and then tell me again as if you hadn’t said it the first time.”

Viggo felt his cheeks grow hot. “You never said anything.”

Cat tucked the mushroom into her pouch and shrugged. “I didn’t need to. It helped you cope.” She nodded back down the path where the others were struggling up the slope in the mud. “This is how she’s coping. She’s not talking to anyone else either. Give her time.”

Viggo bit his tongue, wanting to protest, but knew she was right. He looked over his shoulder, ready to call back and suggest a halt, when a long, trilling whistle echoed through the trees. He froze, staring at Rylee who was looking at him as quizzically as if he’d given the call they all remembered so well from their days at the Core. The whistle came again, and Cat looked up the path ahead, saying softly, “Maybe Tomas—”

Viggo’s stomach plunged, and he turned back to the path, scrambling up the rest of the slope toward where the older man had disappeared through the foliage.

A breath later, Tomas appeared through the brush, his face gray as he came to join them.

The whistle echoed through the trees again, urgent and beckoning.

Tomas glanced back the way he’d come. “It’s coming from across the river,” he told them, his voice cracked. “Near the tower, I think.”

The tower. Viggo swore and brushed past him, hurrying along the path toward the river, already afraid of what they were going to find there.

The tower by the lake was shrouded with mist, as if the ghosts that lived there had drawn it around them as a cloak. Viggo scrambled down the steep cliffside from the passage beneath the waterfall and ducked into cover beneath the shelter of a spreading beech, his chest heaving.

The whistle split the air again. Louder this time. More insistent.

The leopard dropped down beside him, and Cat shook it off, hissing under her breath as the damp air hit her bare arms. “Viggo, this is stupid.”

He knew it. He knew and he didn’t care. Fog drifted through the scattered stones among the trees, monoliths standing testament to a bygone age. The woods were silent—eerily so—except for the occasional whistle puncturing the mist.

Tomas appeared at his shoulder, his jaw set like stone, and said softly, “Lant Curtis?”

Viggo shook his head. He’d been expecting a camp beneath the trees around the tower. Men with horses, fires burning, Lant Curtis striding among them like god and master in one flesh. But the ruins were deserted. Nothing moved save the roiling fog, curling and wrapping around stone and wood alike.

“They’re in the tower,” he said hoarsely, without looking at either of them. The others were in the trees on the far side of the river, out of harm’s way. “I’m going to check. Stay here.”

The look Cat gave him made him wince, although he’d already known she wouldn’t listen, and he ghosted forward out of the cover of the trees toward the tower.

The lake lapped at the feet of the tower as if to crumble its foundations from beneath it and draw what was left under the murky surface. Viggo paused before he slipped inside, his skin prickling as if one of the ghosts that lived here were breathing down the back of his neck, begging him to go back, go back, go back . . .

But he couldn’t go back. No sound shattered the silence as he pushed the door open. No shout of men and soldiers, no baying of dogs, although he’d dreamed several times in the last week of being hunted across the heath by Fane Ravenstone’s wolfhounds.

When he stepped inside the floor beneath him seemed to crack as if the earth itself wanted to swallow him whole.

Carver hung by his wrists in the center of the room, his feet barely brushing the floor, his head lolling back and his eyes shut. Blood crusted one side of his head, matting his colorless hair and gluing the collar of his tunic to his skin.

All thought of Lant Curtis and his men, of dogs and Silas Thorne and the prisons in Ivra, vanished. Viggo stumbled into the room, fear snatching at his breath like a knife, and choked in a panic, “Carver! Gods—”

The man jerked at the sound of his voice, struggling against his bonds as he twisted around. His eyes met Viggo’s, and a raw cry tore out of his throat, like scraping stone. “No! Viggo, go back! Get out of here!”

Viggo drew his hunting knife, but struggled to hold Carver still as he sawed through the ropes. Cat appeared at his side, supporting Carver with a shoulder beneath his arm as the rope snapped and his legs buckled with the sudden weight on them. Tomas caught his other arm, lowering him to the floor, and winced as he cried out in pain. The man waved Viggo aside as he moved closer, examining Carver’s injuries with a swift hand. “He’s all right. Bruises, nothing else. A few cuts.” He frowned, studying a slit across the back of Carver’s wrist.

“What happened?” Viggo dug his waterskin out of his backpack and held it out, wishing his hands weren’t shaking quite so hard.

Carver accepted the water and gulped it down, spilling nearly half of it down his neck. It soaked into his tunic. He, too, was trembling, and his face was as drawn and bloodless as if whoever had left him here had bled him first. Like the patients in the boneknitters’ houses who had poison in their veins. “You have to go,” he gasped at last, pushing the waterskin back into Viggo’s hands. “They’re coming back—”

Viggo’s skin crawled, and he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder to make sure Lant Curtis wasn’t already standing at the door of the tower. “Who?” he whispered, his throat so dry that he could barely get the word out.

A stupid question. He knew who . . . they all did. Carver flinched, his pale eyes haunted with pain, and whispered, “He sent you a message.”

Viggo’s skin went cold.

“That’s why he brought me here.” Carver’s eyes darted toward the door, as if he, too, were only waiting for the sound of men outside. “He said to tell you Reika’s not dead. But you’re going to—when he finds you—you’re going to wish she was.”

They crossed the river again, back to where the others were waiting for them under the trees, and fled into the woods as if their scent would draw Lant Curtis to them like a beacon. A mile later, Carver’s legs gave out beneath them, and they halted beneath a spreading fir and lit a fire.

The man’s face was gray, his hands trembling from the effort of their swift retreat. He was thinner than Cat remembered, a tall, lean bag of bones, with a sparse beard poking out of his gaunt jaw.

He was still bleeding, and Bria touched Cat’s shoulder and rose, vanishing back into the growing mist and dense foliage. Cat followed, although she could feel Viggo staring anxiously after her as she went. Bria led her back along the path, then into the undergrowth itself, forcing their way through brambles and thick beds of curling fern until they found a whiteleaf vine growing up the bole of a scraggly oak. Yarrow, too, grew in abundance among the trees, and Cat dug the roots from the soft ground and tried not to think of the way Carver’s knees had folded underneath him.

She could still remember his wicked, flashing grin as clearly as if they’d met yesterday. A tall, grinning devil’s child with whipcord strength and a stinging sense of irony. Bludhaerk, the servants had called him.

He didn’t look blood hungry now. He looked starved and broken. Whatever Lant Curtis had done to him went deeper than the cuts on his head and neck. She could swear to that.

When they came back, the fire was crackling cheerfully, and Viggo was heating water in one of the small cooking pans Cameron had given them. Carver was curled up on the damp ground, a blanket thrown over his shoulders, his eyes shut and his jaw clenched.

Bria shooed Viggo from beside the fire and knelt, tearing whiteleaf leaves from the vine and crushing them between her fingers before adding them to the water. Viggo retreated sheepishly to Cat’s side and whispered, “He’s all right. Only tired. Lant took him from his master’s house a few days ago. Dex was out with their master, and they left her behind.”

Cat winced, trying to convince herself that the tug of relief in her mind was relief that Dex hadn’t been subjected to Lant Curtis’s cruelty—not relief that she wasn’t with them now. “Why did Lant go after him?”

“Bait, I guess,” Viggo said softly. “After Rylee disappeared, he must have put two and two together. They hung him in the tower two days ago, and Lant left a man with him, but he went out hunting today. That’s why Carver tried the whistle.”

Cat nodded.

After a breath, Viggo’s hand brushed against hers, and he whispered with an attempt at a more lighthearted tone, “I told you we could get a fire started.”

Cat could almost feel the anxiety buzzing beneath his skin, and she shot him a mischievous look. “You didn’t get it started. Tomas did.”

“Oh, so it was my ability you were questioning. Not the concept in general.”

“It’s always your ability I question.”

Viggo made a grab for her so fast that she almost didn’t have time to react. She jerked away, catching her foot on a root and half-falling into the ferns. Viggo’s hand saved her, and he hauled her to her feet again as she hissed curses at him. The others were looking, and Cat turned away, biting her lips to hide the smile that was forcing its way onto her face. Viggo was straight-faced and grim, but she could see that he was laughing underneath.

Bria was staring at her, alarm in her expression. Cat shook her head, her cheeks flushing as she realized that none of them had seen or heard anything of the exchange until Viggo had—apparently—shoved her into the ferns. The other girl glanced at Viggo and looked away again, back to her patient. Cat whispered, “That was your fault.”

He choked on the laugh he was trying so hard to smother and turned away swiftly. “Stop it.”

Cat grinned up at him. They might have been back in Ivra, standing at Fane’s shoulder and trying not to let their lord overhear their laughter. It felt the same, teasing in the face of fear and grief, laughing because the rest of the world was crumbling, but by the gods, they had each other.

Except here, she could say what she wanted. Do what she wanted. Fane wasn’t standing over her any longer—and neither was her mother, whatever the Krathe and its ghosts had tried to convince her of. “No.”

He gave her a look that promised revenge later and said aloud, “We can’t stop here long.”

Tomas looked back the way they’d come and nodded. “We’re still a few hours out, but the longer we wait, the more dangerous it will be.”

Carver sat up with Bria’s help and rubbed the back of his head ruefully. “Don’t know how far I can go.”

“I’ll help you.” Viggo moved forward to pull him to his feet and slipped an arm beneath his shoulders. “You can rest when we’re safe.”

Cat moved to help Bria store the remainder of their herbs and the pan, and Warren kicked dirt over the coals of the fire until it was smothered and hidden from plain view.

Tomas glanced around at them as if studying every face to reassure himself that no one was struggling, and nodded. “Let’s go, then.”

Tomas led them west, deeper into the Krathe and away from the roar of the river. The Krathe closed in around them, trees hanging over the path, and the air became close and still, as if the fog were drawing nearer to smother them. Viggo strode ahead with Tomas, Carver’s arm around his shoulders.

Finally, hours after midnight, when the moon had sunk behind the trees and Cat was so tired that even the leopard had refused to share her weariness, Tomas came to a halt. He was staring into the trees, a frown creasing his weathered face as he touched first one tree, then another. After a breath, he backtracked ten steps and plunged into the ferns.

Cat followed him, icy dew drenching her trousers instantly. A stream wound through the undergrowth, cutting a path she could follow. At last, Tomas paused, took another step, and threw out his arm, catching her before she could move forward. “Careful. You’ll be off the edge.”

Her stomach dropped. She could see it now, a gaping crack in the forest floor, black as the entrance to hell itself. Blackberry brambles hid nearly half of it, and she couldn’t see how far off into the undergrowth it went. The stream vanished inside, swallowed up, with only the rush of falling water to mark its passing. Tomas knelt, digging a length of rope from his pack. “Lend me a knife, will you?”

Cat passed him hers numbly. The crack was only about as wide as her arms could reach, and she realized, with a shock, that the man intended for all of them—for her—to slip inside.

A noose of fear slipped around her throat, and she took a step back.

Viggo reached her at the same moment, touching the small of her back as she bumped into his shoulder, and his eyes went immediately to the crack and the rope that Tomas was unwinding.

His face went pale.

Cat shook her head, whispering, “Viggo, I don’t know—”

He interrupted her, his voice cracking as if he’d only been holding himself together with Tomas’s promise of a place for them to go. “This is it?”

Tomas nodded. “This is it.”

He tossed the rope into the cavern, and Cat felt her stomach turn over as it unraveled in the man’s hands, slithering into the crack until she heard the echo of a splash far below.

Viggo uttered a curse that stung the air and asked, “How deep is it?”

Tomas shrugged, cinching the remainder of the rope around a thick oak a few feet away. “Deep enough.”

The others had joined them, Carver swaying on his feet with Rylee’s arm around his waist. Tomas looped another knot into the rope, gave it a sharp tug, and turned to look at them. “Who’s first?”

Viggo barked a hoarse laugh and shook his head. “No.” He turned and walked away.

Tomas raised an eyebrow. Cat swore and pushed past the others to follow, saying over her shoulder, “Wait. I’ll be back.”

Viggo had made it back to the path before she caught up with him. His face was ashen, his breath coming a little too fast, and he let loose a stream of cursing as she caught up to him. “This is it? We came all this way for the gateway to hell?”

He was afraid. She could hear it in his voice, see it in the way the wolf flickered in his eyes, begging him to flee. She caught his wrist, pressing her fingers into his flesh until the wolf gave way, and said low, “It’s all right.”

It wasn’t. She could think of only a few things that made her partner genuinely terrified, like a child caught in the dark, and heights was one of them. He drew a hand across his eyes and stared up at the dark trees. “I’m not doing it.”

She nodded.

“I’m not.”

“Do you want to stay here?”

He sighed, his jaw working, and looked back the way they’d come. “I could kill him. We came all this way for a hole in the ground.”

Without meaning to, Cat choked on a laugh. Viggo gave her an aggrieved look, and she shook her head, forcing the smile off her face as she said, “You’re right. But it’s the gateway to hell tonight . . . or we sleep up here in the rain and hope Lant Curtis doesn’t find us.”

“You don’t want to either.”

He looked at her so frankly that her face grew hot, and she shrugged, the thought of the black hole and the rock walls crushing in around her setting her teeth on edge. Memories of her mother’s cabin came rushing back, of the door that locked and the walls that had closed in on her until her own screams seem to have been shoved back down her throat to choke her. “No, of course not.” She bit her tongue, waiting for the rush of claustrophobia to recede, and said, “But I don’t want to sleep in the rain.”

“We could.”

“It’s too cold for that.”

He touched her fingers, caught both her hands and folded them into his, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. His warmth made her shiver, made her want to draw in closer and bury her face in his chest and forget the people waiting for them and Tomas’s stupid plan.

Viggo seemed to read her thoughts, or else he was feeling the same way. He pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her, and whispered, “Let’s run away.”

Cat laughed. “We did, remember? That’s how we got here.”

“So? We can do it again. There’s no limit.”

Cat shut her eyes, breathing in the smell of his wet clothes and the wolf in his skin, and whispered, “Come on. They’re waiting for us.”

She could see how disappointed he was when he pulled away, and suddenly she wasn’t sure she’d understood him. What he was asking, what he wanted. Her face flushed, and he let go of her hands and stepped away, saying, “Well. Let’s go, I guess. But I’m going first. If I fall, I don’t want to take anyone with me.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to say, and she knew it. She followed him through the brush back to where the others were waiting, trying to ignore the way her heart was beating against her ribs.

After some debate, Tomas was the first to slip down the rope. Viggo waited until the rope went limp again, free of the older man’s weight, and went after him.

Cat watched him disappear into the black hole etched into the ground beneath the bracken. The wind was getting up now, rustling in the tops of the trees overhead and hissing through the fronds around her with a voice full of sighs. She hugged herself, watching the hole, almost hoping Viggo would appear again. But he wouldn’t. He would get to the bottom and call to her, and she would have to find the courage to follow him into the darkness where the sky was stone and the earth had opened up to swallow her.

The others would follow. Warren’s face was chiseled from granite, and Cat remembered from the Core that Bria had no fears when it came to heights. Only Dakota looked uncertain, as if he weren’t sure that his healing welts would allow for a climb like this one.

Carver caught her eye, studying her so quizzically that her face flushed. She looked away.

A long, low whistle rose above the soft thunder of the waterfall. Cat pressed a hand against her heart, waiting for the beating to steady. It didn’t, but she slipped down into the hole anyway, clinging to the rope as if it alone could save her from the darkness below. The tough strands didn’t offer much comfort.

The whistle rose again, echoing against the rocks, as if Viggo wasn’t sure she’d heard and was wondering what was taking her so long. She began to climb down.

The moonlight faded as she descended. It caught on the mist of the waterfall that thundered down past her shoulder, and when she looked up it was as bright as færie lamps and silver wire above her. She kept her eyes on the lights, on the moon and stars and the silver they cast, for as long as she could see them, their beauty some scant comfort in the pit she was descending into.

But she was climbing down, not up, and the darkness closed around her, swallowing the lights as if they had never been.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark, never had been, never would be. The leopard liked the darkness, the hidden feeling it brought, the anonymity. She felt its pleasure when the sun set and the shadows lengthened. The contentment of a hunter.

But even the leopard didn’t like closed spaces. Cat could feel the stone above her as if it were already pressing upon her head and shoulders. She closed her eyes to the confining walls she was sure she would see, even in the darkness surrounding her. She became aware of the air then, as if light overhead had distracted her from it before. It was fresher than she’d thought, not trapped air that stank of imprisonment, but sharp with cold and moving with the wind that had been outside. That, at least, allayed some of her fears. The cave must be bigger than she’d thought.

The rope was digging into her hands painfully. The fibers were damp with the water of the falls and with her sweat—her blood too, if the pain in her hands was any indication. It seemed to take forever to reach the bottom, but at last her foot struck something hard, and Viggo was there, steadying her as she stepped down. “Not so bad,” he said quietly in her ear. She laughed shakily. Not so bad. But she had yet to see the worst of it, and only the darkness was there to hide the walls she was so afraid of.

The ground under her feet felt odd, unstable, and when she took a tentative step forward it moved, rocking beneath her feet. Viggo caught her as she stumbled and held her steady. “Easy. We’re on a raft.”

Horror flooded into her mind, and her throat tightened. “What?”

“A raft,” he repeated, as if she hadn’t heard him or hadn’t understood. “There’s a lake underneath us. Tomas says it’s pretty deep.”

“Are we supposed to sleep on the raft?” Her heart was pounding oddly in her chest, erratically, and she wondered if he could feel it.

Tomas laughed quietly somewhere off to her right, and the raft jerked beneath her, beginning to move smoothly through the dark water. “We’re not sleeping on the raft. I promised you beds, remember? The lake is only part of the cave.”

The tight fear in her chest began to ease as Cat realized how vast of a cavern they must be in. The darkness that had been pressing in around her like the walls of the cave widened out, and she could hear the echoing of the falling water for the first time. It bounded away around her, far off and as distant as the echo of a canyon. A comforting sound, in this darkness, when she really couldn’t be sure if she were going to reach out and touch stone at any moment.

Not buried alive, then. Not yet.

Viggo pressed her hand in his own. “See? It’s all right, then.”

Cat nodded. His tunic was wet, soaked through, more than the waterfall had soaked hers. She touched his sleeve. “You didn’t swim in this, did you?”

A shudder went through him, as if he’d touched something slimy in the darkness. “We had to bring the raft over from the shore. Tomas couldn’t do it alone. I waited to call you because I didn’t want you in the water with blood on your shirt.”

Cat looked quickly at the edge of the raft. She could just see it now as her eyes adjusted: the hard edge of the raft and, beyond it, the dark ripple and swirl of black water. “There aren’t kelpies in this lake, are there?”

Viggo seemed to have lost his voice and said nothing. His hands were cold on her shoulders.

“Yes.” It was Tomas who answered the question. The older man grunted briefly, as if tugging on something. A rope, she guessed, attached to the opposite bank. Something to draw them back in. “Yes, kelpies live in this lake. Kelpies and . . . other things.”

Cat’s breath caught. She looked at the dark water again, half imagining slimy, crawling things snatching at the edge of the raft. “What things?”

“Nothing dangerous.” Tomas sounded apologetic, as if he had meant to tell them about the inhabitants of the black lake and only forgotten until now, when it was too late. “Kelpies, a few eels . . . small ones. They’re good eating, if you’ve the traps to catch them. And—there are the Deepmulk. But they’re harmless.”

Something scraped against the underside of the raft. Something large. Cat swore. Viggo caught her shoulders, pressing her back against his chest as if to steady her. Or himself. Cat pressed a hand over her mouth to quiet her own breathing, to silence the curses that still waited on her tongue and to hide her own fear. Deepmulk. It was a name she’d heard before, one from the old tales that servants whispered at night around their fires as they fed their children and rested their aching feet by the flames. Lake giants. Even when she’d lived on the edge of the ocean, with its dark and raging waters, its currents and waves that hissed and changed, she’d scoffed the stories as superstition. They were luck-bringers, the Deepmulk. If seen under the moonlight, their scales bleached white by the only light they would ever love, life was supposed to be better for it. Longer years, sicknesses healed, dead loved ones returned. Superstition, all of it. The sort of stories that servants liked, as if they were trying hard to give some life to their dull routines. Magic and færies, luck and myth, those were the sort of tales they told.

But if the Deepmulk were real, they were subterranean monsters, not stories or luck-bringers or myth and legend. They were lake fish, people would admit, if pressed past the lore and superstition. Fish as long as a boat’s hull, as wide across as a man was tall. Bottom feeders, the older men would say, men who’d fished for them all their lives and never caught anything worth telling of. They lived longer than the lives of a hundred kings and grew slow and strong, like the oaks in the forest.

“Have you seen them?” Cat asked to the darkness, hope wavering in her that Tomas was only telling stories he’d heard from another. “The Deepmulk?”

“Of course,” Tomas said. He sounded amused, as if he could hear her fear and was laughing at her quietly, while she couldn’t see him. “Often. You will too, while you’re here. They’re friendly enough. And far more harmless than the kelpies.”

“They aren’t vicious,” Cat said automatically.

“No, not vicious.” The raft grated on hard sand, rocking beneath her feet, and Tomas stepped off into the shallows, the splash of his tread loud in the stillness of the cave. “Only predators. But the Deepmulk are a bit like sheep, really. Slow, fat old sheep.”

Cat rubbed her arm, goosebumps rippling over her skin as she climbed off the raft and waded onto the beach. Dark water swirled behind her. Something breeched the surface momentarily when she looked back, and she caught a glimpse of pale scales and white flesh. She shuddered. Anything less like a fat old sheep, she couldn’t imagine.

Viggo was shaking now, although he tried to hide it. Cat pressed against him to offer her warmth. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Tomas spoke again from somewhere to their left, his voice oddly displaced in the quiet, “I’ll go back for the others. Shouldn’t have more than two or three on the raft at a time. Go up to the cabins, see if you can find us some torches . . .” his voice trailed off, and he was gone.

Cat listened to ripple of the raft vanishing into the darkness, then pressed her forehead against Viggo’s chest. “All right?”

Viggo laughed. The sound was choked, as if he couldn’t quite get his breath properly. “Deepmulk. Night climbs, black lakes buried underground. He’s got nerve, I’ll give him that.” His hands were still shaking, and he buried them in her hair. His fingers were cold. She could feel his heart pounding through his wet tunic, erratic as it had been when they’d run from Lant Curtis. “Let’s get away from the water.”

They found the cabins about a hundred yards up the beach. Viggo cast around in the darkness until he found dry wood, and in a few minutes he had a fire burning in a pit. The red light flared across the sand beneath their feet, sand as black as the rocks around them. The light soared away from them and petered into darkness. Four rough, low cabins lay in the lee of the cave wall. Stone reared above them, leaning over the thatched roofs with an ominous air, but Cat could see no sign of the curve of a ceiling. Viggo lit a torch, and the light cast shadows on the craggy rocks, shadows that danced and cavorted about madly as he fixed it into a cleft in the cliffside.

Cat glanced around at the gloomy shadows, the glinting black sand, and the dismal cabins, trying to imagine Tomas here as a young man—and Maeva, too. What had she thought of this place when he’d brought here for the first time? Had she felt the same plunging fear in her gut that Cat felt now?

Viggo slipped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her shoulder, whispering, “Home at last, eh?”

