Riselda studied her as she repositioned a stool beneath the new kitchen table. She scrunched her forehead in thought. “I cannot say I have. Was there anything else of note?”
Lux thought over how the foot had bounced along and pictured the pustules bursting. “Oh! The reaper. He said the home smelt of jasmine and…rotting flesh.” She wrinkled her nose.
“I would have to research. Jasmine, you say? How interesting.” Riselda tapped her chin a moment more before focusing on Lux with a satisfied smile. “How do you like our home?”
Lux frowned at the abrupt change, scanning the room briefly from the edge of her vision. Taken aback, she whirled toward the space.
Her favorite chair was gone. So was the plush rug, where she’d always buried her toes. The floor of her living room had become engulfed by a thinner brown rug, which now rested beneath a small bed pushed to one side. Two hard-backed rocking chairs pressed close to the fireplace—a matching set that looked hideously uncomfortable and impossible to curl up in. Lux wasn’t sure why her heart hurt suddenly. She rested her hands upon the table before her.
“I know it’s a big change, but it wasn’t as if there was another option.”
Lux glanced at her aunt, who, for all her smiles, appeared ready to move to the defensive. “I’m not upset, Riselda.”Am I?She couldn’t pinpoint what she felt. “I’ll move my things from the bedroom.”
She took two steps before her aunt stopped her with a cool hand on her forearm. “No. You keep the bedroom. I don’t require near as much sleep as you.” With a caressing hand, she cupped Lux’s chin.
Lux allowed her surprise to show, and Riselda laughed. “It’s as if you’re not used to anyone looking out for your needs.”
“How could I be?” She hated the weak pitch of her voice over the words.
“Oh, Lucena.” Riselda pulled her in, wrapping her arms tightly about her shoulders. “I will ensure youneverfeel that way again. Believe me.”
The fierceness in her aunt’s voice startled her. She believed Riselda completely. And yet, she couldn’t keep the tension from arcing across her shoulders even as she returned the soft embrace.
Chapter ten
Lux’s strides were purposefulas she raced against the rising sun toward Shaw’s apartment.
When another cart had woken her already-troubled slumber an hour earlier, she’d thrown aside her blankets in fury. His murdering was growing out of control. There was no possible way there could be this many people deserving of death in Ghadra.
Though, even if there were, he was going about it all wrong, picking off those the Shield ignored. Because if the corrupted source wasn’t stopped, it would forever continue to trickle downward and into the worst of souls. Besides, he couldn’t go on killing indefinitely. He’d only die again, and next time she’d refuse to revive him.
She planned on telling him exactly that, too.
Shaw’s home wasn’t hard to find, as she’d learned the route while following Riselda that day. Lux turned down the vaguely familiar alley, sweeping her gaze across the windowlessbuildings, and stifled a scream. The largest black rat she’d ever seen darted from the shadows. It studied her with beady eyes, annoyed by her disruptive presence before skulking back to the darkness with slow, purposeful steps.
She shuddered. “Nasty varmint.” As if in defense of the whispered insult, a whiskered nose poked forth once more. With a squeal of protest, she ran.
Rounding the corner, she nearly collided with a reaper. Other than to frown at her from beneath large eyebrows and a masked face, he continued to shoulder the body through a doorway. A sobbing man trailed at its feet. Even wrapped tightly in white fabric, Lux could clearly see the perfect black circles as they seeped into the material, staining it with its putrid, sweet scent.
Jasmine.And rotting flesh.
Lux gagged into her bent elbow, covering her nose and mouth. Another body. Another fallen to this same, mysterious sickness—and so soon. She stumbled away as the scent rolled from the home, filling the air so thickly, she felt she could see the noxious cloud.
Her back bumped into something solid, and she mumbled an apology. Glancing up, her cheeks heated at the familiar eyes glaring into hers.
“Returned with more money, have you?”
Lux ignored him, observing the dead being tossed onto the cart instead. She wondered if the body she’d seen the afternoon prior had lived near here.
She could feel Shaw’s eyes on her, absorbing her interest. “That’s the third one. That I’ve heard of, at any rate.”
“Third?” She hadn’t been aware of the second. Unless—
“Another fell. Shortly before dawn.”
Lux felt a fierce blush forming on her cheeks. It would appear Shaw wasn’t to blame after all. She shifted her feet, trying tothink up a new reason for being so close to his home as her practiced lecture crumbled, useless.
“Are you feverish?” Shaw eyed her with distaste, stepping back.
