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“You don’t know what blood magic is,” he repeated back to me, as if it weren’t a question but a thought spoken aloud. I gave a slight shake of my head, and his brows furrowed as he assessed me. His stare suddenly felt deeper, more invasive now. Hands steepled beneath his chin, his face was contemplative. “Where are you from, dear?”
Should I tell him the truth? I supposed I should. If anything went wrong I could always just set his building on fire. Right?
“Eserene.”
He nodded, sitting back once again. “As I thought. Blood magic, and therefore Bloodsingers, are forbidden in Eserene. They have been since the War of Kings ended over one hundred and twenty years ago. Eserenian residents must travel to Blindbarrow in order to see a Bloodsinger, which most people forgo out of fear of the Onyx Pass.” He cocked his head and pursed his lips. “So tell me, dear Larka, how can it be that I look so familiar to you?”
My eyes narrowed as I contemplated his question. Would he know Ludovicus and the Board of Blood? Did he know that hisbrothershad tortured the young women of Eserene’s royalty for years? He looked at me with eyes I expected to be laced with malice but…weren’t. His gaze was inquisitive, curious in a way that I hadn’t seen among the members of the Board of Blood.
“I’m not quite sure why you look familiar,” I answered apprehensively.
“I ask this because we Bloodsingers tend to have some…similaritiesbetween us. We tend to be recognizable. As do our patrons…in some cases.” My mind grappled for the meaning of his words. “Using blood magic comes at a cost. Each favor granted, each answer given comes at the cost of beauty.”
The cost ofbeauty?
He must have seen the confusion on my face, because his mouth turned up in a smile that was nothing short of wicked. The sight was too familiar, too unsettling, and I recoiled. “With a small sacrifice, blood magic can do almost anything, grant almost any wish.”
My eyes widened at the prospect of this, at the prospect of bringing back everyone I’d lost, at returning to my normal life. My heart rose in my chest as I thought–
All wickedness melted from his features. “It cannot revive those already dead,” he said flatly, as if he’d recited the words a thousand times before, and my heart returned to its normal broken state. “It also cannot change events of the past.” My gaze dropped from his face at the slight defeat I felt. “It can, however, give you any answer you could possibly be looking for. It can also give glimpses into the future. And lastly, blood magic can influence the actions of others. All you need is a sacrifice of human blood. A simple finger prick is enough. We need just a drop.”
I blinked hard as I tried to make sense of what he was telling me. My mouth opened and closed, trying to form around words I couldn’t find.
“It is an enticing thing, is it not? To think that the world is much more malleable than you once believed? The bones that hold up this world can so easily be broken,” he murmured, “so long as you know where to strike.” One skeletal ankle crossed over the other and he smiled again, though his wispy, eerie voice was almost tinged with regret. “But, like I said,” he started again, his voice somber, “it comes at a cost.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I didn’t know what he was implying.
“I was not always a man with such distasteful features, dear Larka.” I stared at the man. His skin was disconcertingly pale. His features were too sharp, too angular to be human. His limbs were long and almost skeletal. But his eyes — there was a softness about them, a kindness in the way he watched me watch him. His eyes seemed…human.
He offered another smile with paper-thin lips. “I was once a dock worker who could command the attention of anyone with my looks alone.” His gaze traveled elsewhere, to a distant past. “But the appeal of blood magic was strong, as it tends to be, and I became a regular patron of a Bloodsinger in a tiny town on Roughwater Island,” he said with a sigh.
“It started small. There was a captain of a merchant ship that would often dock at the port, and he had a daughter.” His eyes were still in some far off place, further softening at the memory. I recognized that look – had seen it in Wrena’s eyes when she told me about the man she’d loved and lost. “She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. I never knew why she traveled with her father. Maybe it was her father’s attempt to keep her away from no-good men like me.” He laughed, and it was dry and hollow, laced with a sadness I knew too well. “I started asking the Bloodsinger for small favors. I just wanted her to look at me at first, to see me. Then I wanted the Bloodsinger to tell me her wants, her fears, what made her happy… I asked for just a simple conversation with her.”
His finger began to tap against his knee. “It happens slowly. My skin went pale at first, then my brown hair went black as night.” He ran a bony hand through the oily strands that sat on his shoulders. “Before long, even my voice lost its luster. Too much of a good thing, as they say, but I wanted her to fall in love with me.”
“And did it work?” I asked, rapt with attention.
Another sad smile showed across his face. “We enjoyed many walks along the coast together, many nights sitting on the dock talking and telling stories. She never once asked about my changing appearance, though her father had been wary. But I’ll never know if she’d fallen in love with me as I had with her. She left with her father for Tadrana and the ship never returned. It was assumed…” I nodded as he trailed off, the bitter smell of loss hanging in the smoky air.
And though this man looked so similar to the ones who’d ripped me to shreds, broken my bones and tried to sever the soul from my body, my heart ached for him as he remembered. “I knew blood magic couldn’t bring back the dead. And yet, I tried. Every day I visited the town’s Bloodsinger, every day I sacrificed the life coursing through my body for a chance to see her again until I ran out of beauty to give. Eventually, before I went too far, I decided to become a Bloodsinger myself and learned the art of blood magic.”
Every answer. Every single answer for every question that my entire life had raised… It all sat before me in the form of this man. I could ask him if Noros came to the realm disguised as an Eserenian lord. “Do you…” I started, unsure of where I wanted the conversation to go. “Do people visit you often?”
He sighed, his face breaking into a close-lipped smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “No, they don’t. Blood magic is… Well, it’s frowned upon. Even I can understand why. I do try to dissuade my patrons from unnecessary favors.”
I stared at him through narrowed eyes. “You look down on your own profession?”
“It’s very easy to fall victim to the draw of it all. I myself am living proof of that. And the public doesn’t look at us very kindly. I understand that, as well. Given my appearance, this is my place in society. I’ve come to accept it.”
Two sides of my mind were at war as I looked at the man. “So if I’ve met someone who looks just like you…”
“It doesn’t necessarily mean they're a Bloodsinger,” he offered, the hiss of his voice contradicting the kind nature of his words. “But typically, when someone has elicited the services of a Bloodsinger often enough to look as I do, they usually can’t find employment elsewhere and choose to practice blood magic themselves.”
My brain was running laps around itself as it desperately grasped for something, anything that could give me a hold on what he was saying. “The Board of Blood,” I blurted before I realized I was talking. “Are they Bloodsingers?”
Alvar cocked his head, his brows furrowing over his silver eyes. “I don’t believe I’ve heard of a Board of Blood.”
My heartrate quickened. “Garit, Higgins, Balthazar, Anton, Arturius, Raolin,” I rattled off, “and… Ludovicus.”
