Only the recycled ash from hearths across Brindaigel is not the same thing as ash from dead magic. But North doesn’t say that. “Maybe,” he echoes, dark eyes unreadable.
A shout of panic splits the air and he startles.
Bryn.
North runs toward her voice and I’m fast on his heels as Tobek thunders downstairs, nearly falling as he skids on his landing. We find her outside, at the back of the house, framed by a pair of open cellar doors. Bodies are stacked inside, every one of them dead.
They trigger a flash of memory: a man on his knees, begging for mercy; a girl with a gun who didn’t listen. Heat floods my face and my skin starts to itch with guilt as Loomis’s blood spreads through my mind, coloring everything in shades of red.
“Sainted mothers and their virgin daughters,” Tobek murmurs.
I look up, stomach clenching. For a moment, he was almost Cadence, and I have to forcibly remind myself that he’s not my sister, that this is not the Brim.
And these bodies are not my fault.
Bryn collects herself, a hand pressed to her chest. She swallows hard and lifts her chin, red hair gleaming in the muddy sunlight. “Scorchers?” she asks flatly, holding out a slat of wood that must have barred the doors shut from the outside.
North doesn’t answer. He clutches Tobek’s shoulder and gently moves him back before crouching to see deeper into the cellar. He withdraws, swearing softly as he presses an arm to his mouth to escape the smell beginning to rise. The village was small, but so is the Brim, and I know how many people can fit in tight spaces.
Still shaky, North presses his palm to the open door. “There’s your spell, Tobek,” he says softly. “It must have protected the house from being burned.” Magic glows white beneath his hand and he shifts, steadying his weight as his fingers tighten into claws. Silver threads begin unraveling through the charred wood, slim at first, thickening into knots and braided twists. North coaxes the spell loose, thread by thread, winding them around his fingers, where they glow like starlight before dimming.
Sweat beads his face when he finishes, and when he steps back, he’s shaking. Tobek darts forward, eager to offer a shoulder and to take the heavy crossbow, and North leans into him with a mumbled thanks. He fumbles through his pockets and retrieves a large stone, reversing the process, wrapping the rock with magic like a bobbin of thread. By the time he finishes, his hands are bent, more crooked than before, as if the act of transference swells his joints.
“Why are you moving it again?” I ask.
“I don’t trust myself to hold unspooled spells,” he says breathlessly. “There’s far too much risk that something snagged in the process and would start to fray inside me.” To Tobek, he asks, “Is there anything else?”
Tobek hesitates before nodding once, as if in apology.
North wets his lips, eyebrows furrowed. “We’ll bring them out,” he says at last. A trembling hand gestures to the bared dirt behind us. “Make rows. Mark the ones with magic and I’ll double-back when I’m done and start siphoning.”
Tobek tears off his jacket and balls it aside, out of the way. “Yes, sir.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Bryn says.
“We don’t have the luxury to waste magic,” North counters, cuffing his shirtsleeves. “Your binding spell isn’t nearly enough to get me through the Burn in one piece, Miss Dossel, so unless you want to improve your original offer, I’m not leaving an ounce of it behind.”
“You agreed to the terms presented,” says Bryn. “New Prevast in seven days.”
“Then lend a hand and we’ll be done faster.”
Bryn stares at him, incredulous. “I will not.”
“There’s still smoke in the air,” North says, pointing. His hair falls forward, framing his forehead. “This was a recent attack. We won’t be the only ones who feel the magic left behind. The hellborne will arrive soon, or fortune hunters. You want to leave? Get your hands dirty.”
They stare each other down, standing toe to toe in the dirt. Resigned, frustrated—must everything be a competition of power?—I edge past Bryn, hooking the first body under the arms. The chill of death lies dormant beneath the lingering heat trapped in the woman’s clothes, and goose bumps shiver down my back as I pull her body over the lip of the cellar and away from the house.
North watches me with a guarded expression as I carefully position the woman, folding her arms across her chest, adjusting her dress to cover her legs. My prayers are rusty, half forgotten, but I manage a mumbled blessing before returning to the cellar.
“Don’t touch the skin,” North says, falling in line beside me. I nod my understanding and we work without speaking while Bryn prowls an impatient line between the dead, arms folded and skirts flaring at her feet. She throws glances to the sky with increasing agitation, and her nerves spread to me. I move faster, leaving bodies with arms akimbo in favor of speed, eager to return to the wagon and the road north.
Once we’ve emptied the cellar, Tobek marks several of the bodies with a smeared ash X across their foreheads. He then empties their pockets and takes anything of interest, meeting my stare with a bump of his shoulder and a guilty half smile that quickly fades.
“We should burn the bodies,” I say, as North follows behind Tobek, deftly unraveling the magic he finds. It’s a quick process, the spells barely more than remnants. “The hellborne will turn them into scrap if we don’t.”
“Why not?” Bryn throws her hands in the darkening air. “Or better yet, why don’t we just bury them? That won’t take too long.”
“No.” North misses her sarcasm. “Some of them could be infected. It would poison the ground.”
Bryn gives him a withering look.
“There are matches in the wagon,” Tobek offers meekly. His pockets bulge.
“I’ll get them,” I say, already turning.
“Above the stove!” North calls after me.
I break into a run, fleeing the sickly sweet guilt of knowing that burning these bodies does not absolve me from leaving Loomis to be torn apart like an animal.
Hauling myself into the wagon, I brace my hands to either side of the stairwell and force myself to stop, to breathe. I close my eyes and count to ten, but when I open them, my heart crashes.
A black crow feather sits on the table in a hard slant of smoky sunlight, its barbs glowing red and gold with smoldering embers.
Perrote.
I twist with a shock of adrenaline, expecting to see him and his entire council riding up the road, ready to attack and take me prisoner. But there’s nothing, not even a bird overhead.
Numbly, I step further into the wagon and stare down at the feather. It spins in the draft I create, leaving a spill of ashes across the table. It’s too deliberately placed to be anything but a warning.
He knows where we are.
“What’s that?”
I jump, swearing loudly as Tobek pokes his head in the doorway behind me. He frowns at my nerves, craning to look.
I open my mouth but falter. If Bryn knew her father was closing in, she might sacrifice the mission.