Oswald hadn’t spoken to him for the entire journey through the forest, past the city gate, and into briny-scented city alleys. Once or twice he whispered to his meadowlark, and Thomas gathered that the familiar’s name was Meraline.
They’d passed through something called Devil’s Milk Square, where a statue of topless women spurted milk into a stony basin, and they’d continued north through winding lanes along the city’s eastern edge, just inland from the Harbor.
Thomas wore an itchy woolen shirt and trousers loaned to him by William, his own clothing having been torn beyond repair in the battle. Of his own belongings, only his jogging shoes and watch remained.
A sludgy gutter ran along the center of a glistening cobblestone alley. Top-heavy, timber-frame houses threatened to topple into the street, and a few girls hung laundry from overhead ropes between the buildings. A woman with auburn hair and thin lips stopped to stare at Thomas, nudging her elderly friend. Nervous hands flew to their mouths as he passed.
Thomas stepped gingerly to avoid the refuse embedded in the cobbles. The neighborhood smelled of old fish and urine, but it was in better shape than Tobias’s. At least the buildings remained standing.
He glanced at Oswald’s profile—the frosty blue eyes and strong jaw obscured by his unkempt curls. He’d tried making conversation about the weather a mile back, but Oswald had merely glared at him. Worth another shot.
“Have you ever been to a Theurgeon?”
Gray eyes flicked toward him and back. “No.”
That went well.
The alley opened into a large square. Lullaby Square. Thomas recognized the fountain, a stone cube inset with the petrified head of a succubus that spewed water into a basin. Images of the battle flooded his mind—the men who’d died at his hands. With a shudder, he realized that a part of him ached for that terrible power.
His throat tightened, and he glanced at Oswald. It was above the fountain that Oswald’s sister had swung lifelessly just days ago. If Oswald knew that, his stony face didn’t betray it.
They crossed the square, its rough-hewn stones still marred by splotches of dried blood. The Throcknell Fortress towered over them, its stone walls shining white in the morning sun. The last time he was here, he’d been too gripped with panic to study it. He could count five outer towers, like points of a star. Thick stone walls stretched between them. Two guards in tunics of blue and gold stood on either side of a tall portcullis, pikes gripped in their hands. Above the guards, five mountain lion heads floated in the air, their faces animated in snarls and roars. The Throcknell herald—Celia’s herald. Instead of iron barring the entry, thin streams of golden light crossed the opening, a magical barrier.
Within the fortress’s center, a constellation of towers reached to the skies. They varied in width, but each had a gleaming spire, sharp as a rapier. He could have sworn some pierced the clouds. Assuming this isn’t a complex hallucination, that is. Assuming I’m not dosed up on Thorazine in a psychiatric hospital right now, dribbling onto a mint-green hospital gown.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” Oswald’s voice interrupted his staring.
He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s not for people like us. Except the Iron Tower. And no one makes it out of that except to meet death in the square.”
The phrase “death in the square” sent a shiver crawling up Thomas’s spine, bringing with it the sound of cracking bones and gurgling blood. It was all real, wasn’t it? All those people he’d slaughtered. Worse than the death was the thrill of power he’d felt as he’d snuffed out their lives. He didn’t even know how many he’d killed. You were supposed to remember all the faces—that was what he’d read in books. But it was a blur of spraying blood and shattering skulls. Nausea spread through his gut.
“Are we done staring?” Oswald pivoted to stride across the square, and Thomas tried to clear his head of the bloody images.
He followed Oswald to a row of steep-peaked buildings marked with colorful signs. Barefoot children in ragged clothes stared at him as he walked past, and a few more lingered around vendors selling bread, hoping for scraps. A cold sweat prickled his skin as he noticed their pale lips and dark-shadowed eyes.
A young girl in a dusty brown dress approached them from behind an empty cart. She must have been about six, her brown eyes large in an emaciated face. Tangled brown hair hung past her shoulders, and her bare feet padded on the stones. She stopped, close to Thomas, and pointed to an abandoned, overturned cart. A filthy dark-haired boy of about four slumped against it, a dazed look in his eyes. Purplish lumps bulged from the sides of his neck. Thomas’s heart dropped into his stomach. The Black Death.