She wondered if this was where Bash had ventured to collect his bones. If he wandered out here, donned in black from head to foot, cloaked in shadow to mimic the dark. If his face would be covered to hide from whoever might witness him, even if those things were only chipmunks. If he would move silently so as not to alert his prey.
Alora imagined it all and faltered.
No.
She doubled over, retching. Through watering eyes and a tender throat, she wheezed, “No. No, it can’tbe.”
“And you are not?”
“I am not prone to it.”
The memory returned, skipping and repeating like some broken record before it finally transformed from blurred remembrance to a new one, plain as the present.
“Maybe I’m an obsessive type, after all.”
The sudden despair caught and swept her up, a dizzying maelstrom that drained the contents from her stomach and from her head until only one thought remained. It pounded away like a malevolent tumor. She trembled all over.
It wouldn’t be true. She’d hurry to Potions and Peculiarities, and she’d find it open. She’d find Bash at the worn counterdallying over ledgers, or she’d find him at the back boiling some foul-tasting elixir for his cabinet. She wouldn’t find it closed. She wouldn’t find him gone.
“Hold tight,” she whispered to the butterfly.
She didn’t think of it until later, that it could see her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Closed.
The sign may as well have said something else. It may as well have said exactly what she feared.
Dead.
But hope could sometimes be a brutal thing, gripping tight even when it was in the best interest of the mind to let go. It didn’t let Alora go now, its claws digging as deep as a witch’s fingers. She rattled the latch with all her strength. It didn’t give; it was locked. She ran to the back.
Mugwort Alley was the least popular place in Enver. Its location next to Renwick Forest made it not only dangerous, or so they were led to believe, but also overshadowed. The canopy blocked the sun by early afternoon. It was a place for dark things. Quite a convenient location for Urchins.
The wagon was there. The mule was not. Alora hurried to the back door and once again pushed against the latch. It didn’t budge.
If it weren’t for the ice built up inside her, the sick-sweat coating her skin, she would have thought he was only out. He did that, she knew. After all, she’d come upon him once after an afternoon gathering of bones. She’d come upon him in the nursery buying up Forget-Me-Nots. But somehow, she knew he was doing none of those things.
She slumped against his door, sinking until her bottom met the stoop. She’d done this once before, sat like this, but when she’d awoken, he’d been there, his hands coming around her to lift her up. She didn’t think that would happen this time. She didn’t know how any tears could be left inside her, but there were. Her shoulders heaved against her cries, her head buried in her knees.
Voices came from the street. She ignored them. But when they sounded nearer, on that colorless, narrow lane between buildings, she couldn’t any longer and scrambled to stand. Her sobs caught and quieted.
A moment later, four men appeared around the corner.
From the safety of her enchanted coat, Alora focused on each in turn, not recognizing any of them—until she reached the last and gasped aloud. The sound drew attention. She pressed her lips closed as four pairs of eyes turned toward her general direction. Four bodies grew rigid as they waited. They assessed for a threat, she thought, which was understandable, considering they must all be Urchins.
She stared the hardest at the crooked-nosed man, his light mustache and blue eyes revealing him as the Urchin who had driven her only that morning. The one who had been knocked unconscious within Opulence’s grounds. He looked no worse for wear. They must have healed the bump he surely should have sprouted on his forehead.
“What’s the matter with that butterfly?” said one.
Oh no! Fly away!Alora panicked and shrugged, and the creature obeyed, lifting from her shoulder.
When nothing else shifted or made any further noise, they resumed their conversation. Slowly at first, and then more confident. One produced a key from his pocket and opened the door. They were going inside.
The door was left wide, and Alora wasted no thought in hurrying in after the last. She moved to a corner out of the way when the final Urchin turned and closed them in. A screeching announced the deadbolt had slid home.
“Tell us the rest of it then, Salvoy. What happened after you saw the second wolf?”
