Dark and Deepest Red(31)

He is little older than her, younger even than Alifair, but grief has left him as ragged and aged as his father.

He grips Lala’s throat so hard she feels the pulse in his hands meeting the one in her neck.

“Your sister,” Lala chokes out. “I want to help.”

His hands tighten, and pain gathers in her forehead.

“There is no helping her now,” he says, pushing into her harder with each word. “And you dare disturb her.”

The pressure is great enough that she cannot keep her eyes open. “Only to see if there might be help for others, including your sister who still lives and dances.”

His grip does not relent. “And what is it you would do for her?”

“I want to bless her soul at Saverne,” she says with what little breath she has.

“Bless?” he says. “Is that what you call your deeds?”

“I want this to end.” She shouts it, as well as she can.

“The priests brought three dozen to Saverne and it cured nothing,” he says, fairly spitting the town name at her. “How many high masses? How many turns about the altar? And nothing. What would you do that they could not?”

“Anything I can.” She tries to scream it. At first, it comes out so quiet she can barely hear her own words. But the scream blooms within her. It is a desperate will to keep the blame of this fever from landing at the door of those she loves. “Anything I must. Even if it means surrendering my own soul.”

Her head feels as though it is fogging over, her thoughts disappearing into mist.

The hands drop her.

“Then go,” he says.

She grabs at the wall behind her to keep from falling, coughing to get her breath back.

“Use every dark scheme to save her,” he says. “I do not care if you must offer your flesh for demons to tear to pieces.”

Lala swallows, twisting beneath this new understanding.

She has done nothing to convince him she is no witch.

All she has done is convince him that she will offer her wicked deeds to spare his sister.

He has taken the promise of her efforts as a vow to cure la fièvre.

“You say you will surrender your own soul.” The miller’s son shoves the pieces of tattered shoes into her hands. “Save those who still live, or you may have the chance to make good on your word.”

The threat wears a veil thinner than a funeral shroud.

If she fails, this man will stand ready to accuse her.





Emil


“You’re banning me from my own lab?” Emil asked.

“I am doing no such thing,” his mother said. “I am simply insisting that you get some sleep before handling chemicals.”

He braced against the memory of the dreams he couldn’t shrug off, the girl with the same black hair and brown skin as so many of his relatives, witnessing that strange fever.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I saw your hands, Emil.”

On reflex, he slipped them into his pockets.

His mother put a palm to his cheek. “You look terrible.”

“And you’ve clearly been reading the school pamphlets about self-esteem.”

“Sleep.” His mother held up the key to the old garden shed. “Then you get this back.”

“What am I, five?”

“This is not punishment,” his mother said, already on her way out of the room. “It’s precaution.”

Emil sulked into the kitchen.

He had no idea how his mother heard him drinking from a cupped palm at the sink, but she did.

“Use a glass,” she said, appearing and setting one down on the counter.

He shut off the tap and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

She narrowed her eyes. “You enjoy irritating me, don’t you?”

He wiped the back of his hand on his jeans. “Immensely.”

“I brought you into this world,” she said, sweeping down the hall. “I can end your existence in it.”

Emil slumped onto the sofa and called Aidan.

“Sorry,” Aidan said, almost in the same breath as answering. “Your mother’s recruited me. I’m not supposed to enable your insomnia.”

Emil swore silently. He didn’t know what was more humiliating: the fact that his mother called his friends or that they went along with pretty much whatever she asked.

“And don’t even try Luke,” Aidan said. “Or Eddie. He’s with Eddie.” Awkwardness flooded Aidan’s voice. “Luke, I mean. Luke’s with Eddie.”

“With as in…”

“Yes, as in.”

Emil laughed. No wonder Luke wanted to go out to see the glimmer. “Took them long enough.”

“You’re one to talk,” Aidan said.

“Sorry, you’re breaking up.”

“Sure I am,” Aidan said. “See you when you’re allowed out again.”

“I am allowed out,” Emil said. “I’m just not allowed in my own—”

But Aidan had already hung up.

Emil breathed out.

If his friends were busy—with each other or with being traitors—and his own mother wouldn’t let him at his own lab bench, he was going back out to the reservoir. Whatever restlessness the glimmer had given him, whatever it had sown into his dreams, maybe he could give it back.