Fanagin slaps the bars. “You haven’t won the bid yet,” he says. “We’re at two twenty. Who goes higher?”
“Two twenty-five,” says Kellig.
“Two thirty,” says a woman beside him. She cradles a basket to her hip, its contents hidden beneath a ratty blanket. Liquid seeps from the bottom.
“Open this door,” Loomis says, his voice coarse and metallic behind the sharp beak of his mask. “In the name of the king and on threat of your death. Any further harm to her highness is an invitation of war.”
All heads turn toward him as silence falls, eerie and absolute. The sounds of the marketplace around us seem to dim in comparison, as though we’ve all been plunged underwater.
Fanagin’s grin fades, uncertain. “The king?”
“North, you glorious son of a whore,” Kellig breathes, eyes alight. He laughs, bright and barking, rattling the cage. “Body bags my ass! Three hundred for the redhead!”
North draws back, uneasy. His eyes meet mine and my lips part in protest, but no words come out; all I manage is a tight, furtive shake of my head—no. Don’t stop bidding, please don’t go. She might be the daughter of a king but North didn’t come for royalty. He came to buy magic.
So I’ll sell him magic.
I pinch Bryn as hard as I can. She protests and bats me away, but I rake up the sleeve of my coat, demonstrating the ruby welt that appears on my forearm, not hers.
North straightens, eyebrows lifting. Yes. He understands. “Five hundred for both,” he says. “Silver paid now, my final offer.”
Nobody knows where to look: to Loomis in his cloak and mask, to her highness with her impossible grace, or to the man who apparently carries five hundred pieces of silver in his pocket.
Kellig drops his arms, eyes narrowed as they slide from North to me and back again. “What, did she piss magic while I wasn’t looking?” he asks.
“Sold,” Fanagin sputters at last, torn between disbelief and a gloating grin.
North nods grimly, reaching into his pocket as Fanagin holds out a greedy hand, turning away from Loomis. Dismissing him.
Commandment of the fighting ring: Never, ever turn your back on an opponent.
Loomis is efficient, perfunctory: a three-beat murderer. Sword unsheathed, weighted step forward, blade through the back. Fanagin crumples at North’s feet, and with deft and certain hands, Loomis reaches through the bars and retrieves the key from where it hangs off Fanagin’s belt.
Nobody moves. Not until Loomis unlocks the cage and the sound of falling tumblers shouts an open invitation. A stall keeper from across the aisle darts forward and strips Fanagin of his coat, balling it under his arm before returning to his table, furtive as a rat. A woman takes his boots. It isn’t long before his body becomes carrion.
They’re not opposed to stealing in pieces.
North steps out of the way, his eyes meeting mine one last time. Apologetic.
No.
I watch, stricken, as he disappears through the crowd, swallowed up by men twice his size and half his relative safety, their bodies poisoned with magic and depravity as they jostle forward, necks craned to see what’s happening and if there’s any left for them.
Loomis is not the idiot Bryn believes him to be. He seems to recognize the threat he’s invited on himself as he hurries to cut Bryn loose, offering an abbreviated bow before lightly touching her shoulder—a gesture of familiarity. “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” he says.
“How did you know where to find me?” Bryn asks in amazement, rubbing her wrists.
“I told you once, there are only four corners of the world. It’s never far as the crow flies.” Only then does he look to me, still tethered to the floor. His eyebrows furrow as he takes in my rumpled coat and mud-stained skirt. “Your name?” he asks with none of the warmth offered Bryn.
I hesitate, looking to Bryn for confirmation: Is this part of her plan? More strategy?
But Bryn offers no answers as Loomis cuts my rope, keeping enough for a lead as he drags me forward. “Who you are doesn’t matter,” he says. “Your death is already decided.”
“Then just leave her for the addicts,” Bryn says, flicking her hand, dismissing me. “A prisoner will only slow down our return and I’m eager for a bath.”
I stare at her, fear brining my tongue. Is this it, then? One day and I’m dead? Left to rot so there are no witnesses, no stories, no lies to spread?
That wasn’t even a chance.
“Your father wants her alive,” Loomis says. “The kingdom must see justice.”
Bryn shoots me a look, barely there before her eyes lock on Loomis. “I suppose being thrown to the wolves would rob my father of the chance to prove a point.”
Gods Above. That’s why she didn’t go after the knife—so Loomis would imagine her a prisoner, a hostage.
My hostage.
Perrote would never allow his daughter to leave Brindaigel with enough magic to invite a war. But if she was kidnapped, if she was coerced and led into enemy territory against her will . . .
My stomach plummets. Will this be the reason he uses to start scouring the Brim? Will my face—my supposed treason—be his justification for culling the population?
Have I just condemned my sister to die?
Kellig watches us, his hands curled through the bars of the cage and forehead pressed against the iron. He flashes his teeth at us when we pass. “Long live the king,” he drawls.
Bryn stares him down. “I would have killed you while you slept,” she says.
“It would’ve been one hell of a last night on earth,” he replies with a wicked smile.
“Well,” says Bryn, pulling her cloak tighter around her. “It’s not over yet.”
Ten
LOOMIS SHOVES ME THROUGH THE crowd of rotting bodies. some look newly infected, with only the first ribbons of dark magic threading through their veins. Others are clearly hellborne addicts, their skin colored in shades of smoke, decomposing as they stand. Flies cavort with a restless, incessant hum, inseparable from the din of voices that slide over me like crashing waves.
The decrepit settlement beyond the marketplace is no better. It’s a slurry of sights and sounds and sun-bleached color, offset by muddy shadows. Canvas roofs and colored awnings stretch between crooked walls of scrap and wood. Ruins of stone buildings remain like tombstones of another time, when this village might have been beautiful, but they stand rare as the infecteds’ teeth now, their exposed innards repurposed as holding pens for sickly goats and listless, dull-eyed people.
The goats roam free; the people are chained. Slaves.
A woman in dark robes stands on a corner, barking brimstone prophecies of the world coming to its inevitable end. Half her face is mapped by burn scars. Her eyes meet mine. “Repent,” she says, “for our days are numbered.”
I look away, unsettled.