“Because you are the one speaking, and it takes courage and honor to put bitterness aside. But these people are beyond your help. Focus on those you can help.” He grabs my arm and leads me across the street, down an alleyway to connect to the corner where the apothecary sits, as dark and lonely as it seemed that night so long ago, when Gesine waited within.
We stall there while Jarek surveys the scene. “I expected Cirilea’s army to be crawling through the streets, but there is nothing.”
Nothing but an eerie foreboding. It’s hazardous for me to be back in Cirilea. And yet I miss the city—the people, the liveliness, the edge of danger that seemed to linger everywhere I went.
We keep moving at a clipped pace toward Port Street, my legs struggling to keep up with Jarek’s. Beneath the near-full moon, I can just make out the Silver Mage’s tall mast on the water. People loiter on the street in clusters, but the mood is far more subdued than the night Zander, Atticus, and I came here in search of hints to finding Ianca. There are no banjos, no buskers, and only a few drunks stumbling about.
“My God.” My feet freeze in place. Naked bodies hang from lampposts like wreaths at Christmastime. I want to look away, but I can’t. “There are so many of them.”
Ahead, two solemn women attempt to get a man down, one struggling to hoist him up by his legs while the other pokes at the rope loop with a broom. A ratty wool blanket is tucked under her arm.
Jarek shakes his head “It’ll never work.”
“No. It won’t. So help them.”
“That will draw attention to—”
“Help them. Please.” I peer up into his eyes, pleading.
With a heavy sigh, he draws his sword. “Step aside.”
The women huddle into each other and move away, afraid.
Half climbing, half jumping up the brick wall of the building, Jarek cuts the rope with one powerful swing.
The body collapses to the cobblestone with a thud, and the women rush in to cover him with the blanket. “Thank you, sir,” the younger one offers, tears in her eyes as she collects the corpse’s hand.
That’s when I see the dull mark on hers. “Where did you get that?” I point to it. “That emblem.”
“The priestess. She is going around Cirilea, marking all the mortals. She marked my Wilkins too.” She holds up the man’s hand to prove her claim. “Only, his glowed before. That’s why they hung him. Because he took the poison and then he was foolish enough to admit it. I didn’t even know he’d done it!” Tears roll down her cheeks, reddened from the cold.
An odd mix of vindication and horror swirls through me. Wendeline is still alive, and despite his childish response to my letter, Atticus listened to me.
He listened to me, but he’s still executing mortals. Using my help to do it.
“We must keep moving,” Jarek warns.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I offer the women and continue on, my teeth clenched. Only, the next body over catches my eye, the flames from the lantern casting a glow on her face. I recognize her, even in death. “No. Cecily.” Why would they hang someone from the Rookery? Those people don’t have keepers anymore.
A dull emblem marks her hand. It must have glowed once too.
“You knew her,” Jarek asks.
“She helped us escape from Cirilea in her skiff. Is that why she’s dead?”
“No, this corpse is fresh. Likely died today. And by a dagger through the neck.” He points to a wound beneath where the rope cuts into her skin.
That’s some small consolation, though. Why go to the effort to strip and string her up, then? And where is her husband? Arthur, that was his name. I scan the faces of the nearby male bodies, but I don’t see him anywhere.
“Come.” Jarek’s arm curls around my waist as he urges me to continue. “Atticus will have spies in these streets. Lose your tears. They do nothing but draw notice and cause trouble.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I growl, brushing away the wetness on my cheek.
“We are here for information, not assassinations, as much as that would please me.” In a rare show of affection, he squeezes me to his side once before releasing me.
“This is what Ybaris has caused. This is the result of that fucking Ybarisan queen’s schemes and lies,” I hiss. “It’s the mortals who suffer most, yet again.”
“Not for much longer, if what Lucretia says is true.”
“Yeah, then we’ll have Malachi and a pile of monsters to deal with.”