Figured. “Why did he leave?”
“I don’t remember it very well.” She frowned. “I think Mom was doing my hair. And Grandma was there. Then Cerise came. She was really upset about some sort of money missing. I think she thought Tobias took it. And then Mom told her to keep calm and not do something she would regret for the rest of her life and that sometimes you had to let things go and give the person another chance. And Grandma said that in the Legion times death was not an improper punishment for stealing from the family. Cerise got this really crazy look on her face. And then Mom said that the Legion times were long over. And Grandma said that that was exactly what was wrong with the Mire, and if it wasn’t for the exiles, it would still be a proper place and that Cerise knew what had to be done. And then Cerise took off, and Mom sent me out because her and Grandma needed to have an adult conversation. I didn’t see Tobias after that.”
A hell of a story. “Do you think she killed him?” William asked.
Lark bit her lip. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Cerise gets really calm before she kills somebody. Icy. I think she was too mad that time.”
They sat together and looked at the moon for a while.
Lark turned to him. “I’m coming to fight tomorrow. For my mom.”
William wanted to tell her that she was too small, but he’d seen his first fight by her age. “Watch yourself and don’t do anything stupid.”
“I won’t,” she told him.
TWENTY-ONE
CERISE raised her head and squinted at the morning sky. It was a beautiful, intense shade of turquoise that promised a gorgeous day. Except today, the family rode out to kill and die, and she was at the head of the column.
Behind her two dozen Mars rode on horseback. She had already sent the kids out to scout the road ahead. She’d glanced over her shoulder. Everyone was here. Richard, Kaldar, Erian, Aunt Murid, Uncle Ben . . . Her gaze snagged on William riding at the edge of the column on the left, next to Adriana. He scowled at her. Yes, yes, I see you scowling, Lord Bill the Jealous.
If something happened to her today, Richard would assume command of the family and Aunt Pete would take care of Lark. Cerise’s heart lurched. Lark wouldn’t do well with Aunt Pete, but she didn’t know where else to turn.
Grandma Az would help, but Grandmother and Gaston had their own fight to fight. The Sheerile family was a hydra: the two brothers would be at Sene, but the clan wouldn’t die until Kaitlin, their mother, breathed her last. Grandmother had decided today was the day for it, and none of them were stupid enough to stand in her way.
They rounded the bend in the road. It would’ve been so much easier if Grandpa’s house sat somewhere off a main road. They’d ram it with a truck, throw a stinker into it, and sit back and shoot whatever came out. But no, the manor perched deep in the swamp. No truck would make it through the narrow, half-flooded trails. That meant they would have to lay siege to the house. Even with the Sheeriles alone, the odds wouldn’t be good. But with the Sheeriles and the Hand together . . . Who knew what sort of insane monsters the Hand would stuff into it?
Whichever way you looked at it, they’d have to get the stinker into the house somehow. They had to get the Sheeriles out of the house with the least damage, or they risked destroying whatever clues the manor held.
It had been sixteen days since her parents were taken. Cerise stared straight ahead. Tearing up in front of the whole family wouldn’t do. Sixteen days since the Hand took her mom and dad, and just about eighty years to the day since the feud between the family and the Sheeriles had started. A hell of a day.
A bolt sliced past her shoulder and thudded into the bark of a tree ahead. A squirrel writhed, pierced by the shaft.
William rode up to the tree and sliced with his knife, cutting the small furry body in two. A swirling mass of tentacles spilled out and fell into the dirt with a wet plop. She’d seen these tentacles before, inside the bat guided by the Hand’s necromancer.
“A deader?” Cerise asked.
William nodded. “You don’t have to worry about the Hand today.”
“Why not?” Erian asked from the back.
William glanced at him. “If Spider had his people helping the Sheeriles, he wouldn’t need a scout to keep an eye on things. He must have cut the Sheeriles off, but he still wants a report from the fight.”
That meant Lagar and Arig were on their own. Just the two brothers and whatever hired muscle they brought with them. Cerise raised her eyes to the sky. “Thank you.”
“I can kill the necromancer,” William said.
“How many people do you need?”
He grinned, flashing white teeth, his face feral. “None.”
“I’ll see you at the house, then. Happy hunting.”
William hopped off his horse and vanished into the brush.
She turned her horse. “The Sheeriles are alone. Let’s go pry them out of that damn house.”
A ragged chorus answered her. Worry stabbed her, and she crushed it before it had a chance to show on her face.
WILLIAM pulled himself up onto the pine branch at the edge of the clearing and surveyed the scene. The soles of his boots were slick with the Scout Master’s blood, and he took an extra second to climb.
The old house sat on a very gentle incline. The Sheeriles must’ve gotten ahold of a lawnmower, because the grass around the house was freshly mowed. A sixty-yard stretch of rocky ground, dotted with stumps of severed weeds, separated the house from the trees. The Mars lay at the perimeter in a ragged line. They were looking at the house.