Eliana couldn’t move, could hardly breathe with this weight she didn’t ask for hanging from her neck. She wanted to shove the girl off her, then rip Hob’s notebook from his hands and throw it into the fire.
It will consume you.
Breathing thinly through her nose, she tamped down the rising panic winging hard up her throat.
She didn’t think of Remy, probably tossing with nightmares down the hall. He’d never slept away from home, not once in his life.
Didn’t think of her dead father, her vanished mother, the soft way they’d looked at each other before war ripped them apart.
Didn’t think of Harkan and his warm bed, the scent of him like coming home.
A girl couldn’t think of these things, couldn’t think about teary-eyed children and their tragic stories—not if she was also a killer.
I am the Dread of Orline.
“Then what happened?” Eliana asked. Her voice came out thick, not the hollow, flat thing she’d tried for, and she hated herself for it. She needed to get out of this room before it ate her alive.
I will not be consumed.
“They marched inside,” Linnet whispered. “I saw wings on their chests. That’s the Empire’s sign.” She turned her face into Eliana’s neck. “Did you know that?”
“Yes.” Eliana’s collar grew wet beneath Linnet’s chin. The heat of the fire licked up her back. What was the old prayer? For Saint Marzana, the firebrand. Remy would know. “I did know that.”
Ah, yes. She remembered the prayer now: Burn steady and burn true. Burn clean and burn bright.
She stared across the room at Hob and Patrik, hoped her unblinking bright glare made them squirm.
“They took Mama by her hair,” Linnet said, “and dragged her into the back room. She was screaming so loud it hurt my ears, and Will, he’s big, he beat the bad men, had one of his fits when he starts spitting and hollering, and he looked at me, and…and…”
She didn’t say anything after that. She pressed her face tight against Eliana’s neck, shivering.
“He told you to run,” Eliana finished for her. “He gave you time to run.”
Then she unfolded the girl from her body, lowered her to the floor. Patrik was there immediately with the abandoned doll and a quiet endearment.
Eliana pushed past them both to Hob’s table. Rage snapped up her body like the lash of a whip.
“Why did you do this?” She jerked her head at Linnet, now cradled in Patrik’s arms. “Why make her relive it?”
Hob watched her calmly. “She wanted me to write it down, so she wouldn’t forget.”
“How many do you have?”
“One thousand three hundred and twenty-five. I’ve filled twelve books so far. People come through here, they have stories to tell. Some of them want me to write them down. Some write them down for me.” Hob took a deep breath. “I think someone ought to know about them. About everyone. Even if it’s only me and Patrik.”
Eliana eyed the notebook and its gnarled pages with disdain. “It’s a waste of time,” she spat, “writing stories for the living dead.”
Then she left them, Linnet calling faintly after her. The girl didn’t even know her name: “Mama?”
Eliana stormed out into the cramped, dark corridor and around the first corner, then subsided against the wall, her heart drumming for an escape and her hands shaking. She fisted them in her jacket, bit down hard on her tongue.
It had been a mistake—to leave Orline, to strike her bargain with Simon, to drag Remy along with them. Reckless and sloppy.
She should have gone from her mother’s empty bed straight to Lord Arkelion’s door and demanded he help bring her home.
I will not be consumed.
She’d been a loyal servant of the Empire for years, hadn’t she?
I will not be consumed.
Maybe that would be enough for them to accept her back.
That, and the map of Crown’s Hollow now living in her brain.
“It seems the Dread has a heart after all,” said Simon, appearing around the corner so silently that she startled.
She managed a tiny laugh, thinking fast. He could not suspect, or he’d shoot her on the spot. “Is it such a shocking thing to imagine?”
Simon lightly touched the crook of her arm, and there was a fragility to the movement that surprised her. The fire-warmed heat of his body suffused her own.
“Come,” he murmured. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
It was a quiet walk, and by the time they reached her door, Eliana had coaxed the proper fall of tears from her eyes. She turned her face up to Simon, gave him a good view.