Give the Dark My Love(18)

Nedra’s eyes glittered as she stared at the shining building. The glass windows were cut to reflect light, giving the castle a soft, ethereal glow.

“My nanny used to tell me stories about that place,” I said, leaning in closer. “It’s haunted.”

“Is that so, Grey?” Nedra arched an eyebrow at me.

My lips burst into a spontaneous grin, and it wasn’t until Nedra noticed that she realized she’d shortened my name.

“Sorry, Greggori,” she amended quickly. Her cheeks blushed furiously.

“No, I like it. You can call me Grey.” I could tell it embarrassed her, so I dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s haunted,” I said. “The castle.”

“Oh, obviously,” Nedra said, arching an eyebrow at me.

I nodded with authority. “Mm,” I said. “Well, Bennum Wellebourne was the first resident.”

“Really?” The playfulness in her voice was gone.

“Yeah. The old part, where the Emperor is now.” I pointed again. “Wellebourne built that for himself when he played at being king. After the battle, Emperor Aurellious turned his home into a prison. He was there for months before his execution.”

“No wonder people think it’s haunted,” Nedra said. I followed her gaze to the Emperor’s tower, imagining what it must have been like for Bennum Wellebourne to rot away in the dank cell. He had once been the greatest hero of our colony, helping those around him survive the first year Lunar Island was settled. He’d been elected the first governor; he had been the most revered man on all of Lunar Island.

But that, of course, was before the rebellion. Before Bennum Wellebourne raised the dead and turned the corpses into an army—one that he used to attack his own people.

Nedra shivered, but she refused my coat when I offered it to her. As we continued up the path, changing our conversation to more pleasant topics, I kept looking back to the castle, its windows like eyes watching our every move.





NINE


    Nedra



Master ostrum’s private laboratory smelled of earth and rats.

I had wondered what the door behind his desk hid, but when Master Ostrum showed me the small room, I had not been expecting a full lab carved directly into the earth, the walls exposing natural rock. If not for the raised hardwood floor and the shelving units displaying medical equipment, it would have felt like entering a cave.

I had to step up to get into the laboratory, making the roof feel even lower. I jumped at a scratching noise nearby, turning to find cages holding half a dozen rats.

Master Ostrum gestured to a chair, and I sat down, unable to rip my gaze away from the jar in the center of the table between us.

“Is that an—” I started.

“An eye, yes.” When I didn’t answer, he added, “It’s not that unusual for a medical alchemist to study specimens.”

“Human,” I said.

It hadn’t been a question, but Master Ostrum answered me regardless. “Yes.”

“Infected.”

He didn’t answer me this time. I reached for the jar, picking it up and holding it to the dim light of the oil lamp overhead. The eye inside bobbed and floated in the preservation fluid. The liquid was pale yellowish-green, casting the red-veined eye in a sickly hue, but there was an acid-green film over the colored iris that I knew wasn’t a side effect of the preservation fluid. I turned the jar in my hand, coaxing the eye around. The film wrapped around the entire ball, adding delicate green tentacles that mingled with the extruding veins dangling at the end.

“You have experience with this disease,” Master Ostrum said.

“Yes.” I set the jar on the table, watching as the eyeball bobbed in the preservation fluid.

“I wish I’d had you in my class last year,” Master Ostrum said with surprising fervor.

“I did apply,” I pointed out.

Master Ostrum stared at me; the eyeball stared at me. I shifted uncomfortably.

“You were right,” he said finally.

I waited for an explanation.

“I called the Wasting Death ‘unhygienic,’ and you were right to tell me I was wrong.” Master Ostrum leaned back in his chair. “That’s the narrative of the news sheets. People in Northface Harbor don’t like to look at a truth that makes them uncomfortable. Saying that only the poor and dirty get sick makes them feel safe.” He straightened up again. “But you can’t pretend a thing is true just because you want to feel safe. I let myself forget what I know because a lack of hygiene in the sick is an easy answer.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make it right.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this; it felt odd for someone of Master Ostrum’s experience and demeanor to apologize to me.

“And my experience with the Wasting Death has been limited to the docks. The disease is contained in the city within the factories, but it’s spreading.”

“It’s a plague,” I said in a small voice. It had become almost a fact of life in the north; everyone knew someone who’d been infected.

Master Ostrum reached into a basket at his feet and pulled out a small stack of news sheets. He tossed them on the table, the flimsy paper fluttering around the jarred eyeball.

Master Ostrum had underlined or circled a handful of passages.