“Approximately,” he said, his over-pronunciation indicating his impatience.
I moved my fingers below where the dip in my throat was. “It stopped about here a week or so before you caught me.”
He nodded and looked as if he were calculating something. “You’re marked for death, but you’ve got a little time.”
The door opened and Burn stepped in, walking over to stand beside Ryker. They both stared at my chest. I inched backward, pulled my shirt up, and closed my coat around me.
“Is it what I thought?” Burn asked.
Ryker’s jaw tensed before he seemed to force himself to relax and answer Burn. “Yes. Her magic has probably been slowing it down.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “What is ‘marked for death’?”
“Have you ever heard of the Debt Collector?” Ryker asked.
Everyone had heard of the Debt Collector. I lived in the Ruined City, not another universe. I would’ve told him as much, except as the pieces came together, I found I didn’t have the energy or will to snap at him. I barely had the energy to stand. My hands were trembling and my knees wouldn’t stay locked. My back hit the stone wall, then rubbed my skin raw as I slid in an undignified manner to my bum. I sat there numbly as I started to put it all together.
Ryker continued to fill in the picture, helping me along as if I needed it. “Sometime in your past, you were on the verge of death. Two people’s lives were brokered to save yours. Two lives for one—that’s the way the Debt Collector works. One of them didn’t pay up.”
I already knew how it worked. I also knew you didn’t walk away from the Debt Collector. He was always paid.
It would start with a general drain on your life force; I’d been dragging for months.
Then came the night fevers; I’d had those for weeks.
The final piece, an unexplained bruise on the chest, right above your heart.
I should’ve realized it myself. How had I not? But who would’ve done this for me? My parents had turned on me once my mark had shown, not wanting the attention it might bring.
But there was one other who’d had a vested interest in keeping me alive once upon a time. I wondered who he’d killed to save me. Had I known them? I shook off the thoughts. That time had nearly destroyed me, and I couldn’t let the ghosts finish the job.
“Why now? What made me get sick now?” Maybe if I could figure out the trigger, I could reverse it? No, no one reversed it.
Ryker watched me. “Like I said, the Debt Collector needs two lives to keep one alive. One of the people who was supposed to die for you probably died of natural causes before he or she was killed. It can be a tricky game, since no one ever knows when their time will be up. Even seers have trouble calling the day of death. Once that second life, that other person, died naturally, the debt couldn’t be properly fulfilled. You started getting sick.”
Had the second person escaped before they’d been sacrificed for me? At least there had been only one death, if that was some consolation. It didn’t feel like it at the moment.
Would I have a chance to get home and see Ruck and the others one last time? I wasn’t sure that was a great idea anyway, even as I longed for one final goodbye. I’d rather them think I died in a heroic fight. Anything but this, sitting here and withering away.
Burn and Ryker had stopped paying attention to me and were talking to each other. I was already a non-entity. Burn took a final look at me and then exited the room.
I got my feet back underneath me and squared my shoulders. I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t going to go out weak and pathetic. “How long do I have, or are you going to try and kill me first?”
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to buy you time and give you a chance. After you do what I need, I’ll bring you to the Debt Collector and try and renegotiate your deal.”
“You know the Debt Collector?”
“Well enough to know how to find him.”
“I do your job and you’ll try and save me? What guarantees do I have that you can do what you say?”
He shrugged. “No assurances, nothing more than what I offered you. It’s the best deal you’re going to get.”
He hated me. I could see it in his eyes. The tone of his voice as he spoke. “If you hate me so much, why keep me? I’m sure there’s someone else who can do it.”
“I know you’re behind the chugger raids. You stole from me, took food out of the mouths of my people. I don’t like you. If I could find someone else, you’d be dead already. You’re alive because you’re my only option.”
He was strong, probably had been his whole life. Someone had obviously trained him in magic, too. It was easy for him to cast aspersions on who I was and what I’d done. He’d never been chilled to the bone, willing to do anything to feed the people that depended on him. He’d always been strong enough to take what he needed and defend it. Too bad we weren’t all as fortunate as him, and had to make decisions that could mean your people ate or not.
“What happens if I can’t?”
“I’m going to teach you how, and you will.”
In other words, I did it or I was out of luck. Or I tried to do it until I figured out how to get out of this mess.
“I have one other request.”
“What?”
“You’re going to have enough food to feed five people delivered to a place of my choosing.”
He tilted his head back, as if that wasn’t the request he’d expected. His eyes narrowed, as if trying to figure out what game I was playing before he finally nodded. “It’ll take a few days to gather that up, but I’ll make it happen. Does that mean you accept my terms, or do you prefer to rot here?”
I wanted to tell him to go to hell. There was stubborn and then there was suicidal. Sometimes I found that line a bit blurry, but it was pretty clear at the moment. I kept my arms crossed and gave him a nod. Neither of us reached out a hand to magically bind ourselves.
He walked out, leaving the door wide open, but then stopped a foot away. “What’s your name?” he asked, his back still to me.
I didn’t reply, debating whether to lie.
“I suggest you provide me with one, because you won’t like my choice.”
“Bugs.”
His head shifted in my direction slightly, as if to ask me where that had come from. He didn’t. He walked away.
Chapter 10
The door swung open the next morning, and I looked up from the corner where I was wrapped in my pelt. I knew it wasn’t Ryker even before I saw Burn in the doorway. Burn had some magic in his veins, but nothing like the levels Ryker threw off. The difference was like comparing the ocean during a storm to a placid lake.
“So, you’re still here?” he said, smiling as if I’d had better options.
Could I have really left? I’d shut the door myself last night, and then opened and closed it ten times, debating whether I should walk out and go home. Would they stop me? Would I have been fast enough to escape after I tripped their ward again? If I did manage to escape, I’d be able to see my crew again. Then I’d become their burden and the food I’d bargained for would never get to them.
I sat up, dragging the pelt with me and giving Burn the evil eye as he moved farther into the room. I had a bone to pick with him.
He tilted his head and smirked in the face of my scorn. “Did you really think I’d agree to free you if I thought you’d actually leave?”
I dropped the glare. The guy had a point, and I would’ve done much worse in the reverse situation. Had done much worse in my past. Plus, Burn wasn’t so bad. He’d brought me a pelt, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been eating nearly as well if Ryker had been bringing me the meals.
“Get up. I’ll show you around, and then you should probably get some breakfast in before Ryker gets his hands on you. You definitely want to eat before the healer gets her hands on you.”
“What’s the healer going to do, exactly?”