Riselda handed him a cloth to wipe his face lest his mother faint at the sight of him, and with persistent thanks and fervent compliments, the boy finally stepped through their door to be swallowed by the darkness.
A snort of laughter left Lux at his departure. “You’ve gained an admirer.”
“Admiration is more effective than fear…in the long run.” With a pointed stare at Lux, Riselda returned to the workroom, mopping up the remaining blood. “Though anything that delves deeper should be promptly smothered at the source.”
She wasn’t about to argue with her aunt, though her experience thus far had been quite the opposite. Fear of her brilliance had allowed her solace from many who would have hurt her otherwise. Admiration only invited them in.
But Lux wasn’t sure she disagreed with Riselda on the latter. The image of Shaw’s eyes narrowed in anger sent her own flaring again, and she began shoving jars back onto the shelves. The plants swayed in admonishment for her disregard of the noise she made.
Riselda paused, studying her progress. When a vial shattered at last, she intervened.
“I can clean up, Lucena. Get some rest.”
Lux had obeyed atfirst. Though now, instead of sleep, she pressed against twin bruises formed over her chest, naked in the night. They hurt. Purple and blue, they shone starkly against her pale skin. It would seem that even shadow blades could mark a lingering reminder of the previous day’s nightmare. Lux covered them quickly. She could feel her mind drudging up memories she was too tired to wrestle back to the recesses and turned her gaze onto her own reflection instead.
A much fainter bruise decorated her cheekbone. Morana’s parting gift. She had never struck Lux before, but rather chose to sneer in passing instead.
Look at her hair. I wonder if her parents had wished for a boy. Is that why they kept it so short?
Goodness! That unhealthy, pale skin. It’s almost translucent. Don’t flit about in the night, child, or someone will take you for a ghost and chase you back to the forest, surely.
Some days I wish I could murder my family, too. I would never of course. I love them, after all.
Lux glanced to the opposite side of her wardrobe, but the lifeblood was tucked safely away once again. She closed the doors with a snap and climbed into bed.
Shaw had wanted to venture into the prison. She had asked him to accompany her to the forest first. Lux sighed, extinguishing the lamp at her side.
No matter.
She had been alone for nine years. She had grown up, faced the worst of Ghadra, and made them fear her. She could handle a few trees, a phantom and a howler or two on her own.
But she would buy a new knife first.
Chapter thirty
Lux’s headache was afurious thing that Riselda had thankfully anticipated. Having awoken after too little sleep, sweating and shaking with a lingering sense of nightmares, Lux had found the blue liquid stoppered alongside a note on the kitchen table.
A tonic for your head, should you need it.
No mention of where she was or when she would return. It had suited Lux just fine. Downing the liquid, her pulsing head finally released her captive body.
And now, she found herself in a deserted Dark Market.
The air had finally grown warmer. High summer approached, and the Festival of Light along with it. It was absurdly close to the mayor’s birthday, but at least everyone was invited to attend this particular celebration.
Lux had always avoided the entire affair when she could. Especially as it was the busiest time of year for her. The town line blurred for one day and one night, and when the people ofGhadra mingled as one, with entirely too much to drink, it often led to more than a body or two carried through her door. Though that might be lessened somewhat if Riselda utilized her gift.
Her aunt would likely be their only hope; at the last festival, Lux had revived their best physician.
A muffled blanket of fear and dread covered the square, but as she had suspected, the crooked, old crone continued to hack and wheeze behind her booth, the sole vendor remaining within the entire market. Lux walked toward her, a faint smell of rotted jasmine in the air and little else.
Dark, knotted fingers were busy creating yet another gnarled necklace. “You had better buy something today, girl. I haven’t had any business in days.”
Lux paused before the booth, eyeing the stacks of claws and talons. It appeared the old woman had added to her collection in hopes of drumming up more customers. An array of feathers, frogs’ eyes and snake skins were pushed ahead of the display of homemade jewelry. A stack of red apples drenched in green poison consumed the remaining space.
Lux didn’t waste her breath in telling her that no soul worthy of living would be tricked by such fruit. The crone certainly wouldn’t listen.
“I’m in need of a new knife. Nothing else.” She glanced around the quiet square. “Everyone die off from the plague then?”
