Endless secrets. Lux had them, too. “The Dark Market. I tripped and scraped my temple against one of the stalls. The crone gave me some paste.”
“You accepted treatment from that old decrepit? You’ll be lucky if you’re not poisoned! I thought you’d better sense, girl. You are to always come to me, do you understand?”
“Yes, Riselda.”
A carriage rumbled across the cobblestones at her words. Riselda extended a hand. “What timing. Come along, darling.” Lux stepped toward those outstretched fingers, watching them wind around her forearm. “We have much to discuss.”
Riselda may as well have had her fangs still in place as deep as Lux felt the words bite into her flesh.
The carriage ride sittingacross from Riselda had reached an uncomfortable silence. Lux stared out into the evening’s fading light, aware of her aunt’s continued scrutiny. A death-cart shadowed her face, passing their sleek carriage within the narrow street. She sucked in a breath at the mound of bodies.
Riselda’s eyes followed hers.
“This plague is rampant. I would stay far from that side of town, my dear.”
“That’s not possible. The Dark Market supplies most of what lines my workroom.” She didn’t add that Riselda, herself, wasn’t bothering to heed her own advice, and when her aunt said nothing further, she continued, “Speaking of, will you return to the role of Ghadra’s Healer now that you’ve returned?”
Riselda laughed, deep and musical. Goosebumps erupted on Lux’s arms at the sound.
“No. That part of my life is thankfully dead.”
“But the mayor—”
“Themayor,” Riselda leaned forward, eyes raking her face, “cannot touchme.”
Lux eased back, watching her aunt drop her shoulders once more from beneath a hooded gaze. It would appear she’d been wrong to assume the mayor would demand Riselda’s return to the role which he’d appointed her so long ago. Or perhaps he had. And Riselda had refused him.
Though Lux puzzled at why she would. She was Ghadra’s Necromancer. It didn’t make her the mayor’s puppet to be named so.
It didn’t.
“I was welcomed home by a most disturbing site on my doorstep this afternoon. Did you attempt to revive someone with the contagion?”
Lux shook her head. “No. The woman that brought him left without payment. I called for the death-carts, but they must have been delayed.”
“I would strongly suggest you do not attempt such a thing. Even should payment be presented.”
“What? Why not?”
“It isn’t safe. If you should come into contact with the fluids bursting from those boils, you will succumb just the same.”
“I am more than capable of making that decision on my own, Riselda.”
“Not in my home you will not, Lucena.” Lux’s jaw ticked around clenched teeth as the shadows deepened between them. Riselda sighed. “Enough of this dreary subject.”
The carriage slowed to a stop.
“At last. You will simply love the wine here.”
“I don’t—”
The door opened and Riselda exited with a flourish. The vacated space left Lux to wonder just how much more disappointment her aunt would tolerate from her.
Superfluous was the bestword that came to mind whenever Lux passed this establishment, and now, here she stood, on the threshold, absorbing the out-of-sight violin’s sweet melody.
Riselda smiled, surveying polished tables, thick candlesticks, crisp uniforms—an abrasive reminder of just how far they were from the Dark. Lux had never possessed the desire to enter this place. She felt like an interloper and fervently wished she had worn a necklace at the very least.
Did Riselda not know her at all?