She laughed, his hot breath sending a shiver down her back that not even the chill of the lake could dispel.

A quarter of an hour later, they were all huddled around the fire holding their hands out over the leaping flames and leaning in to let the warmth soak into their damp clothing.

Viggo scouted the cabins and came back with an armful of blankets thick with dust but drier than anything any of them were carrying. He passed them around, trying to ignore the way none of them would make eye contact with him, as if something about the cave—Tomas called it Ebosa—had begun to really strike home to them what they’d done and what the consequences for it would be when they were caught.

Only Warren seemed comfortable in his own skin, meeting Viggo’s gaze with his customary belligerence as he settled by the fire, leaning back against a log with his legs stretched out. The uneasy peace they’d forged between them in the swamp had lasted across the heath and into the Krathe, but Viggo could feel it eroding with every passing second.

Viggo shook the thought out of his head and said, louder than he’d meant to, “Not a lot of food left. We may have to go out hunting tomorrow before we run low.”

No one answered. The fire crackled, throwing sparks up into the darkness, and Tomas, sitting in the doorway of one of the cabins, gave him an encouraging gesture. Viggo cursed him under his breath and continued, “Bria, maybe you and Cat—”

“Why Bria?” Warren snarled.

Viggo stared at him, stunned, and said, “She knows the most about foraging—”

“S—so?”

Bria bent her head, tucking sleek hair behind one ear, and hissed, “Warren, stop.”

He glanced at her, hesitating, and sat back against the log, his dark eyes smoldering with resentment. “Didn’t take you l—long to start giving out orders. Is that h—how it’s going to be n—now . . . Ghost Walker?”

He spat the name like it was a curse. Viggo bit his tongue to silence a retort just as Carver spoke up, his pale eyes flat and dangerously cold as he glared at Warren. “I didn’t notice you offering any brilliant suggestions, mute.”

The taut peace around the fire snapped instantly. Tension seared through the stones. Warren leaned forward, baring incisors painted red by the flames burning in the pit. “D—don’t call m—me that.”

A chill rippled down Viggo’s spine. He’d seen Warren angry before, many times, but this was more than that—deeper. Hatred that had an edge to it, birthed from abuse, from senseless, stupid torture and the slow burn of helplessness. He’d felt it himself a thousand times in the fight houses, and it still gnawed at his nightmares.

He swallowed the anxiety rising in his throat and made a conciliatory gesture. “We’re tired. Let’s not start anything.”

Bria touched Warren’s arm, and he shrugged, resting his forearms on his knees and looking out toward the lake, his jaw still working. Carver glanced between the two of them, flashed the devil’s grin that Viggo remembered so well from the Core, and said with an exaggerated stutter, “S—s—sure.”

Warren whipped around and was on him in a breath, slamming him so hard to the sand that all the air left his lungs in a shattered grunt. Bria screamed at him, a string of curses that Viggo didn’t quite catch. Viggo lunged forward, tackling Warren, and took a blow that felt as though it had shattered his skull. Warren hadn’t touched the knife at his side or the war-axe in the sand beside him, but already he was winning. Eight months of abuse had done its work on him, had lit a fire in his soul that fed on anger and wanted blood. Blood for every minute of burning humiliation, blood for every insult, for every barbed comment and mocking laugh. For a smile that taunted him for what he wasn’t allowed to do.

Only now, he was his own master. And there was no one to tell him what he could and couldn’t do.

An elbow struck Viggo in ribs. He had blood in his eyes, in his mouth. He grunted, fighting off the wolf as it tore through his chest, set on fire by the taste of blood and the promise of a fight. “C’mon, Baxter! Get ahold of yourself.”

He managed to haul Warren off, and Carver scrambled backward, swearing and bleeding from his shattered nose and a split lip.

Warren turned on Viggo, his teeth bared. “G—get off m—e.” His voice was torn with fury, every word on his tongue nearly ripped in half by anger. “I d—don’t answer to y—you.”

He moved toward Carver, who was on his feet by this time, a knife in his hand and the demon that ruled his soul burning in his eyes. He spat, snarling, “No trainers to break it up this time, mute. You sure about this?”

“Shut up, Carver!” Viggo turned on him, shaking with adrenaline, the roar of the fight houses in his head. Red light flickered. “By every god of war, can you still be this stupid? Dex is back in Ivra alone, Lant Curtis is ready to hang all of us from the walls, including her, and this is what you’re fighting over?”

Carver paled, and he took a step back as unsteadily as if Viggo had struck him. Viggo swung around, including Warren in his glare, and spat, “We’re going to die out here.” His voice, his stupid voice, broke, and he cursed it. “It’s half winter already, and we don’t have any supplies. We’re going to starve to death or freeze or kill each other before spring, and apparently neither of you care because we’re still having the same stupid fights we had when we were twelve! For gods’ sakes, if you can’t get along for yourselves, at least try for the partners you were supposed to protect!”

They were all staring at him, every one of them, shocked into silence. He stood there, trembling with fury, waiting for Warren to spit at his feet and walk away.

But he didn’t. The silence that hung in the air stretched until it felt like it would smother him. At last, Viggo kicked a stone into the fire and walked away, out of the circle of firelight, away from the silence, away from Cat, away from this mess that he’d wanted so much to fix and only made worse. Away from every stupid decision he’d made in the last two weeks.

The darkness swallowed him.

The lakeshore glimmered in the moonlight leaking through the crack in the vaulted ceiling. White on black shimmered cold as frost. Viggo paused at the edge of the water, looking out over the still water. The Deepmulk were stirring. Kelpies darted through the dark water around them, needles of glowing color flashing around the slow, ponderous bodies. He could see the ripples in the inky water where they passed, the stir in the darkness, the flash of dead-white scales. He watched them for a long time, feeling his jaw swell with a bruise that would take weeks to heal. If they were starving, could they catch and eat the Deepmulk? Or would their souls burn in hell for even considering it?

He choked on a laugh. His soul would burn anyway. He’d come out here with the intention of atoning for the marks against his soul, but, somehow, the idea had seemed easier when he’d been back in Ivra.

That’s not how it works, Tomas had told him, the memory stinging as sharply as it had when the man had first said the words.

Viggo ran a hand over his face, cursing under his breath, and whispered, “You don’t know that.”

The denial gave him less comfort than it had the first time. He glanced over his shoulder, looking back toward the cabins, and saw the fire go out, doused by the last to leave it. They were retreating to the cabins now, separated into the teams the lords had divided them into. He tried not to think of what Tomas would think of tonight’s display. Did he regret bringing them here yet? He’d had more than his share of chances to disappear on his way across the heath and once they’d reached the Krathe again. Viggo still wasn’t sure why he stayed.

Unless the prospect of being alone in Ebosa with the ghost of his dead wife was enough to make him wish for even their sour company.

Viggo’s skin prickled. One of the Deepmulk breeched the surface, sending ripples fanning out over the black water. He caught a glimpse of milky eyes and a gaping jaw and turned away swiftly, scrambling back up the sandy slope.

The cabins were silent when he reached them, windows dark and doors shut tightly against the gathering cold. Or the threat of each other’s company. He paused, suddenly not sure which to turn to or where Cat had disappeared once he’d gone.

Probably into a cabin with Bria and Warren. Where else? They might as well be back in the Core now with lines drawn between the units and her place of belonging squarely on the opposite side as himself.

He cursed and found a seat by the dead fire, kicked to coals and covered in sand by the last to leave. His clothes were still damp, and a chill traveled up through the ground and into his bones, gnawing its way into his soul. His chest hurt. He’d meant for things to begin to fall into place once they’d reached Ebosa—tensions to ease, plans suddenly becoming clear.

Instead, he felt like the world had begun to crumble out from beneath them.

A voice behind him nearly startled him out of his skin. “She went in there.”

He whipped around.

Rylee.

She stepped over the log he was leaning against and sat, indicating one of the cabins. “That cabin. Warren and Bria are with her.”

Viggo nodded, his throat tightening so he couldn’t quite breathe properly. At last he whispered hoarsely, “Thanks.”

She shrugged, not looking at him, and said bluntly, “You’re right, you know.”

Sand dug into his legs, cold as needles in his flesh.

“Not about dying. I’m not ready to die.” She looked up toward the lake, watching the moonlight cascading through the crack with the waterfall. “But about fighting each other over things that don’t matter.”

His tongue felt suddenly wooden, and he couldn’t think of a word to say to that. He should have expected it, really. Rylee, somehow, always understood what he meant, even when he couldn’t get the words out properly. “Probably won’t matter,” he said at last.

Her face twisted with annoyance. “Not to Carver. He’s too stupid to understand.” She hesitated, thinking for a minute, and added softer, “Warren knows you’re right. I don’t know if he’ll come around. But . . . he does know it.”

Viggo glanced at her inquiringly, and she shrugged. “My master and his were cousins. We spent a lot of time together when he was visiting.”

He nodded. Silence slipped between them, softened only by the far-off music of the falls. Viggo bit his tongue, not knowing how to break the stillness and suddenly not sure that he should. He would start babbling if he did, and apologies and questions and stupid excuses that meant nothing would flow out and choke the tenuous peace between them.

Rylee raked hair out of her face. “Dex was going to kill her that night. Cat, I mean.”

Viggo couldn’t look at her, cold spreading up his spine. He could hear the rain again, from the night the two girls went after his newly-assigned partner. See Cat’s blood on the knife—on Rylee’s hands. Where would he be now if he’d been too late to save Cat from them?

Dead, probably. And Fane with him. Cat had been the only thing that had kept him alive in the last year. Without her—he didn’t want to think about it.

“I didn’t know Dex would go that far.” Rylee tucked her hands beneath her legs, her face white with the chill coming off the lake. “I should’ve stopped it.”

“You should tell Cat that,” Viggo said hoarsely.

She gave him a wry smile. “I’m going to. When I have the nerve.”

He bit his tongue, realizing for the first time that her silence in the last few days had nothing to do with him and everything to do with his partner.

Rylee tossed a pebble into the remains of the fire. “She’s good for you. Better than Dex was.”

Viggo couldn’t bring himself to agree, although he knew it was true. Dex knew how to control people, how to tug strings and get everything she wanted when she’d wanted it. Rylee had felt it as keenly as he had back then.

They’d both been lucky to get away from her, even if he hadn’t thought so then.

Guilt dug into the back of his neck as he remembered where she was now, in Ivra, alone. He sat up, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “We were all a mess,” he said quickly, trying to forget what he’d been thinking. “All of us. It’s different now. She’ll be different.”

Rylee uttered a laugh and stood, brushing sand from her trousers. “I doubt it.” She turned back to her cabin and hesitated, looking back at him with an expression he couldn’t read. “You can’t trust him, Viggo. Carver, I mean. You know that, don’t you?”

A chill rippled down his arms, and she was gone before he could ask what she meant by that.

Cat was nearly asleep when the soft knock broke the silence in the cabin. She sat up, pushing the blankets aside with a wave of relief, and glanced in Warren’s direction.

The man hadn’t moved. He was sitting on the floor, watching the fire fall to coals, his dark face set and impassive with a look in his eyes like gathering thunder.

Bria sat up, too, and looked at the door, then at Cat. She was frowning slightly, as if she—and everyone else with her—were still trying to work out the strange relationship between her and Viggo and understand how even time could have healed the bitter animosity between them. She bit her lip, looking at Warren, and whispered hesitantly, “You can stay if you like.”

Warren looked at her, too, and Cat flashed them both a smile as she gathered her blankets to her chest. “Goodnight.”

Viggo was waiting when she slipped out. His eyes were hollow, and he looked more tired than she had seen him since the nights he’d come home from the fight houses. Bruised, cut, and hollow, with a smile that he somehow thought would hide everything from her.

It hadn’t then. It wouldn’t now either, and they both knew it. He didn’t even try. “I’m sorry.”

Cat stared at him, her heart aching, and whispered, “Not everything is your fault, Viggo.”

“I started this.”

“Did you?”

“I should’ve—” he stopped, and she could see the torment in his eyes. Gods, she forgot how he loved. Everyone he stumbled across became family, the kind he couldn’t leave behind, the kind he was instantly responsible for. Even Tomas. She could see it already in how Viggo looked at the man.

It never took long. He really couldn’t have left Rylee behind. It would’ve torn his soul in half.

She was so different. So impossibly different. People came and went in her life, and she forgot them as quickly as they went. What was the use in remembering? She remembered the ones who’d hurt her too badly to forget. Her mother. Lant Curtis. Fane.

And Viggo. She would remember Viggo forever. He lived in her soul, in every thought, in her breath and her sleep and her silence, although it wasn’t the hurt that kept him there.

She didn’t know the reason. She would, if she probed deeper into the feeling.

Maybe she was afraid to know.

“We should’ve run away?” she asked, meaning it to be a joke, and felt the breath catch in her throat at the instant agreement that flashed through his eyes. She stepped past him hurriedly, hugging the blankets to her chest, and said over her shoulder, “I’m freezing.”

He followed her into their cabin and lit a fire without comment, his face grim and thoughtful. Cat curled up in her bunk with the blankets, waiting impatiently for the tiny flame to catch on the kindling and the room to warm.

After a minute, she shifted, resting her chin on her arms. “Do you want me to ask Tomas to light it?”

The look he shot over his shoulder made her laugh, and he rose and padded over to sit on the floor by her bed. “You’re not angry?”

“Should I be?”

“Maybe. I thought you would be.”

“Are you implying that I’m usually mad at you?”

He laughed. Her spirits rose, and suddenly she wished they had run away, just the two of them. Could they have reached the coast by now if they’d left when Lant first came after them, instead of returning to Ivra and finding themselves entangled with Tomas and Rylee and the rest of them?

Maybe. She tried to picture it in her head, what that would have been like, and couldn’t. It was too impossible, too far off.

But, gods. How she still wanted it.

Viggo frowned. “What?”

Cat sat up abruptly with her skin burning and hoped that the light of the growing fire wasn’t enough to give away the red in her cheeks. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. I am mad at you.”

His expression faltered, and she was instantly sorry. “You’ve got that idea in my head now. Of running away.”

He grinned. “Where would we go?”

Cat hugged her knees to her chest and thought about it. “The coast. To the west, though, not south.”

He scooted up on the bed next to her and leaned against the wall. “Definitely. Cliffs, not flat sand.”

“Where the gulls nest.”

Viggo laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. “West to the coastline, so you can see the gulls nesting and I can see the waves. Then where?”

“Beyora?” Cat curled up against his side, and he put his arm around her shoulders. “We could disguise ourselves and go into the markets and see the spice merchants and the jugglers and the fur traders.”

“You hate cities.”

“But you like them.” Cat pressed her face into his shoulder, breathing in the smell of the wolf in his skin. “You would love it.”

He laughed quietly. “Maybe I would.”

He was silent so long that Cat almost thought he’d fallen asleep. At last, he stirred, murmuring, “I’ll let you go to bed.”

Cat moved away, watched him add wood to the fire and fall into his own bunk. He was asleep long before she was. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine winding through the streets of Beyora together, smelling the spices and seeing all the sights they’d heard about so often in the tales they told of the place in Ivra.

She fell asleep before she could see it fully and dreamed of wandering strange city streets with her hand in Viggo’s. But when she looked up at him, only the Ghost Walker’s burning eyes looked back.

The jays were calling. Viggo could hear them in the hollows, in the branches overhead, and the ravines cut into the forest floor. Their voices rose in the stillness of the Krathe, punctuated only by the dull impact of Warren’s axe.

The ash Warren was felling shuddered, its leafless branches quivering with strain. With a creak and grinding snap it crashed to the ground, taking several smaller trees with it as it fell. Warren stepped back, wiped sweat from his neck, and spat in the grass. Viggo stripped the last of the branches from a slim birch and straightened up. “Want a break?”

Warren kicked a shattered limb to one side and shrugged. “Why n—not.”

Relief tugged at Viggo’s chest. He rubbed his hands in the dirt, his fingers so sticky from the sap that they clung together, and went to rinse them in the stream winding through the undergrowth.

Warren joined him. The water felt like snowmelt as Viggo scrubbed the dirt and sap from his hands and arms, cold as the runoff from the mountains in the Core. Warren plunged his head and shoulders into the stream and straightened up, shaking water out of his eyes. His hands were bleeding. Burst blisters or grazes from the haft of his axe.

Autumn had its roots in the ground. The leaves weren’t green anymore, the trees shedding their foliage like a woman sloughing off her cloak. Geese passed by overhead, their honking cries a herald to the coming winter, and squirrels whisked through the branches overhead on business so important they couldn’t be bothered to stop and scold.

“F—feels good, being out h—here,” Warren said quietly. Viggo glanced at him, surprised by the break in the silence between them, but the other man wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were on the trees, the pale sky and the waving branches, on the clear stream winding through the undergrowth and the darkness between the great trunks. “Like you c—can breathe.”

Viggo nodded, some of the tension in his chest easing. “Like no one’s looking over your shoulder.”

Warren barked a deep laugh. “No one b—but ghosts, anyway.”

Viggo bit back a laugh. Silence lapsed between them again, more comfortable this time. After a moment Warren said, “Heard Cat g—got hurt pretty bad in Ivra.”

Viggo’s jaw tightened, and he bit his tongue as the ghosts Warren had summoned rose out of the dim shadows beneath the trees and began to whisper. Fane Ravenstone, Joseph Brenner, Lant Curtis. He’d never hated so many men before. Not in Fydera. The heaviest grudge he could remember carrying had been against Warren in those days. Their rivalry seemed stupid to him now, like a child’s quarrel. “Yeah, she did,” he said quietly. The ripple of the stream and the call of the jays helped to silence the whispering he still heard wherever he went. In the Krathe, in Ebosa, in his cabin. “My fault. I guess you never really know how stupid you are until someone shoves your face in it.”

Warren nodded, his gaze lingering on Viggo’s bare arms and the scars written into his flesh like the Pale Lady’s fingerprints. “Guess you don’t.” He paused, rolling a white stone between his fingers. “Asked her to c—come west with Bria and me.”

Viggo looked down at his hands, tracing the blisters in his palm. Another splinter was lodged in his thumb. He picked at it, a thin noose seeming to tighten around his throat. “What’d she say?”

“Said it was t—too late for that.”

Too late. Viggo frowned, trying to work through the odd sentence. Too late for what? To reach the western cliffs without Lant Curtis and his men slitting their throats?

Or too late to leave him behind, after they’d shattered together and found the only peace either of them could remember at each other’s side?

“Bria doesn’t want to g—go either.” Warren leaned back on his elbows, watching as three jays fought over the rights to a beechwood tree. “So I’m stuck h—here.”

“Is that so bad?”

Warren’s eyes darkened, a flicker of last night’s anger darting through his expression, and he didn’t reply.

Viggo rubbed a hand down his arm, feeling one of the scars on his left arm itch and burn under his fingers, as if it were boring into his flesh. “I still remember,” he wanted to blurt out stupidly. “I want to make it right. I started the fight and scarred your face over nothing, and I’m sorry.”

No. It hadn’t been over nothing. He’d been afraid. Afraid of Warren, afraid of Vladimer, afraid to lose his place, knowing there wasn’t anyone in the camp more likely to take it from him than Warren had been. His stutter wouldn’t have held him back, not if that first fight had ended differently. Or if Warren had come after him later, when his ribs were still healing and he was vulnerable.

Things should have ended differently back then. He still didn’t understand why they hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. Good god, his hands were shaking. Was he really such a coward as all this? “For starting that fight. It was my fault.”

Warren shrugged, his jawline set like stone and his voice harsh with caustic mockery. “Should have left your f—friend to hang a few more days. Might have helped his ego.”

“Not last night.” His throat closed as if the Pale Lady knew what he was trying to do and was determined to stop it with her white hands. Had Tomas been right? Were his sins scored too deeply into his soul to heal? Maybe so. But he was going to try anyway, whatever came of it. “After you came to the Core. When I—” he gestured awkwardly at Warren’s cheek, “did that.”

Warren glanced at him, a frown knotted into his brow. After a breath, he rumbled a laugh and looked away, back to the jay that had finally claimed the beechwood tree. It hopped among the branches, preening and fluffing its feathers. “Your memory’s w—wrong. I remember making pulp out of your ribs.”

Viggo winced. “No, I do remember that part.”

Warren grinned. “You l—limped around like a sore puppy for three months.”

Viggo laughed and looked down, rubbing at the sap between his fingers. “Remember that, too.” He hesitated, listening to the chatter of the falls and the wind rushing through the branches overhead, and said softly, “You didn’t come after me, though. I’ve always wondered why.”

“Didn’t need to.”

“You could’ve had my place. Led my unit.”

“P—probably.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Warren flashed a grin at him. “Didn’t want it.”

Viggo stared at him, lost for words.

“Didn’t want B—Bria’s place either.” Warren sat up. He tossed a stone into the stream and watched it sink. “They got all in your h—head. Vladimer and Freya and all of them. Told you it mattered, made you believe in it. And here you are anyway.” He shrugged. “I n—never really bought it. Causing trouble is better.”

“It’s a good time for that now.” Viggo stood, brushing loam from his trousers, his chest feeling strangely light. “Maybe you can give me lessons.”

Warren hefted his axe and turned back toward the ash tree he’d felled. “You’ll f—figure it out, Ghost Walker. You’ve always had a devil’s streak in you. Give it time. It’ll c—come out.”

The grave lay at the back of the tower, only an arm’s breadth from the stone wall. Lant could hear the lake outside, lapping against the stones, reaching for the bones beneath the foundation as if to draw them out and bury them in its depths. In another few years, the wall would collapse, and the lake would claim the woman buried here, devouring her the way it did everything it touched.

In time.

Lant crouched, wiping moss from the gravestone. It looked like a broken piece from the ruins around him, set above the body of a woman no one would come to mourn.

Maeva.

He traced the letters with his thumb, remembering her slender frame, her tangled, ringleted hair.

Her scream.

The door opened behind him, and Mason appeared from the darkness, venturing into the room with an uneasy glance at the shattered roof above, as if the beams might come down on them at any moment. “Bloody haunt. We ought to shove it into the lake before we leave. Probably wouldn’t take more than a good push.”

Lant sat back on his heels, not taking his eyes from the grave. A beetle trundled across the stone, its black shell glinting in the moonlight. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” he said softly. “A witch is buried here. You wouldn’t want her screaming in your nightmares, would you?”

Mason’s eyes darted toward the grave, and he took an involuntary step back, his tongue darting nervously over his crimson teeth. Silver clicked in his mouth, a stud through his tongue to mark him as a man who’d tasted flesh—and wanted more. “I heard that story.” His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper, the pale scars on his throat a testament to his ruined vocal cords as if a dog had gotten its teeth into his flesh. “Heard you killed her. But so what? No Dreyen has enough of a soul to leave anything behind.”

“You haven’t heard the full story then.” Lant stood, wiping mud from his hands. “The Bonesmith loved a human. A witch. And they leave everything behind.”

The man’s face paled.

“Did you want something or did you just come to interrupt?”

Mason stared at him for a breath, and his eyes darted toward the grave, as if wondering what it was that he was interrupting. “The boy’s gone.” When Lant didn’t reply, he shifted nervously. “Ropes have been cut. Niles thinks they must have come for him sometime in the last few days.”

Lant nodded, saying softly, “Well. We’ll just have to wait, then, won’t we?”

