‘And there’s no violence,’ I murmured, looking at a small huddle of bones laid next to a larger pile. It was too easy to picture a child, tucking its small shape into the side of its mother. My chest panged for Kem. ‘I think these people locked themselves in, to try to be safe. So the strigoi didn’t get to them.’
‘In the daytime,’ said Mira, still angry, ‘it must have been men who kept them scared.’
It was true. Boyar Calazan’s men had left them here to starve.
I swallowed. All my life I saw my inaction as harmless. I was happy to stand by while Kizzy made decisions, while she ran toward danger or threat, answered back to insults. I thought my silence, my stillness, was a fine way to be. But now I realised it made me as bad as those men who took the side of a monster, who watched a locked door as children starved to death inside.
I placed my hand on the small skull. From the moment I had saved myself from Vereski, I thought something of Kizzy’s bravery was in me. But perhaps this was me, now. Perhaps I had changed.
I straightened, and carefully moved the bones aside.
‘Put him here.’
Fen and Mira manoeuvred the guard inside. He reeled at the sight of the bones, struggling as Mira tried to make him sit. Fen drew his sword and hit the pew, hard. The man stilled, sat.
‘Mira, watch him.’ I handed her my axe. ‘We need to secure this door.’
The light was fading fast, the dusty air of the church blue-grey in the twilight. We pushed any pieces of wood still clinging on back into place and replaced the metal bar. I searched for candle stubs while Fen dragged a heavy wooden table to the door, heedless of the snapping sounds as he heaved it onto its side. This drowned the light completely, and while he checked it was leant securely against the door, I lit the ends of the candles, so we were suffused in a low, flickering light that made the skeletons gleam.
Satisfied we had done all we could to keep the church secure, I turned my attention to the guard. His face was downcast, his eyes closed, and I could smell his fear. We were lucky to have stumbled upon a guard like him, rather than like Vereski. This man had something to live for beside his own twisted desires. A family, perhaps. He could be useful.
Checking the knot tying his hands was holding firm, I pulled the curtain free of his mouth. He collapsed forward and retched, spitting onto the church floor.
‘Please,’ he said, tears staining his cheeks. ‘Please, don’t kill me.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t kill yourself, working for the Dragon,’ spat Fen.
The man laughed bitterly. ‘You think I have a choice? I am a soldier.’
A servant with a sword. Malovski’s words came to me unbidden.
‘A soldier for a monster,’ snapped Fen.
‘I must do what I am told if my family is to eat.’
I had been right, then. I felt a surge of hope. I knelt beside him, holding out my hands to show I was unarmed. ‘What is your name?’
A trail of snot glistening beneath his nose as he looked at me, and quickly away.
‘I am Lillai.’
‘Don’t give him your name,’ hissed Mira, but I shushed her, not taking my gaze from the man’s face.
‘Lillai,’ he said, as though testing how my name felt in his mouth. ‘I’m Tamás.’
‘Please, Tamás. We need your help.’
He looked me full in the face for the first time, and his cheeks blanched. The horror I saw in him was absolute, as though he looked into an endless pit.
‘You’re her,’ he moaned. ‘You’re his.’
‘What?’
‘Is this a trap?’ His eyes were brimming with tears again. ‘Are you going to kill me?’
‘I don’t—’
‘He thinks you’re Kizzy,’ said Fen, in a flat, deadened tone. ‘Don’t you? You think she’s the girl who was brought to the Dragon?’
I watched Tamás’s face as he examined me more closely and found my face beneath my sister’s features. His whole body slackened, and I had to put a hand out to keep him from falling.
‘You’re not. But you look …’
‘I’m here for my sister. Kisaiya.’ Even as I said it, my dread grew teeth that gnawed at my belly. ‘What did you mean, she is “his”?’
‘You’re her sister?’ He looked dismayed.
‘Her twin.’
‘I am so sorry,’ he said, and his voice held real tenderness.
‘What?’ said Fen harshly, taking the man by the shoulder and shaking him. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘Fen!’ cried Mira, trying to pull him off. ‘Let him speak.’
‘Then speak,’ said Fen, pacing amid the bones. ‘Tell us.’
Tamás hung his head. ‘You would be best to ride fast from this place. There is nothing left for you here.’
‘Is she dead?’ Fen was trying to sound threatening, but his voice had a crack in it, that widened as he went on. ‘Did he kill her?’
Tamás shook his head, and when he finally heaved a word into his mouth, his voice was hoarse. ‘Worse.’
We all knew what he meant. My sister, my bright, beautiful, blazing sister, was worse than dead. She would never die a natural death, and I would never feel her touch, warm upon my skin, ever again.
My throat was tight, my skin crawling. I felt very hot, as though fire licked upon my back and into my head. I suddenly felt every moment of our journey, from Vereski to the forest, the strigoi girl to the impaled bodies.
The church span, and Mira wrapped her arms around me, kissing away tears I did not even know were falling until I felt her lips on them, and then her lips salt on mine. She only brushed them against me for a moment, but it was enough to centre me.
When I pulled my eyes from her face Tamás was staring at us, looking from one to the other, an unpleasant mix of disgust and intrigue on his face. Fen pushed his cheek roughly to the side.
‘Don’t look at them like that.’
I glanced at my Traveller brother and saw his cheeks were wet with tears too. The look on his face told me he’d known about me and Mira for a while, perhaps since the beginning. There was nothing in his face but love, and sadness.
I wanted to hold him, but there was no time. Kizzy may well be lost to us, but Kem and Albu were not.
‘A bear,’ I said, so suddenly that Mira startled. ‘Did he have a white bear?’
Tamás blinked at me, and I shook him, my patience gone. ‘A bear, that she dances with?’
‘Yes,’ said Tamás. ‘Yes.’
‘And is there a boy? He’s ten, but looks young for his age. He could be much younger to your eyes. He looks like me, with the same curly hair.’
Tamás’s brow creased. ‘There were many Traveller children passing through. He keeps them sometimes, sometimes he sells them. Sometimes he kills them.’ I flinched and wondered if he would talk of his Settled companions’ fate with such nonchalance.
‘This boy though,’ I said. ‘He came with the bear.’
Tamás shook his head slowly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know. They all look the same.’
I resisted an urge to strike him, honed from years of ignoring such comments from Settlers. Mira, however, didn’t. She hit him hard across the cheek.