“From untimely death, we bid you Rise.”
Another shout. “Masha! It can’t be!”
“My Persephone!” This girl Lux could see, standing at the edge of the crowd in a tattered dress and dirtied fingers. She swayed on the tips of her toes, her eyes focused on the woman who’d cried out. Then, the girl smiled.
The ecstatic woman pitched forward, tripping in her haste to reach her long-dead daughter. She gripped her hands, brushed back her hair, and then her gaze sought Lux’s. “You’ve brought her back to me.”
The quiet words reverberated through the crowd, and the silence erupted.
“What have you done, Riselda.” It wasn’t a question, and panic rose in Lux’s chest, a cold sweat breaking across her skin.
“The purge has begun.” Riselda turned too-bright eyes to the mayor. “Welcome back your people, Bartleby.”
The mayor’s enjoyment over the crowd’s delight in his choice of entertainment faded to confusion. He rose.
“Colden!” Morana’s shriek was louder than any other. With a sweep of fuchsia skirts, she plummeted from the stage to the handsome man converging upon the market square. He wore a torn black suit, shredded bits hanging from his arms as he opened them wide.
She fell into them in a heap of tears.
“Is this some sort of trickery? His lifeblood was removed!” The mayor descended on Lux. She didn’t pay him any mind, too focused now on the throng of once-dead bodies entering the Light Market.
“Yes, it was. I took it from him, and I put it back.” Riselda shrugged, her grin unnaturally wide.
The mayor blubbered and blustered, for his words had abandoned him. Until finally, “But it has been too long.”
The maniacal laugh jolted the few people still pressed close to the stage. “Precisely.”
“Papa!”
Lux choked, her lungs frozen masses in her chest and incapable of movement.Aline. She recognized her voice as a man, an aged version of his son, entered the festival edge. He knelt, a crooked smile on his lips. The clouded eyes shown even in the dark.
“ALINE!”
“Lucena!” Riselda snapped from her power-mad daze. “Be—”
But Lux was already running. She jumped from the stage, jabbing into kidneys of those who didn’t move quickly enough and sweeping ankles from those who wouldn’t move at all.
“Murderer.”
Lux’s heart skipped in recognition, and she twisted toward the voice, but the light of the lanterns proved untrustworthy. Any of the bodies around her could have whispered it, and yet…
“You don’t see me? You didn’t see me then, either.” She glided around a collection of skirts: Ned’s abandoned lover. Her formerly drab dress lay in rags against her skin, and as Lux replayed how angry her soul had been then, she didn’t want to encounter it revived. Not like this. “How about now?”
“I see you fine. But if you don’t mind, I’m needed elsewhere.”
The woman cackled. “I don’t think so.” She withdrew a slender stick, no longer hidden behind her back, its tip sharp and glinting. “I found this. Probably some child’s toy, but I think it’ll do nicely, don’t you?”
Much faster than anticipated, her hand shot forward, the metal tip leaving a bloodied gash along Lux’s forearm.
Lux seethed. “I don’t have time for this,” she growled, finally catching the interest of those nearest them.
“How familiar. Little wench.” The woman lashed out again.
But Lux expected it this time. When she pivoted, the ragged woman flew past her, unbalanced. Lux pushed further into the crowd, muttering all the while.
Of all people.
The flare of hot pain slicing down her back nearly sent her to her knees. To the right of Lux, a flamboyantly dressed woman bearing witness to the injury screamed. Though, instead of offering any sort of assistance, she whirled on her heels to flee the violence.