It froze that night. When Viggo woke, a thin sheet of ice had covered the lake, silver gray in the dim light of dawn. The air was sharp with frost. He lit a fire in the fire pit while Cat disappeared into the lean-to they’d converted into a storehouse for their provisions. When she came out again, she was carrying a battered copper kettle and an armful of apples. Viggo took the kettle from her and went for water.

A tiny stream flowed through the black sand, trickling down the rocky walls of the grotto and digging a trench on its way to join the lake. Its water was cleaner than the lake’s and usually colder. Today, ice frosted the stones, and only a dribble of water still flowed. Viggo filled the kettle and returned to the fire. “It’s getting colder.”

Cat nodded. She added wild oats, sliced apples, and blackberries into the kettle and hung it over the fire. Her fingers were purple, stained with blackberry juice. She wiped them absently on her trousers, her eyes on the fire. “It’ll be snowing in a few weeks.”

Viggo crouched down beside her, watching flames lick the bottom of the battered kettle. “Wood’ll be scarce if we aren’t careful with it,” he said slowly. “Another reason to share the cabins. I don’t fancy chopping trees in three feet of snow.”

Cat nodded again, her face turned away when he glanced toward her. She didn’t like the idea, he knew that. He’d been hinting about it to her for days—splitting up the teams, moving men into one cabin and women into another. Heating two instead of all four. Once the snow came, they would need all the heat they could get, and spreading out as they had was a waste of wood.

Only, it meant the end to their whispered conversations after the lights went out. To his being there when she woke in a panic because the walls were closing in on her and the doors in her nightmares were locked. To having her near enough to reach for when he dreamed of the fight houses and Kaleb Rainwood’s dead eyes.

When he thought of it that way, he liked the idea even less than she did.

Bria joined them first, her hair twisted back, and Warren trailed behind her. Tomas followed them, and the rest trickled out of the cabins, drawn by the crackle of the fire and the smell of hot food.

Carver came last of all, his face a mess of bruises and his pale eyes so distant that Viggo’s stomach twisted. They’d begun to find common ground, all of them, except him. He’d retreated, growing silent, keeping to himself in a way that Viggo could never remember him doing in the Core.

Whatever Lant Curtis had done to him, it was festering like a wound in his soul.

Viggo cleared his throat, looking down at his hands. “I figured we’d move around the cabins today.”

The others froze. Dakota rubbed his face, his eyes still blurry with sleep. “Move them where?”

Viggo raised an eyebrow. Warren leaned forward adding wood to the fire, and said soberly, “Other side of the cave. Near the l—lake.”

Dakota glanced over his shoulder, squinting at the distant lake, and swore. “That’s a long way.”

Warren uttered an indelicate snort. A few others laughed. Dakota frowned, trying to catch the joke, and Warren shook his head. “Bet if w—we throw him in the lake, he’ll wake up the rest of the way.”

More laughter. Encouraged, Viggo pressed on, hopeful they wouldn’t cut him off before he’d had a chance to explain his reasons. “I figure we’ll save wood if we only have fires in two of the cabins during the winter.”

Tomas blew on the steaming oats in his bowl and nodded. “We’ll need another to store meat and provisions in.”

Viggo glanced at him in relief, thankful that the man understood his idea immediately and was willing to back him up. “Definitely.”

“Wood, too.” Tomas’s eyes twinkled at him. The man knew, no doubt, how out of his depth Viggo felt. “Once it begins snowing, almost everything down here will be slick with ice and frost. Not easy to make a fire with wood like that.”

Viggo nodded and looked around, trying to gauge their reactions. No one spoke. “I thought we could split it up like we did in the Core. Women in one, men in the other.”

Silence. None of them looked particularly happy with the idea. Bria was looking at her hands, avoiding his eyes, and Warren’s face was as closed and uncommunicative as it had been the first day they arrived. Dakota was still trying to understand the implications of his suggestion. “So,” he said slowly. “Not with our partners?” His eyes found Rylee instinctively.

Viggo glanced at Cat. She smiled at him encouragingly, the blue in her eyes reassuring him that she wasn’t faking the expression. “Not with our partners,” he said firmly. “It won’t kill us. And it may save our skins if the snows turn out bad enough to keep us from chopping wood for a few weeks.”

Warren sat back against a log, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. “I am n—not sharing a room with Dakota,” he said flatly.

Viggo winced, hearing a fight in the offing. Dakota somehow managed to look highly insulted in his groggy state. “Why not?”

Warren raised an eyebrow at him. “You s—snore.”

Relief flooded through Viggo’s chest. Several others laughed, and even Rylee managed a fleeting smile. “He does,” she said, leaning forward to stir the oats bubbling over the fire. “Used to shake the shutters in Ivra.”

“We stuffed a sock in his mouth at the Core,” Viggo said, casting Dakota a grin. “We could try it again.”

“I do not snore!” Dakota blew out a frustrated breath and looked at Viggo. “Isn’t there a better way we can arrange things?”

Viggo shrugged. “We could all sleep in one cabin.”

The girls groaned. Dakota brightened visibly. “That wouldn’t be so bad.”

Warren’s brow knotted. “Cray, I s—swear, I really will feed y—you to the fish.”

Dakota squinted at him, probably weighing out how likely the other man was to carry out the threat, then sat back and shrugged, defeated. “Wasn’t my idea.”

Viggo snorted a laugh and rose to his feet to add more wood to the fire. “It’s settled then. Men in one, women in the other. Let’s eat.”

The lake was melting by the time they went back to the cabins, the thin sheet of ice vanishing as if the sun had breathed on it.

Viggo stripped the blankets and sheets from his bed. They smelled of mold and dust and worse things. They hadn’t had time to wash anything when they’d first come here with Tomas. Even after, in the last few days, food and warmth had been uppermost in all of their minds. They’d had no time for something as mundane and ordinary as washing the sheets.

Did they have time for it now? He didn’t know. The days were colder now, the nights sharp with the breath of winter, but high noon was still as warm as if summer hadn’t run from them quite yet. He ran his hand over the lumpy mattress, listening to the rustle of the straw tick. Contentment swelled in his throat. They did have time. Of course they did. Hunting would be done this evening, tomorrow, next week. Next year even. They had all the time in the world.

Cat came in behind him, wrinkling her nose at all the dust he was raising. “I thought we were only moving our things?”

“Might as well wash the bedding too,” Viggo said. “It smells.”

She nodded and began gathering the things scattered around the floor and beneath her bed. Viggo glanced over his shoulder, watching her shove them into a bag and begin to pull the sheets off the bed. “Are you mad?”

She shrugged, her back still to him. “It makes sense.”

Viggo stifled a grin. “But you’ll miss me.”

“No doubt.” The smile she cast over her shoulder at him made him remember the days before they’d left Ivra when her leg was still healing and they’d been at peace enough to have fun together, to tease and wrestle and play games like children instead of adults. When every minute hadn’t seemed to mean the difference between life and death. “We can always go search for that adder’s skin you were going to buy me. Put it under your pillow instead.”

Viggo forced a laugh. He did dream about her sometimes, but the dreams were not the sort that adder’s skin was supposed to summon. They were black dreams, haunted by the Ghost Walker. He straightened up, tossed his pillow at her. “Isn’t there anything you’ll miss about rooming with me?”

“Well . . .” she paused, thinking for a breath. “No, I can’t think of anything.”

He put his arms around her, blankets at all. “No one to crawl in with when you wake up in the morning, no one to talk to at night—”

“I imagine Bria and Rylee are both capable of talking.”

Viggo buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of the leopard. “No one to blame when you can’t sleep.”

“I can still blame you. As a favor.”

He dug his fingers into her ribs, tickling her through the blankets. She yelped and twisted, shoved him away. They wrestled for a moment, each trying to gain the upper hand until the sheets tangled around his feet and brought them both down. She landed on his chest, nearly knocking the wind out of him, and he lay on his back and laughed until he couldn’t breathe anyway.

Cat smacked his shoulder, struggling upright. She was laughing too, and her soul was in her eyes. “Clumsy. Are you trying to kill us both? Get off me.”

He scrambled upright, kicked the blankets away, and helped her up. “Your fault. I thought we were supposed to be working?”

“You started it.”

Viggo snatched for her again, but she dodged and threw the blanket at him, making it out the door before he could disentangle himself. He laughed and gathered up their blankets in a single heap, carrying them outside.

The rest were at the lake. Obviously, some of them, probably Bria or Rylee, had come across the same idea as himself. As close as he was to the blankets now, he couldn’t blame them.

They really did reek.

Dakota looked up as he approached, grinning as he caught a glimpse of the pile in Viggo’s arms. “Have enough there, Viggo?” he called. “Or do you want a few more?”

“Very funny.” Viggo dumped the pile on the sand, giving Cat a smirk. “Cat left me with everything.”

Cat waded into the lake. Tomas hauled a blanket from the water and passed her one end. “Really? Doesn’t sound like her.”

Cat cast him a dazzling smile as they wrung the blanket out together. “Exactly. I would never.”

Viggo squinted at them both. “Then why do I have everything?”

“You didn’t deserve help.”

“Does he ever?” Rylee was up to her knees in the lake, her feet bare and her trouser legs rolled up. She had mud on her nose. “Dakota, if you splash me again, I swear on my grave that I will end you.”

Dakota stuck his tongue out at her and kicked water at Warren instead. Warren shook his head, wiping water out of his eyes with his forearm, and bared his teeth at the other man. “Fancy b—being drowned?”

Dakota smirked at him. “No.”

“Then q—quit.”

Viggo bit back a laugh and looked around. His heart faltered a half beat as he realized whose voice he’d been missing. Carver wasn’t with them, not on the lakeshore and not around the cabins, at least as far as he could see. He opened his mouth to ask and shut it again. They were enjoying themselves. Warren, Bria, Rylee. Even Tomas looked faintly amused by the friendly teasing. Once Carver joined, the tension would be back. He liked it the way it was, at least for now.

The clean blankets were laid on the rocks as they finished with them, stretched out where they could drip dry. Tomas had mentioned something about animal fat and ashes, saying he would teach them to make soap later, but for now the rinse was better than nothing. Cat bumped against Viggo’s side, shuffling through the still-dirty pile he’d brought down to the lake with him. “Where’s my extra shirt? I might as well wash it now.”

Viggo kicked off his boots and went to help the three still in the water with the washing.  The water was icy cold, and he swore when he stepped into it. “Woman, do you think I keep track of where your clothing is? It’s probably back at the cabin where you left it.”

She flicked a pebble at him and disappeared.

Dakota splashed up next to him, retrieving another blanket from the pile waiting to be washed. He plunged it into the icy water. Viggo followed suit, swishing the thick fabric about and squeezing the dirt from it. Warren narrowed his eyes at the two of them. “How c—come you d—don’t splash him?” he asked Dakota, nodding at Viggo.

Viggo grinned, looking at Dakota, too, as he waited for the answer. Dakota cast them a superior look. “Because he’s the boss. That’s why.” He shrugged, hauling the wet blanket out of the water and letting it flop back in again. “Besides, he’s mean. I can get Rylee a few times before she kills me, but Viggo doesn’t let me have any slack. He really would drown me.”

“What, and I—I won’t?”

Dakota flashed him a grin. “No. I can always tell just how far to push a person before they snap. You have some room left.” He flicked water at Warren again.

Warren dropped the blanket he was cleaning and dove forward, knocking him back off his feet and into the water. They both went under, amid shouts from the shore. In the span of a breath they were both up again, wrestling each other and trying to get the other under the surface again. Rylee retreated from the splashing and swore at them both, calling, “Take a bath while you’re in there!”

Viggo laughed as he hauled his blanket out onto the sand to be wrung out and dried. He probably needed the bath as badly as the other two did. Bria took the blanket from him, and he sloshed back into the lake, tackling Dakota just as he managed to wriggle out of Warren’s grip and get to his feet. Warren landed on top of them both, and the water drove the breath out of his lungs.

An hour later, they stumbled up from the lake shore, soaked and shivering. Viggo’s ribs ached from laughing, and none of them, not even Tomas, had left the beach dry. Warren stripped off his dripping tunic immediately and knelt to kindle a fire in the pit.

Bria slumped down on a log next to him raking wet strands of hair out of her eyes. Her teeth were chattering. “You’re all idiots.”

Warren grinned. “W—we know.”

Dakota dropped to the sand by the pit and snorted. “He does. I object to that.” He eyed the tiny flame Warren was nursing. “Hurry up.”

Warren bared his teeth at him. “Want to d—do it?”

“No.”

“Then shut up.”

“Dakota’s right.” Cat came up beside Viggo, burrowing into his warmth until he gave in and put his arms around her. He could feel the gooseflesh rippled down her skin. “That’s too slow. Hurry up.”

Warren held out a hand over the struggling flame, ready to slap down and extinguish it. “I’m g—going to start over.”

Bria gave him a frigid look. “I dare you.”

He laughed, but Viggo noticed that he pulled his hand away and fed the tiny flame another handful of dried grass. It crackled cheerfully, and they all instinctively drew closer to it. Tomas rumpled a hand through his wet hair, shaking it out of his face. He was grinning. “I haven’t done that in a few years. It’s colder than I remember.”

He looked younger, as if he were only a few years older than the rest of them. The gaunt, possessed devil that had haunted the Krathe had vanished, and Viggo felt he was catching a glimpse of what he must have looked like all those years ago, when he was young and free and desperately in love with a woman who’d left her whole world to be with him.

Cat huddled deeper against his chest, shivering, and he buried his face in her hair. Tomas glanced at them, amused, and looked half ready to say something, but his gaze darted over Viggo’s shoulder, and his face hardened. “Going somewhere?”

Viggo twisted around. Carver had come out of one of the cabins, Viggo’s backpack slung over one shoulder, his face so white that he looked half ghost himself. He met Tomas’s eyes defiantly, his jaw set, and said, “Ivra.”

Warren stood, his eyes dark as thunder. Dakota rose, glancing between them, and said, “No reason to rush—”

“No reason?” Carver spat. He was shaking, and instinctively Viggo moved toward him, but he took a step back. “It’s all very well for you. You’ve all got your partners here, don’t you?”

Viggo’s stomach plunged, and guilt flooded through his breast. He’d forgotten Dex, they all had. He could see it in their faces.

Carver stared at them all, his voice cracking as he said, “I have to go back for her.”

“I can understand that.” Tomas moved toward him, his eyes soft with compassion. “Let’s talk about it first.”

Carver swore at him, his voice high. “Talk about what? She’s my partner, and she’s alone! I can’t leave her.”

“No one’s asking you to.”

“You c—can’t just go back,” Warren snarled low. “You’ll walk right into L—Lant Curtis’s arms.”

Carver glared at him. He was clutching the backpack, his knuckles white, tense as a cornered animal. He looked ready to bolt. “I can’t leave her.”

“He’s right,” Viggo said hoarsely. Tomas glanced at him, warning in his dark eyes, but Viggo didn’t meet his gaze. He could feel Cat tensing against him, and he pulled away and took a step back. “Dex is one of us. We can’t leave her.”

“There’s no reason to think Lant Curtis went after her,” Tomas said.

But Viggo shook his head. “We can’t take that chance. He’ll think of it eventually.” He looked at Carver. “I’ll go with you.”

Tomas studied them both and shrugged. “You’ll need someone to guide you through the Way Marshes. It’s the only way in or out of the city now. But I wouldn’t take more than just us—the less to track the better.” He looked at Carver searchingly, something like distrust in his dark eyes. “I wouldn’t rush off so quickly. Will you wait a day for us to plan?”

Carver hesitated, looking suddenly awkward, and shrugged. “One day.” His jaw set. “Then I’m going.”

Viggo nodded. “And we’ll go with you.”

“You’re such a liar.”

Viggo turned sharply. Rylee was glaring at Carver, her cheeks flushed and her eyes on fire. The color drained out of Carver’s face, and Viggo gestured soothingly. “Easy—”

Rylee spat a curse at Carver that dirtied the air and turned, vanishing into one of the cabins and slamming the door behind her.

The others stared after her in frozen disbelief. Viggo swallowed the sudden premonition rising in his throat and jerked his head at Carver. “Come on. Help us get things dried out. Then we’ll make a plan.”

Cat brought the blankets back to the cabin at dusk. The lake had begun to freeze over again, thin feathers of ice creeping from the stones on the shoreline, and her breath hung in the air like a silver cloud.

Rylee was sitting on the floor when Cat pushed her way inside. A fire was lit in the small grate, and firelight flickered across the smooth floorboards, shadows dancing beneath the bed and on the far wall.

Cat paused, suddenly hesitant. “Rylee?”

The other girl didn’t take her eyes from the dying fire. Coals shifted, glowing red in the darkness, and she said tonelessly, “You can come in. It’s your cabin, too.”

Cat let the door shut behind her and crossed to one of the bunks, dropping the blankets, still warm and smelling of woodsmoke and ash, onto the straw-tick mattress. “Were you hungry?”

“No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Silence stretched between them. Cat bit her tongue. She’d tried hard to be civil to the other girl for Viggo’s sake—to her, Dakota, even Carver, although she could think of a dozen reasons to spit in his face. But the memory of that night—of her blood on Rylee’s hands and Dex’s mocking smile and her knife—festered in the back of her mind like a wound that had never healed.

After a long breath, she turned away to go back to the fire and Viggo’s questioning eyes, feeling the prick of relief and guilt that whatever confrontation she was meant to have with the other girl hadn’t happened yet.

“He’s lying, Cat.”

Her stomach dropped, and she glanced back. Rylee looked up at her, her face so eerily empty of expression that it sent a shiver down her back, and she had to resist the urge to take a step back as she whispered, “What?”

“Carver.” Rylee took a shaky breath and leaned her head back against the bedpost. “He’s lying. He left her. I know he did.”

The fire crackled, spitting sparks across the floor. Rylee drew her bare feet up under her and looked away.

Cat hesitated, wrestling with herself for a breath, and moved to sit on the floor opposite her. “Maybe he didn’t.”

“They hated each other. They pretended not to, but they did. He doesn’t want Viggo to blame him—that’s why he put on that show, pretending he was going after her alone, pretending he cared.” She spat the last words, so sharp with bitterness that Cat flinched. Neither spoke for a long moment, and at last Rylee added softly, “Maybe she’s already dead, and he knows it.”

Cat shook her head immediately. “No. I’m sure that’s not it.”

Someone outside shouted, the voice echoing in the vastness of the cavern. A laugh. Cat glanced toward the door and tried to make out Viggo’s voice among the others. She’d been lying to him earlier when she said she wouldn’t miss him. She missed him already. She missed the days when they’d been the only two people in the whole world, when it had been them against everyone else.

She doubted it would feel that way ever again. She’d spent the night before dreaming about it, about following after him and begging him to stop, just for a moment, and listen to her.

While her mother trailed along behind mocking her for binding her soul to a man who could toss it aside so easily.

“I’m sorry.” Rylee’s voice sounded distant, as if she’d drifted off, her soul somewhere else entirely and her body left here to linger. “I’m sorry for what we did that night. I should’ve stopped her.”

A chill shivered down Cat spine, tingling like spiders beneath her skin.

“I know you hate her—and me.” Rylee rubbed her fingers along the sling wound around her wrist, tracing each strand again and again like a pattern she’d worn into her soul to keep her mind sane and her voice as steady as it was. “I know what she was like. She never cared about anyone—I know that. But—”

“We’ve all got people we wish we didn’t love,” Cat whispered.

Her mother’s ghost cursed her from the shadows.

Rylee looked at her strangely and said, “I really am sorry. I don’t know how to make you believe it or how to make it matter. But I am.”

“I believe you,” Cat said softly. She studied the girl, trying to see her the way Viggo did, and felt something between her ribs ease. She’d never had family—not in K’vul or Crainfell or anywhere else. Her mother certainly hadn’t filled that role. But she was starting to understand, slowly and for the first time, what they had meant to each other in First Unit in the Core. They’d been family. Leaving Rylee behind would have felt like betrayal for Viggo, nothing less.

Leaving Dex behind would be the same.

A knot in her chest eased, and she forced a smile. “I forgave Viggo. I think I can manage to forgive you, too.” She hesitated, adding, “Maybe Carver’s not pretending. Maybe things changed between the two of them in the last six months.”

Rylee flashed a wry smile at her. “Like they did between you and Viggo?”

Cat flushed.

“Gods, he’s so in love with you. It’s pathetic.” Rylee ran a hand through her hair and uttered a hoarse laugh. “Has he kissed you yet?”

Cat stared at the fire, her throat tightening until she couldn’t breathe. Let’s run away. She still hadn’t decided what he’d meant by the cryptic words, as if they both knew Ebosa would change them—change what they had.

Ebosa, Rylee, Carver.

Dex.

She shut her eyes, trying to remember what it had been like in the healing houses in Ivra, when the whole world consisted of nothing but the two of them, and their release from the claws of the fight house and Fane’s vicious mastery had made them nearly drunk with relief.

No, he’d never kissed her. Not once. They were partners, that was all.

If only her stupid heart knew it.

She smiled, as if Rylee’s words didn’t sting like needles in her skin. “We’re partners. That’s all. I don’t think he’s ever stopped loving Dex, not really.”

Rylee stared at her. “What?”

“Dex. They were—”

“No, they weren’t.”

Cat bit the words on her tongue off, confusion churning between her ribs.

“He knew they were going to be paired together,” Rylee said softly. “From the beginning. He tried because of that, because he knew if he didn’t, they’d kill each other.”

“Let’s run away.”

“I’ve never seen him happy before. Not like this.” Rylee glanced toward the door as if Viggo might overhear them. “I think he’d burn Ivra to the ground for you.”

“No, Dex said it herself—”

“I told you,” Rylee retorted, rising to her feet. “Dex doesn’t care about anyone. And she always lies.”

She left the cabin, and Cat stayed where she was for a long time, listening to the fire whisper about the urgency in her partner’s voice that night in the Krathe.

Let’s run away.

Darkness crept beneath the swaying trees. Wind tore between the trunks of oak and rowan, howling in the narrow valleys like a demented wolf separated from its pack. Viggo ducked his head, wading through swaying ferns.

The Krathe was angry tonight, screaming at the skies, at the storm coming in from the west, at the gloom and mist it wore like a burial shroud among its branches.

At him. Most of all at him because he was a stranger here, and he wasn’t welcome. Not tonight. He couldn’t understand why, but not tonight.

Viggo shrugged the thought aside. His boot slipped in the mud, and he nearly fell, catching himself on a hawthorn branch.

Cat touched his elbow, so near that he could feel her calm through the shriek of the wind.

Cat. She’d volunteered to come with them that morning when the skies were still clear and the wind only a gentle breeze in the hollows. He’d meant to say no, to insist she stay behind where it was safe and she wasn’t in reach of Lant Curtis’s knife, but the words wouldn’t come.

He’d wanted her to be there. Wanted it badly. And like a fool, he’d caved to the feeling.

Her hand slipped into his, and he squeezed her fingers, glancing back down the trail. Tomas was close behind them, a hood drawn up over his head. Carver came along after him, still pale and determined. Not even the journey across the raging Flumen had deterred him, although Viggo knew from long experience that the man dreamt of drowning more than he did of a rope or a knife.

