X began to stand, desperate to break the stillness of the cell. Regent, moving for the first time, like a statue suddenly coming to life, shook his head and gestured for X to lie on his back. X should have been relieved that the ritual was about to begin—that the moment he could touch Zoe again was finally drawing nearer, that something like life would finally unfold. Instead, he lay down as if into a grave.
Regent knelt beside him. He opened his right hand. X could see the lines that ran like rivers through his palm. He closed his eyes and waited for the hand to descend. It did not. After a moment, X opened his eyes again. He stared up at the lord questioningly. He did not think he could bear another moment.
At last, Regent spoke.
“The Lowlands require another soul for its collection,” he began, as he always did. “He is an evil man—unrepentant and unpunished.”
Instead of going on, Regent paused and another maddening silence filled the cell. When he spoke again, he departed from the ritual’s ancient text.
X had never heard a lord sound so wounded and raw.
“This name,” said Regent, “is not of my choosing.”
X opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out the lord had plunged down his hand. The name entered X’s blood.
The name was Leo Wrigley.
It meant nothing to X.
But then Leo’s story hit X’s veins, and X howled like an animal at the shock of it.
He tried to push Regent away, flailing for his arms, his neck, anything. Regent stared down, his eyes full of pity. He tightened his grip on X’s face until the bones threatened to snap—and pinned him to the ground.
Suddenly, X was on a rocky beach somewhere, his brain black with pain and rage. He began stumbling along the water’s edge. The winds blew cold at his back. The tide, foaming and gray, swarmed over his boots.
He’d planned to collect this last soul as quickly as he could, so he could rush back to Zoe. But that was impossible now that he knew the man’s story. He plodded forward almost against his will, his heart full of lead. Beneath him, the ground was strewn with enormous logs that had been bleached by the sun. They looked like bones.
The Trembling grew stronger as he walked, pulling him forward like a chain. Still, the pain was nothing compared to X’s anger.
Who had chosen Leo Wrigley? Had the name been passed down from the Higher Power, or was it a ploy of Dervish’s? The Lowlands had no need for the puny man that X had been sent for—X was certain of that. The man had sinned, yes, but was he really unrepentant? X didn’t believe it. And if the Lowlands wanted this soul why hadn’t they sent a hunter decades ago? No, the one the lords truly wanted to punish was X. He had defied them. He had stood up. He had told them he was better than they were, that he was pure and noble—that he was worthy of love! And now they would strike him down. They would strip him of everything.
X stomped over the rocks. Above him, the clouds were dense and dark. It was as if his own fury had put them there.
When he had walked a half mile down the beach, a hard rain began to fall and made the ocean boil. There were only a few people within sight—old men who waved strange metal instruments over the sand, then stooped every so often to dig up a can or a coin. They rushed for the boardwalks between the cliffs now. X kept walking, indifferent to the storm. The rain was cold, and slipped down his face.
He could not take this soul. He knew that. The lords knew it, too. They knew that he’d give up every hope of freedom first.
Still, he wanted to lay eyes on the man he was about to sacrifice himself for. He continued down the beach. It would not be long before he was back in the Lowlands. His cell was a stony mouth waiting to swallow him forever.
Near the end of the beach, X felt the pain in his body flare, and looked up to see his prey coming toward him in the rain. The man was tall and wiry. He wore glasses and a red wool hat, which bobbed up and down as he walked. It was the only fleck of color in sight.
The rain crashed down in sheets now. The shore was deserted except for the bounty hunter and the soul he had come for.
Between them, there was a cliff that had been hollowed out by the tide. It rose up and over the beach like a giant, curling wave. The man ducked beneath it to get out of the rain, and took a seat on a fallen tree trunk. X stopped a hundred feet away, his boots sinking into the spongy sand. Should he turn back or continue? Every possibility, every thought, every emotion rushed at him at once.
The man saw X standing in the downpour. He cocked his head: What are you doing out there? He waved for him to come under the cliff. He gestured to the tree trunk he sat on: Plenty of room right here. Even in his torment, X found the innocence of the invitation touching. The man had no idea that X had been commissioned to kill him.
X stepped into the shelter, and sat without speaking. Above them, rainwater struck the top of the stony wave, then dripped off its outermost edge, like a beaded curtain. X looked at the ocean, at the bed of stones at his feet, at the smooth, curling wall of rock behind him—at everything but the man sitting beside him.
“Gonna be a while,” said the man.