“Or what?”
Row said nothing, but it didn’t matter, for a moment later a scream split the air. Katie whirled, but she could see nothing through the trees, only the glow of lights from the festival. Several more screams came in quick progression, echoing through the trees from the brightly lit common. Katie began to run, but it felt like moving through mud. Row giggled behind her, a cold sound, the sound that Katie imagined worms would make as they squirmed eagerly through the gap in a coffin. She caught sight of moving clothing through the trees as people ran from the festival, shrieking, and she pulled her knife as she ran, thinking that it didn’t matter any longer if people saw her with it, people should know that there was some force in this town beyond Row and his sorry band of sycophants, even if Jonathan paid for it later.
She came around the corner of Mrs. Harris’s tent and halted. The common was deserted, but bright lamplight illuminated the tents, their edges waving in the breeze, and the ground, a carpet of shattered crockery. She stared at the shards for a few moments before she understood: beer mugs, dropped in flight, their remains littering the cobbles. She looked to her right and felt her breath stop.
Two bodies lay together on the ground in the center of the common, the street beneath them soaked with blood. Katie crept closer, reached down, and turned one of the bodies over, jumping back with a low, horrified cry as she saw Virginia’s face, eyes wide and mouth slack. Her throat had been cut. A thin trickle of blood ran down her chin. Without thought, guided by a feeling of terrible inevitability, Katie reached out and turned over the second body.
It was Mum.
Katie’s first thought was to be grateful that Mum’s eyes were closed. There was blood on her neck and soaked into her shirt, but with her eyes closed, she looked oddly peaceful, the way Katie had always seen her in sleep. But Katie’s paralysis lasted only a moment before she stumbled away, clutching her arms around herself, her eyes wide and wounded, breath gasping from her throat.
Jonathan!
She stared wildly around, but she saw no sign of him, and none of Gavin either . . . Gavin, who had been on guard duty while Katie took a bit of rest and relaxation out in the woods. There was a tinkle of broken crockery behind her and Katie whirled around, certain that it was Row, coming for her. This was Row’s work, his people, and they couldn’t kill Mum and let Katie live, because she would kill them all—
But it wasn’t Row, only a fox, one of the tiny kits who lived in the woods, come to investigate the bonanza of leftover food on the ground.
Katie turned back to the two corpses before her, feeling oddly numb, almost analytical. Someone had knifed Virginia and Mum, but it hadn’t been Row. Who had it been? Virginia had been guarding Jonathan. She and Gavin . . . where was Gavin? No one could get past him with a knife. Katie stared around the common, feeling the pressure of eyes upon her. Row was still here somewhere, he must be. Out in the woods, perhaps, watching her, gloating over how easy it had been to distract her, to get her out of the way, make her a fool . . .
“Where are you?” Katie shrieked.
But there was no sign of anyone, only the deserted common, the bright lamps swinging in the late autumn wind.
She kicked down the door of Row’s house easily; it was an old house, built just after the Crossing, and the door fell into the front hall with a crash. Katie darted inside, her knife held out before her.
A large painting of Row, done by his mother, dominated the front hall. He was eight or nine in the picture, and it wasn’t very good, but his mother had decorated the frame to a ridiculous extent, embellishing it with flowers and glued-on sprigs of holly. Katie had walked past this portrait hundreds of times, barely noticing it, let alone taking account of what it might mean, all of those flowers dripping down the border, still emitting a saccharine, rotten scent.
She found Mrs. Finn in the living room, sitting in her rocking chair, staring into the fireplace. The house was cold, but there was no fire in the grate, and this fact bothered Katie for no reason that she could understand. Mrs. Finn barely even looked up as Katie entered the room.
“Get out, Tear whore.”
Katie halted, dumbfounded. She had never liked Row’s mother, but they had always gotten along fine; in fact, Katie had hidden her contempt for the woman much better than Row had. But Mrs. Finn’s tone held as much vitriol as her words.
“Where is he?”