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I riffle through the cabinets along the walls, searching past ornate costumes, orbs that sparkle to the touch, charts and star gadgets that I never use. Finally, in a chest containing many smaller boxes, I find a set of knives.
I don’t have a lot to work with regarding how todoa sacrifice—just scenes I’ve dreamed and the few mentions of them in the book upstairs, as it related to the Fairywood:
Perform blood rituals and other butchery with separate containers and knives to prevent contamination. Blood-blight can be lethal to Wood plants.
Of all types of blood, human blood is the most potent.
Drawing one knife from its jeweled sheath, I hold it up to the light. My distorted reflection frowns back from the blade. I knew, even as a child looking at reflections in windows, that I’d never look sweet, with my slash of brows,pinched lips, the blushed yellow of my skin like moth wings. But I looked ready to fight something twice my size, and that hasn’t changed.
I test the knife’s curved edge against a scrap of fabric. It’s still sharp. This will do.
I light a candle and clean the blade’s edge in the flame. Then I go to the entrance of my divining room, to the fountain that was once a vessel for blood and is now a vessel of coin from my patrons. I scrape out the day’s offerings so it’s empty, then kneel before it.
Grimacing, I press the knife tip into my finger until a dark red drop of blood wells up. I smear it in the bowl.
And wait.
The cut throbs faintly like a heartbeat. Soon, it stops bleeding. Nothing’s happened.
So alittle bitof blood won’t trigger anything.
Biting my lip, I find a spare square of cloth folded away in my bedroom. I spread it out on the floor and place a jug of water and clean bandages nearby. I sit myself at the center with the fountain basin in front of me and turn the knife over in my palm.
This is stupid.
Maybe it’s better if I don’t do this.
Gods, I don’t want to do this.
But I know if I don’t do this now, I’ll only end up doing it in the dead of night when I’m frustrated and can’t sleep again.
The steel is cold against my skin but warming quickly. If I have a future coming for me, I want to know it. And if I want a plan, I’m out of options.
I squeeze the blade and slice my palm.
“Shit,” I gasp, wincing. That felt…deep.
I drop the stained knife. Rising to my knees, I reach for the bandages, but between the sudden rush of blood to my head and the blood dripping from my hand, I can’t get my bearings. I sway. Spots appear in my vision that I can’t blink away.
“Shit.”I think I’m going to faint.
And then I do.
How desperate.
I open my eyes. My hand hurts. Myheadhurts.
With my good hand, I push myself up off the floor, woozy but fine. Blotches of dark red stain the front of my shirt. The candles have burned down, and the divining room is a little hazy, as if the edges to everything are trembling. Imagined.
I blink and rub my eyes. I must be dreaming again.
Or suffering from blood loss.
Awake at last.
The hairs on my neck rise. I look behind me out of reflex, but no one’s there; it only sounds as if someone is whispering behind my ear. It’s that same voice of that Fate who gave me that rhyme, who warned of betrayal—the Fate I need.
“Will you help me again?” I ask.
