She shivered beneath Reid MacTavish’s flannel blanket and tugged it closer. Briony and Finley had left, so she was alone with the cursemaker in the back room of his shop.
“What’s wrong with me?” she whispered. “Am I still dying?”
“Not exactly,” Reid told her. He leaned forward and weaved his fingers around the chain of her necklace. The two trinkets that hung there, the locket and the cursering, clattered together. “The Roach’s Armor staves off death, but it isn’t a spell—otherwise, your family would have commissioned it from a spellmaker, not from me.”
“It’s a curse,” Isobel said, feeling foolish for not realizing it before. She’d always thought that her father had patronized Reid that day as an excuse for Isobel to ask him to sponsor her, not because the Roach’s Armor required a cursemaker. “But I watched you craft it. You never gave a sacrifice.”
“No. You paid the sacrifice when you cast it.”
Isobel’s hand instinctively crept to her chest, to her heart. She hadn’t wanted to worry Briony when she’d spoken to her, but the stillness … the cold … Whatever had happened to Isobel, it scared her.
“So what is it?” she asked, her voice weak.
“The Roach’s Armor takes a different toll on each person. How do you feel?”
“Terrible. Like a…” She swallowed. “Like a corpse.” She took a deep breath, but it was only out of habit. Her body did not need the air. “Why didn’t you tell me when you crafted it?”
“I assumed you knew. It’s your family’s enchantment, isn’t it?”
Isobel turned away, pressing her cheek into the pillow. She might’ve spent more time with the Macaslans since they named her champion, but prior to that, it wasn’t as though she’d known them well. It felt shameful to admit that, though. After the world had turned on her, Isobel had so badly wanted to belong somewhere, and her father’s family had welcomed her. It was why her father could always use them to twist her so easily—because she’d always known that if she turned her back on them, then they would undoubtedly turn their backs on her.
Instead of answering, she only asked, “Is it permanent?”
“I don’t know. It could get better. It could also get worse.”
Isobel didn’t want to consider that, so she asked about a different curse, instead. “How long will Alistair have?”
“The Reaper’s Embrace kills you a little more for each wrong committed. So for Alistair Lowe…” Reid shrugged. “I’d give him a few days.”
That wasn’t fair. No matter what the world thought of Alistair, he wasn’t a monster.
“Oh, don’t look so glum. It was his curse that almost killed you, after all,” Reid said. “But I have to say … I’m impressed that you solved your little problem. The Reaper’s Embrace requires a heavy sacrifice to craft. How did you manage it?”
Isobel shuddered at the memory, not even a day old. She’d saved him only to kill him.
“Alistair,” she said hoarsely.
Oddly, a smile crept up Reid’s face. “That must be it. The second crack. When Alistair sacrificed himself for another champion’s magic, he unwound part of the pattern.”
Isobel had heard Briony mention something about the tournament’s patterns and the curse, but she still didn’t understand Reid’s words. And more so, she didn’t understand the glimmer of eagerness in his eyes. He scooted his chair closer to her bedside.
“Tell me about how it happened,” he urged, his voice high-pitched and excited.
But Isobel didn’t want to relive that scene. “I’d rather not.”
“I’m helping Briony and Finley solve this,” he said, sounding frustrated. “That means I need to be informed. And I know more about this curse than anybody.”
Isobel narrowed her eyes. She had made a mistake—a terrible mistake—not to believe Briony. But even if Briony trusted Reid, Isobel wasn’t sure she did. The look on his face was hostile and greedy, the sort her father wore whenever he spoke about her as champion.
She nervously eyed the door, suddenly wishing Briony and Finley hadn’t left her alone after all.
“Even if you are a cursemaker,” Isobel said stiffly, “I don’t see how you could know more about the tournament than us or our families. How could you? We’re the ones inside it.”
Reid leaned closer. So close Isobel could smell the sage in his cologne, could make out a faint scar beneath his eye, razor thin and years old. Isobel wasn’t threatened by someone just because they wore cheap eyeliner and black clothes, but her breath hitched all the same.