He raised his head, narrowing his eyes against the bite of the wind. Dark branches, bared of their foliage by the ferocity of the wind, swayed wildly ahead and behind them. Through the mad dance he could make out the black outline of the watchtower, the tumbled ruins stark and eerie in the shadow of night. Ivy swayed against the broken stone.

He paused. Premonition, or something like it, rose in his throat like bile, as if all the ghosts in the Krathe were gathered there for a mourners dance. A chill that had nothing to do with the wind skittered down his arms.

Cat’s hand twitched in his, lending him some measure of courage. He swallowed the feeling and ghosted forward, suddenly grateful for the scream of the wind to muffle their passing. Broken walls and tumbled stone stood shadowed by the gloom, standing sentinel as if in a graveyard. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

A harsh, raucous scream cut the air. Then another. And another, mixing into a babble of croaking cries.

Panic sparked in Viggo’s chest, roaring like an inferno through his veins. He spun, searching for the source, and only then did he recognize the sound. Crows, their cries mingled with the howl of the wind.

Cat had flinched as well. She straightened up, letting out a soft laugh as she glanced at Viggo. “Nerves of steel, right?”

He forced a laugh, his heart racing, and felt something in his soul grow heavy as lead. The ravens in the Krathe slept when darkness fell, gathering in droves in the pines to the south. He’d only ever known the crows in Ivra to stay out so late, flocking to the hangman’s courts with their scarlet throats and sharp talons, drawn by the fires beneath the gallows.

The fires and a dead man’s last cries.

A torch flared to life among the trees, harsh red light searing through the blackened trunks.

Another joined it. Three, four.

Viggo pivoted. A blackened specter emerged from the watchtower framed in light, the flame reflecting in his eyes. “Hello, Holiness.”

Viggo went for his broadsword. A vice-like grip caught his wrist and spun him around; a man with dead eyes and silver in his mouth bared his teeth in his face. Something hard hit the back of his head, and he fell, broken stones cutting into his knees.

Cold steel pressed against his throat.

Lant Curtis pulled Viggo’s broadsword free, and tossed it to one side. The clatter of metal against stone struck like a death knell, and Lant bared his incisors in a smile. “Miss me?”

Viggo’s throat bobbed, pressing against razor sharp steel. He twisted his head, searching for Cat, and felt his heart plunge into his breast as he made her out among the men gathered around him.

Tomas was with her. They were on the ground, and the man had blood trickling from a lump on his temple. Cat squirmed against the man kneeling on her back, looking for him, and met his gaze, her eyes wild with the leopard’s fear.

Lant grinned. “All together again. It’s been too long.” His eyes flicked over to Cat and a trace of wolf entered his smile. “And the compass brat. Has he been treating you all right, love?”

She bared her teeth at him, and he laughed.

Viggo spat, snarling, “Couldn’t manage us on your own, Curtis?”

“No harm in a little help. I don’t mind it, as long as I get my man.” His eyes glittered with a sudden, strange light. “Would you like to see just how much help I had?”

A strange ripple shivered over Viggo’s skin. Lant snapped his fingers, motioning to someone just out of sight. “Come on out. Let him see where he went wrong.”

Viggo twisted, confusion welling up through his ribs, and felt something crumble in his soul, like a bone splintered beneath too much weight.

A man emerged from the shadows reluctantly, drawn out by Lant’s summons like a dog on a leash. His pale eyes flicked in Viggo’s direction and then away again, shame and bitterness scored into his flesh like a colorless tattoo.

No.

“You should have kept running, Viggo,” Carver whispered. “You should have run until you left all of this behind forever.”

Bludhærk.

Stupid. He’d been so stupid.

Lant was watching him, enjoying the dawning realization, the swift needle of pain—the sudden rush of anger. Viggo ignored him, his eyes on Carver as he fought to breathe. He hissed, “I trusted you.”

Carver looked away, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “That was always your biggest flaw, wasn’t it?” He laughed, the sound an echo from the grave. “You always thought the best of everyone.”

“Such a shame.” Lant clicked his tongue. “It’s a hard lesson, discovering that no one really cares about you. Not when it matters. You’ll have to cry about it later, though.”

Several of his men laughed. The man standing behind him hauled him up and grabbed a handful of hair, wrenching his head back so hard that he thought his neck would snap. He choked. Lant came over, squatted down to his level. He was still smiling that odd, feral half-smile.

Viggo struggled, trying to twist to see what he was doing. Lant touched his exposed throat, tracing a finger down the vein throbbing under his skin. “I was going to kill you tonight.”

Viggo froze, his whole body trembling with strain.

Lant’s voice tightened to a hiss. “They told me not to. Thorne wants you alive. But accidents happen—and it would set things right, wouldn’t it? After what you did to Reika.”

Cold fear clutched at Viggo’s throat. His skin crawled, rippling with revulsion at Lant’s touch. He dragged in a choked breath, remembering the spreading blood soaking her clothing. Remembering her scream.

Lant nodded, seeing the truth in his eyes. The guilt. “Good. That’s important, Holiness. I’m glad you remember her.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. I have plans—and what’s the use in hurrying? We’ve got all kinds of time.”

Viggo jerked against the iron grip of the man behind him. Lant laughed softly and rose. “Should we get started?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He drew his hunting knife and turned away, flipping it casually as he approached the other two. Viggo opened his mouth to scream at him, panic searing through his mind. But all that came out was a strangled whimper, his wind cut off by the angle of his head.

Lant knelt in front of Tomas, his big, callused hands toying with the hunting knife. He rested his elbow on his knee and smiled. “Do you know, I choose this spot specially for tonight? Want to guess why?”

Tomas’s eyes darted toward the tower and the grave inside it.

“That’s right,” Lant murmured so softly that Viggo had to strain to hear him. “You see, I made a mistake that night—when I killed that witch of yours.”

The man’s face lost all of its color, as if Lant’s knife had gone straight through his heart.

“I didn’t believe the stories then. How it’s bad luck to slit a witch’s throat. You’re meant to burn them, did you know that?”

One of Lant’s men came forward, a torch in one hand and a wooden bowl in the other.

Lant held out his hand for the bowl. “I didn’t believe in bad luck, not then. But let it never be said that I’m a man who can’t admit when he’s wrong.” His eyes went strangely black, and he smiled. “Since that day, I’ve buried a baby. I’ve lost my partner. And I lost my first target,” he nodded toward Viggo, “in fifteen years. It’s enough to make any man wonder if he’s got a ghost after him. They say witches don’t forget easily.”

The two men holding Tomas down hauled him upright and tore his shirt open, exposing his chest.

“But, thankfully, there’s always a way to fix past mistakes. I can still burn her.” Lant tapped Tomas’s chest with the tip of his knife. “Provided I have the blood for it.”

Without warning he dug the knife in and dragged it down in a swift stroke, slitting open skin and muscle. Tomas screamed.

Black blood gushed down the steel hilt. Lant held the bowl against Tomas’s chest, holding it there until he had what he wanted, and rose, shoving the man to the ground.

Viggo struggled, jerking against the vice-like grip of the man who had hold of him. Lant took the torch he’d been offered and glanced Viggo’s way, uttering a laugh. “Let him go. He’s not going to run.”

The grip loosened. Viggo staggered, stumbling to Tomas’s side, his breath ragged in his throat as he pressed his hands over the wound in the man’s chest. Blood welled through his fingers.

Tomas gasped, his face gray as ash, and whispered, “It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s not deep.”

It was deep. A strangled, animal sob ripped from Viggo’s throat, and he tore the sleeve from Tomas’s shirt, pressing it over the gash. Men were moving around them, intent on some task he couldn’t focus on enough to decipher. Cat clambered to his side, her face like chalk in the shadows.

Red light flared behind them. Viggo twisted, watching as flames darted up from the interior of the watchtower, burning in reflection on the surface of the lake, devouring the stones.

Lant emerged from the door and shut it behind him as if whatever he’d done inside could really trap the past there and hold whatever ghosts he thought were haunting his steps. His good humor had vanished, replaced by a brutal efficiency that lacked any emotion at all. “Laite,” he snapped, wiping his knife onto the thick material of his trousers. “You can find their camp in the dark?”

Viggo jerked his gaze around to Carver. He was staring at the blood on Lant’s hands. His throat bobbed, and, just for a second, his eyes flicked over to Viggo, revealing the edge of panic in his expression. Whatever he’d done, whatever he’d agreed to, it hadn’t been this.

Stupid. He was so stupid.

Carver looked away and nodded, avoiding Viggo’s gaze. “Yes. I left a trail. I can find it.”

Lant barely glanced at him. “Good.” He paused, as if considering his options, and looked at the man who was standing guard over Viggo. “Mason, go with him. Take Curt and Ewan, and kill whoever’s left. Meet me in Ivra.”

The man bared sharpened incisors. Pale, pale scars gleamed on his throat as if he still had the teeth of a wolf embedded in his flesh. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw, and his smile had the feral brutality of a man who had lost himself in death. He was a demon, a wraith follower, and Viggo could feel the darkness in his soul. “They’re already dead.”

Lant nodded. Viggo’s heart pounded dully, echoing in his ears.

They’re already dead.

“That wasn’t the deal.” Carver’s voice cracked when he said the words, as if even he were surprised to hear them.

Lant turned to look at him. “What?”

Carver’s eyes flicked from him to Viggo, and he swallowed and whispered, “You never said you were going to kill them.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Lant smiled, his eyes suddenly flat and dangerous. “Should I have consulted you before I made my plans?”

The fire crackled, reaching higher. Sparks fell around them, the wind hot with smoke. Carver shifted, his eyes darting from Lant to Mason and to the other men, as if looking for help. None came. For a brittle moment, silence held sway. At last, Carver began hesitantly, “There’s no reason . . .”

“No reason?” Lant mimicked softly. “I’ll give you a reason: I don’t want to wait. My time is being wasted, and I don’t ever appreciate my time being wasted.” He drew a gravelly breath, as if controlling himself with effort, and smiled. “And right now, you’re the one wasting my time. Consider that carefully.”

Silence stretched between them. Carver’s eyes stayed fastened on the ground. Viggo could see the stubborn set in his shoulders, the slight tightening of his jaw that no one else was likely to notice. At last, Lant turned his back. “Get going.”

Several seconds whispered past. Despair clutched at Viggo’s throat, and he shut his eyes.

“No.”

The single word dropped into the silence like a stone. Lant froze and turned slowly to face Carver, his voice low and deadly. “What?”

“I said no.”

Lant’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you don’t want to make this mistake, boy.”

“You can’t kill them,” Carver said flatly. “Not like this. They’re meant to stand trial.”

“They’ve had a trial,” Lant hissed. “The same trial I gave the witch.”

Carver’s eyes darted toward the watchtower engulfed in flames, and his jaw tightened. “That’s murder.”

“Of course it is. What were you expecting, boy? A judge?”

“The Archduke would want—”

Lant threw his head back and laughed. “The Archduke? Silas Thorne? What do you think he sent me for?”

The color drained out of Carver’s face.

“The only one the Archduke cares about is him,” Lant gestured in Viggo’s direction, and Viggo looked away. Yes, Thorne would want him back—if only to repay him for the humiliation in the gardens beneath the basilica. “As long as the rest are buried, Silas Thorne won’t give any of this another thought. I’m only sparing the Bonesmith and the compass brat out of the kindness of my heart.”

Viggo winced, hearing something in the words that whispered of pain to come.

I have plans.

“Now.” Lant spat in the grass and bared his teeth. “Are we finished?”

Carver stared at him, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Lant held his eyes, waiting, and finally Carver dropped his gaze. “We’re finished.”

Lant barked a laugh and turned away. “Good boy. Your mistress taught you well.”

Carver snatched the sword from Mason’s sheath and went for him. Mason stumbled, uttering a bark of alarm, and Lant swung around, narrowly avoiding a strike that would’ve taken his head off. The animal in his soul hissed, and green flickered in his eyes. Carver twisted as another of the men snatched for him, slitting his throat before lunging at Lant again. Lant sidestepped, caught his wrist, and twisted savagely.

Bone snapped.

Carver gasped, and Lant headbutted him, hard. He dropped.

A brittle silence permeated the air, the men in Lant’s team frozen by the unexpected violence. Viggo could see the uncertainty in their eyes, the uneasy fear as they realized that any one of them could be in the same position had they raised their own voices.

Carver lay huddled on the ground clutching his wrist. Lant’s hands were shaking, stained dark with Tomas’s blood. There was murder in his eyes. “Get him up.”

The two men leapt to do his bidding, hauling Carver to his knees. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the concussion, and bared his teeth. Lant seized his jaw and jerked his chin up so they were eye to eye. “Next body I leave in these bloody woods is going to be yours, I swear. If you don’t lead Mason straight, you’ll have a lot more than just a broken wrist to worry about.”

Carver was clutching his mangled wrist to his chest. He stared at Lant, and Viggo could see the broken despair bleeding from his soul. He sucked in a breath, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, and whispered, “No. You can kill me now. I’m done.”

Lant released him. His breath rattled in his chest. “You’re going to live to regret that decision.”

Carver spat blood in his face. Lant snarled and struck with the hunting knife still in his hand, flaying the younger man’s face wide, from temple to chin. A sheet of crimson, dark in the torchlight, engulfed his features. The men dropped him instinctively, retreating.

Lant wiped spittle off his cheek. “Get him up,” he rasped. “I’ll drag the location of their camp out of him once we reach Ivra. If he lives that long.”

The men dragged his limp form upright and away. Viggo found himself hauled to his feet, his hands bound behind him with stiff cord. His heart was pounding and bile rose in his throat, nausea twisting his gut at the hot, metallic smell hanging in the air. Lant glanced at him and bared a savage smile. “Having fun yet, Holiness?” He walked over and wiped his hand down Viggo’s neck and tunic, smearing blood on his skin as he whispered, “There’s more to come.”

Viggo retched. Lant laughed and turned his back. “Tie them to the horses. Let’s get back to Ivra.”

It was night when Lant dragged them into the palace, but the courtyards were lit up by torches and bonfires, as bright as if it were broad day. Viggo stumbled after the horse he’d been following and fell to his knees, relief flowing through his flesh like strong wine when the animal finally stopped. How long had it been dragging him after it like a child towing its favorite toy? A week, two? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything anymore, not how he’d come to be here or why. Only his fear remained. Endless, numbing fear that swallowed his mind and dulled his ability to think.

The man who’d been riding ahead of him dismounted. What had Lant called him? Mason? Even in weariness he had the eyes of a demon, black and soulless, as if whatever had been behind them once had burned away. He smiled at Viggo, baring sharpened incisors. “Rest now, wulfhund. You can scream later.”

Viggo closed his eyes to the red around him, to the torchlight on the white cobbles and the gleam of the bonfires. What Lant had planned for him in the cells beneath the palace, he couldn’t guess. Something to break his soul before it broke his body, something to shatter his mind. Something to punish him for Reika’s pain. Wouldn’t he do the same to someone who’d destroyed Cat?

Maybe. He didn’t know.

The rattle of chain mail dragged his attention back to the present. He opened his eyes and watched the men-at-arms come through the gate and surround them. There were so many of them, enough to prove the Archduke still thought him a threat after all this time. He could have laughed. The ropes that bound his wrists were soaked in blood. He could feel the white fear in his own face. His legs were too weak to hold him any longer. What kind of threat could he be now? Once Thorne had everything he wanted from him, Lant would kill him. Viggo prayed to whatever god might listen that it would be quick. There were many, many ways to kill a man that outlasted even his ability to scream.

Lant appeared in the firelight, his dark eyes showing none of the weariness that clung to the others. He gestured to several of the others, giving orders to men that were shadows in the half light. One of them vanished up the steps of the château, and two others hauled Tomas from the back of the horse that they’d finally given him after his legs had given out and the horses had begun to shy away from his body when they dragged it.

The man had blood in his mouth. In his eyes, too. One of them was glued shut, and the wound beneath his torn shirt had turned an ugly black. He caught Viggo’s eyes as the men forced him to the ground, and a fleeting smile passed over his face, as if the fear choking Viggo had no hold over the man.

Cat stumbled to his side, dropping to her knees. Carver came after her, the four of them forced into a line to wait on their lord’s pleasure.

Viggo couldn’t bring himself to look at any of them. Not Tomas and his stupid composure, not Carver with his flayed face and his dead eye.

Not Cat. Cat had left him. She was a shell now, had been for days. The gray in her eyes taunted him. How long had it been since she’d spoken, since he’d seen anything but emptiness in her? Days. Too long.

Carver was muttering. Incoherently, tunelessly, words dropped from his tongue that had no meaning. The wound stretching from his temple to his chin had taken more than just his eye. His mind was going as well, was gone already, maybe. Viggo didn’t care. If the man weren’t dead by the end of this, Viggo would kill him himself.

He closed his eyes, envisioning it, tasting the hatred on his tongue.

A door slammed. The voices around him died. His skin prickled. He looked up to see the Archduke descend the steps of the château and stride toward them.

Thorne looked much the same as he had in the gardens beneath the basilica. Even as Viggo knelt with the men-at-arms around him, with his own blood slick on his fingers and his partner swaying with weariness and pain beside him, he found it hard to hate the man. He could still remember how many times the Archduke had visited them after Cat had been hurt, first to check on her, then to give him his way out of Ivra and away from Fane. He’d seemed like a savior then, a benevolent god. What was he now? A vengeful one?

He didn’t look vengeful. His eyes passed over the four of them wearily, as if he’d seen this too often. His gaze lingered longest over the blood on Viggo’s wrists, on the scars written into his pale flesh, and the ropes that had turned red in the last few days. Ace and Brand were behind him, only a step away, and Viggo could see the horror in Brand’s eyes. The way Ace looked at Cat, the fear in his expression so stupidly, idiotically obvious, made Viggo’s heart writhe with shame. Ace would have taken care of her. So, so much better than he had. He should have left her with him.

“You’re later than I thought you would be.” Thorne winced, passing a hand over his thigh, as if the sight of them had woken his pain. He looked at Carver and frowned. “I was under the impression that Laite was being cooperative?”

“Changed his mind,” Lant said bluntly. The look he shot Carver had murder in it.

Thorne frowned and cast a searching glance at Viggo. “I see. You’ll know how best to take care of it.”

Lant nodded and gestured to one of his men. “Take him down to the cells and get him ready. I’ll be down soon.”

The words seemed to wake Carver out of his pain-induced stupor. He stumbled to his feet as the man jerked him upright, twisting frantically. “Viggo? Viggo, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

Viggo closed his eyes, the pain in him worse than he wanted it to be, worse than he’d ever thought it would be, and didn’t reply.

Thorne studied him for a long moment, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. At last he nodded to Lant and turned away. “I want to see them both separately.”

“And the Bonesmith?”

Thorne glanced at the man, as if seeing him for the first time. His eyes went to the wound beneath the man’s shirt, and he winced. “I may have time for him later. If not, one of your men can take care of it.”

Mason grinned, his sharpened teeth flashing in the firelight. Thorne walked away back to the château, and Lant hauled Cat to her feet, hissing, “You first, compass brat.”

Viggo’s heart skipped a beat, but Mason jerked him upright and shoved him in the direction of the cells. He twisted, trying to meet Cat’s eyes, but caught only a glimpse of her white face and Lant Curtis’s hand on her arm.

Sonya Ashcliff was waiting for her in Thorne’s office.

The woman looked up when she entered, meeting her eyes with chilly indifference, as if not even the blood on her daughter’s face and the noose that would soon be tightening around her throat could thaw her bitter soul.

Cat looked away, biting her tongue to cover the dart of pain in her breast.

Lant shut the door, the click loud in the silence. Thorne looked up from a letter on his desk and sat back, studying her thoughtfully. “Is she hurt?”

Lant shrugged. “She’ll heal.”

Would she? After everything, after all of this? Probably not. Sonya smirked at her, enjoying her daughter’s pain. Was she a ghost dragged from the depths of the Krathe as a kind of torture? Cat had begun to doubt it. She wasn’t even sure her mother was dead. More likely, the thing standing by the fireplace was nothing but a memory, written into her mind and soul by all the pain the woman had caused, visible now because of the torment eating into Cat’s flesh.

She’d lived with her mother for her first six years before the soldiers had found her in Sonya’s cabin, lying half senseless on the floor with her eyes fixed on nothing and her mind shattered in a way that had never really healed. By that time, Sonya was long gone, and Cat had been alone for—how long? Three days, four?

A long time, for a child.

“Ashcliff?” Thorne leaned forward, making a slight gesture to attract her attention. Ace was with him, his face a tortured fire of anxiety. Brand, too. Cat didn’t look at either of them or at Thorne. Her eyes stayed fastened on the window, on the wind rippling through the curtains, and the stars visible through the sheer fabric.

Six years. She’d been free of her for twelve now, or should have been. Sometimes, Cat could swear her mother had been in every one of those years with her, in Crainfell, in the Core, in Ivra.

In the Krathe with Viggo.

“I need to know where the others are hiding.”

Her mother moved closer to the fireplace, warming her hands. She looked more herself now—more like the border guard she’d been. Her eyes were so gray—as gray as death. Cat couldn’t remember ever seeing any flicker of warmth in those eyes, no recognition, no love. Sonya Ashcliff had a withered soul, and she’d passed it on to her daughter.

“Ashcliff.”

Did you leave to protect me or yourself? Cat asked the woman silently, willing her to answer with something other than mockery for once. Sonya’s face was pale, and she studied her daughter thoughtfully, as if the question were one she’d answered already.

She had, really. The answer was written into the memory. Cat could still see the shock in the scout’s eyes when he’d caught sight of her hiding in the woods, and the fear in her mother’s face when Cat had told her their secret was out. Sonya had disappeared the same night, locking her daughter in the cabin for the soldiers to find when they came.

You could have brought me with you, Cat shut her eyes, wishing she could scream the words at the woman. We could have escaped together.

But, of course, that would have defeated the purpose. Sonya had left her behind deliberately. She’d said it herself a thousand times, a curse on Cat’s soul for the rest of her life.

I let myself be fooled into loving someone, and you are my punishment.

She’d done the same herself, with Viggo. And her punishment was waiting here, in this room or in the cells. Her mother had known it. Was that why she’d come back, ghost or memory or demon pulled from Sorrow’s Heath that she was? Was it a warning to sever ties with him before it was too late?

Probably. But she hadn’t listened, and it was too late.

Thorne rose and said softly, “I made a mistake with you, I think.”

The words cut through her fog. Cat looked at him.

“I had it in mind to give you a new partner when you were injured in Joseph Brenner’s house. Someone older, better able to take care of you.” Thorne ran a hand through his rumpled hair, looking so young and so weary that it would have been easy to forget he wielded the kind of power that he did. “I let Swifter convince me to keep you together. I should’ve known better.”

Cat stared at him, her tongue suddenly heavier than lead. “My lord?” she whispered.

“I don’t believe any of this was your fault.”

Tears rose in her eyes, spilling over, and her throat began to ache.

“He dragged you into the mess in the fight houses, and he dragged you into this, too—didn’t he?”

She couldn’t speak. Ace was staring at her and mutely pleading for her to agree. Would it really be that simple? She closed her eyes, remembering her plea to Viggo to let Lant take them back to Ivra, remembering how furious she’d been with him for deciding to return to Ivra—and then leave again.

