Page 29 of Last Rites

Merrick waved me away, and I headed for home.

When I arrived, both cats were hunkered down on the couch and casting wary glances down the hall. I toed off my boots by the door and undid the tie of my collar as I padded toward the sounds of drawers being opened and closed in our bedroom.

Inside, it looked like there’d been a localized whirlwind. Our bag was on the foot of the bed, a quarter packed, and there were clothes strewn about across the mattress and all over the floor. Penny knelt in front of the dresser rooting through the bottom drawer, and his eyes were wide with panic when he finally noticed me and looked over.

“What are you doing?” I asked, baffled by the array of clothing.

Penny looked at his hands clutched around an old brown scarf—the one he’d gotten from Elise and Margot in Wendwood—that he’d dug out of the drawer. “Packing,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Looking at the mess again, I spotted the missive the messenger must have dropped off, half-buried under our bag. I tugged the parchment free and scanned the instructions.

No wonder Penny was so distraught.

“How long do you expect to be gone, Pen?”

He threw the scarf down and dropped heavily on his heels. “Well, I don’t know, Kit,” he snapped. “However long it takes. Mostly, I don’t know what to bring.” He threw his arms up in exasperation. “What does one wear to throw a sheep down a well? Should I cover my face like a bandit while I’m poisoning a whole town’s water supply? And what did that sheep ever do to deserve this? It’s barbaric!”

“The entire thing is barbaric,” I muttered, “for the sheep and the people who are going to have to dig a new well.”

Penny started stuffing stray clothing back into the drawer as he grumbled, “I’ll let the others handle it because I want no part of it, and I’m glad you won’t have a part in it either.”

Were it not for the prospect of what we were going to set out to do in the morning, I might have found his petulance humorous. But I knew it was a shield for his worry. We’d managed to avoid ruining anyone’s livelihood with the fifth Oath, but here, he knew we wouldn’t be so lucky. There would be others with us, and even though we might talk Rosie and Isla around to lying about completing our task, Otis would never agree. The moment we returned, he’d tell Merrick everything. We had no choice but to carry out what we were being sent to do.

“You know I wouldn’t let you do this alone, Pen.”

He glanced back at me, and his shoulders sagged in relief. “Oh, thank gods. I know it’s awful of me, but I didn’t want to go without you. And when the messenger said you’d be staying here…” He paused, brows drawing together in confusion. “Why aren’t you staying here? You’re not an initiate anymore.”

“Merrick didn’t want me to go, probably because he wants me here where he can keep an eye on me, but technically, I still need to finish my Oaths in the required timeframe to keep this position.”

He nodded, then squinted at me. “…Do you want to keep this position?”

I shrugged. “No, but it’s the wise thing to do right now. It’s not what it would have been under Levitt, but it still buys us some small bit of safety since I have at least some authority.” Not that anyone respected it. But a title was a title, which was better than nothing.

I forced a smile when Penny’s confusion started to shift to concern at my less than sure tone.

“Even if I am just getting in the way in the caverns,” I finished.

“Is that where you came from just now?”

We hadn’t spoken much about my new responsibilities since that first day, and I often beat Penny home in the evenings. By the time he got in, I’d had time to wash my robes and scrub myself almost to the point of pain to get rid of the traces of bone dust on my skin.

“I’m only in my office for a few minutes at the end of the afternoon to report in on our progress.”

Penny’s eyes dipped to my robes, and his nose wrinkled. “And all that powder is…?”

“People,” I said without thinking.

He shuddered and shrank back from me. “Now I understand why you get out of the bath so pink these days.”

I chuckled. “Speaking of, I should go take one now and wash these robes, but I need to pack, too.”

“I’ll pack for both of us,” Penny said in a rush. “You go scrub the… people off.”

“Thanks,” I said through a grin. “I’d kiss you, but I don’t want this on you, too.” I turned for the door, but paused on my way through it to look back at him. “And Pen? Why don’t you throw a couple of bandit masks in there just to be safe?”

11

Penny