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“The crossbow doesn’t belong to Kami’en.”
“Really. And to whom does it belong?”
“The one who made it.”
“Is that so? You seem to know him quite well. What do they look like, the lost Elves?”
Elves? Was that what he was, the stranger from the hospital? Will pulled the swindlesack over the crossbow.
“I don’t know him. I’ve only seen him once. You think he sent those two?”
“Who? Our silver friends?” The Goyl rubbed his chest. “I don’t want to talk about them. You never know where they are. And
they’re quite spiteful.” Nerron’s lizard jacket had turned silver where Seventeen had poked his chest. There was also a damp spot. Will remembered Goyl blood had no color.
“Hey, you filthy, glassy brood!” Nerron shouted. “Soulless Mirrorlings!” He looked around and spat. “Looks like they’re really not here. Probably scraping some bark off their limbs.”
Silver. Silver and glass. What does that remind you of, Will?
Nerron planted himself in front of Will. He grabbed the boy’s chin to keep him from averting his face. “Stop that. I want to see your eyes. What did they promise you? Why are you playing errand boy for them?”
Will shoved him away and reached for—what? He could almost feel the hilt of the saber between his fingers. His shoulder remembered the thrust.
The Bastard flinched.
His eyes told Will the jade was back even before he could see it on his own hands. The Goyl smiled.
“What about the girl?” Will tucked the swindlesack under his shirt. “Sixteen... She looks sick.”
“Her?” Nerron laughed. “Sounds like she showed you the right face. The Fairy curse? The Silver-Alders? You’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Just forget about it. I’ll let them explain, or else they’ll turn me into one of these.” He nudged one of the dead robbers with his boot. Then he turned his back on Will and carried on plundering the corpses.
“I’ll let them explain.”
Will stepped outside.
The overgrown garden was filled with the stillness of death. He touched his face and found stone and skin. The jade was fading again. It was coming and going like a fever. His war dress. The daylight still hurt his eyes, and he could sense the depths beneath the damp grass. The womb of the earth. He’d missed that knowledge.
No.
He must forget again. Just like he’d forgotten before. For Clara, for himself. The jade wasn’t a part of him, no matter how much it felt like it was, even more so than before. It was a curse. A curse. A curse. You’ve been hexed, Will. That word had scared him so much as a child. Hexed.
He felt a warm breeze even though the sun was little more than a pale coin behind gray clouds.
Sixteen was standing at the bottom of the brittle steps, barely visible, just the outline of a body.
“You’ll never find the Fairy, will you?”
The bark was already growing on her arm. Will remembered the day he’d found the first traces of stone on his skin, the horror, the disgust. It had passed. Maybe that was the worst thing about it.
“Look how ugly she’s making me.” Sixteen peeled the park from her arm. Blood, like liquid glass, ran down her hand. “But her magic makes you just more beautiful. Why?”
“Sixteen.”
She turned around.
For a brief moment, Will thought he saw Jacob’s face on Seventeen.
“Leave him be.” The bird in Seventeen’s hand was as silver as the corpses. “We have to move. You’re just holding him back.”