Thorne waited, expecting some kind of response, and when none came, he said quietly, “I want to give you a chance, Ashcliff.”

A chill passed down her spine, cold as the breath of a ghost.

“Lant’s been looking for a bloodhound. He’s offered to take you on.”

Cat couldn’t breathe. Without meaning to, she glanced over her shoulder at the man. A mocking smile twitched at the corner of Lant’s mouth, his eyes taunting her. Bile rose in her throat.

The door opened suddenly, and Mason appeared. He flinched when Lant turned on him, baring his teeth like a feral dog that had been kicked more than once. “Laite’s ready.”

Thorne hesitated, looking at Cat as if hoping she would reply. When she said nothing, he shrugged. “I’ll give you a day to think about it.” He studied her and added low, “I don’t want you to think of it as betraying your partner. He betrayed you when he started all of this.”

She would’ve felt better if a retort had leapt immediately to her tongue—a defense for her partner, a reassurance that she was every bit as much to blame as he was. But nothing came, and she stared at the floor.

Thorne nodded to Lant, turning back toward his desk. “Finish with Laite. Then you can bring Swifter here.”

Lant jerked his head in a preemptory bow and took her arm, steering her out of the room and into the hall beyond. The door shut behind them. He shoved her into Mason’s arms and snapped, “Take her to the cells. Then follow me down.”

Mason grinned, his breath hot against the back of her neck as he hissed, “Thinking it over? I wouldn’t take too long . . . those walls close in pretty quick.”

Cat’s throat tightened.

The cell they left him in stank of death as if the walls had soaked in the bodies of the men who’d died there. Rats scattered when the torchlight fell on the stone floor, and Viggo took an involuntary step back when their eyes glowed red at him out of the darkness.

Tomas was shoved in after him, stumbling on legs that wouldn’t carry his weight anymore. Viggo caught him before he fell and helped him find a place along the wall to rest away from the water that was seeping through the stones in the corner.

The door slammed. The light was cut off save for a trickle of moonlight falling through a slit of window far above them.

Viggo shut his eyes, waiting for his vision to adjust, and said softly, “All right?”

The words caught in his throat. Tomas leaned against the wall and winced, one hand pressed against the wound on his chest. “Alive.”

His hands were trembling. Mason had cut both their bonds before bringing them down, but Viggo could still barely use his fingers. They were numb and stiff with pain. He flexed his hands and stood, casting about the cell until his foot bumped a bucket in the corner, nearly knocking it over. Water sloshed, and he picked it up and returned to the man’s side. He went to pull aside the torn shirt covering the man’s chest, and Tomas caught his wrist. “Leave it. It’s all right.”

It wasn’t all right. The man’s face was as drawn as a corpse’s, and Viggo could smell the wound even through the stench of the cell. He sat back on his heels, whispering, “We’ve got to clean it.”

Tomas shook his head. His eyes were shut, and he was half asleep already. He’d been that way for days, drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes lucid, sometimes not. “No. Maeva’s coming. She’ll know what to do.”

Viggo bit his tongue and looked away. At last, he whispered hoarsely, “Maeva’s not coming, Tomas. We have to clean it.”

“What?”

“She’s not coming.”

Tomas stared at him and sat up, wincing. “I know. I know she isn’t.”

“I’m going to clean it.”

“No, leave it.” The man waved a hand. “It won’t help.”

A numbing cold swept through Viggo’s chest, and he swallowed the question that leapt to his tongue.

He didn’t want to know the answer.

Tomas leaned back against the wall and glanced around the cell, his face contorting with sudden fear. “Water’s probably filthy. Where’s Cat?”

“With Thorne,” Viggo whispered. The man had seen her go—or should have. His mind was drifting in and out, through the past and present and beyond. “Lant took her.”

Tomas swore and tried to rise. Viggo pressed him down, saying low, “She’ll be all right.”

He was lying. He was lying, and they both knew it. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Probably, she wouldn’t come back at all unless Lant’s plans included torturing him with her pain.

It didn’t matter. He would die, too, soon enough. That alone felt like a comfort now, the fact that he wouldn’t have to live on without her the way Tomas had with Maeva. Thinking of her, talking to her after night fell and the shadows closed in, reaching for her and knowing she wasn’t there.

No, this was easier. That was something.

The door swung open suddenly, cutting off his thoughts. He looked up, and felt his stomach drop at the sight of Cat’s vacant face. She met his eyes for a long breath as remotely as if they’d never met. He half-rose to his feet, and she looked away, crossing to sit against the far wall, her knees to her chest and her head buried in her arms.

The door shut again, cutting off the light. Rats scuttled in the darkness, their claws scratching on the stone floors.

An hour passed. Two. Three. Tomas drifted in and out of consciousness, rambling incoherently, talking to Maeva, to Cameron Woodgate, to a someone he called Ben and spoke to like a child one minute and a man the next. His words slurred, fever burning under his skin, and when Viggo touched him he flinched away.

Viggo bit his tongue and tried to weigh down the panic beginning to rise in his throat with every passing minute. He would beg for water when Lant came back. Water, rags. Whiteleaf oil. Lant’s healer had smeared beeswax and yarrow oil into Carver’s ruined face, even forcing elwood oil between his locked jaws to numb his pain when he screamed. But they’d done nothing for Tomas’s wound except to let it fester and mock him when he stumbled.

It would be too late, now. The wound had turned in the last two days. He doubted even the herbwomen in the palace could do much for it.

But he could try.

Cat didn’t move, didn’t speak. He could hear her breathing, that was all. Twice, he almost got up, almost went to sit with her, but he was too afraid. Afraid that she would draw away from him, afraid that he would touch her and find nothing there.

She was gone. Had been for days. He didn’t want to find out if he could coax her back or not.

He was nearly asleep when the door opened again. Mason stepped inside, his black eyes devilish in the torchlight, and tossed several threadbare blankets and a waterskin onto the floor. He slotted the torch into a sconce on the wall and turned away, but Cat’s voice—as raw as if her throat were bleeding—stopped him. “Mason?”

Viggo’s heart froze. The man hesitated and glanced back at her, cocking his head. “Yes?”

Cat raised her head and looked at him. Her eyes were red, her face blotched and puffy but perfectly, perfectly calm as she whispered, “I want to talk to Lant.”

The grin that spread across the man’s face turned Viggo’s stomach. Mason slouched against the door jamb, his arms folded across his chest. “That didn’t take long.”

She rose, not looking at either of them, and crossed the room. The man moved aside, letting her out the door ahead of him, and winked at Viggo as he followed. “I’ll watch out for her, don’t worry.”

Viggo couldn’t move, frozen to the floor as if the stone had gotten into his bones. Cat looked back, just once, as the door shut behind her, and the gray in her eyes sent a shock straight through to his core.

Mason steered her left outside the cell, deeper into the dungeons. The stairs plunged downward so steeply that they seemed to drop out from beneath her feet as if the men who had dug them had been thinking of a grave instead of a dungeon. Stone gargoyles with protruding tongues and bulbous eyes held torches high overhead, casting hideous shadows on the stones. Mold crept over the walls, slime clinging to the stones under foot. She slipped once, her heart leaping into her throat, but Mason caught her before she fell. He laughed, his sharpened incisors clicking together as he hissed in her ear, “Careful. You wouldn’t want to fall down here.”

The snarl in his words reminded her of a rabid dog, and a shudder went down her spine.

The door at the bottom of the stairs was locked and barred with iron, great bolts studding the dark wood. Three soldiers stood guard over it, men with dark beards and greedy eyes. They looked at her as she stepped down and stood, swaying, beside the door. Only at her. How many times had they seen women brought down here? Women who were young enough to be their daughters, to be the sweethearts their sons courted and cajoled in the marketplaces?

Too often, perhaps. Their eyes held no pity, and the hungry looks they gave her as she passed made her skin crawl and her heart so sick that she was afraid of her own thoughts. She was so afraid. So stupidly afraid. The beauty of the stars that she’d tried so hard to implant in her mind outside was already fading. Now there was only the dark, only the damp stones and the smoky torches and the ugly glances. There was only this prison, as if she’d never been anywhere else.

At last, Mason stopped. They were so deep beneath the castle now that Cat could feel the weight of it settling down on her shoulders. He pushed through a door, leading her into a room beyond. Inside, candles burned on every surface, and Lant looked up from a map spread across a table, his face twisted with impatience. “What? I’m busy.”

Mason grinned, pulling her into the light, and said, “She wanted to talk to you.”

Lant’s expression changed instantly. He jerked his head, dismissing the man who’d been bent over the map with him, and straightened to study her as he said softly, “Is that right?”

Half a dozen men were scattered throughout the spacious room cleaning weapons and lounging on beds strewn with the remainders of a meal. She recognized most of them from the forest.

Lant kicked a chair away from the table and sat, lounging back with an expansive sweep of his hand. “I’m here, compass brat. Talk.”

Cat fixed him with a steady look, willing her heart to settle and her voice to obey her command. “You said you need a bloodhound.”

The wolfish smile that spread across his face made her so sick that her knees felt weak. “I did say that.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never been much of a tracker.”

“Why me?”

Lant’s eyes flared green, and the animal in his soul gave a satisfied hiss. “I think you can guess. ‘When it’s time to move on, I won’t be the one looking back.’”

The words felt like needles in her flesh. She held his gaze, feeling heat pounding in her head, and whispered, “I didn’t mean that.”

“No, you did.” Lant grinned. “He should know it, too. Don’t you think?”

“You convinced Thorne just for that?”

“Obviously. I’m offering you a chance, compass brat. I don’t have to be noble about it.”

Cat looked away, cursing the way her stomach was turning. Lant watched her, his eyes narrowing and a smile playing on his lips. “Still playing the loyal partner,” he said low, so mockingly that the words dug into her bones. “Do you really want to die with him?”

Cat stared at him, a shiver crawling down her spine. The memory of the gallows down by the city gates flooded through her mind, the flames she’d set darting up the tarred gibbet, the dead men that hung there swaying in the wind.

It took a long time to die on a rope.

“You know, they say most of the men who die on the gallows are still alive when the crows begin to peck them apart. They barely wait until you’re dangling now—a bit tamer than they used to be.”

Mason snickered in her ear, and the curse she spat at him felt like glass in her mouth. She’d learned it from the soldiers who came to K’vul twice a year, who’d kicked through her mother’s cabin and walked by her while she hid under the bed and pressed her hands over her mouth to quiet her own breathing. She’d used it once—just once—on her mother, for some slight Cat couldn’t remember anymore.

Sonya had knocked her senseless and broken two fingers on her left hand for it. Cat had never dared to use it again.

Mason laughed. Lant studied her for a long breath and rose to his feet with a shrug. “Take her back. I don’t have time for this.”

Her stomach lurched, and she said without meaning to, “You can’t find them, can you?”

Lant paused and turned back, his smile gone, his eyes flecked with green. “I’ll find them.”

“I doubt it,” she whispered, her heart thudding in her ears. “Not in the Krathe.”

“And you have a suggestion for me?”

She had a breath, a second to make the decision. Her heart dropped, her stomach sour from the betrayal in the words as she said, “I could take you to them.”

Lant’s eyes burned with ugly triumph, and he smiled. “For what? Your partner’s freedom?”

“Bloodhounds don’t have partners,” she whispered, and the words burned her tongue like acid. She bit her tongue, making it bleed, remembering the dead men swinging on the hangman’s nooses. “I need a chance. A real one. I don’t want to be killed in an ‘accident’ after you’ve had your fun.”

Lant threw his head back and laughed. “My god, compass brat,” he rasped. “You’re not half as stupid as I took you to be. Fine,” he nodded at the map, “you’ve got my word on it. Where are they?”

“I’ll lead you there. Once Thorne agrees.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Should I?”

He grinned, baring his incisors. “No, probably not.” He moved toward her, so close that she could smell the blood in his clothes, as he hissed softly, “All right. You’ve got your chance. I’ll plead your case to Thorne and take you on as a bloodhound. You get to skip the hangman’s rope, and I don’t have to tramp through that stupid forest for weeks.”

Cat turned her face away, choking on the reek of blood in his clothes. It wasn’t hard to guess who it belonged to, although the question still leapt to her tongue. Instead, she said quickly, “And you won’t kill Viggo.”

Stupid. She hadn’t meant to say it, to risk the only chance she had on an oath that wouldn’t matter anyway.

She was so stupid.

“There it is.” Lant took another step toward her. His smile made her skin crawl with shame. “I knew you couldn’t let go so easily. Not the way he was looking at you.”

Cat looked away, hating the tears burning behind her eyes and the weakness in her soul that was so, so easy to read.

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell Silas Thorne not to hang someone.”

“No. But you can leave his death to the hangman, or the slave drivers in the salt mines, or wherever else Thorne sends him.”

“Ah, I see. You want justice to be upheld.” Several of the men in the room laughed, and Lant grinned and shrugged. “All right. I agree to let him die in whatever way Thorne sees fit. Anything else? You want to beg the same for the others?”

Cat shook her head, almost dizzy with relief. “No.” Her voice sounded different somehow. Like someone else’s. Like her mother’s. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Good. Now for my conditions.” Lant’s pupils narrowed into slits, and he smiled. “You get to tell him exactly what your freedom is going to cost him. Everyone deserves the truth, after all.”

Cat’s heart dropped like a stone.

Tomas woke and slept and woke again, drifting in and out of consciousness as easily as if his soul had no tether to this world any longer. When he was awake, he stared at Viggo without recognition, his dark eyes sunken and clouded as if with smoke. The wound on his chest wept pus, and angry red streaks stretched across his skin toward his heart and his throat.

Viggo sponged blood and pus from the gash and watched the torch on the wall burn down, fear digging claws into his flesh with every flicker. He tucked the blankets around the man, dribbled water into his clenched jaws, and tried not to think of anything at all.

He was asleep when the door opened again, dozing with his back to the wall. The click of the latch woke him, and he sat up in relief, expecting Cat to slip inside.

A young woman entered, a shawl tucked around her shoulders and a basket in her hands.

Magda, he realized. He’d seen her half a dozen times before as she darted about Thorne’s office and his apartments, swift and cheerful as one of the chickadees that made their nests in the eaves of the palace. The housekeeper’s daughter.

She shut the door behind her and glanced at Tomas, something like pity darting through her expression before she looked at him and said softly, “Ghost Walker?”

Viggo shifted, wincing as he eased a cramp from his lower back. “That’s me.”

“I’ve brought yuh something.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Thorne sent you down here?”

Magda bit her lip and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Nay. I come on my own. One of the guards down here be a friend.”

Viggo laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, weariness tugging him back into the dark wash of sleep. “You shouldn’t be here, lass. Not without your lord’s word.”

She moved further into the room, bringing with her the warm, comforting smell of the kitchens. Her eyes were dark, dark and anxious, but she had a stubborn tilt to her chin that told him she wouldn’t be leaving until she’d said her piece. “I’ve a niece in the villages. My sister’s daughter.”

Viggo smiled, matching her soft, lilting brogue as he said, “Have yuh now. That’s nice.”

“Yuh gave her a doll.”

Viggo frowned and sat up straighter. “Alyss?”

She nodded.

He uttered a soft laugh and passed a hand over his face. “Aye, I remember it. With the lace and all.”

“It were a kind thing to do for a peasant’s daughter.”

“Aye, the Archduke were kind to send it to her.”

Magda’s dark eyes laughed as she whispered, “I be knowin’ the Archduke well. He’s kind enough as a master . . . but not one to think o’ trifles.”

Viggo’s face reddened, and he shrugged. “She more than earned it.”

Magda hesitated, glancing again at the door, and set her basket on the floor as she whispered, “She’s always been a shy one, our Alyss. Always one to be plagued by nightmares, dreaming o’ ghosts and ghouls and aught. But since yuh give her that doll she’s slept like a lamb. Cares for it like her own child, she does, and it’s brought her no end of happiness.”

Viggo felt a swift dart pass through his ribs and forced a smile. “T’were a small thing.”

Magda shook her head. “Not to her. Or any of us. That’s why I’ve come.” She knelt, tucking her skirts to one side, and took the cloth from the basket. From it, she pulled an earthenware jar and handed it to him. “My mother sent yuh this, and bread from the ovens to eat it with. We canna do much, or leave yuh with anything. But I’ll stay while yuh eat, and tend yur friend while yuh do. I’m no healer, but I can ease pain, at the least.”

Viggo took the jar, breathing in the smell of lamb’s broth and fresh bread, and felt his throat close, his eyes burning as he whispered, “It’s kind of yuh, lass.”

She cast him a swift smile and left him to eat, taking a small jar of salve and a sponge to Tomas’s side. She cleaned the blood from his chest and spread the paste along his wound, her lips pursed with concentration.

The bread was still warm from the ovens, light and crusty, and the broth was so rich that it coated his tongue and banished, finally, the taste of bile. Viggo ate in a rush, well aware that every moment she spent in the cell put her at risk. When he finished, she tucked the jar back into the basket and gestured for him to show her his wrists. He hesitated, suddenly feeling so awkward that he didn’t know what to say, and she clicked her tongue at him, saying, “Dinna fret. I’ve no turned sick at the sight of blood yet.”

Viggo held out his hands, wincing as she spread salve along the torn skin where Lant’s ropes had rubbed him raw. A blessed numb relief spread down his hands and up to his elbows, warm and cold at the same time, and he choked out, “Bless yuh, lass.”

She smiled at him and tucked the salve back into the basket, rising to leave. “Yuh’ve a kind heart, Ghost Walker. I wouldna have that forgotten.”

She tapped on the door and slid out when it opened. Once it shut again, Viggo laid his head back and closed his eyes, sleep flooding in around him before he could shake it off.

When he woke, the torch had burned low, and Cat hadn’t returned. Viggo rose, moving to the door, and tried to see out into the hall. Torches burned far down to his left, but their light didn’t reach his cell.

I want to talk to Lant.

The words echoed in his head, burrowing into his blood and bones and soul. Cat’s voice, clear and remote and so calm that they might have been back in the healing houses together while she asked a maid to bring them another towel or a candle when the last one burned down.

Mason had understood the request. That had been painfully obvious. He’d been waiting for it even, which sent a shiver of fear down Viggo’s spine. She’d been the first taken to see Thorne in his office, and since then hours had passed and no similar summons had arrived for himself. What had the man done to her?

Or, worse, what had Lant done?

The torch had begun to smolder and go out by the time the door opened again. Cat slipped in alone.

Her face was ghostly pale in the dying light, her eyes so distant that he scarcely recognized her at all.

The wolf stirred in his chest, agitated, sensing something in the air that he couldn’t quite catch. He rose, catching the toe of his boot on one of the blankets and nearly jerking it out from beneath Tomas. The man mumbled something, calling out to someone—a name Viggo hadn’t heard before. Viggo eased the blanket back into place and waited until he settled to say hoarsely, “Are you all right?”

Cat wasn’t looking at him. Her face was so calm still, shuttered against him the way it had been in the Core and all those long months in Ivra before they’d finally chipped away the wall between them.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice sounded different, detached. As if there was nothing of herself left in it. “Lant’s waiting. I have to go.”

A shock went through his limbs. “Go where?”

“The Krathe.” She looked him in the face, as if she knew what her words would do to him. “I got a better offer.”

He stopped breathing and felt the floor give under his feet as if the stones might collapse and bury him. “What?”

“I wanted you to know before we left.”

“Cat—”

“I’m not going to die for them.” A shiver of bitterness darted through her expression, and for a breath he was looking at a stranger, a woman as glacial and ruthless as Reika. “I shouldn’t have to.”

“You’d kill them to save yourself?”

“I didn’t drag them into this,” she spat, suddenly vicious. “You did.”

The words struck him in the face.

Cat bit her lip and looked away, hugging her arms to her chest. The torch flickered, smoke nearly extinguishing the flame, and when it flared to life again he realized she was crying. Instinctively, he took a step toward her, but she backed away, scrubbing at the tears on her cheeks as she whispered, “Don’t. You’re making it worse.”

Viggo stared at her, suddenly dizzy, suddenly sick. At last, he said low, “Don’t do this. We’ll find a way out, I swear. You don’t have to do this.”

“We didn’t have to do any of this,” she hissed and glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “We could’ve fixed it a dozen times. With Fane, in the healing houses, in the Krathe. We had so many chances, but you kept making it worse!”

He felt the floor crack again, giving way, dragging him down with it. “Cat . . . I’m sorry—”

“You’re always sorry.” Her eyes were so gray—as if the light behind them had extinguished. “You’re always sorry and it never helps.”

It didn’t. He knew it didn’t. Nothing he did helped—everything he’d done, against her, against everyone else, was written in his soul. He’d been stupid to think anything he could do would atone.

Tomas was right. It didn’t work that way.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Lant won’t kill you.” Her words were clipped, cutting him off. As if she wanted everything said and over with as quickly as possible. “I don’t know what Thorne has planned, but whatever it is, Lant won’t interfere. He promised me that much.”

“What about you?”

“He needs a bloodhound. I’ll get the chance I should’ve had in Crainfell.” She flashed a cynical smile. “I’m a bit done with partners anyway.”

Viggo couldn’t breathe. He stared at her, trying to see past the shuttered expression, the bitterness and anger, and catch a glimpse of the partner he’d spent most of the last year with, to understand how he’d missed this part of her.

He couldn’t. Nothing was left. Not of her, not of them, not of anything they’d built. He was looking at a stranger. He swallowed hard, hissing, “That’s it, then? You’re going to leave just like that?”

“Did you think there was more?”

He choked on his reply, and she was gone before he could get the words out. The door closed, and the torch on the wall went out.

Lant and Mason were waiting for her in the corridor when she came out. Mason was grinning, his eyes darting between her and Lant like a dog waiting for its master’s approval.

Lant straightened up. The smile playing on his lips made her want to vomit. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Better than swinging from a rope.”

She didn’t look at him. The tears burning in her throat and her eyes were gone now, leaving nothing but a pit of emptiness between her ribs and a headache pounding in her temples.

Lant caught her chin, tilting her head up until she met his eyes. He clicked his tongue and wiped tears from her cheek with a thumb. “Second thoughts, compass brat?”

She glared at him. “No.”

“Good girl.” He released her and nodded at Mason. “Take her somewhere she can get cleaned up and get her kit from the supply room. Skip the weapons.”

Mason snarled in reply. Cat turned to go and winced as Lant caught her arm. His eyes were strangely black as he pulled her close, his fingers leaving bruises that felt as though they went all the way to her bones as he said softly, “I’d stick close to him if I were you. I’ve never had to chain a bloodhound yet, but I’m not above it.”

Cat met his eyes without flinching, hating the way her breath caught in her throat and her heart felt as though it were shattering against her ribs. “I’m not going anywhere,” she hissed at last. “I want this chance, remember?”

Lant let go, and she followed Mason down the passage, every step echoing with the hurt in Viggo’s voice.

Don’t do this.

The rats vanished back into the walls when the gray light of dawn began to filter through the cell’s small window. Viggo watched them disappear, listening dully to the sound of their claws on the stones.

He hadn’t slept long. As soon as the torch had gone out, they’d appeared from cracks and invisible holes in the walls, drawn by the smell of Tomas’s wound, gnawing on the blankets where it had dried, scrabbling at his wound. He’d killed three of them to keep them off the man.

