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“Because then you’d be rid of me,” he answered smoothly.

She swallowed against the taste of blood. “You killed Calcifer. I’d rather rot with you in hell than help you with your cause.”

“Calcifer?” Aneirin paused, as if turning the name over. “Wait, was that—was that the mimic that attacked me? Big, black, fangs, claws—that one?”

Taly had to bite her lip to keep the sob in.

“Do you actually mean to say that younamedit? Like what, a… a pet?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “No offense, but natural selection really did take ahardright turn with you.”

Tears spilled down Taly’s cheeks, streaking the blood there. “He was my friend,” she whispered.

“Hardly.” Aneirin sighed, almost pitying. “Symbiotic relationships between predator and prey do happen—but they never last. Eventually, one of you was bound to turn on the other.” He smiled. “I did you a favor. You’re welcome.”

Taly’s fists clenched so hard her nails bit into her palms, drawing blood.

Calcifer was dead.

Ren was dead.

So were the women in the street. The ones who looked like her. Who diedbecauseof her.

She was the thread that tied them all together. Wherever she went, people died. They burned, bled, and broke.

Her throat tightened. Her breath hitched. The sob started deep—buried under guilt, under fury, under the weight of damage she couldn’t undo.

“I’m so tired,” she whispered.

Aneirin grinned. “Well, now… that cracked something, didn’t it? All this time I’ve been trying to appeal to your better judgment, and yet…”

His eyes swept the room, where the infirmary was now filling up. People crowded along the walls with more still filing through the door. An endless stream of injuries, broken bones, and long, bloody scratches.

“I suppose it is a bit more…visceral,” Aneirin mused, “when it’s right there in front of you. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.”

His eyes landed on Taly.

“Let’s back up.” He leaned over her. “I need your help. We’ve covered that. And I’ve beenveryreasonable up to this point. And patient. I’ve even tried to see this from your perspective. You want me off this island, I want to be off it. I see no reason we shouldn’t be able to come to a deal. I have agreed to your every demand. For any normal person with normal wants and desires, I feel this would be enough, but you, Talya Caro… I can see now that you require a moreimmediateincentive. So, I’ll make this simple.”

Leaning over her, he whispered, low and lethal, “If you do not help me, I will kill every person in this building that you’ve so conveniently cornered yourself in. You think you’re exhausted now? Imagine how you’ll feel when he dies.” He pointed at a man as he walked in. “Or him.”

Taly stared up at the old mender, pure malice in her eyes.

“He’s going to die,” Aneirin said, pointing to a young Fey boy with claw marks on his face. “And he’s going to die. And him. Her. Him.Definitelyhim, and—oh yes, all those children right there. Harpies really do have a taste forveal.”

Evil came in countless forms, but this was more insidious—apathy.

The kind that used pain as leverage and lives as disposable tools. He’d keep killing and killing, and every death would trace back to her.

She couldn’t outrun the weight of it—the unrelenting, ever-expanding tally of lives lost because she existed.

Aneirin stared down at her, that sharklike smile only widening. “Well?” A loud thud sounded overhead, followed by the sound of a body rolling across the roof, pulled by momentum and gravity. “The clock is ticking, I’m afraid.”

Taly was tired. Tired of the guilt. Tired of feeling like a burden. Tired of knowing that no matter what choice she made, someone else would suffer for it.

There was no way out, no way to stop the bloodshed, except to let herself be caught—to let the rot finally be cut out. Maybe then it would end. Maybe then, the relentless tide of death following in her wake would finally—

You are not tainted, little light.

Taly jolted.