I bunch my hands into fists, making the raw wounds smart. “I don’t understand,” I blurt. “Why thesecrets? Why do I have to hide?”
Gun shares a side-eyed look with Enry, who says, “You were never told?”
“I’ve been toldnothing. That’s why I’ve been hunting for Madame Strings. I heard she knows a lot of things and I … I just …”
“You don’t hunt for her,” he growls, the color bleeding from his face. “You don’t evenbreatheher name, do you understand?”
My heart stills, like he’s lumped something heavy on it.
I’m just not sure what it is yet.
“Shit.” He looks to the floor, up again with a stare that plunges through me. “Orlaith, Madame Strings is a member of a cult religion that hangs off every chiseled word of the prophet Maars. A small band of the truly hardcore worshipers have spentyearshunting your people in the name of the stones, believing they’re doing the Gods’s work.”
An itch flares across my shoulder, making me want to scratch the tender wound that’s throbbing with newfound life. “Shulák?”
He nods.
“What … what are they doing with us?”
“They believe your kind will hail the world’s end,” he mutters gruffly. “An end that’ll never come … if you’re all extinguished.”
The blood drains from my face as the realization of what he’s saying dawns on me, every sharp word a withering strike.
“Theykillus?”
He nods. “You show yourself to the wrong person, and yes, you’ll be put down. Hacked in—”
“Gunthar!” Enry pads the air with his hands. “Stop!You’re scaring the poor thing.”
Thing …
“She needs to hear!” Gun bellows, and there’s a fury in his voice that rips right through me.
He looks at me again, and I want to clap my hands over my ears. Want to crawl under a table and hide from the blows.
“Show yourself to the wrong person,” he repeats, slower this time, “and you’ll be hacked into pieces.” All the breath rushes out of me. “Sold on the black market—”
“Stop!”I scream, and he does, holding my stare for a few stretched moments before hanging his head.
A heavy silence fills the room.
Gun clears his throat, looking up from beneath his bushy brows. “I’m sorry, Orlaith … but I need you to know.”
I nod, swallowing the ache rising up my throat, the bile threatening to spill.
I’ve been looking for answers, now I’m desperate to shove them back in the tomb. To leap back in time and keep the questions raging in my chest, gnawing at their bars.
It hurt much less thanthis.
“There’s some sick, twisted people out there, Orlaith. You don’t trust anyone, do you understand?Nobody. Not even your promised.”
The words toll in my ears like a warning bell …
“Tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” I rasp, and his shoulders loosen.
“This”—he shakes the necklace at me, held in the clutches of his clenched fist—”I’ll fix this.” Then he’s up, moving toward a desk in the corner, setting a wiry pair of spectacles on his face as he gathers some bits and begins tinkering away beneath the golden glow of a candelabra.