Their bones lay in the corner, stripped clean by the dozens of others he hadn’t killed.

Blood, down here, meant food. No matter whose it was.

The wolf would have kept them out; the smell of a predator in the cell deterring all but the most bold. But the wolf was gone. It had left him, retreating so deeply into his soul that he could scarcely feel it at all. The black walls had driven it away.

The black walls and Cat’s desertion. It felt her loss as keenly as he did, and he’d felt it pulling away even before she’d spat the last words at him and the door had shut behind her.

Did you think there was more?

Viggo laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, thinking about the words, turning them over in his mind. They should have made him angry. Distantly, outside of himself, he was aware of that. They should have melted into his bones, burning and burning until they set his soul on fire.

But they didn’t. She was right. He’d had so, so many chances to fix this. All of it.

And she’d never told him there was more. She’d never said it, not out loud.

Keys rattled in the corridor outside, and the door swung open. Viggo raised his head, unease stirring in his gut, and Silas Thorne entered.

The Archduke didn’t look as though he’d slept either. He looked older than Viggo had ever seen him, weary, as if the last few weeks had taken years from him.

Ace came in with him, and Brand, their faces carefully neutral and remote. As if it really had been Cat they’d cared about after all, and not him.

More than likely that was true. He’d made few real friends in Ivra. The fight houses had seen to that.

Lant entered last with blood on his sleeves and a look in his eyes that spoke of death.

The door shut, and Thorne’s eyes went first to Tomas. The man’s face was gray, and there was blood on his skin from where the rats had bitten him.

Thorne’s jaw twitched. “Is he dead?”

Lant kicked aside the man’s blankets and touched his throat. “Not yet.”

“Send for a healer.”

Lant pulled away the man’s shirt. The stench of rotting flesh rose, and Ace flinched back instinctively, covering his mouth and nose. Lant shrugged. “As my lord likes. I doubt it will do any good.”

“Do it anyway.” Thorne grimaced and his gaze turned to Viggo. “Are you hurt?”

Viggo didn’t look at him. The sun was rising, and the gray light slipping through the bars turned a soft gold and collected on the stones a few feet away. He could have touched it if he’d dared to move in that direction. “No.”

Thorne sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Somehow I doubt that.” He paused as if searching for what to say next. “Help me understand. Things are escalating so quickly—” he hesitated, his jaw twitching. Finally, he said softly, “Help me understand.”

Viggo watched as a breeze flitted across the floor, dust glowing in the sunlight. “I told you. I’m not going to burn in hell for you.”

Not for him, no. He would burn in hell for his own part, though. He knew that now. His sin was his own, no matter who’d given the orders. His soul was his own, and he was the master of it—and he could have been back then, too. If he’d chosen to be.

“Yes, you told me that.” Thorne glanced at the scars on his wrists, sore pity in his eyes. “I still don’t understand where that belief came from. But—I want to know about the others you took out of Ivra.”

The others. Viggo’s heart constricted. Were they dead already? No, Cat hadn’t had time to lead anyone to the Krathe yet.

If she did at all.

Thorne raised an eyebrow at him. “Viggo?”

“What?”

“Why did they go with you?”

Why had they? He tried to remember, picturing that night in the darkened garden, trying to remember what he’d said to Rylee, to Dakota.

He couldn’t. He hadn’t said anything. Not anything that mattered. They’d come because they were desperate, same as himself.

“Viggo?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know why they came with me.”

Thorne shook his head. “No, you do.”

“I don’t.”

Lant bared his teeth and moved toward him. Thorne held out his hand, stopping the man, and said quietly, “It has something to do with the Core. Something Vladimer Hunt or one of the trainers there taught you. Doesn’t it?”

Viggo almost laughed. The man was looking for the crack in their system, the reason he’d gone off the rails, the reason all of them had.

If only it were that easy.

“It’s not going to end with us,” he said.

Thorne went very still. “What?”

Viggo uttered a soft laugh and looked at him, right in the face. “People are figuring it out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember Kaleb Rainwood?”

Thorne frowned. “The man you said was killed in the fight house.”

A shadow passed the window, obscuring the sunlight for the span of a breath. “He was going to kill his master the night he died. He had it all planned.”

Thorne’s face paled.

“After he was killed, I came home with the intention of doing the same to Fane. Cat stopped me.” Viggo paused, remembering that night, remembering her hand on his wrist, her fingers digging into his skin. Her voice calling him back from the edge. Was that why he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry with her? Was she too much a part of him now? Probably. “It started there. For me, at least. I should have recognized it sooner, but I was too stubborn, too set on making it work.”

Wind blew through the window, and the torch Lant had brought in flickered.

“I didn’t want to admit that we’ve all got a day coming when we’re not useful anymore.” Viggo glanced at Brand, meeting the man’s eyes, and flashed a sardonic smile. “Some of us don’t have it bad enough to realize it yet. That’s all.”

Ace had turned sheet white. Thorne stared at Viggo for a long breath and said softly, “Both teams graduated with you.”

“Baxter hated me.”

“Laite graduated with you, too.”

“And betrayed us.”

Thorne’s eyes darkened. “He was meant to.”

Viggo glanced at Lant and the blood on his sleeves, and felt a pit form between his ribs.

“In the end, only Ashcliff has been cooperative. And she was only in the Core for a short time.”

Rime was gathering in his bones, in his breast, bitterly cold and stinging like fire. “Where is Cat?”

Thorne rubbed his eyes. “She’s safe.”

“I want to see her.”

Thorne coughed a laugh. “No. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Viggo looked away, feeling the cold in his bones as if his limbs were freezing. “I never did anything to her.”

“I’ve heard otherwise.”

A protest leapt to his tongue, but he swallowed it. What had Cat told him? That he’d forced her? That he’d dragged her along behind him, threatened her, kept her away from Ivra and anyone who could help her?

No doubt. Judging from the hostility in Ace’s eyes, she’d said that and worse.

Thorne studied him for a minute more and sighed. “I see I’m not going to get anywhere with you.”

A humorless smile flickered at the corner of Viggo’s mouth. “No, probably not.”

Thorne turned for the door and nodded to Lant. “Do what you can with him. The caravan leaves tomorrow, and I don’t see a reason to delay it.”

Lant bowed curtly. The door shut behind Thorne and his men, and Lant flashed a smile at Viggo, baring his incisors. “There we are. Alone at last.”

The rime in his breast spread to his heart, until he could feel nothing but cold.

“Gods. I thought he’d be dead by now.” Lant nudged Tomas with a toe. “Do you think I really should send for a healer? Seems like a waste when all that is waiting for him is a rope.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.” Viggo said it hoarsely and felt the betrayal a breath later. The man was still alive. Barely, but he was. Was it easier, somehow, to bury Tomas in his mind now rather than to prolong the grief?

Probably. It was the coward’s way out, but it was easier.

Lant grinned, baring his teeth. “No, I didn’t. That’s the trouble, Ghost Walker.” He hissed the name with relish. “When you play games like this, people get hurt. Does that mean it’s your fault?”

It did. Viggo said hoarsely, “Where’s Cat?”

“She’s safe. Glad to be away from you, I think.”

“What did you do to her?”

“To make her leave?” Lant tilted his head, thinking about it, and shrugged. “I gave her a way out, that’s all. She wanted one.”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s really not. Once you fall to this level, people tend to disappear.” Lant glanced around the cell, at the black walls and the soiled straw and the filth caking the cracks in the floor. “Not much tempting her to stick around.”

Viggo bit his tongue, remembering the gray in her eyes.

You’re always sorry.

“She came to me, remember? It’s not like I had her on a torture rack.” Lant dug his hands into his pockets and looked at him, an ugly amusement in his eyes. “Did you thank her for saving your life?”

The man had a knife strapped to his thigh, a heavy, black-bladed thing with Tomas’s blood still staining the handle. Viggo looked away, imagining what it would be like to drive the blade through Lant’s chest, twisting until his ribs cracked.

“She did, you know. Or,” Lant shrugged, “she thinks she did. I didn’t plan on killing you anyway. At first, yes. But later, I thought, gods, why don’t I just let him wallow in it? That whole mess he’s made of his life? Seems like a better punishment.”

Viggo didn’t answer.

“Interesting that you asked about her and not your friend. He screamed for you. Did you know that?” Lant studied him, his eyes flicking over the cuts on his throat and the deep purple bruise on his cheek, his jaw. “Five hours he spent screaming. I think he actually hoped you could hear him. ‘I’m sorry,’” Lant mimicked his voice, breathless with pain, “‘please forgive me.’ Did you?”

He bared his incisors, his smile so mocking that Viggo wanted to strike the smirk off his face. His heart shuddered in his breast, beating in time with his pain, and he almost did hit him, but he sensed that Lant was waiting for it. Wanting him to fall to pieces here, alone in the cell, where Lant could watch it happen.

Viggo said nothing. Lant raised an eyebrow. “No? I wouldn’t have, either.” He looked down at his hands, rubbing his palm with a thumb as if he could still see Carver’s blood on his skin. “Five hours. Five. Hours.” He laughed, and there was madness in the sound. “Hell, I wish you would tell me what it was about you that inspired such stupidity, Holiness. Before today, I would have sworn on my own strength that I could break anyone in five hours. He proved me wrong.”

Viggo looked down at his hands. Five hours was a long time to scream.

“I think he was actually happy to see the Pale Lady when she came for him. I’ve heard that death is mercy, in its own way. Do you believe that? Would you say death is merciful?”

Dead.

Carver was dead.

Viggo closed his eyes, relief flowing through his soul. Lant meant the words to be a punishment, but he was right. Death was merciful in Ivra—too merciful, maybe, for a liar and a traitor.

Still. For the sake of the man he’d known in the Core, Viggo was glad it had come so quickly. Some men lingered days on the torture racks before the Pale Lady deigned to come for them.

“A waste, since your little kitten offered to bring us to the others anyway. I didn’t even have to ask.” Lant bared a vicious smile. “A good thing, too. It would have been a shame for her to end the same way.”

Viggo lunged at him. Lant hit him so hard that the room spun, and he fell. Lant snarled. “Still. If I do kill you, we can always claim it was an accident.”

Viggo spat and went to rise. Lant kicked him in the face, and Viggo felt his nose snap a breath before the cell went dark as pitch.

Viggo woke.

Darkness pressed down on him as thick and black as pooled ink. It throbbed with pain, pounding against his body in waves of dull agony. Was he dead? Possibly. Death couldn’t be much worse than this. Dead and buried, maybe. That would explain why the darkness was so heavy.

Except he could still feel the stone floor pressing into his shoulder. He could taste blood, too, sharp and metallic in his mouth. The pain beating against him began to retreat to the back of his skull. And his nose. He rolled over onto his back and lifted a hand to his face. It came away sticky. He swore under his breath, his voice strangely harsh in his ears.

Memories flitted past, disjointed fragments that made little sense. Cat’s gray eyes, and her face blending with Reika’s in his mind. Thorne looking at him with disappointment. Lant’s boot in his face.

Carver.

Pain lanced his chest, shadows flooding back into his thoughts. He shut his eyes, forcing the blackness in his mind down until it left his throat and lodged beneath his heart, a solid ache against his ribs. Leave it there. It wouldn’t kill him . . . not all at once, anyway. It would nibble away at his heartbeat slowly, so slowly that it might take years before he felt it again. He didn’t care. It was doubtful he would last days, anyway.

Several minutes passed in numb silence. The pain in his head pulled away, leaving a dull ache that he could ignore. He sat up, ran a hand over his face. His left eye was sealed shut with dried blood, and his nose was broken. He cleared the blood away cautiously, blinking against the darkness. He still couldn’t see. The torches out in the corridor must have burned out. Midnight? He couldn’t guess. His throat was dry as sawdust.

Viggo shifted, sliding his hand along the stone floor behind him. His fingers brushed against something hard and wooden. A bucket. He pushed it aside, and it clunked against the floor.

“If there’s water in that, I’ll take some.”

Viggo’s heart leapt, and he scrambled across the floor, headache forgotten, feeling his way in the dark until his hand found Tomas’s shoulder. The man flinched. “Easy.”

“Sorry,” Viggo whispered hoarsely. His hands were shaking. The man sounded clearer than he had in days, more himself, more lucid. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I could use some of that water,” Tomas murmured, the words lightened by amusement. “Unless you spilled it.”

“Wasn’t any to begin with,” Viggo choked out, his throat closing. He hadn’t realized how desperate he’d been for a friendly voice. “I can call for someone. Maybe—”

“Not worth it.” Tomas’s voice drifted off, and he was silent so long that Viggo thought he’d fallen asleep again. But the man’s chest jerked, and he snatched in a breath and half rose, as if he’d startled himself awake. “Where’s Cat? Did she come back?”

Viggo pressed him gently back, his heart beating dully against his ribs as he felt the fire raging beneath the man’s skin on his chest around the wound. By contrast, the rest of him was cold and clammy, as if he hadn’t an ounce of life in his limbs. “She’s fine. She—” The words caught in his throat, and the truth was suddenly too heavy and too black for this dark night. He cleared his throat. “She came back. She’s sleeping, that’s all. I didn’t want to wake her.”

“No, don’t wake her.” The relief in the man’s voice stung like poison on his skin. “She should sleep. That’s good. I was worried about her, that’s all.” His voice drifted again, as if he were talking to someone else. “Worried about you, too. Couldn’t sleep thinking about it.”

Viggo laughed hoarsely. “No reason to worry about me.”

“We didn’t finish our talk.”

“What talk?”

Tomas waved a hand vaguely. “In the Krathe. We were talking about Death.”

A chill slipped down Viggo’s spine like the hand of a ghost, and he said softly, “Let’s not talk about that now.”

“The Pale Lady can’t forgive you, Viggo.” Tomas’s voice cracked. “I was trying to tell you. That’s what the story of the Ghost Walker is about. The Pale Lady can’t.”

Viggo looked away, working to swallow the knot in his throat, and said, “I know. It’s all right, Tomas. Just lie back. They’re going to send a healer for you soon.”

The lie stung. No doubt Lant Curtis had dismissed Thorne’s order the moment he left the cell. Besides, Viggo doubted very much any of the women in the healing houses would come down here. Not unless they were dragged.

“You’re not listening.” Tomas pushed him away. Viggo could hear his confusion, hear the fear that was cutting into his voice, splintering it. “They got it wrong. She twisted it all up. It’s wrong.”

Viggo caught his hand, holding him steady. The man’s pulse beat rapidly against his fingers, too fast and weaker than it should have been. “I know. I know it is. It’s all right. I understand.”

The man stared at him, his gaunt face barely visible in the moonlight that had begun to trickle through the window high above them. “You do?”

“Yes.” Viggo smiled, glad for once that the fight house had taught him to lie so easily. “You don’t have to worry.”

Tomas laid his head back. “Good. I thought—but you’ve got it. Good.”

“I’ve got it.” The words broke apart in his mouth, splinters like glass cutting into his tongue, into his throat. He swallowed, trying to see through a blur of tears. “Get some rest.”

The man nodded, already drifting away. His eyes were hollow, as hollow as the night they’d met. Like the face of a skull. “Wake me when Cat gets up. I was worried . . .” His voice trailed off.

Viggo laid the man’s hand on his breast, whispering, “Maeva’s waiting, Bonesmith. You can go on ahead. I swear, I don’t mind.”

Another lie, but he doubted even the Pale Lady herself would hold it against him.

The gardens in the healing houses had been raked clean of dying vines by the herbwomen who tended them. Cat sat in the dust beneath the windows, breathing in the scent of the turned earth and the lingering smell of whiteleaf and silverfoot. Everything would have been saved, of course. They would gather root and twig, leaf and flower, however dead and withered, to be used in powders and salves.

They never wasted anything. Not here. Not blood or souls or dying leaves.

She saw him before he saw her. Her heart skipped a beat at his familiar frame, the confident stride and broad shoulders. She hadn’t expected Ace to come, although the look on his face when he’d seen her in the shadows of the training court had given her a breath of hope.

Cat stood, dusting her hands, and whistled softly. He whipped around, jumpy as a fox from the Krathe, and when he saw her, his face contorted with worry and relief. “You’re mad,” he whispered, crossing the space between them as quickly as if even the shedding trees might hear and report him to his master. “Lant Curtis will have your head if he finds you wandering about.”

Cat smiled and buried her face in his shoulder when he hugged her. “He won’t find me. I was careful.”

“Still, it was stupid.” His face was pleased, anyway, when he pulled away, and she felt a tug of guilt in her breast at the sight of it. He was relieved for her, that was it. For her and for himself. He was still, as he’d always been, the boy who liked her blue eyes.

She hated to admit that she’d only come to take advantage of that stupid crush.

“I need your help.”

His face clouded, and he frowned. “With what?”

“I need a knife.”

He paled. He knew almost immediately what she meant, what she was really after, and he caught her wrist and hissed low, “Cat—”

She shook him off, determination and fear warring in her breast. “You can’t give it to me here. Mason will find it.”

“I can’t give it to you at all! Cat, you’ve got a chance now—”

“A chance to what?” she snarled so fiercely that he took a step back. “To leave Viggo to die? To be alone again?”

Ace shook his head. “Cat . . . you can’t do this. He’s in your head. You don’t have to—”

“I chose this.” Cat felt a wave of relief pass through her as if she were spitting the words into her mother’s face and Thorne’s as she said it. “I wanted it every bit as much as Viggo did. I’m not stupid, Ace. Do you really think he could have forced me into any of it?”

Ace stared at her numbly. No, he didn’t. He’d spent enough time with her in the training courts to know better, however much he wanted to fool himself.

“I could’ve gotten out when we came to Ivra,” Cat said softly. “Or a dozen other times. I didn’t want out. Thorne’s a fool for thinking otherwise, but it was enough to get me free of the cells, and it might be enough to get Viggo out as well—if you’ll help me. Please, Ace. Please.”

His expression was a tortured mix of disappointment and fear. He took a step back, as if he were going to whip around and go right to Thorne with her treachery. After a long breath, he whispered, “What do you want me to do?”

She could have wept and laughed all at once as she stammered out her plan in a rush, feeling every second that was wasted would draw her closer to a grave that she wasn’t ready to lie in.

Not yet. Not until she could take back what she’d said in the cells. When Viggo had heard the truth, she could die.

Not before.

Tomas left him a quarter of an hour later, as if he’d only been waiting for permission to die. Viggo sat on the floor watching the last of the man’s life flee, and shut his eyes, feeling his ribs collapse in his chest. He willed his stupid, stupid heart to stop as well.

It wouldn’t, of course. No doubt this had been Lant’s plan from the beginning: Carver and Tomas dead, and Cat following after him like a dog he’d brought to heel.

And Viggo, alone in cell, begging the Pale Lady for the same courtesy she’d given to the others.

As if in response to the thought, his skin prickled, cold digging sharp claws into his bones. Frost touched the pool gathering beneath the window and raced across the stones toward his feet. The burnt torches overhead flickered to life, white flames licking up the spent wood as if obeying some unspoken command, their light pale and the shadows they cast as black as spilled ink.

He scrambled backward, feeling his heart plunge in his chest as the Pale Lady smiled at him.

The frost climbed the walls, crystalizing on Tomas’s dead face, as the woman came toward him. Her shredded skirts swept the floor, white as dead flesh and stained with blood along the hem. “You’re not going to weep?” Her voice didn’t sound the way he’d thought it would, not vile or hissed like a demon or a ghost. It was the voice of a woman, neither old nor young, a voice that held the sorrow of a thousand screams behind it. A voice to make the stones weep. “I would have thought he deserved a mourner.”

Viggo stared at her, the cold creeping into his lungs until it hurt to breathe. “He’ll forgive me when I join him,” he whispered hoarsely. “Did you come to bury him since no one else will?”

“I came to hear you beg.”

Anger flitted through his chest, such stupid, pointless anger that it burned in his soul, and he swore at her, flinging the words in her face as if that alone would ward her off.

She laughed, and the sound sent a shudder through his soul. Pale Lady, Queen of the Damned, Winter’s Lover. How many names had he heard for her in all his years? Too many. Every farmer had lost a son or brother, every servant a wife or daughter. She’d touched every life in some way, and every man would feel her breath at the end of his days. Her eyes were white like fog over Sorrow’s Heath, as blind as every tale claimed. Blind to wealth, blind to poverty, blind to beauty or pain, blind to age or rank or status.

Death had no favorites.

She came toward him, her shroud brushing over Tomas’s dead face. Viggo rose and took a step back, his heart hammering against his ribs. She cocked her head, following him with those strange, sightless eyes, as if she could feel him somehow, as if the blood pumping through his veins and the breath giving him life drew her. “Don’t you want him back?” she whispered, the words frozen in the still air.

His heart froze, and he replied before he could think what it might cost him. “Yes.”

She smiled. She had flowers in her hair, dead flowers that smelled of rot and decay. Of death. Their wilted petals littered the stones as she moved. “And your pretty partner? Do you want her back, too?”

Viggo swallowed the bitterness in his mouth. He was shaking. “Now you’re lying,” he hissed, the words catching in his sore throat. “You can’t bring her back.”

“I am Death, son of war.” She picked a flower from her hair and touched it with pale fingers. Life blossomed into its fragile frame. It grew and bloomed, fresh color blushing into its delicate heart, until she crushed it between her hands and blew the ashes that remained to the floor. “In this world, Death is queen, and all things bow to me.”

“Not all things,” Viggo whispered, but he knew it was true. Life hung in the balance, and death always won. Always.

“Do you want them back or not?”

Viggo looked down at Tomas’s body, at the blood on his clothes and the unnatural stillness in his frame. “Yes.” He bit his tongue, thinking of Cat, and felt the rime in his breast crack his heart. “Yes, I want them back. More than anything.”

“So beg.”

He looked up at her, at her sightless eyes and gossamer veil, at the blood staining her bare feet and white hem, at the cold in her white hands and the cloven heart in her breast. Fear touched his heart, and he tasted it in his mouth, as bitter as poison. “Why?” he asked hoarsely. “Death doesn’t offer the living favors.”

“Not the living, no.” She smiled slyly, her clouded eyes fixed on him, as if she felt his soul writhing. “But for the Ghost Walker, perhaps I would make an exception.”

The color drained out of his face.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

He hadn’t. He hadn’t thought of her at all, not once, as if she were a mistress too high and remote to bother with the thoughts of men. He’d only wanted his own record before her wiped clean, that was all, as if he could remove himself from her notice completely. How stupid.

She came closer, touched his chest with her white hand. His heart faltered beneath her fingers, and frost spread through his bones. “The mighty Ghost Walker,” she whispered mockingly. “Death’s hound, striking fear into every man’s heart with just the mention of his name.”

Viggo gasped, pain wrapping around his chest, squeezing his ribs until he was sure they would shatter. She waited for a breath, amusement carved into her face as she enjoyed his pain. At last she stepped back, releasing him from her touch. He stumbled, catching himself against the wall. Every breath hurt like fire in his lungs.

“Not many men will mock Death so openly.”

“I wasn’t.” Viggo clenched his fist, digging his fingers into his palm. “I didn’t mean to mock you.”

“Then you’re stupid, too. Shall I forgive you?”

His heart went numb.

Her sly smile returned. “That’s what you really wanted, isn’t it? Atonement? Forgiveness?”

Death can’t forgive you.

