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To those forced to grow up too soon now finding their way back to fairy tales.
But that was before the plague.
Even now, at nearly midnight, they move in a steady beat, fanning out to other parts of the city to keep watch for any signs of the plague.
“If I need help you can what, exactly? Tell the military the woman you fuck occasionally is having self-harming thoughts? Get me locked up in one of those prisons with the rest of the unsound?”
amelioration,
But in the end, none of them have ever been able to touch the burning hole inside me.
If only Michael knew what it feels like to look at the ceiling of those camps day after day—to examine the way the cracks spread and wish for your heart to fracture the same way. To pray, over and over, for the cool relief of death.
They can’t have found me, I assure myself. I’ve been too careful.
After over two centuries of the plague, children are rare, especially one of Zenni’s age. They all either succumb to the mysterious sickness or are swooped up into the Amelioration camps before it can take hold.
There’s always only been the kid across the hall, and somehow, I failed to see the plague slowly destroying her from the inside out.
I try to be just like the unsound—the plague-ridden survivors—and not imagine anything at all.
And when I wake again, hours later, on the edge of the building, this time, it’s too late to catch myself.
lagoon
But still, something tugs at my brain—a hesitation, one borne of a lifetime of lies and betrayal. Something about this feels wrong.
Is this the end stages of the plague? Is this the madness that drove all those poor souls to hurtle themselves off buildings, slit their wrists, tie nooses around their own throats? Was it all to stop this unending night, this horrible madness?
Death, they say. Rot. Decay. Carrion.
A fresh breath shoots through my chest, but it’s savagely suffocated when a sickening thud sounds beside me. I feel it beneath my ribs: the sound of finality and mutilation.
like he’s been dead for weeks—that finally unearths my scream.
ostentatious
Rather than bucking me off, his eyes flick to where the shadows have gathered atop the dais with something close to annoyance.
It isn’t a threat; it’s a promise. I’ve done far worse to those who’ve hurt me and possess no reservations about doing it again. Morals are a luxury, meant only for those who’ve never had to claw; to bleed; to survive.
The space above the dais remains infuriatingly unclear, shrouded in the same substance that blinded me on the beach. The same power that murdered Jamie; that took his youth and twisted it into something twisted and decrepit.
Darling.
shadows
“Mmm,” the voice hums, like it’s tasted something delicious. “Such a murderous little thing, aren’t we.”
lecherous,
The small diamond stud in his left nostril. A miniscule scar dissecting the bow of his upper lip.
Darling'
King of Carrion,”
“I am death itself.”
The woman’s unexpected appearance has reduced the world to a blur of shadows, with only one thing in focus: her.
It’s like I’ve existed for over one hundred years in a prison of dark, and the first glimpse of light has left me blinded. Now, I can see nothing else. She’s burned into my retinas.
“Nice touch murdering her plant. I hear women love that.”
Niko,
Letum.
“The plague practically solidified them into stone. I don’t know how she would have managed it without someone on our side opening them first… Or how she would have survived it, even if someone had.”
pixies’ dust has been dried up for over a century and the only person that possessed the sort of magic needed to open wards at will has been dead for twice as long.
And we can’t let anyone else find out she’s here until we know exactly what we’ve got.”
“If I’m correct about who she is and how she got here…” I cut myself off with a muttered curse. If the woman contains the bloodline I believe she does,
“The woman’s name…I heard her say it at the beach. It’s Willa.”
“Willa Darling,”
Tiernan
“Did the very wind not whisper a warning to you the moment you stepped foot in Letum?”
I lift my chin, giving her better access to my throat. Careful not to touch her skin, just as she’s been careful not to touch mine. Like something in her has warned her away from drawing too close.
“Adira
Lunaedon,”
A large finger fixes under my chin, gently pulling my gaze upward. My vision blurs as I meet Sam’s gaze, but something in the warm brown of his eyes immediately soothes me. My muscles relax and my heartbeat slows, and for a wonderful moment, I can’t remember ever being upset.
“I wouldn’t be so quick to declare the woman’s sanity, Sammy. Two murder attempts before breakfast hardly speak to a sound mind.”
“Were the gloves provided not to your liking?”
“But foremost, he’s my friend.”