He didn’t answer.

She turned her face toward him, waiting for a reply. When none came, she clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You weren’t taught to beg well.”

“You still haven’t proven that you have anything I should beg for.”

“No?”

The walls of the cell vanished. The darkness, the frost, the white fire. Tomas’s body. Viggo was standing in the Krathe, his boots sunk in deep moss that smelled of fresh earth. A stream flowed past, rippling over dark stones. Willows swayed above him in a warm breeze, yellow leaves raining down on his head and shoulders and swirling in the dark water while geese honked overhead, winging past in long, jagged Vs.

Someone touched his arm. He jerked away, swinging around. Cat smiled at him quizzically. “There you are. What are you doing?”

He couldn’t breathe. Her eyes were so blue. Blue like the gnatcatchers in their nests above the Flumen, like the feathers they left behind when they vanished south for the winter. He’d thought that before, once. He couldn’t remember when.

Cat laughed at him, catching his hand and squeezing it in hers. Her hands were warm. “What are you looking at?”

He meant to tell her. He did. The words jumbled together in his head, catching in his throat, and he could only whisper hoarsely, “I missed you.”

Her smile softened, and she touched his cheek, ran her thumb along the corner of his jaw. “Missed me? I haven’t gone anywhere.”

He reached for her instinctively, and in a breath it was all gone. The Krathe, the trees, the stream.

Cat’s hand in his and everything but the memory of her touch on his skin.

The black walls of the cell closed in around him, the reek of death hitting harder after the breath of air. Viggo shut his eyes, fighting back tears. The Pale Lady cocked her head. “Is that proof enough?”

“What do you want?”

“I think I was clear.”

“You want me to beg?” He forced a raw laugh. “Plenty of men beg. Death doesn’t listen.”

“I may . . . to the Ghost Walker.”

“That’s just a story.”

“I could make it more than that.”

A chill shivered down his back, and he stared at her. “What?”

“The Ghost Walker is Death’s hound. The Pale Lady’s errand runner. Isn’t that what the tales say?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “So what?”

“So beg. Offer yourself as a dog at my feet. Fetch the condemned to my door in exchange for your partner’s love and watch her return to your arms at my beck and call.”

The Pale Lady touched his chest, and instead of pain, longing flooded through him. Intense, intoxicating longing that ached in his bones and his lungs and made him feel so weak that he wondered if he were dying, too. He choked on a sob and closed his eyes, shaken, seeing Cat in his arms again, curled against his side as they slept, laughing at something he’d said to her on the paths in the Krathe. Happy. Herself. His again, despite his stupid mistakes.

All of it costing him nothing but lives that were going to end anyway.

He stepped away from her touch, wiping his eyes with a forearm, and whispered, “What do you want me to do?”

“Bring me a soul, Ghost Walker.”

Viggo’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why?”

A flicker of irritation passed through the Pale Lady’s features, and the torches on the walls flickered, white flames jerking spasmodically, as if suffocated by her anger. “I want proof that you’ll do what I ask.”

“Yes, but—” his mouth went dry. “Who do you want?”

A sly smile touched her lips. “Shall I make it easy for you?”

A shudder ran through his bones, and instantly he knew who she meant.

Silas Thorne. The man who’d done all of this, who’d stolen Cat from him, who’d sentenced Tomas to the Pale Lady’s white halls and ordered so many deaths. Who else would be as easy to kill in cold blood, with a noose or a knife or his bare hands?

“I couldn’t—” Viggo bit his tongue. “I can’t even get to him.”

The door swung open with a creak, and Viggo knew—knew—that if he went now, obeyed her wish, he would meet no guards, no servants, he would find Thorne alone and asleep, and could kill the man and vanish before anyone knew he was gone.

Ghost Walker, indeed.

It had been planned out for him, set in place by the Pale Lady herself. He had only to follow her lead.

“Why don’t you kill him yourself?”

One of the torches snuffed, shadows around him growing taller, deeper. Her lips tightened into a thin smile. “Are you the Ghost Walker or not?”

“I—”

“You want to atone for what you’ve done, earn your forgiveness?”

She touched him again, right over his heart, and the scars on his forearms grew hot, burning into his skin as if they meant to sear themselves into his bones. He gasped, jerked away from her, and the pain faded.

“This is how you do it,” she hissed. “By becoming what you already claimed to be.”

Viggo stared at her, his mouth suddenly dry, his tongue wooden, and knew she was wrong. This was what Tomas had meant. Death wanted blood from him, and blood would never cancel out blood. At last, he croaked, “No.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Not like this.” He took a step back, out of her reach, wishing his hands weren’t shaking and that he could stand on his own feet without his knees trembling beneath him. “I’ve been their murderer. I won’t be yours.”

The door slammed shut. Two other torches died and the last guttered, as if the air in the room had suddenly turned foul. Darkness loomed over him, snatching at his breath, and the Pale Lady said softly, “I see. And how do you plan to pay your debt?”

His reply stuck in his throat.

“Did you think saving a peasant from his due punishment was enough?” The Pale Lady spat the words at him, her eyes ghostly in the half light, her beautiful face distorted with fury. “Or asking forgiveness from a man whose sins match your own?”

Viggo shook his head. “No, I—”

“Did you think it was forgotten?”

He could hear them now, coming from the stones, reverberating against the walls, piercing his skull as they got into his head. The girl he’d killed in the dog pens when he was twelve. The servant he’d hunted in the mountains, begging for his life. Jeran. Warren. Tomas.

Cat.

He clutched his head in his hands, begging them silently, willing them to stop. The Lady studied him with contempt and hissed, “Why don’t I let you think about it? Maybe you’ll have another answer for me.”

The last torch went out, and the cell plunged into darkness. Pain seared through his wrists, his scars blazing as if she’d lit them on fire, and he screamed. She left him, vanishing as swiftly as she’d come, but the voices continued. So many voices, rising up in his head, overwhelming him, shrieking until he thought his soul would tear in two. His hands were burning as if he’d thrust them into the fire himself, but there was no flame to smother. He stumbled to the puddle that had formed beneath the wall, plunging his hands into the filthy water, but the fire burned on beneath his skin.

Viggo shut his eyes, curled into a ball and put his hands over his ears, begging the voices to stop and the burning to end. Begging the Pale Lady to return or Lant Curtis to come and slit his throat. Begging whatever god would listen to crush his soul and end this before he went mad.

A hand touched his shoulder, small and slim and so warm that the ice in his breast instantly melted. The screams fell silent, and the pain in his scars vanished.

His mind, like the wolf, fled.

When Viggo woke, the moon had risen, and the silence felt soft and as welcome as rain in the spring. Light slipped along the floor, cold like the first breath of frost on a winter’s eve. Viggo lay against the wall and watched the light drift along the pitted stone, flowing like molten silver on the filthy puddle beneath the window. Water dripped from the sill above, casting ripples along the white surface. The soft music it made caressed the walls as if they hadn’t been echoing with screams only hours before, as if none of this had happened, and the rain would still come to wash the darkness out of the sky.

It wouldn’t. He knew it wouldn’t. This night would never end, not for him.

Not anymore.

A giant moth clung to the wooden beams over his head, pale as the moonlight and as large as his hand. Its blue wings were soft with fur, frosted like leaves on a winter’s night. He saw them sometimes in the Krathe. More often now that the nights were colder. They liked the cold.

He was almost waiting for it when she finally spoke. Her little voice barely stirred the air, as soft as if the moonlight had spoken. A familiar voice, like someone he’d known for a long time and only forgotten for a while. “They’re called Moon Leaves.” The lisp in her words had a hint of northern brogue to it, like the peasants that lived around Fydera. “They hatch after the first frost. Do you like them?”

Viggo’s throat tightened. He stared at the moth, tracing its delicate wings with his eyes. Finally, he whispered, “They’ll all die when the snows come.”

“I know.” She sat against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest, small as the child he’d given the doll to on the borders of the Krathe. “But they’ll lay their eggs, and we’ll see them again next year.”

Viggo couldn’t look at her, not straight. She was so small, like the little elves that the humans told stories about. Sprites that lived in the stumps of trees and beneath rocks and waterfalls, who came out after dark to dance in the meadows. Thick auburn curls fell to her waist, unruly and tangled. She reached up, pushing them out of her face with an impatient toss of her head, and whispered, “You’re afraid of me.”

He was. He was, and she could see it.

She cocked her head. “Why?”

He uttered a hoarse laugh. “I’ve had enough of ghosts and demons tonight.” His throat clogged, and he sat up, leaning against the wall, and whispered, “Please just leave.”

“You don’t want to talk? You did last time.”

He stared at her. “Last time?”

“You don’t remember?” She hugged her knees to her chest. “You said you came to pray for your soul.”

His skin prickled.

The Widow.

She flashed a shy smile. “You do remember.”

“But—”

The moth fluttered toward the window, and she turned her head, watching it go. He caught a glimpse then, a quick shimmer, a ripple of another soul. The way he could feel the wolf in himself and see the leopard in Cat.

A woman, slight as a girl, shrouded and veiled in black. He could see her now in his head so clearly, smell the candles they’d lit in the church, hear the mourning doves cooing in the archways above the nave.

He’d been at his lowest, then, too. She’d told him to go to Thorne, right then, that night, and tell him everything. And afterward to take Cat and go north, following after the slave he’d helped in the Core.

What would their life be like now if he’d listened to her? Would they have made it?

Just for a breath, he let himself imagine what that would have been like. The far mountains, a cabin beneath the cliffs, deep forests, waterfalls, and perfect, haunting stillness.

Cat.

“You look different,” he said hoarsely, more to silence the thought than anything else. “Do witches change their skins now, too?”

She laughed. “I’m not a witch.” She rested her chin on her arms. “Have you decided to be her Ghost Walker yet?”

His jaw locked as if even the mention of the name might summon the Pale Lady from the stones. “No.”

“You haven’t decided?”

“No, I can’t, I—” he bit his tongue. “I won’t.”

“Would you like to know the real story? Of the Ghost Walker?”

The moth had vanished, and the moon was beginning to set. Viggo glanced at the still figure of Tomas and felt his ribs contract, as if they meant to crush his heart between them. “Why not?”

“He was a shepherd.”

Viggo looked at her.

“On the coastline.” The girl scooted toward him, the movement so childlike that he didn’t pull away. “He used to graze his sheep by the cliffs and watch the tides come in.”

Viggo laid his head against the wall and stared at the far wall, picturing it in his mind. The cliffs, the deep, lush grass, the crashing waves, and the salt air.

“One day, he saw a group of men from the villages to the south climbing among the rocks. They had a child with them.” She crossed her legs under her and studied him. “The villages along the coast worshiped Death and were afraid of her white hands. They brought children to the rocks and left them there as offerings to appease her wrath. When they left, he climbed down the cliff and took the child back to his cottage with him. She slept with the lambs he brought into the house and learned to herd the sheep away from the clifftops when the waves were high.”

Her hands were folded in her lap as if she were sitting with a tutor to recite her lessons. Viggo glanced at them, thinking again of Alyss and the doll he’d given her, and of the child left on the rocks to die.

“The next year, another child was left. The year after, another.” She was so close now that she could have leaned forward and touched his knee. “The fourth year, a fog rolled in from the sea, and a woman—the mother of the child to be left on the rocks—came behind the men and saw a figure rise from the mist and take her son away. She went back to the villages and told them about the ghost walking in the cliffs. A man, tall as kings and gray as ash, sent by the Pale Lady to fetch the blood offering for their village.”

Viggo stared at the floor, his heart thundering in his ears.

“The children grew up in his sheep folds like the lambs he raised, and when they were old enough, some of them traveled west or north to places they could live without fear. But they never forgot him. And neither did Death.”

The memory of the Pale Lady’s white hands on his breast flashed through his mind, and he winced.

“She felt he was mocking her—using stories of Death’s hound to frighten people away from his cliffs so that he could steal what was hers. It made her so angry. And when he died, she discovered that his soul belonged to someone else, and that made her angrier still.”

“Someone else?”

A smile flitted across her face. “All men die. But not all men belong to Death.”

Viggo rubbed at the blood on his fingers, watching it flake away. “It’s a good story. Is it true?”

“Yes.” The girl shook curls out of her face and looked at him soberly. “You have the same heart as he did.”

He choked on a laugh.

“You don’t think so?”

Shame rose from the shadows. Its familiar touch caressed his throat, whispered into his thoughts with a voice that burned him, and suddenly he wanted to hide. The scars on his wrists and arms felt hot, as if the Pale Lady’s fire were still smoldering under his skin, and he whispered, “My soul very much belongs to Death. I gave it to her myself.”

“I know.”

He bit his tongue. She didn’t know, that was the trouble. No one did, not everything. Cat knew the most, Tomas a little, everyone else even less. How was he supposed to explain the bruises he found on his knuckles the first time he beat someone until they were still? Or the way the servants had begun to flinch away from him when he passed even though he was still so much shorter than they were, so much younger, because they knew who—and what—he’d become.

No, she didn’t know or understand. That, at least, was some relief.

He forced a smile. “I’m not who you think. I’m sorry.”

“I think you are.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” Viggo ran a hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling, trying to work out how to explain. “He was kind. And gentle. I never was. If I told you even half of the things I’d done, you wouldn’t be here.”

Silence fell, broken only by the drip of the water running down the stones. At last, she said softly, “Do you think I need you to tell me?”

The color drained out of Viggo’s face. “What?”

A breeze flitted through the barred window, whisking among the stones as if to wipe away the smell of death and kiss the darkness from the walls. It tugged at the curls tumbling down the girl’s back, tossing stray hair into her face. She had freckles on her nose and her cheeks, dark against her skin. They made her look so young.

She reached out, touched the very first scar he had ever made. How faded it was, like a memory that had grown too old to take shape properly. Her fingertip traced its outline, as if coaxing the story behind it out into the cold, cold air to betray him when he most wanted it to be silent. “You weren’t alone when you made these,” she said so softly that her voice seemed lost in the darkness around them. “I was there. I remember all of them.”

Shame flooded through him, wakening every memory with a jolt. They rose out of the blackened stones like ghosts from a mist. He shut his eyes quickly, but the images remained, reflected in the black pool. Voices whispered from the shadows, accusing, angry, bitter voices. Lies, accusations, shouting. His own voice was among them, harsher than the rest.

How stupid.

But worse than the voices was the silence. His silence. He could feel it again, the numbness on his tongue, the mute bitterness between his teeth. He might have been wearing a muzzle. The words he hadn’t said still hung on his breath, still waiting to be spoken. That’s enough. Leave them alone. They don’t deserve this. He dug his fingernails into his palm, wanting to scream. He’d tried so many times to tell himself that it wasn’t his fault, that he couldn’t have stopped anything that had happened in all those years, but it was a lie. He’d been afraid, that was all. Afraid to be singled out. Afraid to be the voice. Afraid to be the target.

“If you knew, why did you come?” he asked at last. His voice sounded raw and strange to him, as if it wasn’t his own any longer.

“You’ve sold your soul to Death.” The girl looked at him so steadily that he turned his face away, feeling as if she could see right through him, body and soul. “I’ve come pay the debt.”

His heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“If you want me to.”

“I—” He stopped, suddenly unsure, suddenly afraid. Did he want that? Or was he trading one mistress for another, the way he’d traded Fane for Thorne and found his neck in a noose all the same? “And bind me instead to a witch from the heaths? Is that better?”

Amusement darted through her eyes. “I told you, I’m not a witch.”

“What then? A demon? One of the ghosts from the Krathe? Or a saint from the basilica who took pity on me because I went there to pray?”

“I am,” she leaned forward and placed her small hand over his heart, “the foundation.”

The cell fell away. He was standing in the grass on the cliffs above the northern sea, watching as waves filled the chasms where oceans rested for the first time. A breath, and he was in the Krathe surrounded by saplings that were claiming a ground newly made. Rocks cracked, mountains leapt up, the earth molded itself at a word from her tongue. Waterfalls poured from the heights and springs bubbled from the rocks, summoned with a whisper.

She released him, and the vision ended in a snap. Viggo stared at her, utterly shaken, and whispered hoarsely, “Why would you come here?”

“Where should I be?”

He had no answer to that. In the basilica, in the palace. In the mountains. Somewhere else. Somewhere a god might tread.

Not here. Not where their air stank of death and the stones beneath her small feet were soaked in blood.

She hugged her knees to her chest. “I came looking for you. You were mine, too, once. Before all of this.”

“I’m sorry,” he faltered. The apology tasted like death on his tongue. “I’m sorry. I tried to fix it. I tried. I can’t do it. I—” his voice broke, “I tried.” The words stuck in his throat as if even the dark, fetid air wanted to spit them back at him.

That’s what Cat had told him, wasn’t it? He was always sorry. And it never helped.

“Will you let me try?”

His tongue felt too heavy to answer. He nodded.

She laid her hand on his forearm and smiled at him. “Don’t worry,” she said, her voice suddenly very much that of a child. “I promise not to hurt you.”

Then she ran her hand down his arm, and the scars disappeared beneath her fingertips like pale frost beneath a flame.

Viggo choked on his own breath and forgot everything else. His fear and grief vanished, and for what seemed an impossibly long time, he could remember nothing else, nothing of what had happened, nothing of what he had lost. He saw only the scars that had defined his life for the last thirteen years disappearing one by one beneath her fingers.

Ten or twelve of them were gone before he saw the pain in her face, saw the horrible marks that had marred his flesh for so long etching themselves into her arms.

“NO!” Viggo jerked backward. His head smacked into the stones of the wall, and his vision blurred. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t stop. Scar after scar appeared on her slender wrists, harsh and cruel as an obscenity on her skin. Viggo could feel the press of the knife in her flesh. It hurt him more than it had all those years ago when he’d first inscribed the marks, never once imagining that he’d be inflicting the same pain—the same torture—on someone else.

When she finished, he was sobbing.

She released his hands. The silence drew him into its embrace, dark as the shadows that slept among the stones and smelling of rain. He could taste the relief, could feel it in his chest and in his soul, as if the chains he’d resigned himself to years before had suddenly been broken away. Pages flipped through his thoughts, leaves in a judge’s ledger. His name had been written in red across every one of them, blood etching his sins into every white page. He’d been condemned, damned to burn for every one of those pages, every word in the ledger. No mercy, no reprieve.

But they were blank now. His name erased. The debt paid, the Pale Lady’s claws in his soul torn out.

He pressed his wrist to his mouth, relief pouring over him like the first rain after a drought.

“Your debt is paid, Ghost Walker.” The scars on her arms faded to thin lines and disappeared. She smiled at him. “Be at peace.”

She rose to go, and his heart jerked suddenly, some memory of where he was and what had happened in the last few days returning. “Wait! Tomas—”

“—is with Maeva.” She shook hair out of her eyes and grinned. “And happy to be. His soul has been mine a long time. Rest now. You’ll need it.”

Then she was gone, and weariness engulfed him in a wave.

The caravan began assembling at dawn in the courtyards of the palace. Teamsters clattered through the gates driving wagons loaded with barrels and boxes, sacks and bleating lambs and goats. Men joined them on horseback—soldiers and Dreyens and two lords who were going as far as the clay mills on business of their own.

Cat wound through the company swiftly, dodging men and animals alike. She’d slept last night, better than she would have expected in a room full of Lant’s pack of hellhounds. Her headache was gone, replaced with a kind of stiffness she couldn’t ever remember feeling before.

The headache had gone. The pit of emptiness between her ribs had not.

A man stepped in front of her, a sack of wheat slung over his shoulder and his beard stained with tobacco. Cat sidestepped and ducked past him, ignoring the feeling of his eyes on her back, his curiosity following her through the crowd. She had minutes to find what she wanted in the confusion of the gathering company. Mason had been haunting her steps since yesterday, following her like her mother’s stupid ghost. He would notice that she’d strayed soon. He probably had already.

A soldier clattered by on his mount, nearly knocking her aside with the beast’s shoulder, just as the wagon she’d been looking for appeared out of the crowd. Huge, black, and hauled by the king’s draft horses whose enormous feathered legs and thick necks set them apart from the flighty thoroughbreds. Men were loading barrels into the wagon, rolling them up a narrow walkway that creaked ominously with every barrel.

Cat skirted the men working, avoiding the driver leaning against the wagon side with a lit pipe in hand, and slipped between the shafts to lose herself among the horses. A tail swished, and she ran her hand along a wide flank, whispering soothingly to the huge beasts. They were so, so much taller than she was. Her head scarcely reached the withers of the hind beast, his hooves as big around as her head.

She’d seen them before, met them a few times, too, when she’d been recovering in the healing houses. Viggo had found his solace in the servants’ quarters, in gossip and stories and anyone who would talk to him.

She’d found hers in the stables with the animals that understood her, somehow, better than any people ever had.

One of the animals whickered gently, recognizing her scent and her touch. She buried her face in its thick neck and breathed in the scent of the stables and the pastures outside the city. Manure and hay, dust and polished leather, and the warm, familiar scent of horse calmed the ache between her ribs. The animal shied a step away when she touched its harness, and she calmed it with a whisper and a touch.

It felt good. Another beating heart. A living thing that wouldn’t kick her away for coming near.

The knife was where he’d promised it would be. A switchblade no bigger than her hand, tucked beneath the left hind mare’s harness. Cat closed it in her fist, holding it tight, and blessed Ace beneath her breath.

Ace, and the horses.

She went to each of them in turn, murmuring, stroking their necks and their noses when the tugs at their harnesses made them uneasy.

“Bonding, compass brat?” Mason appeared on the other side of the mare, keeping a safe distance from its heavy hooves. “Nice to have something nearby that doesn’t hate you.”

Cat ignored him, stroking the animal’s thick neck, its coarse mane. The horse laid its ears back at the man.

Mason bared his teeth at it and moved another step away. “We’re getting ready to head out. Where’s your kit?”

“With the horses.”

“We’re not going back for anything.”

“I’m not stupid. I’ve got what I need.”

Mason snarled at her, his eyes flaring red for a breath. “You’d better. We’re leaving the company right after we get out the gates.”

“I’ll be ready.” Cat glanced toward the back of the wagon, but the driver was re-stuffing his pipe and talking with one of the men on horseback. He’d taken no notice of her or Mason. “When you say the word.”

Mason nodded and studied her, eyes narrowed. “You’d better lead us straight. If you’re wasting my time—”

“I’m not.” Cat dug her fingers into the horse’s mane. “You’re bringing more than two men, I hope.”

“You don’t think I can handle it?”

Cat shut her eyes, thinking of Warren and his axe, and only just managed to wrench her mind away before she thought of Bria. “You’re not killing peasants. They’ll fight back.”

“Oh, I’m planning on it.” His smile twisted, silver flashing in his mouth. “That’s why we have you, isn’t it? To catch them off their guard.”

Her stomach turned over, and suddenly she couldn’t meet his eyes. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He spat, snarling at the mare when she laid her ears back again. “From now on, anything I say is part of the ‘deal.’”

Cat bit her tongue and didn’t answer.

Somewhere off in the crowd, a horn began to blare. Cat glanced up, watching as the soldiers clattering by swore at those on foot, shouting at them to take their places in the caravan. She still didn’t know, not for certain, where they were going. A supply run for a prison was all that Lant and his men would tell her. They were bringing food and stores that were needed before winter. Avrena Dul, maybe, although they wouldn’t say so.

Mason took a step back, glancing toward where Lant and his men were gathered, and said low, “You’ve sold your neck already, compass brat. Do you really want to go back on it now?”

“I’ll do what I need to,” she whispered, still not looking at him.

“Good. Get back to your place and don’t leave it. If I have to look for you again—”

“I’m coming.” Cat pressed her face into the mare’s neck again in farewell and thanks, and moved to follow him.

Only once he’d turned his back, threading through the crowd ahead of her, did she dare slip the knife she’d held concealed in her hand into her belt.

Viggo woke with sunlight on his face.

Pale sunlight, weak and cold, filtered through the bars of the window far above him. Still, it felt like balm on his skin, and he lay where he was, keeping his eyes shut to preserve the illusion of peace.

It felt like waking up in the Krathe, as if he were going to roll over and find Cat next to him or open his eyes and stare up into the branches of an elm.

He wouldn’t, of course. There was only the black cell and Tomas’s body.

Nothing else.

The clank of iron on stone pulled him out of his broken doze. He raised his head, tension rippling down his spine. A door down the hall opened and shut, and boots echoed on the stone floor. Iron keys rattled, the sound overlaid by Lant Curtis’s rough voice.

The door slammed open, and Lant strode in. Two men followed after him. One of them hauled Viggo to his feet and clamped iron manacles around his wrists before he could protest.

The other crouched at Tomas’s side. Viggo looked away, trying to avoid the sight of the man’s body. Tomas is with Maeva and happy to be. He repeated it in his head like a prayer, trying to imagine the man with his wife in his arms and ignore the ache in his own throat.

Getting left behind was worse. The man, at least, wouldn’t have to face what came next.

Lant snarled at his underling, bad temper and irritation stamped across his expression. “Get him up. They’re waiting for us.”

“No point.” The man rose, his expression contorted with disgust. “He’s dead. From the smell, it’s been a while.”

Viggo’s stomach dropped like a stone at the words, and he couldn’t help but look. The man’s face was gray, his features as worn and hollowed as they had been the night they’d met. But the soul was gone, anything that belonged to him wiped away.

It was a body now, that was all.

Tomas was with Maeva.

Lant walked over, nudging the body with his boot. “Makes things easier.” He turned back, flashed Viggo a grin. “Rough night, Ghost Walker?”

Viggo spat a curse at him.

Lant laughed. “Take him out.”

The man at his side hauled him out. Viggo followed him, stumbling a little on the uneven stones. Behind him, the second man said hoarsely, “What about the body?”

Lant left the cell and shrugged. “Leave it. If the guards don’t get rid of it, the rats will.”

Viggo whipped around so fast that the chains jerked out of his handler’s grip. Lant hit him. He had an ugly light in his eyes, as if the words had been bait. He was enjoying this, all of it, with the kind of sick pleasure men got from revenge.

“Gods, I’d love to see how long you’d last,” Lant hissed, baring his teeth in Viggo’s face. “But I have work to do. So unless you want to join him . . . keep walking.”

Numbly, Viggo allowed himself to be led down the hall. Cold swirled in the corridor outside, drafts eddying about the stone floor. Outside, the wind had picked up, sullen gray clouds strangling the last weak rays of sunlight. A caravan waited in the courtyard. Great, heavy wagons of dark wood were drawn in a semi-circle, draft horses were hitched between iron-shod shafts and stamping huge, feathered hooves as they snorted steam into the frozen air. An escort of soldiers on horseback milled about, their sleeker mounts prancing and sidestepping nervously in the confusion.

Lant led them through the swarm of activity, shoving a path when the stir of servants loading supplies became too thick. He brought them to the back of the last wagon in line, smaller than the rest and loaded with a plethora of sacks and small crates stacked beneath a sagging awning. A broken-down nag stood between the shafts, its head lowered. The driver sitting above it seemed to match the same description, his eyes fixed vacantly on nothing in particular while he waited.

Viggo glanced at him as Lant shoved him into place behind the wagon and chained his manacles to the brace plank. The human didn’t raise his head. Dust clung to his clothes and mud spattered his boots and trousers. His face was empty—as empty as the corpse they’d left in the cells.

A shiver went down Viggo’s spine, and he looked away.

Lant disappeared. His men, too, as if they’d lost any interest in him. Viggo tugged at his manacles, testing the steel, the ironshod chain, the brace. They held. He swore under his breath, glancing around, searching for some method to the shifting crowd, and saw Mason winding his way through the crush of activity.

Cat was with him.

His heart missed a beat, and, stupidly, he almost shouted for her. He probably could have made himself heard in the noise of the gathering caravan.

Even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. She would turn away or pretend not to have heard.

Still, he wanted to try, just to talk to her for a breath, a few stolen moments. Tomas is dead, he told her silently, his throat closing with sudden tears. He’s with Maeva. I’m sorry.

He meant to be so angry. Meant to hate her the way she hated him.

He couldn’t.

He wanted to talk to her, that was all. Sit on the ground together, tell her everything that had happened last night, tell her that Tomas was worried about her, that his last words had been about how much he cared about her. He wanted to tell her about the scars that had vanished under the girl’s touch, and the weight that had vanished from his chest.

He shifted, anxiety buzzing through his nerves. A shout rose from the head of the column, and the driver raised his head, studying the stir of activity. He shifted, hacking a wet cough, and spat onto the cobbles. Viggo glanced over his shoulder, checking to be sure Lant wasn’t close enough to hear him, and called low, “Driver.”

The man glanced over his shoulder, his empty eyes meeting Viggo’s without flinching. Viggo swallowed the bitterness of fear in his mouth and asked flatly, “The caravan. Where is it going?”

Just for a moment, something like pity stirred in the man’s dark eyes. He glanced at Lant, and then looked back to Viggo and shrugged, his voice guttural and coarse as he rasped, “Hell.”

Viggo’s stomach dropped. The cart started with an ungainly jerk.

Snow began to drift down as they left the city. Cat lifted her face to the sky, letting the tiny, icy flakes settle on her cheeks and chin, down her collar and on the reins of the horse she rode.

They tasted like ash when they landed on her lips. But she tried not to think of that.

The city was silent as they passed through, so silent that it seemed as if the arrival of the snow had muffled the life from it. The streets were empty but for a few beggars huddled in corners against the wind. Cat glanced at them as they passed and saw her own curiosity mirrored in their eyes. What was it about suffering that bred such interest?

Mason kept them to the back of the column, only just ahead of the soldiers bringing up the rear. His horse shied and danced beneath him, as if it felt what kind of animal it carried and was afraid.

His cursing roused the headache in the base of her neck again.

She glanced behind once, looking back to the high towers and ramparts of the castle, the gilded roofs and carven walls. Dark banks of cloud swelled above it, churning and tumbling restlessly, their gray and purple underbellies looming closer as if to overshadow the world of men. Beneath their gloom, the white marble looked gray and lifeless, the gold dulled to copper. Its glory had faded, washed out by the pain still trapped within its walls.

Her stomach turned over, and she looked away.

Viggo’s cart was ahead of them, only a stone’s throw away. Cat could see him if she looked, his hands manacled and his chains clanking in the stillness.

She was trying not to look.

He had his head up, his shoulders squared against the tug of the cart. All of the fear and despair that had been torn out of him in the tower by the lake was gone, and he looked as if he belonged there as much as Lant and his men.

Except for the chains and the blood on his face and tunic.

He glanced back, catching her looking. Cat jerked her gaze away, cursing the way her cheeks were burning. She was so stupid. His face was grim and set, and she could already imagine the hate in his eyes. If she’d had the courage to look, she would have seen it. She’d been afraid of him once, back in the Core.

It hurt to go back to that feeling.

He stumbled on the wet cobbles, the manacles jerking him forward when he didn’t find his feet fast enough. Mason, nearly level with the cart on the other side of the road, spat in his direction, calling, “Tired already, Ghost Walker? I wouldn’t let them drag you yet—there won’t be anything left in a few days.”

Viggo didn’t reply. Cat closed her eyes, biting her lip until there was blood in her mouth, and willed this to be over. She wanted to be away from here, somewhere she never had to see Ivra or the palace or Mason ever again.

It wouldn’t happen. But she wanted it.

The city gates yawned before them, black against the gray walls. The snow had thickened, falling fast and beginning to gather on the roofs of the houses. Her feet were numb. She stood up in the stirrups, trying to see over the heads of the men in front of her, and watched the first of the wagons pull through the gates onto the bridge.

She still had bruises on her jaw and her throat from their march across the plains. Viggo could see them, even from this distance, even beneath the cloak she had draped over one shoulder.

A bloodhound’s cloak.

Mason was looking at her, talking to her, and she answered him as calmly as she would have Tomas or Dakota. As if he weren’t a demon they’d hauled from the marshlands just to hunt the two of them.

His boots slipped on the icy cobbles again, and he swore under his breath at the driver. The driver, the snow, Lant Curtis for bringing him here.

And Cat.

He could finally find it in himself to swear at her, too, if he didn’t look her way. He was trying not to think about what would happen to the others when she led Mason to them. She wouldn’t. He’d convinced himself of that last night, after she’d left him. Probably she’d never meant to, only to lead them into the darkest parts of the Krathe and then to vanish and go south, the way they’d always talked about. South to the sea, south to the place where her soul could find some solace, despite everything.

A coward, but not a murderer.

Viggo shook the thought away, hissing as the manacles dug into the bones on his wrists. What, did he want her here next to him? Dragged along behind a cart like a battered donkey until they reached—what? Where were they going?

Hell.

A shiver of fear passed down his spine and into his gut, and he glanced at Cat again, searching for something of the partner he’d known in her glacial expression. No, he was glad she wasn’t here next to him. She’d seen a chance and she’d taken it, that was all.

She wouldn’t lead Mason straight.

Her eyes met his again, as if she could feel him looking at her, and he said aloud without meaning to, “Tomas is with Maeva.”

The words sounded wooden in his mouth. But, somehow, he was glad they’d been said. He wanted her to know that much, at least.

A slight shock went through her eyes, and she stared at him for a breath, her face rigid, before looking away again. He winced as the cart jerked him forward, off-balance, and said, “He was asking about you. At the end.”

Her jaw twitched.

She was close now, so close that he might’ve been able to reach out and touch her horse’s shoulder if the cart would have paused for one breath or his chains were a foot or so longer.

“I told him you were asleep.”

She didn’t answer.

They were outside the city now. The roar of the Flumen drowned his words, damp hanging in the air like a shroud, and he shut his mouth and looked away. She wasn’t listening anyway. Maybe she didn’t care. He’d thought that in the beginning, when they were first thrust together under Fane’s rule. She didn’t care about anyone but herself.

Maybe that had been true all along.

The cart started across the bridge. Mist rose from the river below, soaking the stone, and black cliffs reared cold and pitiless on either side of the plunging, rearing water. Foam and spray leapt high above the turbulent rapids. Viggo edged toward the side and watched the green and black water flooding past until his head swam from the height, and he pulled away again.

Wood cracked ahead, and men began shouting, swearing, their words drifting back along the line.

The caravan ground to a halt.

On the bridge. The harness had given out on the bridge. Cat reined in her mount, cursing under her breath, anxiety buzzing in every vein, and looked back.

The gates were closing behind them. Four soldiers clattered past, weaving through the crowd to see what was wrong.

Cat didn’t have to crane her neck or try to guess what the trouble was. She’d slit nearly every tracing on the draft horses’ harness before they’d left, leaving only a strand to keep them together. They were meant to snap somewhere in the city, but instead they’d lasted until now, when they were stuck on this godforsaken, stupid bridge.

She swung down from her horse. Mason had dismounted, too, and was checking the cliffs on either side of the bridge as if he expected some kind of trap. He motioned to her. “Ride up; see where Lant’s gone.”

Cat moved toward him, twisting her head as if she couldn’t hear. “What?”

He snarled at her. “You’re not deaf, stupid. Where’s Lant?”

“Near the front.” Cat had seen him arguing with several of the soldiers. Another caravan was crossing the bridge, entering Ivra. Horses and wagons had slowed, crushed together, creeping past on the narrow bridge. Cattle lowed impatiently. Men shouted. A dog was barking.

Mason snapped his fingers in her face. “Are you listening?”

She wasn’t. Viggo was watching the confusion, leaning against the cart, his face turned away from her.

One of Mason’s men, the only one left behind, came toward them. His face was twisted with annoyance. “Lant says to—”

Cat flicked the switchblade out of her belt and stabbed the full length of the blade into the man’s upper thigh.

He screamed. Cat drove her shoulder into Mason’s chest, knocking him off-balance. He snatched at her, missed, and toppled over the side of the bridge, catching himself on the edge.

Cat didn’t wait to see if he fell or not. In a breath, she was at Viggo’s side, the driver shouting at her, the man’s blood on her hands. She jammed the blade of the knife against the edge of the brace plank, throwing all her weight against it. The knife snapped, the joint, too. Viggo jerked the plank out of place, nearly rending it off the cart completely.

Mason slammed against her, his teeth in her face, his eyes red with utter fury. “You fork-tongued little—”

Viggo wrenched the plank off the cart and hit him with it. He went down bleeding, and Cat spun toward the gate into Ivra.

It was shut, barred against them, with sheer cliffs plummeting straight from the walls and a river running beneath with a roar that sent a shiver straight to her bones. She turned back to the bridge, catching a glimpse of Lant shoving toward them, his teeth bared, his war axe in his hands. “Viggo—”

He caught her shoulders, wrenching her close, his fingers digging into her arms. She caught a glimpse of his face, grim and set, his eyes as black as night, and felt her stomach fall.

Gods. She’d forgotten what it was like to be afraid of him.

In a breath, he’d shoved her over the edge of the bridge, and she was falling. The sound of the river rose to meet her like the roar of a living thing, savage and ravenous.

She hit the water hard, and the roar swallowed her.

The leap from the bridge was everything Viggo’s nightmares had promised and worse. The sudden jolt in his stomach as he went over the side, the plummet into the water below that somehow lasted an eternity and no time at all.

The frigid water of the Flumen. Silt and foam. Black water boiling around him.

Cold. Numbing, devouring cold.

The river tossed him like a leaf, throwing him head over heels, chains flashing past his head, the plank striking his shoulder so hard that his arm went numb. He broke the surface, snatched a breath, and was sucked under again. The river had him like a child with a toy or a dog with a bone. Whatever strength was in his limbs was torn away, and he could only gasp for air when he could and let the raging water take him where it would.

At last, his head broke the surface, and the river didn’t pull him down again. He gasped, treading water, and turned in a circle. The manacles on his wrists pulled him down, heavy as lead, and the current tugged at the plank. He winced, hauling it closer to him, and struck out for the shore. The Flumen was weakening here, its shore spreading out as it entered the marshland, the water growing sluggish and peaceful by degrees.

At last, sand grated under his feet. He stood up and staggered through the thigh-deep water, the current tugging at his clothes and his boots. Exhaustion racked his body and every limb ached. Snow was still falling, settling on his shoulders, on the plank as he dropped it into the sand, on the marshy grass. He turned back, scanning the water, and felt his stomach turn over as nothing appeared in the dark waves. “Cat? Cat!”

“I’m here.”

Viggo spun around. She was wading toward him through the shallows, her arms hugged to her chest, her face pale. The way she was looking at him, as if she half expected him to break her neck, made his heart wrench. “Viggo,” her teeth were chattering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I—Lant was listening, I only had a second to make the decision—I didn’t know what else—”

A sob jerked out of his throat. The wolf was tearing him apart, wild with excitement, and it was all he could do to hold it in and keep it calm.

Cat paused, calf-deep in water, looking so unsure that he moved forward instinctively. The plank dug into the sand, jerking him to a halt, and he choked on a curse. Her eyes were so gray. As gray as the clouds overhead, as if she’d found winter in her soul. She had blood on her chin, in her mouth. “Are you hurt?”

She stared at him. Her lips were blue, her skin so white it looked almost translucent. “No. I wasn’t going to take them to the Krathe. I only wanted—I thought if I bought us some time, if I got out of the cell, we’d have a chance—”

He didn’t care. Not about anything she’d said or about the cold or that Lant Curtis would be following the river looking for them. They had an hour, at least, to get away. The river would have carried them several miles, and Lant’s men would have to pick their way through the marshes to reach them.

“Viggo.” Her voice was shaking. “Please. I’m sorry.”

“Tell you what.” The words came out in a croak. “I’ll forgive you if you forgive me for pushing you off the bridge.”

She choked on a ragged laugh and stumbled toward him, throwing herself into his arms. The chains clanked, digging into his ribs. He staggered back, laughing, and looped them out of the way to pull her in and bury his face in her hair. Something, some crack in his soul, some shattered piece, slipped back into place. He shut his eyes, his vision blurred, and whispered, “I missed you.”

Cat pulled back, looking up at him, all tears and relief and blue eyes that made him so weak at the knees that he could barely stand. Blue like the gnatcatchers in the cliffs above the Flumen. He’d always thought that. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

A breath later, he was kissing her. Without an explanation, without really meaning to at all. She stiffened, and he started to draw back, to apologize. She caught his collar and pulled him back, and he forgot everything else. Everything but the taste of her kiss in his mouth and the sure, comforting knowledge that he hadn’t lost her and that, eventually, everything really might be all right.

They laid a gravestone for Tomas in the ashes of the tower by the lake. The fire had done its work there, and nothing but broken stones and ash remained.

And Maeva’s headstone, scarred with fire and still inscribed with her name.

Viggo left the broken manacles on the gravesite. Cameron Wicker had split them for him in his smithy, although the news about Tomas had shattered something in him that Viggo doubted would ever heal. The lake was lapping at the shore, threatening to wash away the stones and the graves, but Viggo had the feeling neither Maeva nor Tomas would have cared much.

They belonged to the Krathe. Both of them, human and Dreyen alike. If the lake drew them down beneath it, all the better. His memory and her bones.

Cat touched his hand, and he twined her fingers with his and squeezed her hand. Winter had come to the Krathe, and snow lay in the hollows now, wolves howling after dark fell and cold creeping through the trees like the ghosts that walked the paths. Still, he felt more at home here than he had anywhere else.

In the end, the Ghost Walker belonged to the Krathe just as much as the Bonesmith ever had.

Maybe more.

Read an excerpt from

Cleft and Clan

The third book in The Ghost Walker Saga, coming Fall 2025!

The men who stood guard at the gates of Ivra told many stories about the Flumen’s strange voices. It laughed and sang, screamed and growled as it rushed past the gates on its way to the sea, and the stories said that it spoke with all the voices of the drowned souls it had claimed.

But nothing, neither dead voices nor strange laughter, compared to the nights when it fell almost silent. So silent that it might have ceased to run at all.

Terrance Cowling wrapped his cloak closer around his shoulders and leaned his back against the city gates, shivering in the chill wind. The river was silent tonight, quiet as a grave, and the absence of its roar sent a chill right to his marrow. The water was hungry, the tales said. Starving after another soul. Stupid stories, of course, told around the fires by those who had too much liquor and too much time on their hands, but still, on nights like tonight when the moon was dark and the river silent, it was hard not to let them back into his mind.

He cursed under his breath, moving to add more wood to the burning brazier, and glanced behind him at the open gate. In another hour, the basilica bells would chime midnight, and he could shut and bar the gates. Until then, they gaped open behind him with a clear view across the bridge and out over Sorrow’s Heath. He’d heard stories about nights like these ones, stories from men who were solid as rock and not given to drink or addled minds. Stories of ghosts seen on the plains, of women calling for aid among the bogs and then vanishing when men went after them, of lights that flickered and danced on the edge of vision.

Stories of the Ghost Walker, who’d drowned himself and his partner in the river and now walked the cold lands between death and life and summoned the Pale Lady’s hounds with a word.

The clatter of hooves on the cobbles tore Terrance out of his dark thoughts, and he straightened up, fumbling with his spear as he called, “Hold for the watch!”

A black mare was reined to a halt within the circle of torchlight cast by the guard post. Saliva flecked her jaws, and her dark flanks were slick with sweat. She danced sideways, tossing her head against the bit, and her rider hissed at her, tugging at the reins in a vain effort to hold her still.

Terrance frowned at the boy, trying to see beneath his deep hood and remember where he’d seen him before. “What are you about, boy?” he asked, the stories and fear of the open gates adding a harsh note to his voice. “It’s too late to be leaving the city gates, especially alone. What’ve you done to that horse?”

“Nothing.” The boy’s voice was cracked with fear, and he looked at Terrance with a ghastly attempt at a smile. “I’m late leaving, that’s all. Better a night ride than a missed appointment. We’ll be back in the morning. No need to hold the gates for us.”

Terrance frowned and picked up a lantern waiting by the brazier. He held it up to inspect the boy’s face more closely. He’d seen it somewhere before, that was certain, but the fear etched into his eyes contorted the memory. “Here now,” he said slowly. “You look like the devil himself be chasing you. Get down off that mount before you spook her into bolting and tell me what you’re about. Sorrow’s Heath ain’t no place for a child on a black night. Whatever errand you’ve got, it can wait until the sun’s risen.”

The boy shook his head, his black hair nearly in his eyes. “No, I’m afraid—”

The thunder of hooves and the shouting of men broke the words off. The boy’s face lost the rest of its color, and he whipped around to look behind him. Torchlight flooded from the dark streets, heralding the approach of a company. Terrance frowned, glancing from the light to the boy, and he took a step forward, raising the lantern higher and saying, “Here now, what—”

He saw the blood on the boy’s hands even before he’d finished speaking, and he snatched for his sword. “Get off—”

The boy spurred his horse forward with a suddenness that nearly cost him his seat, kicked Terrance in the face with a heavy boot, and was through the gateway before the man could pick himself up off the cobbles. Terrance spat blood, scrambling upright, and only just staggered out of the way before the company of soldiers flew by him in pursuit.

When at last they were gone, the silence of the river mocked him. Doubtless, it would be roaring again in an hour or so, satisfied with the soul of whatever criminal had managed to slip by him. Strange, to see the look of a hunted fox on the face of such a young boy. So very, very young.

Acknowledgements

Releasing this book in the midst of college classes, job changes, and beginning a job as a full-time writer has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I could not have done it without an immense amount of help from people who continue to believe in me, sometimes more than I believe in myself.

Beth, thank you for fast-tracking these edits while pregnant and chasing a two-year-old. You are incredible, and I am so grateful for your insight and wisdom.

Noah, thank you for keeping our little family together and understanding when my career made me crazy.

Ruth, thank you for being so willing to jump in and support our little family, despite the craziness. I would never have been able to embrace college life or take on a new career without you.

My lovely Inklets, thank you for not throwing me out of the group. I could never have made it without your support.

And, last but certainly not least, Abby, thank you for reminding me how much I love to write and keeping me sane with Abbie & Abby. I am not sure I would be a writer today without you.

A.R. Geiger is a Jesus-loving story addict with a passion for mythology, fantasy, and stories that ring true no matter the genre. Her bookshelves are always overcrowded. She believes that all books have something to teach us, whether they are truth or fiction, history or myth. When she’s not buried in her books, she works as a scriptwriter and director for an international radio program, farms her family’s thirty-five acres, and enjoys spending time with her husband and son in the mountains of Colorado.
For more information on A.R. Geiger, go to argeiger.com